History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 2
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Title: History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 2
Author: Edward Gibbon
Commentator: Henry Hart Milman
Release date: June 7, 2008 [eBook #891]
Most recently updated: June 22, 2020
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/891
Credits: Produced by David Reed, Dale R. Fredrickson and David Widger
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE — VOLUME 2 ***
Produced by David Reed, Dale R. Fredrickson and David Widger
HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, VOLUME 2
Edward Gibbon, Esq.
With notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman
1782 (Written), 1845 (Revised)
CONTENTS:
Chapter XVI--Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To Constantine.--
Part I. Part II. Part III. Part IV. Part V. Part VI. Part
VII. Part VIII.
The Conduct Of The Roman Government Towards The Christians, From The
Reign Of Nero To That Of Constantine.
Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.--Part I. Part II. Part
III. Part IV. Part V. Part VI.
Foundation Of Constantinople.--Political System Constantine, And His
Successors.--Military Discipline.--The Palace.--The Finances.
Chapter XVIII: Character Of Constantine And His Sons.--Part I. Part
II. Part III. Part IV.
Character Of Constantine.--Gothic War.--Death Of Constantine.--Division
Of The Empire Among His Three Sons.--Persian War.--Tragic Deaths Of
Constantine The Younger And Constans.--Usurpation Of Magnentius.--Civil
War.--Victory Of Constantius.
Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.--Part I. PartII. Part III.
Part IV.
Constantius Sole Emperor.--Elevation And Death Of Gallus.--Danger And
Elevation Of Julian.--Sarmatian And Persian Wars.--Victories Of Julian
In Gaul.
Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine.--Part I. Part II. Part III.
PartIV.
The Motives, Progress, And Effects Of The Conversion Of Constantine.--
Legal Establishment And Constitution Of The Christian Or Catholic
Church.
Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.--Part I. Part
II. Part III. Part IV. Part V. Part VI. Part VII.
Persecution Of Heresy.--The Schism Of The Donatists.--The Arian
Controversy.--Athanasius.--Distracted State Of The Church And Empire
Under Constantine And His Sons.--Toleration Of Paganism.
Chapter XXII: Julian Declared Emperor.--Part I Part II. Part III.
Part IV.
Julian Is Declared Emperor By The Legions Of Gaul.--His March And
Success.--The Death Of Constantius.--Civil Administration Of Julian.
Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.--Part I. Part II. Part III. Part
IV. Part V.
The Religion Of Julian.--Universal Toleration.--He Attempts To Restore
And Reform The Pagan Worship--To Rebuild The Temple Of Jerusalem--His
Artful Persecution Of The Christians.--Mutual Zeal And Injustice.
Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian.--Part I. Part II.
Part III. Part IV. Part V.
Residence Of Julian At Antioch.--His Successful Expedition Against The
Persians.--Passage Of The Tigris--The Retreat And Death Of Julian.--
Election Of Jovian.--He Saves The Roman Army By A Disgraceful Treaty.
Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The Empire.--
Part I. Part II. Part III. Part IV. Part V. Part VI. Part
VII.
The Government And Death Of Jovian.--Election Of Valentinian, Who
Associates His Brother Valens, And Makes The Final Division Of The
Eastern And Western Empires.--Revolt Of Procopius.--Civil And
Ecclesiastical Administration.--Germany.--Britain.--Africa.--The East.--
The Danube.--Death Of Valentinian.--His Two Sons, Gratian And
Valentinian II., Succeed To The Western Empire.
Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns.--Part I. Part II. Part III.
Part IV. Part V.
Manners Of The Pastoral Nations.--Progress Of The Huns, From China To
Europe.--Flight Of The Goths.--They Pass The Danube. --Gothic War.--
Defeat And Death Of Valens.--Gratian Invests Theodosius With The Eastern
Empire.--His Character And Success. --Peace And Settlement Of The Goths.
Chapter XVI--Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
Constantine.--Part I.
The Conduct Of The Roman Government Towards The Christians,
From The Reign Of Nero To That Of Constantine.
If we seriously consider the purity of the Christian religion, the
sanctity of its moral precepts, and the innocent as well as austere
lives of the greater number of those who during the first ages embraced
the faith of the gospel, we should naturally suppose, that so benevolent
a doctrine would have been received with due reverence, even by the
unbelieving world; that the learned and the polite, however they may
deride the miracles, would have esteemed the virtues, of the new sect;
and that the magistrates, instead of persecuting, would have protected
an order of men who yielded the most passive obedience to the laws,
though they declined the active cares of war and government. If, on the
other hand, we recollect the universal toleration of Polytheism, as it
was invariably maintained by the faith of the people, the incredulity of
philosophers, and the policy of the Roman senate and emperors, we are at
a loss to discover what new offence the Christians had committed, what
new provocation could exasperate the mild indifference of antiquity,
and what new motives could urge the Roman princes, who beheld without
concern a thousand forms of religion subsisting in peace under their
gentle sway, to inflict a severe punishment on any part of their
subjects, who had chosen for themselves a singular but an inoffensive
mode of faith and worship.
The religious policy of the ancient world seems to have assumed a more
stern and intolerant character, to oppose the progress of Christianity.
About fourscore years after the death of Christ, his innocent disciples
were punished with death by the sentence of a proconsul of the most
amiable and philosophic character, and according to the laws of
an emperor distinguished by the wisdom and justice of his general
administration. The apologies which were repeatedly addressed to the
successors of Trajan are filled with the most pathetic complaints, that
the Christians, who obeyed the dictates, and solicited the liberty,
of conscience, were alone, among all the subjects of the Roman empire,
excluded from the common benefits of their auspicious government. The
deaths of a few eminent martyrs have been recorded with care; and from
the time that Christianity was invested with the supreme power, the
governors of the church have been no less diligently employed in
displaying the cruelty, than in imitating the conduct, of their Pagan
adversaries. To separate (if it be possible) a few authentic as well as
interesting facts from an undigested mass of fiction and error, and
to relate, in a clear and rational manner, the causes, the extent, the
duration, and the most important circumstances of the persecutions to
which the first Christians were exposed, is the design of the present
chapter. *
The sectaries of a persecuted religion, depressed by fear animated with
resentment, and perhaps heated by enthusiasm, are seldom in a proper
temper of mind calmly to investigate, or candidly to appreciate,
the motives of their enemies, which often escape the impartial and
discerning view even of those who are placed at a secure distance from
the flames of persecution. A reason has been assigned for the conduct of
the emperors towards the primitive Christians, which may appear the more
specious and probable as it is drawn from the acknowledged genius of
Polytheism. It has already been observed, that the religious concord of
the world was principally supported by the implicit assent and reverence
which the nations of antiquity expressed for their respective traditions
and ceremonies. It might therefore be expected, that they would unite
with indignation against any sect or people which should separate itself
from the communion of mankind, and claiming the exclusive possession of
divine knowledge, should disdain every form of worship, except its own,
as impious and idolatrous. The rights of toleration were held by mutual
indulgence: they were justly forfeited by a refusal of the accustomed
tribute. As the payment of this tribute was inflexibly refused by the
Jews, and by them alone, the consideration of the treatment which they
experienced from the Roman magistrates, will serve to explain how far
these speculations are justified by facts, and will lead us to discover
the true causes of the persecution of Christianity.
Without repeating what has already been mentioned of the reverence of
the Roman princes and governors for the temple of Jerusalem, we
shall only observe, that the destruction of the temple and city was
accompanied and followed by every circumstance that could exasperate the
minds of the conquerors, and authorize religious persecution by the most
specious arguments of political justice and the public safety. From the
reign of Nero to that of Antoninus Pius, the Jews discovered a fierce
impatience of the dominion of Rome, which repeatedly broke out in the
most furious massacres and insurrections. Humanity is shocked at the
recital of the horrid cruelties which they committed in the cities
of Egypt, of Cyprus, and of Cyrene, where they dwelt in treacherous
friendship with the unsuspecting natives; and we are tempted to applaud
the severe retaliation which was exercised by the arms of the legions
against a race of fanatics, whose dire and credulous superstition seemed
to render them the implacable enemies not only of the Roman government,
but of human kind. The enthusiasm of the Jews was supported by the
opinion, that it was unlawful for them to pay taxes to an idolatrous
master; and by the flattering promise which they derived from their
ancient oracles, that a conquering Messiah would soon arise, destined
to break their fetters, and to invest the favorites of heaven with the
empire of the earth. It was by announcing himself as their long-expected
deliverer, and by calling on all the descendants of Abraham to assert
the hope of IsrÊl, that the famous Barchochebas collected a formidable
army, with which he resisted during two years the power of the emperor
Hadrian.
Notwithstanding these repeated provocations, the resentment of the
Roman princes expired after the victory; nor were their apprehensions
continued beyond the period of war and danger. By the general indulgence
of polytheism, and by the mild temper of Antoninus Pius, the Jews
were restored to their ancient privileges, and once more obtained the
permission of circumcising their children, with the easy restraint, that
they should never confer on any foreign proselyte that distinguishing
mark of the Hebrew race. The numerous remains of that people, though
they were still excluded from the precincts of Jerusalem, were permitted
to form and to maintain considerable establishments both in Italy and
in the provinces, to acquire the freedom of Rome, to enjoy municipal
honors, and to obtain at the same time an exemption from the burdensome
and expensive offices of society. The moderation or the contempt of the
Romans gave a legal sanction to the form of ecclesiastical police which
was instituted by the vanquished sect. The patriarch, who had fixed
his residence at Tiberias, was empowered to appoint his subordinate
ministers and apostles, to exercise a domestic jurisdiction, and
to receive from his dispersed brethren an annual contribution. New
synagogues were frequently erected in the principal cities of the
empire; and the sabbaths, the fasts, and the festivals, which were
either commanded by the Mosaic law, or enjoined by the traditions of
the Rabbis, were celebrated in the most solemn and public manner. Such
gentle treatment insensibly assuaged the stern temper of the Jews.
Awakened from their dream of prophecy and conquest, they assumed the
behavior of peaceable and industrious subjects. Their irreconcilable
hatred of mankind, instead of flaming out in acts of blood and violence,
evaporated in less dangerous gratifications. They embraced every
opportunity of overreaching the idolaters in trade; and they pronounced
secret and ambiguous imprecations against the haughty kingdom of Edom.
Since the Jews, who rejected with abhorrence the deities adored by
their sovereign and by their fellow-subjects, enjoyed, however, the free
exercise of their unsocial religion, there must have existed some other
cause, which exposed the disciples of Christ to those severities from
which the posterity of Abraham was exempt. The difference between them
is simple and obvious; but, according to the sentiments of antiquity,
it was of the highest importance. The Jews were a nation; the Christians
were a sect: and if it was natural for every community to respect the
sacred institutions of their neighbors, it was incumbent on them
to persevere in those of their ancestors. The voice of oracles, the
precepts of philosophers, and the authority of the laws, unanimously
enforced this national obligation. By their lofty claim of superior
sanctity the Jews might provoke the Polytheists to consider them as an
odious and impure race. By disdaining the intercourse of other nations,
they might deserve their contempt. The laws of Moses might be for the
most part frivolous or absurd; yet, since they had been received during
many ages by a large society, his followers were justified by the
example of mankind; and it was universally acknowledged, that they had
a right to practise what it would have been criminal in them to neglect.
But this principle, which protected the Jewish synagogue, afforded not
any favor or security to the primitive church. By embracing the faith of
the gospel, the Christians incurred the supposed guilt of an unnatural
and unpardonable offence. They dissolved the sacred ties of custom and
education, violated the religious institutions of their country, and
presumptuously despised whatever their fathers had believed as true,
or had reverenced as sacred. Nor was this apostasy (if we may use the
expression) merely of a partial or local kind; since the pious deserter
who withdrew himself from the temples of Egypt or Syria, would equally
disdain to seek an asylum in those of Athens or Carthage. Every
Christian rejected with contempt the superstitions of his family, his
city, and his province. The whole body of Christians unanimously refused
to hold any communion with the gods of Rome, of the empire, and of
mankind. It was in vain that the oppressed believer asserted the
inalienable rights of conscience and private judgment. Though his
situation might excite the pity, his arguments could never reach the
understanding, either of the philosophic or of the believing part of
the Pagan world. To their apprehensions, it was no less a matter
of surprise, that any individuals should entertain scruples against
complying with the established mode of worship, than if they had
conceived a sudden abhorrence to the manners, the dress, or the language
of their native country. *
The surprise of the Pagans was soon succeeded by resentment; and the
most pious of men were exposed to the unjust but dangerous imputation of
impiety. Malice and prejudice concurred in representing the Christians
as a society of atheists, who, by the most daring attack on the
religious constitution of the empire, had merited the severest
animadversion of the civil magistrate. They had separated themselves
(they gloried in the confession) from every mode of superstition
which was received in any part of the globe by the various temper of
polytheism: but it was not altogether so evident what deity, or what
form of worship, they had substituted to the gods and temples of
antiquity. The pure and sublime idea which they entertained of the
Supreme Being escaped the gross conception of the Pagan multitude,
who were at a loss to discover a spiritual and solitary God, that was
neither represented under any corporeal figure or visible symbol, nor
was adored with the accustomed pomp of libations and festivals, of
altars and sacrifices. The sages of Greece and Rome, who had elevated
their minds to the contemplation of the existence and attributes of
the First Cause, were induced by reason or by vanity to reserve
for themselves and their chosen disciples the privilege of this
philosophical devotion. They were far from admitting the prejudices of
mankind as the standard of truth, but they considered them as flowing
from the original disposition of human nature; and they supposed that
any popular mode of faith and worship which presumed to disclaim the
assistance of the senses, would, in proportion as it receded from
superstition, find itself incapable of restraining the wanderings of the
fancy, and the visions of fanaticism. The careless glance which men
of wit and learning condescended to cast on the Christian revelation,
served only to confirm their hasty opinion, and to persuade them that
the principle, which they might have revered, of the Divine Unity,
was defaced by the wild enthusiasm, and annihilated by the airy
speculations, of the new sectaries. The author of a celebrated dialogue,
which has been attributed to Lucian, whilst he affects to treat the
mysterious subject of the Trinity in a style of ridicule and contempt,
betrays his own ignorance of the weakness of human reason, and of the
inscrutable nature of the divine perfections.
It might appear less surprising, that the founder of Christianity should
not only be revered by his disciples as a sage and a prophet, but that
he should be adored as a God. The Polytheists were disposed to adopt
every article of faith, which seemed to offer any resemblance, however
distant or imperfect, with the popular mythology; and the legends of
Bacchus, of Hercules, and of ∆sculapius, had, in some measure, prepared
their imagination for the appearance of the Son of God under a human
form. But they were astonished that the Christians should abandon the
temples of those ancient heroes, who, in the infancy of the world, had
invented arts, instituted laws, and vanquished the tyrants or monsters
who infested the earth, in order to choose for the exclusive object of
their religious worship an obscure teacher, who, in a recent age, and
among a barbarous people, had fallen a sacrifice either to the malice
of his own countrymen, or to the jealousy of the Roman government. The
Pagan multitude, reserving their gratitude for temporal benefits alone,
rejected the inestimable present of life and immortality, which was
offered to mankind by Jesus of Nazareth. His mild constancy in the midst
of cruel and voluntary sufferings, his universal benevolence, and the
sublime simplicity of his actions and character, were insufficient, in
the opinion of those carnal men, to compensate for the want of fame,
of empire, and of success; and whilst they refused to acknowledge his
stupendous triumph over the powers of darkness and of the grave, they
misrepresented, or they insulted, the equivocal birth, wandering life,
and ignominious death, of the divine Author of Christianity.
The personal guilt which every Christian had contracted, in thus
preferring his private sentiment to the national religion, was
aggravated in a very high degree by the number and union of the
criminals. It is well known, and has been already observed, that Roman
policy viewed with the utmost jealousy and distrust any association
among its subjects; and that the privileges of private corporations,
though formed for the most harmless or beneficial purposes, were
bestowed with a very sparing hand. The religious assemblies of the
Christians who had separated themselves from the public worship,
appeared of a much less innocent nature; they were illegal in their
principle, and in their consequences might become dangerous; nor were
the emperors conscious that they violated the laws of justice, when,
for the peace of society, they prohibited those secret and sometimes
nocturnal meetings. The pious disobedience of the Christians made their
conduct, or perhaps their designs, appear in a much more serious and
criminal light; and the Roman princes, who might perhaps have suffered
themselves to be disarmed by a ready submission, deeming their honor
concerned in the execution of their commands, sometimes attempted, by
rigorous punishments, to subdue this independent spirit, which boldly
acknowledged an authority superior to that of the magistrate. The extent
and duration of this spiritual conspiracy seemed to render it everyday
more deserving of his animadversion. We have already seen that the
active and successful zeal of the Christians had insensibly diffused
them through every province and almost every city of the empire. The new
converts seemed to renounce their family and country, that they might
connect themselves in an indissoluble band of union with a peculiar
society, which every where assumed a different character from the rest
of mankind. Their gloomy and austere aspect, their abhorrence of the
common business and pleasures of life, and their frequent predictions of
impending calamities, inspired the Pagans with the apprehension of some
danger, which would arise from the new sect, the more alarming as it was
the more obscure. "Whatever," says Pliny, "may be the principle of their
conduct, their inflexible obstinacy appeared deserving of punishment."
The precautions with which the disciples of Christ performed the offices
of religion were at first dictated by fear and necessity; but they were
continued from choice. By imitating the awful secrecy which reigned in
the Eleusinian mysteries, the Christians had flattered themselves that
they should render their sacred institutions more respectable in the
eyes of the Pagan world. But the event, as it often happens to
the operations of subtile policy, deceived their wishes and their
expectations. It was concluded, that they only concealed what they
would have blushed to disclose. Their mistaken prudence afforded an
opportunity for malice to invent, and for suspicious credulity to
believe, the horrid tales which described the Christians as the most
wicked of human kind, who practised in their dark recesses every
abomination that a depraved fancy could suggest, and who solicited the
favor of their unknown God by the sacrifice of every moral virtue. There
were many who pretended to confess or to relate the ceremonies of this
abhorred society. It was asserted, "that a new-born infant, entirely
covered over with flour, was presented, like some mystic symbol of
initiation, to the knife of the proselyte, who unknowingly inflicted
many a secret and mortal wound on the innocent victim of his error; that
as soon as the cruel deed was perpetrated, the sectaries drank up
the blood, greedily tore asunder the quivering members, and pledged
themselves to eternal secrecy, by a mutual consciousness of guilt. It
was as confidently affirmed, that this inhuman sacrifice was succeeded
by a suitable entertainment, in which intemperance served as a
provocative to brutal lust; till, at the appointed moment, the lights
were suddenly extinguished, shame was banished, nature was forgotten;
and, as accident might direct, the darkness of the night was polluted
by the incestuous commerce of sisters and brothers, of sons and of
mothers."
But the perusal of the ancient apologies was sufficient to remove
even the slightest suspicion from the mind of a candid adversary. The
Christians, with the intrepid security of innocence, appeal from the
voice of rumor to the equity of the magistrates. They acknowledge, that
if any proof can be produced of the crimes which calumny has imputed to
them, they are worthy of the most severe punishment. They provoke the
punishment, and they challenge the proof. At the same time they urge,
with equal truth and propriety, that the charge is not less devoid of
probability, than it is destitute of evidence; they ask, whether any
one can seriously believe that the pure and holy precepts of the gospel,
which so frequently restrain the use of the most lawful enjoyments,
should inculcate the practice of the most abominable crimes; that a
large society should resolve to dishonor itself in the eyes of its own
members; and that a great number of persons of either sex, and every age
and character, insensible to the fear of death or infamy, should consent
to violate those principles which nature and education had imprinted
most deeply in their minds. Nothing, it should seem, could weaken the
force or destroy the effect of so unanswerable a justification, unless
it were the injudicious conduct of the apologists themselves, who
betrayed the common cause of religion, to gratify their devout hatred to
the domestic enemies of the church. It was sometimes faintly insinuated,
and sometimes boldly asserted, that the same bloody sacrifices, and
the same incestuous festivals, which were so falsely ascribed to the
orthodox believers, were in reality celebrated by the Marcionites, by
the Carpocratians, and by several other sects of the Gnostics, who,
notwithstanding they might deviate into the paths of heresy, were still
actuated by the sentiments of men, and still governed by the precepts
of Christianity. Accusations of a similar kind were retorted upon the
church by the schismatics who had departed from its communion, and it
was confessed on all sides, that the most scandalous licentiousness of
manners prevailed among great numbers of those who affected the name
of Christians. A Pagan magistrate, who possessed neither leisure nor
abilities to discern the almost imperceptible line which divides the
orthodox faith from heretical pravity, might easily have imagined that
their mutual animosity had extorted the discovery of their common guilt.
It was fortunate for the repose, or at least for the reputation, of the
first Christians, that the magistrates sometimes proceeded with more
temper and moderation than is usually consistent with religious zeal,
and that they reported, as the impartial result of their judicial
inquiry, that the sectaries, who had deserted the established worship,
appeared to them sincere in their professions, and blameless in their
manners; however they might incur, by their absurd and excessive
superstition, the censure of the laws.
Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
Constantine.--Part II.
History, which undertakes to record the transactions of the past, for
the instruction of future ages, would ill deserve that honorable office,
if she condescended to plead the cause of tyrants, or to justify the
maxims of persecution. It must, however, be acknowledged, that the
conduct of the emperors who appeared the least favorable to the
primitive church, is by no means so criminal as that of modern
sovereigns, who have employed the arm of violence and terror against
the religious opinions of any part of their subjects. From their
reflections, or even from their own feelings, a Charles V. or a Lewis
XIV. might have acquired a just knowledge of the rights of conscience,
of the obligation of faith, and of the innocence of error. But the
princes and magistrates of ancient Rome were strangers to those
principles which inspired and authorized the inflexible obstinacy of the
Christians in the cause of truth, nor could they themselves discover in
their own breasts any motive which would have prompted them to refuse a
legal, and as it were a natural, submission to the sacred institutions
of their country. The same reason which contributes to alleviate the
guilt, must have tended to abate the vigor, of their persecutions.
As they were actuated, not by the furious zeal of bigots, but by the
temperate policy of legislators, contempt must often have relaxed, and
humanity must frequently have suspended, the execution of those laws
which they enacted against the humble and obscure followers of Christ.
From the general view of their character and motives we might naturally
conclude: I. That a considerable time elapsed before they considered the
new sectaries as an object deserving of the attention of government. II.
That in the conviction of any of their subjects who were accused of so
very singular a crime, they proceeded with caution and reluctance. III.
That they were moderate in the use of punishments; and, IV. That the
afflicted church enjoyed many intervals of peace and tranquility.
Notwithstanding the careless indifference which the most copious and
the most minute of the Pagan writers have shown to the affairs of
the Christians, it may still be in our power to confirm each of these
probable suppositions, by the evidence of authentic facts.
1. By the wise dispensation of Providence, a mysterious veil was cast
over the infancy of the church, which, till the faith of the Christians
was matured, and their numbers were multiplied, served to protect them
not only from the malice but even from the knowledge of the Pagan world.
The slow and gradual abolition of the Mosaic ceremonies afforded a safe
and innocent disguise to the more early proselytes of the gospel. As
they were, for the greater part, of the race of Abraham, they were
distinguished by the peculiar mark of circumcision, offered up their
devotions in the Temple of Jerusalem till its final destruction, and
received both the Law and the Prophets as the genuine inspirations of
the Deity. The Gentile converts, who by a spiritual adoption had been
associated to the hope of IsrÊl, were likewise confounded under the
garb and appearance of Jews, and as the Polytheists paid less regard
to articles of faith than to the external worship, the new sect, which
carefully concealed, or faintly announced, its future greatness and
ambition, was permitted to shelter itself under the general toleration
which was granted to an ancient and celebrated people in the Roman
empire. It was not long, perhaps, before the Jews themselves, animated
with a fiercer zeal and a more jealous faith, perceived the gradual
separation of their Nazarene brethren from the doctrine of the
synagogue; and they would gladly have extinguished the dangerous heresy
in the blood of its adherents. But the decrees of Heaven had already
disarmed their malice; and though they might sometimes exert the
licentious privilege of sedition, they no longer possessed the
administration of criminal justice; nor did they find it easy to infuse
into the calm breast of a Roman magistrate the rancor of their own zeal
and prejudice. The provincial governors declared themselves ready to
listen to any accusation that might affect the public safety; but as
soon as they were informed that it was a question not of facts but of
words, a dispute relating only to the interpretation of the Jewish laws
and prophecies, they deemed it unworthy of the majesty of Rome seriously
to discuss the obscure differences which might arise among a barbarous
and superstitious people. The innocence of the first Christians was
protected by ignorance and contempt; and the tribunal of the Pagan
magistrate often proved their most assured refuge against the fury of
the synagogue. If indeed we were disposed to adopt the traditions of a
too credulous antiquity, we might relate the distant peregrinations, the
wonderful achievements, and the various deaths of the twelve apostles:
but a more accurate inquiry will induce us to doubt, whether any of
those persons who had been witnesses to the miracles of Christ were
permitted, beyond the limits of Palestine, to seal with their blood the
truth of their testimony. From the ordinary term of human life, it may
very naturally be presumed that most of them were deceased before
the discontent of the Jews broke out into that furious war, which was
terminated only by the ruin of Jerusalem. During a long period, from
the death of Christ to that memorable rebellion, we cannot discover any
traces of Roman intolerance, unless they are to be found in the sudden,
the transient, but the cruel persecution, which was exercised by Nero
against the Christians of the capital, thirty-five years after the
former, and only two years before the latter, of those great events.
The character of the philosophic historian, to whom we are principally
indebted for the knowledge of this singular transaction, would alone be
sufficient to recommend it to our most attentive consideration.
In the tenth year of the reign of Nero, the capital of the empire was
afflicted by a fire which raged beyond the memory or example of former
ages. The monuments of Grecian art and of Roman virtue, the trophies of
the Punic and Gallic wars, the most holy temples, and the most splendid
palaces, were involved in one common destruction. Of the fourteen
regions or quarters into which Rome was divided, four only subsisted
entire, three were levelled with the ground, and the remaining seven,
which had experienced the fury of the flames, displayed a melancholy
prospect of ruin and desolation. The vigilance of government appears not
to have neglected any of the precautions which might alleviate the sense
of so dreadful a calamity. The Imperial gardens were thrown open to
the distressed multitude, temporary buildings were erected for their
accommodation, and a plentiful supply of corn and provisions was
distributed at a very moderate price. The most generous policy seemed to
have dictated the edicts which regulated the disposition of the streets
and the construction of private houses; and as it usually happens, in
an age of prosperity, the conflagration of Rome, in the course of a few
years, produced a new city, more regular and more beautiful than the
former. But all the prudence and humanity affected by Nero on this
occasion were insufficient to preserve him from the popular suspicion.
Every crime might be imputed to the assassin of his wife and mother; nor
could the prince who prostituted his person and dignity on the theatre
be deemed incapable of the most extravagant folly. The voice of rumor
accused the emperor as the incendiary of his own capital; and as the
most incredible stories are the best adapted to the genius of an
enraged people, it was gravely reported, and firmly believed, that
Nero, enjoying the calamity which he had occasioned, amused himself
with singing to his lyre the destruction of ancient Troy. To divert
a suspicion, which the power of despotism was unable to suppress,
the emperor resolved to substitute in his own place some fictitious
criminals. "With this view," continues Tacitus, "he inflicted the most
exquisite tortures on those men, who, under the vulgar appellation of
Christians, were already branded with deserved infamy. They derived
their name and origin from Christ, who in the reign of Tiberius had
suffered death by the sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilate. For a
while this dire superstition was checked; but it again burst forth;
* and not only spread itself over JudÊa, the first seat of this
mischievous sect, but was even introduced into Rome, the common asylum
which receives and protects whatever is impure, whatever is atrocious.
The confessions of those who were seized discovered a great multitude
of their accomplices, and they were all convicted, not so much for the
crime of setting fire to the city, as for their hatred of human kind.
They died in torments, and their torments were imbittered by insult and
derision. Some were nailed on crosses; others sewn up in the skins of
wild beasts, and exposed to the fury of dogs; others again, smeared
over with combustible materials, were used as torches to illuminate
the darkness of the night. The gardens of Nero were destined for the
melancholy spectacle, which was accompanied with a horse-race and
honored with the presence of the emperor, who mingled with the populace
in the dress and attitude of a charioteer. The guilt of the Christians
deserved indeed the most exemplary punishment, but the public abhorrence
was changed into commiseration, from the opinion that those unhappy
wretches were sacrificed, not so much to the public welfare, as to the
cruelty of a jealous tyrant." Those who survey with a curious eye the
revolutions of mankind, may observe, that the gardens and circus of
Nero on the Vatican, which were polluted with the blood of the first
Christians, have been rendered still more famous by the triumph and by
the abuse of the persecuted religion. On the same spot, a temple, which
far surpasses the ancient glories of the Capitol, has been since erected
by the Christian Pontiffs, who, deriving their claim of universal
dominion from an humble fisherman of Galilee, have succeeded to the
throne of the CÊsars, given laws to the barbarian conquerors of Rome,
and extended their spiritual jurisdiction from the coast of the Baltic
to the shores of the Pacific Ocean.
But it would be improper to dismiss this account of Nero's persecution,
till we have made some observations that may serve to remove the
difficulties with which it is perplexed, and to throw some light on the
subsequent history of the church.
1. The most sceptical criticism is obliged to respect the truth of this
extraordinary fact, and the integrity of this celebrated passage of
Tacitus. The former is confirmed by the diligent and accurate Suetonius,
who mentions the punishment which Nero inflicted on the Christians, a
sect of men who had embraced a new and criminal superstition. The latter
may be proved by the consent of the most ancient manuscripts; by the
inimitable character of the style of Tacitus by his reputation, which
guarded his text from the interpolations of pious fraud; and by the
purport of his narration, which accused the first Christians of the most
atrocious crimes, without insinuating that they possessed any miraculous
or even magical powers above the rest of mankind. 2. Notwithstanding it
is probable that Tacitus was born some years before the fire of Rome,
he could derive only from reading and conversation the knowledge of an
event which happened during his infancy. Before he gave himself to the
public, he calmly waited till his genius had attained its full maturity,
and he was more than forty years of age, when a grateful regard for
the memory of the virtuous Agricola extorted from him the most early of
those historical compositions which will delight and instruct the most
distant posterity. After making a trial of his strength in the life of
Agricola and the description of Germany, he conceived, and at length
executed, a more arduous work; the history of Rome, in thirty books,
from the fall of Nero to the accession of Nerva. The administration
of Nerva introduced an age of justice and propriety, which Tacitus had
destined for the occupation of his old age; but when he took a nearer
view of his subject, judging, perhaps, that it was a more honorable or
a less invidious office to record the vices of past tyrants, than to
celebrate the virtues of a reigning monarch, he chose rather to relate,
under the form of annals, the actions of the four immediate successors
of Augustus. To collect, to dispose, and to adorn a series of fourscore
years, in an immortal work, every sentence of which is pregnant with
the deepest observations and the most lively images, was an undertaking
sufficient to exercise the genius of Tacitus himself during the greatest
part of his life. In the last years of the reign of Trajan, whilst the
victorious monarch extended the power of Rome beyond its ancient limits,
the historian was describing, in the second and fourth books of his
annals, the tyranny of Tiberius; and the emperor Hadrian must have
succeeded to the throne, before Tacitus, in the regular prosecution of
his work, could relate the fire of the capital, and the cruelty of Nero
towards the unfortunate Christians. At the distance of sixty years, it
was the duty of the annalist to adopt the narratives of contemporaries;
but it was natural for the philosopher to indulge himself in the
description of the origin, the progress, and the character of the new
sect, not so much according to the knowledge or prejudices of the age
of Nero, as according to those of the time of Hadrian. 3 Tacitus very
frequently trusts to the curiosity or reflection of his readers to
supply those intermediate circumstances and ideas, which, in his extreme
conciseness, he has thought proper to suppress. We may therefore presume
to imagine some probable cause which could direct the cruelty of Nero
against the Christians of Rome, whose obscurity, as well as innocence,
should have shielded them from his indignation, and even from his
notice. The Jews, who were numerous in the capital, and oppressed in
their own country, were a much fitter object for the suspicions of the
emperor and of the people: nor did it seem unlikely that a vanquished
nation, who already discovered their abhorrence of the Roman yoke, might
have recourse to the most atrocious means of gratifying their implacable
revenge. But the Jews possessed very powerful advocates in the palace,
and even in the heart of the tyrant; his wife and mistress, the
beautiful PoppÊa, and a favorite player of the race of Abraham, who had
already employed their intercession in behalf of the obnoxious people.
In their room it was necessary to offer some other victims, and it might
easily be suggested that, although the genuine followers of Moses were
innocent of the fire of Rome, there had arisen among them a new and
pernicious sect of GalilÊans, which was capable of the most horrid
crimes. Under the appellation of GalilÊans, two distinctions of men
were confounded, the most opposite to each other in their manners
and principles; the disciples who had embraced the faith of Jesus of
Nazareth, and the zealots who had followed the standard of Judas the
Gaulonite. The former were the friends, the latter were the enemies, of
human kind; and the only resemblance between them consisted in the same
inflexible constancy, which, in the defence of their cause, rendered
them insensible of death and tortures. The followers of Judas, who
impelled their countrymen into rebellion, were soon buried under the
ruins of Jerusalem; whilst those of Jesus, known by the more celebrated
name of Christians, diffused themselves over the Roman empire. How
natural was it for Tacitus, in the time of Hadrian, to appropriate to
the Christians the guilt and the sufferings, * which he might, with far
greater truth and justice, have attributed to a sect whose odious memory
was almost extinguished! 4. Whatever opinion may be entertained of this
conjecture, (for it is no more than a conjecture,) it is evident that
the effect, as well as the cause, of Nero's persecution, was confined
to the walls of Rome, that the religious tenets of the GalilÊans or
Christians, were never made a subject of punishment, or even of inquiry;
and that, as the idea of their sufferings was for a long time connected
with the idea of cruelty and injustice, the moderation of succeeding
princes inclined them to spare a sect, oppressed by a tyrant, whose rage
had been usually directed against virtue and innocence.
It is somewhat remarkable that the flames of war consumed, almost at
the same time, the temple of Jerusalem and the Capitol of Rome; and it
appears no less singular, that the tribute which devotion had destined
to the former, should have been converted by the power of an assaulting
victor to restore and adorn the splendor of the latter. The emperors
levied a general capitation tax on the Jewish people; and although the
sum assessed on the head of each individual was inconsiderable, the use
for which it was designed, and the severity with which it was exacted,
were considered as an intolerable grievance. Since the officers of the
revenue extended their unjust claim to many persons who were strangers
to the blood or religion of the Jews, it was impossible that the
Christians, who had so often sheltered themselves under the shade of the
synagogue, should now escape this rapacious persecution. Anxious as
they were to avoid the slightest infection of idolatry, their conscience
forbade them to contribute to the honor of that dÊmon who had assumed
the character of the Capitoline Jupiter. As a very numerous though
declining party among the Christians still adhered to the law of Moses,
their efforts to dissemble their Jewish origin were detected by the
decisive test of circumcision; nor were the Roman magistrates at leisure
to inquire into the difference of their religious tenets. Among the
Christians who were brought before the tribunal of the emperor, or,
as it seems more probable, before that of the procurator of JudÊa, two
persons are said to have appeared, distinguished by their extraction,
which was more truly noble than that of the greatest monarchs. These
were the grandsons of St. Jude the apostle, who himself was the brother
of Jesus Christ. Their natural pretensions to the throne of David might
perhaps attract the respect of the people, and excite the jealousy of
the governor; but the meanness of their garb, and the simplicity of
their answers, soon convinced him that they were neither desirous
nor capable of disturbing the peace of the Roman empire. They frankly
confessed their royal origin, and their near relation to the Messiah;
but they disclaimed any temporal views, and professed that his kingdom,
which they devoutly expected, was purely of a spiritual and angelic
nature. When they were examined concerning their fortune and occupation,
they showed their hands, hardened with daily labor, and declared that
they derived their whole subsistence from the cultivation of a farm near
the village of Cocaba, of the extent of about twenty-four English acres,
and of the value of nine thousand drachms, or three hundred pounds
sterling. The grandsons of St. Jude were dismissed with compassion and
contempt.
But although the obscurity of the house of David might protect them
from the suspicions of a tyrant, the present greatness of his own
family alarmed the pusillanimous temper of Domitian, which could only be
appeased by the blood of those Romans whom he either feared, or hated,
or esteemed. Of the two sons of his uncle Flavius Sabinus, the elder was
soon convicted of treasonable intentions, and the younger, who bore
the name of Flavius Clemens, was indebted for his safety to his want
of courage and ability. The emperor for a long time, distinguished so
harmless a kinsman by his favor and protection, bestowed on him his own
niece Domitilla, adopted the children of that marriage to the hope
of the succession, and invested their father with the honors of the
consulship.
But he had scarcely finished the term of his annual magistracy, when, on
a slight pretence, he was condemned and executed; Domitilla was banished
to a desolate island on the coast of Campania; and sentences either of
death or of confiscation were pronounced against a great number of who
were involved in the same accusation. The guilt imputed to their charge
was that of Atheism and Jewish manners; a singular association of ideas,
which cannot with any propriety be applied except to the Christians, as
they were obscurely and imperfectly viewed by the magistrates and by
the writers of that period. On the strength of so probable an
interpretation, and too eagerly admitting the suspicions of a tyrant as
an evidence of their honorable crime, the church has placed both Clemens
and Domitilla among its first martyrs, and has branded the cruelty of
Domitian with the name of the second persecution. But this persecution
(if it deserves that epithet) was of no long duration. A few months
after the death of Clemens, and the banishment of Domitilla, Stephen, a
freedman belonging to the latter, who had enjoyed the favor, but who
had not surely embraced the faith, of his mistress, * assassinated
the emperor in his palace. The memory of Domitian was condemned by the
senate; his acts were rescinded; his exiles recalled; and under the
gentle administration of Nerva, while the innocent were restored to
their rank and fortunes, even the most guilty either obtained pardon or
escaped punishment.
II. About ten years afterwards, under the reign of Trajan, the younger
Pliny was intrusted by his friend and master with the government of
Bithynia and Pontus. He soon found himself at a loss to determine by
what rule of justice or of law he should direct his conduct in the
execution of an office the most repugnant to his humanity. Pliny had
never assisted at any judicial proceedings against the Christians,
with whose lame alone he seems to be acquainted; and he was totally
uninformed with regard to the nature of their guilt, the method of their
conviction, and the degree of their punishment. In this perplexity he
had recourse to his usual expedient, of submitting to the wisdom of
Trajan an impartial, and, in some respects, a favorable account of the
new superstition, requesting the emperor, that he would condescend to
resolve his doubts, and to instruct his ignorance. The life of Pliny had
been employed in the acquisition of learning, and in the business of the
world. Since the age of nineteen he had pleaded with distinction in the
tribunals of Rome, filled a place in the senate, had been invested with
the honors of the consulship, and had formed very numerous connections
with every order of men, both in Italy and in the provinces. From his
ignorance therefore we may derive some useful information. We may assure
ourselves, that when he accepted the government of Bithynia, there
were no general laws or decrees of the senate in force against the
Christians; that neither Trajan nor any of his virtuous predecessors,
whose edicts were received into the civil and criminal jurisprudence,
had publicly declared their intentions concerning the new sect; and that
whatever proceedings had been carried on against the Christians, there
were none of sufficient weight and authority to establish a precedent
for the conduct of a Roman magistrate.
Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
Constantine.--Part III.
The answer of Trajan, to which the Christians of the succeeding age have
frequently appealed, discovers as much regard for justice and humanity
as could be reconciled with his mistaken notions of religious policy.
Instead of displaying the implacable zeal of an inquisitor, anxious to
discover the most minute particles of heresy, and exulting in the number
of his victims, the emperor expresses much more solicitude to protect
the security of the innocent, than to prevent the escape of the guilty.
He acknowledged the difficulty of fixing any general plan; but he lays
down two salutary rules, which often afforded relief and support to the
distressed Christians. Though he directs the magistrates to punish such
persons as are legally convicted, he prohibits them, with a very
humane inconsistency, from making any inquiries concerning the supposed
criminals. Nor was the magistrate allowed to proceed on every kind of
information. Anonymous charges the emperor rejects, as too repugnant
to the equity of his government; and he strictly requires, for the
conviction of those to whom the guilt of Christianity is imputed, the
positive evidence of a fair and open accuser. It is likewise probable,
that the persons who assumed so invidiuous an office, were obliged to
declare the grounds of their suspicions, to specify (both in respect to
time and place) the secret assemblies, which their Christian adversary
had frequented, and to disclose a great number of circumstances, which
were concealed with the most vigilant jealousy from the eye of the
profane. If they succeeded in their prosecution, they were exposed to
the resentment of a considerable and active party, to the censure of the
more liberal portion of mankind, and to the ignominy which, in every
age and country, has attended the character of an informer. If, on the
contrary, they failed in their proofs, they incurred the severe and
perhaps capital penalty, which, according to a law published by the
emperor Hadrian, was inflicted on those who falsely attributed to their
fellow-citizens the crime of Christianity. The violence of personal or
superstitious animosity might sometimes prevail over the most natural
apprehensions of disgrace and danger but it cannot surely be imagined,
that accusations of so unpromising an appearance were either lightly or
frequently undertaken by the Pagan subjects of the Roman empire. *
The expedient which was employed to elude the prudence of the laws,
affords a sufficient proof how effectually they disappointed the
mischievous designs of private malice or superstitious zeal. In a large
and tumultuous assembly, the restraints of fear and shame, so forcible
on the minds of individuals, are deprived of the greatest part of their
influence. The pious Christian, as he was desirous to obtain, or to
escape, the glory of martyrdom, expected, either with impatience or with
terror, the stated returns of the public games and festivals. On
those occasions the inhabitants of the great cities of the empire were
collected in the circus or the theatre, where every circumstance of the
place, as well as of the ceremony, contributed to kindle their devotion,
and to extinguish their humanity. Whilst the numerous spectators,
crowned with garlands, perfumed with incense, purified with the blood
of victims, and surrounded with the altars and statues of their tutelar
deities, resigned themselves to the enjoyment of pleasures, which
they considered as an essential part of their religious worship, they
recollected, that the Christians alone abhorred the gods of mankind,
and by their absence and melancholy on these solemn festivals, seemed
to insult or to lament the public felicity. If the empire had been
afflicted by any recent calamity, by a plague, a famine, or an
unsuccessful war; if the Tyber had, or if the Nile had not, risen beyond
its banks; if the earth had shaken, or if the temperate order of the
seasons had been interrupted, the superstitious Pagans were convinced
that the crimes and the impiety of the Christians, who were spared
by the excessive lenity of the government, had at length provoked the
divine justice. It was not among a licentious and exasperated populace,
that the forms of legal proceedings could be observed; it was not in an
amphitheatre, stained with the blood of wild beasts and gladiators, that
the voice of compassion could be heard. The impatient clamors of the
multitude denounced the Christians as the enemies of gods and men,
doomed them to the severest tortures, and venturing to accuse by name
some of the most distinguished of the new sectaries, required with
irresistible vehemence that they should be instantly apprehended and
cast to the lions. The provincial governors and magistrates who
presided in the public spectacles were usually inclined to gratify the
inclinations, and to appease the rage, of the people, by the sacrifice
of a few obnoxious victims. But the wisdom of the emperors protected
the church from the danger of these tumultuous clamors and irregular
accusations, which they justly censured as repugnant both to the
firmness and to the equity of their administration. The edicts of
Hadrian and of Antoninus Pius expressly declared, that the voice of the
multitude should never be admitted as legal evidence to convict or to
punish those unfortunate persons who had embraced the enthusiasm of the
Christians.
III. Punishment was not the inevitable consequence of conviction, and
the Christians, whose guilt was the most clearly proved by the testimony
of witnesses, or even by their voluntary confession, still retained in
their own power the alternative of life or death. It was not so much the
past offence, as the actual resistance, which excited the indignation
of the magistrate. He was persuaded that he offered them an easy pardon,
since, if they consented to cast a few grains of incense upon the altar,
they were dismissed from the tribunal in safety and with applause. It
was esteemed the duty of a humane judge to endeavor to reclaim, rather
than to punish, those deluded enthusiasts. Varying his tone according
to the age, the sex, or the situation of the prisoners, he frequently
condescended to set before their eyes every circumstance which could
render life more pleasing, or death more terrible; and to solicit, nay,
to entreat, them, that they would show some compassion to themselves, to
their families, and to their friends. If threats and persuasions proved
ineffectual, he had often recourse to violence; the scourge and the rack
were called in to supply the deficiency of argument, and every art of
cruelty was employed to subdue such inflexible, and, as it appeared
to the Pagans, such criminal, obstinacy. The ancient apologists of
Christianity have censured, with equal truth and severity, the irregular
conduct of their persecutors who, contrary to every principle of
judicial proceeding, admitted the use of torture, in order to obtain,
not a confession, but a denial, of the crime which was the object of
their inquiry. The monks of succeeding ages, who, in their peaceful
solitudes, entertained themselves with diversifying the deaths and
sufferings of the primitive martyrs, have frequently invented torments
of a much more refined and ingenious nature. In particular, it has
pleased them to suppose, that the zeal of the Roman magistrates,
disdaining every consideration of moral virtue or public decency,
endeavored to seduce those whom they were unable to vanquish, and that
by their orders the most brutal violence was offered to those whom they
found it impossible to seduce. It is related, that females, who were
prepared to despise death, were sometimes condemned to a more severe
trial, and called upon to determine whether they set a higher value
on their religion or on their chastity. The youths to whose licentious
embraces they were abandoned, received a solemn exhortation from the
judge, to exert their most strenuous efforts to maintain the honor of
Venus against the impious virgin who refused to burn incense on her
altars. Their violence, however, was commonly disappointed, and the
seasonable interposition of some miraculous power preserved the chaste
spouses of Christ from the dishonor even of an involuntary defeat. We
should not indeed neglect to remark, that the more ancient as well
as authentic memorials of the church are seldom polluted with these
extravagant and indecent fictions.
The total disregard of truth and probability in the representation of
these primitive martyrdoms was occasioned by a very natural mistake. The
ecclesiastical writers of the fourth or fifth centuries ascribed to the
magistrates of Rome the same degree of implacable and unrelenting zeal
which filled their own breasts against the heretics or the idolaters
of their own times. It is not improbable that some of those persons
who were raised to the dignities of the empire, might have imbibed the
prejudices of the populace, and that the cruel disposition of others
might occasionally be stimulated by motives of avarice or of personal
resentment. But it is certain, and we may appeal to the grateful
confessions of the first Christians, that the greatest part of those
magistrates who exercised in the provinces the authority of the emperor,
or of the senate, and to whose hands alone the jurisdiction of life and
death was intrusted, behaved like men of polished manners and liberal
education, who respected the rules of justice, and who were conversant
with the precepts of philosophy. They frequently declined the odious
task of persecution, dismissed the charge with contempt, or suggested
to the accused Christian some legal evasion, by which he might elude the
severity of the laws. Whenever they were invested with a discretionary
power, they used it much less for the oppression, than for the relief
and benefit of the afflicted church. They were far from condemning all
the Christians who were accused before their tribunal, and very far
from punishing with death all those who were convicted of an obstinate
adherence to the new superstition. Contenting themselves, for the most
part, with the milder chastisements of imprisonment, exile, or slavery
in the mines, they left the unhappy victims of their justice some reason
to hope, that a prosperous event, the accession, the marriage, or the
triumph of an emperor, might speedily restore them, by a general pardon,
to their former state. The martyrs, devoted to immediate execution
by the Roman magistrates, appear to have been selected from the most
opposite extremes. They were either bishops and presbyters, the persons
the most distinguished among the Christians by their rank and influence,
and whose example might strike terror into the whole sect; or else they
were the meanest and most abject among them, particularly those of the
servile condition, whose lives were esteemed of little value, and
whose sufferings were viewed by the ancients with too careless an
indifference. The learned Origen, who, from his experience as well as
reading, was intimately acquainted with the history of the Christians,
declares, in the most express terms, that the number of martyrs was very
inconsiderable. His authority would alone be sufficient to annihilate
that formidable army of martyrs, whose relics, drawn for the most part
from the catacombs of Rome, have replenished so many churches, and whose
marvellous achievements have been the subject of so many volumes of
Holy Romance. But the general assertion of Origen may be explained and
confirmed by the particular testimony of his friend Dionysius, who, in
the immense city of Alexandria, and under the rigorous persecution
of Decius, reckons only ten men and seven women who suffered for the
profession of the Christian name.
During the same period of persecution, the zealous, the eloquent, the
ambitious Cyprian governed the church, not only of Carthage, but even of
Africa. He possessed every quality which could engage the reverence
of the faithful, or provoke the suspicions and resentment of the Pagan
magistrates. His character as well as his station seemed to mark out
that holy prelate as the most distinguished object of envy and danger.
The experience, however, of the life of Cyprian, is sufficient to prove
that our fancy has exaggerated the perilous situation of a Christian
bishop; and the dangers to which he was exposed were less imminent than
those which temporal ambition is always prepared to encounter in the
pursuit of honors. Four Roman emperors, with their families, their
favorites, and their adherents, perished by the sword in the space of
ten years, during which the bishop of Carthage guided by his authority
and eloquence the councils of the African church. It was only in the
third year of his administration, that he had reason, during a few
months, to apprehend the severe edicts of Decius, the vigilance of the
magistrate and the clamors of the multitude, who loudly demanded, that
Cyprian, the leader of the Christians, should be thrown to the lions.
Prudence suggested the necessity of a temporary retreat, and the voice
of prudence was obeyed. He withdrew himself into an obscure solitude,
from whence he could maintain a constant correspondence with the clergy
and people of Carthage; and, concealing himself till the tempest was
past, he preserved his life, without relinquishing either his power or
his reputation. His extreme caution did not, however, escape the censure
of the more rigid Christians, who lamented, or the reproaches of his
personal enemies, who insulted, a conduct which they considered as
a pusillanimous and criminal desertion of the most sacred duty. The
propriety of reserving himself for the future exigencies of the church,
the example of several holy bishops, and the divine admonitions, which,
as he declares himself, he frequently received in visions and ecstacies,
were the reasons alleged in his justification. But his best apology
may be found in the cheerful resolution, with which, about eight years
afterwards, he suffered death in the cause of religion. The authentic
history of his martyrdom has been recorded with unusual candor and
impartiality. A short abstract, therefore, of its most important
circumstances, will convey the clearest information of the spirit, and
of the forms, of the Roman persecutions.
Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
Constantine.--Part IV.
When Valerian was consul for the third, and Gallienus for the fourth
time, Paternus, proconsul of Africa, summoned Cyprian to appear in
his private council-chamber. He there acquainted him with the Imperial
mandate which he had just received, that those who had abandoned
the Roman religion should immediately return to the practice of the
ceremonies of their ancestors. Cyprian replied without hesitation, that
he was a Christian and a bishop, devoted to the worship of the true and
only Deity, to whom he offered up his daily supplications for the safety
and prosperity of the two emperors, his lawful sovereigns. With modest
confidence he pleaded the privilege of a citizen, in refusing to give
any answer to some invidious and indeed illegal questions which the
proconsul had proposed. A sentence of banishment was pronounced as the
penalty of Cyprian's disobedience; and he was conducted without delay
to Curubis, a free and maritime city of Zeugitania, in a pleasant
situation, a fertile territory, and at the distance of about forty miles
from Carthage. The exiled bishop enjoyed the conveniences of life and
the consciousness of virtue. His reputation was diffused over Africa and
Italy; an account of his behavior was published for the edification of
the Christian world; and his solitude was frequently interrupted by the
letters, the visits, and the congratulations of the faithful. On the
arrival of a new proconsul in the province the fortune of Cyprian
appeared for some time to wear a still more favorable aspect. He was
recalled from banishment; and though not yet permitted to return to
Carthage, his own gardens in the neighborhood of the capital were
assigned for the place of his residence.
At length, exactly one year after Cyprian was first apprehended,
Galerius Maximus, proconsul of Africa, received the Imperial warrant
for the execution of the Christian teachers. The bishop of Carthage was
sensible that he should be singled out for one of the first victims;
and the frailty of nature tempted him to withdraw himself, by a
secret flight, from the danger and the honor of martyrdom; * but soon
recovering that fortitude which his character required, he returned to
his gardens, and patiently expected the ministers of death. Two officers
of rank, who were intrusted with that commission, placed Cyprian between
them in a chariot, and as the proconsul was not then at leisure, they
conducted him, not to a prison, but to a private house in Carthage,
which belonged to one of them. An elegant supper was provided for the
entertainment of the bishop, and his Christian friends were permitted
for the last time to enjoy his society, whilst the streets were filled
with a multitude of the faithful, anxious and alarmed at the approaching
fate of their spiritual father. In the morning he appeared before the
tribunal of the proconsul, who, after informing himself of the name and
situation of Cyprian, commanded him to offer sacrifice, and pressed
him to reflect on the consequences of his disobedience. The refusal of
Cyprian was firm and decisive; and the magistrate, when he had taken the
opinion of his council, pronounced with some reluctance the sentence of
death. It was conceived in the following terms: "That Thascius Cyprianus
should be immediately beheaded, as the enemy of the gods of Rome, and as
the chief and ringleader of a criminal association, which he had seduced
into an impious resistance against the laws of the most holy emperors,
Valerian and Gallienus." The manner of his execution was the mildest
and least painful that could be inflicted on a person convicted of any
capital offence; nor was the use of torture admitted to obtain from
the bishop of Carthage either the recantation of his principles or the
discovery of his accomplices.
As soon as the sentence was proclaimed, a general cry of "We will die
with him," arose at once among the listening multitude of Christians who
waited before the palace gates. The generous effusions of their zeal
and their affection were neither serviceable to Cyprian nor dangerous
to themselves. He was led away under a guard of tribunes and centurions,
without resistance and without insult, to the place of his execution,
a spacious and level plain near the city, which was already filled with
great numbers of spectators. His faithful presbyters and deacons were
permitted to accompany their holy bishop. * They assisted him in
laying aside his upper garment, spread linen on the ground to catch
the precious relics of his blood, and received his orders to bestow
five-and-twenty pieces of gold on the executioner. The martyr then
covered his face with his hands, and at one blow his head was separated
from his body. His corpse remained during some hours exposed to
the curiosity of the Gentiles: but in the night it was removed, and
transported in a triumphal procession, and with a splendid illumination,
to the burial-place of the Christians. The funeral of Cyprian was
publicly celebrated without receiving any interruption from the Roman
magistrates; and those among the faithful, who had performed the last
offices to his person and his memory, were secure from the danger of
inquiry or of punishment. It is remarkable, that of so great a multitude
of bishops in the province of Africa, Cyprian was the first who was
esteemed worthy to obtain the crown of martyrdom.
It was in the choice of Cyprian, either to die a martyr, or to live an
apostate; but on the choice depended the alternative of honor or infamy.
Could we suppose that the bishop of Carthage had employed the profession
of the Christian faith only as the instrument of his avarice or
ambition, it was still incumbent on him to support the character he had
assumed; and if he possessed the smallest degree of manly fortitude,
rather to expose himself to the most cruel tortures, than by a single
act to exchange the reputation of a whole life, for the abhorrence of
his Christian brethren, and the contempt of the Gentile world. But if
the zeal of Cyprian was supported by the sincere conviction of the truth
of those doctrines which he preached, the crown of martyrdom must have
appeared to him as an object of desire rather than of terror. It is
not easy to extract any distinct ideas from the vague though eloquent
declamations of the Fathers, or to ascertain the degree of immortal
glory and happiness which they confidently promised to those who were
so fortunate as to shed their blood in the cause of religion. They
inculcated with becoming diligence, that the fire of martyrdom supplied
every defect and expiated every sin; that while the souls of ordinary
Christians were obliged to pass through a slow and painful purification,
the triumphant sufferers entered into the immediate fruition of eternal
bliss, where, in the society of the patriarchs, the apostles, and the
prophets, they reigned with Christ, and acted as his assessors in the
universal judgment of mankind. The assurance of a lasting reputation
upon earth, a motive so congenial to the vanity of human nature, often
served to animate the courage of the martyrs. The honors which Rome or
Athens bestowed on those citizens who had fallen in the cause of
their country, were cold and unmeaning demonstrations of respect, when
compared with the ardent gratitude and devotion which the primitive
church expressed towards the victorious champions of the faith. The
annual commemoration of their virtues and sufferings was observed as a
sacred ceremony, and at length terminated in religious worship. Among
the Christians who had publicly confessed their religious principles,
those who (as it very frequently happened) had been dismissed from the
tribunal or the prisons of the Pagan magistrates, obtained such honors
as were justly due to their imperfect martyrdom and their generous
resolution. The most pious females courted the permission of imprinting
kisses on the fetters which they had worn, and on the wounds which they
had received. Their persons were esteemed holy, their decisions were
admitted with deference, and they too often abused, by their spiritual
pride and licentious manners, the preeminence which their zeal and
intrepidity had acquired. Distinctions like these, whilst they display
the exalted merit, betray the inconsiderable number of those who
suffered, and of those who died, for the profession of Christianity.
The sober discretion of the present age will more readily censure than
admire, but can more easily admire than imitate, the fervor of the
first Christians, who, according to the lively expressions of
Sulpicius Severus, desired martyrdom with more eagerness than his
own contemporaries solicited a bishopric. The epistles which Ignatius
composed as he was carried in chains through the cities of Asia, breathe
sentiments the most repugnant to the ordinary feelings of human nature.
He earnestly beseeches the Romans, that when he should be exposed in
the amphitheatre, they would not, by their kind but unseasonable
intercession, deprive him of the crown of glory; and he declares his
resolution to provoke and irritate the wild beasts which might be
employed as the instruments of his death. Some stories are related
of the courage of martyrs, who actually performed what Ignatius had
intended; who exasperated the fury of the lions, pressed the executioner
to hasten his office, cheerfully leaped into the fires which were
kindled to consume them, and discovered a sensation of joy and pleasure
in the midst of the most exquisite tortures. Several examples have been
preserved of a zeal impatient of those restraints which the emperors
had provided for the security of the church. The Christians sometimes
supplied by their voluntary declaration the want of an accuser, rudely
disturbed the public service of paganism, and rushing in crowds round
the tribunal of the magistrates, called upon them to pronounce and to
inflict the sentence of the law. The behavior of the Christians was too
remarkable to escape the notice of the ancient philosophers; but they
seem to have considered it with much less admiration than astonishment.
Incapable of conceiving the motives which sometimes transported the
fortitude of believers beyond the bounds of prudence or reason, they
treated such an eagerness to die as the strange result of obstinate
despair, of stupid insensibility, or of superstitious frenzy. "Unhappy
men!" exclaimed the proconsul Antoninus to the Christians of Asia;
"unhappy men! if you are thus weary of your lives, is it so difficult
for you to find ropes and precipices?" He was extremely cautious (as it
is observed by a learned and pious historian) of punishing men who had
found no accusers but themselves, the Imperial laws not having made
any provision for so unexpected a case: condemning therefore a few as a
warning to their brethren, he dismissed the multitude with indignation
and contempt. Notwithstanding this real or affected disdain, the
intrepid constancy of the faithful was productive of more salutary
effects on those minds which nature or grace had disposed for the easy
reception of religious truth. On these melancholy occasions, there were
many among the Gentiles who pitied, who admired, and who were converted.
The generous enthusiasm was communicated from the sufferer to the
spectators; and the blood of martyrs, according to a well-known
observation, became the seed of the church.
But although devotion had raised, and eloquence continued to inflame,
this fever of the mind, it insensibly gave way to the more natural hopes
and fears of the human heart, to the love of life, the apprehension
of pain, and the horror of dissolution. The more prudent rulers of the
church found themselves obliged to restrain the indiscreet ardor of
their followers, and to distrust a constancy which too often abandoned
them in the hour of trial. As the lives of the faithful became less
mortified and austere, they were every day less ambitious of the honors
of martyrdom; and the soldiers of Christ, instead of distinguishing
themselves by voluntary deeds of heroism, frequently deserted their
post, and fled in confusion before the enemy whom it was their duty to
resist. There were three methods, however, of escaping the flames of
persecution, which were not attended with an equal degree of guilt:
first, indeed, was generally allowed to be innocent; the second was of
a doubtful, or at least of a venial, nature; but the third implied a
direct and criminal apostasy from the Christian faith.
I. A modern inquisitor would hear with surprise, that whenever an
information was given to a Roman magistrate of any person within his
jurisdiction who had embraced the sect of the Christians, the charge
was communicated to the party accused, and that a convenient time was
allowed him to settle his domestic concerns, and to prepare an answer to
the crime which was imputed to him. If he entertained any doubt of his
own constancy, such a delay afforded him the opportunity of preserving
his life and honor by flight, of withdrawing himself into some obscure
retirement or some distant province, and of patiently expecting the
return of peace and security. A measure so consonant to reason was soon
authorized by the advice and example of the most holy prelates; and
seems to have been censured by few except by the Montanists, who
deviated into heresy by their strict and obstinate adherence to the
rigor of ancient discipline. II. The provincial governors, whose zeal
was less prevalent than their avarice, had countenanced the practice of
selling certificates, (or libels, as they were called,) which attested,
that the persons therein mentioned had complied with the laws, and
sacrificed to the Roman deities. By producing these false declarations,
the opulent and timid Christians were enabled to silence the malice of
an informer, and to reconcile in some measure their safety with their
religion. A slight penance atoned for this profane dissimulation. * III.
In every persecution there were great numbers of unworthy Christians who
publicly disowned or renounced the faith which they had professed; and
who confirmed the sincerity of their abjuration, by the legal acts of
burning incense or of offering sacrifices. Some of these apostates had
yielded on the first menace or exhortation of the magistrate; whilst
the patience of others had been subdued by the length and repetition
of tortures. The affrighted countenances of some betrayed their inward
remorse, while others advanced with confidence and alacrity to the
altars of the gods. But the disguise which fear had imposed, subsisted
no longer than the present danger. As soon as the severity of the
persecution was abated, the doors of the churches were assailed by
the returning multitude of penitents who detested their idolatrous
submission, and who solicited with equal ardor, but with various
success, their readmission into the society of Christians.
IV. Notwithstanding the general rules established for the conviction
and punishment of the Christians, the fate of those sectaries, in an
extensive and arbitrary government, must still in a great measure, have
depended on their own behavior, the circumstances of the times, and
the temper of their supreme as well as subordinate rulers. Zeal might
sometimes provoke, and prudence might sometimes avert or assuage, the
superstitious fury of the Pagans. A variety of motives might dispose the
provincial governors either to enforce or to relax the execution of the
laws; and of these motives the most forcible was their regard not only
for the public edicts, but for the secret intentions of the emperor,
a glance from whose eye was sufficient to kindle or to extinguish
the flames of persecution. As often as any occasional severities were
exercised in the different parts of the empire, the primitive Christians
lamented and perhaps magnified their own sufferings; but the celebrated
number of ten persecutions has been determined by the ecclesiastical
writers of the fifth century, who possessed a more distinct view of the
prosperous or adverse fortunes of the church, from the age of Nero to
that of Diocletian. The ingenious parallels of the ten plagues of Egypt,
and of the ten horns of the Apocalypse, first suggested this calculation
to their minds; and in their application of the faith of prophecy to the
truth of history, they were careful to select those reigns which were
indeed the most hostile to the Christian cause. But these transient
persecutions served only to revive the zeal and to restore the
discipline of the faithful; and the moments of extraordinary rigor
were compensated by much longer intervals of peace and security. The
indifference of some princes, and the indulgence of others, permitted
the Christians to enjoy, though not perhaps a legal, yet an actual and
public, toleration of their religion.
Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
Constantine.--Part V.
The apology of Tertullian contains two very ancient, very singular, but
at the same time very suspicious, instances of Imperial clemency; the
edicts published by Tiberius, and by Marcus Antoninus, and designed not
only to protect the innocence of the Christians, but even to proclaim
those stupendous miracles which had attested the truth of their
doctrine. The first of these examples is attended with some difficulties
which might perplex a sceptical mind. We are required to believe, that
Pontius Pilate informed the emperor of the unjust sentence of death
which he had pronounced against an innocent, and, as it appeared,
a divine, person; and that, without acquiring the merit, he exposed
himself to the danger of martyrdom; that Tiberius, who avowed his
contempt for all religion, immediately conceived the design of placing
the Jewish Messiah among the gods of Rome; that his servile senate
ventured to disobey the commands of their master; that Tiberius, instead
of resenting their refusal, contented himself with protecting the
Christians from the severity of the laws, many years before such laws
were enacted, or before the church had assumed any distinct name or
existence; and lastly, that the memory of this extraordinary transaction
was preserved in the most public and authentic records, which escaped
the knowledge of the historians of Greece and Rome, and were only
visible to the eyes of an African Christian, who composed his apology
one hundred and sixty years after the death of Tiberius. The edict of
Marcus Antoninus is supposed to have been the effect of his devotion and
gratitude for the miraculous deliverance which he had obtained in the
Marcomannic war. The distress of the legions, the seasonable tempest of
rain and hail, of thunder and of lightning, and the dismay and defeat of
the barbarians, have been celebrated by the eloquence of several Pagan
writers. If there were any Christians in that army, it was natural that
they should ascribe some merit to the fervent prayers, which, in the
moment of danger, they had offered up for their own and the public
safety. But we are still assured by monuments of brass and marble, by
the Imperial medals, and by the Antonine column, that neither the prince
nor the people entertained any sense of this signal obligation, since
they unanimously attribute their deliverance to the providence of
Jupiter, and to the interposition of Mercury. During the whole course of
his reign, Marcus despised the Christians as a philosopher, and punished
them as a sovereign. *
By a singular fatality, the hardships which they had endured under the
government of a virtuous prince, immediately ceased on the accession of
a tyrant; and as none except themselves had experienced the injustice
of Marcus, so they alone were protected by the lenity of Commodus. The
celebrated Marcia, the most favored of his concubines, and who at length
contrived the murder of her Imperial lover, entertained a singular
affection for the oppressed church; and though it was impossible that
she could reconcile the practice of vice with the precepts of the
gospel, she might hope to atone for the frailties of her sex and
profession by declaring herself the patroness of the Christians. Under
the gracious protection of Marcia, they passed in safety the thirteen
years of a cruel tyranny; and when the empire was established in the
house of Severus, they formed a domestic but more honorable connection
with the new court. The emperor was persuaded, that in a dangerous
sickness, he had derived some benefit, either spiritual or physical,
from the holy oil, with which one of his slaves had anointed him. He
always treated with peculiar distinction several persons of both sexes
who had embraced the new religion. The nurse as well as the preceptor
of Caracalla were Christians; * and if that young prince ever betrayed a
sentiment of humanity, it was occasioned by an incident, which, however
trifling, bore some relation to the cause of Christianity. Under the
reign of Severus, the fury of the populace was checked; the rigor of
ancient laws was for some time suspended; and the provincial governors
were satisfied with receiving an annual present from the churches within
their jurisdiction, as the price, or as the reward, of their moderation.
The controversy concerning the precise time of the celebration of
Easter, armed the bishops of Asia and Italy against each other, and was
considered as the most important business of this period of leisure
and tranquillity. Nor was the peace of the church interrupted, till the
increasing numbers of proselytes seem at length to have attracted the
attention, and to have alienated the mind of Severus. With the design of
restraining the progress of Christianity, he published an edict, which,
though it was designed to affect only the new converts, could not be
carried into strict execution, without exposing to danger and punishment
the most zealous of their teachers and missionaries. In this mitigated
persecution we may still discover the indulgent spirit of Rome and of
Polytheism, which so readily admitted every excuse in favor of those who
practised the religious ceremonies of their fathers.
But the laws which Severus had enacted soon expired with the authority
of that emperor; and the Christians, after this accidental tempest,
enjoyed a calm of thirty-eight years. Till this period they had usually
held their assemblies in private houses and sequestered places. They
were now permitted to erect and consecrate convenient edifices for the
purpose of religious worship; to purchase lands, even at Rome itself,
for the use of the community; and to conduct the elections of their
ecclesiastical ministers in so public, but at the same time in so
exemplary a manner, as to deserve the respectful attention of the
Gentiles. This long repose of the church was accompanied with dignity.
The reigns of those princes who derived their extraction from the
Asiatic provinces, proved the most favorable to the Christians; the
eminent persons of the sect, instead of being reduced to implore the
protection of a slave or concubine, were admitted into the palace in the
honorable characters of priests and philosophers; and their mysterious
doctrines, which were already diffused among the people, insensibly
attracted the curiosity of their sovereign. When the empress MammÊa
passed through Antioch, she expressed a desire of conversing with the
celebrated Origen, the fame of whose piety and learning was spread over
the East. Origen obeyed so flattering an invitation, and though he
could not expect to succeed in the conversion of an artful and ambitious
woman, she listened with pleasure to his eloquent exhortations, and
honorably dismissed him to his retirement in Palestine. The sentiments
of MammÊa were adopted by her son Alexander, and the philosophic
devotion of that emperor was marked by a singular but injudicious regard
for the Christian religion. In his domestic chapel he placed the statues
of Abraham, of Orpheus, of Apollonius, and of Christ, as an honor justly
due to those respectable sages who had instructed mankind in the various
modes of addressing their homage to the supreme and universal Deity.
A purer faith, as well as worship, was openly professed and practised
among his household. Bishops, perhaps for the first time, were seen
at court; and, after the death of Alexander, when the inhuman Maximin
discharged his fury on the favorites and servants of his unfortunate
benefactor, a great number of Christians of every rank and of both
sexes, were involved the promiscuous massacre, which, on their account,
has improperly received the name of Persecution. *
Notwithstanding the cruel disposition of Maximin, the effects of his
resentment against the Christians were of a very local and temporary
nature, and the pious Origen, who had been proscribed as a devoted
victim, was still reserved to convey the truths of the gospel to the
ear of monarchs. He addressed several edifying letters to the emperor
Philip, to his wife, and to his mother; and as soon as that prince,
who was born in the neighborhood of Palestine, had usurped the Imperial
sceptre, the Christians acquired a friend and a protector. The public
and even partial favor of Philip towards the sectaries of the new
religion, and his constant reverence for the ministers of the church,
gave some color to the suspicion, which prevailed in his own times, that
the emperor himself was become a convert to the faith; and afforded
some grounds for a fable which was afterwards invented, that he had
been purified by confession and penance from the guilt contracted by the
murder of his innocent predecessor. The fall of Philip introduced, with
the change of masters, a new system of government, so oppressive to
the Christians, that their former condition, ever since the time of
Domitian, was represented as a state of perfect freedom and security,
if compared with the rigorous treatment which they experienced under the
short reign of Decius. The virtues of that prince will scarcely allow
us to suspect that he was actuated by a mean resentment against the
favorites of his predecessor; and it is more reasonable to believe, that
in the prosecution of his general design to restore the purity of Roman
manners, he was desirous of delivering the empire from what he
condemned as a recent and criminal superstition. The bishops of the most
considerable cities were removed by exile or death: the vigilance of
the magistrates prevented the clergy of Rome during sixteen months from
proceeding to a new election; and it was the opinion of the Christians,
that the emperor would more patiently endure a competitor for the
purple, than a bishop in the capital. Were it possible to suppose that
the penetration of Decius had discovered pride under the disguise of
humility, or that he could foresee the temporal dominion which might
insensibly arise from the claims of spiritual authority, we might be
less surprised, that he should consider the successors of St. Peter, as
the most formidable rivals to those of Augustus.
The administration of Valerian was distinguished by a levity and
inconstancy ill suited to the gravity of the Roman Censor. In the first
part of his reign, he surpassed in clemency those princes who had been
suspected of an attachment to the Christian faith. In the last three
years and a half, listening to the insinuations of a minister addicted
to the superstitions of Egypt, he adopted the maxims, and imitated the
severity, of his predecessor Decius. The accession of Gallienus, which
increased the calamities of the empire, restored peace to the church;
and the Christians obtained the free exercise of their religion by an
edict addressed to the bishops, and conceived in such terms as seemed to
acknowledge their office and public character. The ancient laws, without
being formally repealed, were suffered to sink into oblivion; and
(excepting only some hostile intentions which are attributed to the
emperor Aurelian ) the disciples of Christ passed above forty years in
a state of prosperity, far more dangerous to their virtue than the
severest trials of persecution.
The story of Paul of Samosata, who filled the metropolitan see of
Antioch, while the East was in the hands of Odenathus and Zenobia, may
serve to illustrate the condition and character of the times. The wealth
of that prelate was a sufficient evidence of his guilt, since it was
neither derived from the inheritance of his fathers, nor acquired by the
arts of honest industry. But Paul considered the service of the church
as a very lucrative profession. His ecclesiastical jurisdiction was
venal and rapacious; he extorted frequent contributions from the most
opulent of the faithful, and converted to his own use a considerable
part of the public revenue. By his pride and luxury, the Christian
religion was rendered odious in the eyes of the Gentiles. His council
chamber and his throne, the splendor with which he appeared in public,
the suppliant crowd who solicited his attention, the multitude of
letters and petitions to which he dictated his answers, and the
perpetual hurry of business in which he was involved, were circumstances
much better suited to the state of a civil magistrate, than to the
humility of a primitive bishop. When he harangued his people from the
pulpit, Paul affected the figurative style and the theatrical gestures
of an Asiatic sophist, while the cathedral resounded with the loudest
and most extravagant acclamations in the praise of his divine eloquence.
Against those who resisted his power, or refused to flatter his vanity,
the prelate of Antioch was arrogant, rigid, and inexorable; but he
relaxed the discipline, and lavished the treasures of the church on
his dependent clergy, who were permitted to imitate their master in the
gratification of every sensual appetite. For Paul indulged himself
very freely in the pleasures of the table, and he had received into
the episcopal palace two young and beautiful women as the constant
companions of his leisure moments.
Notwithstanding these scandalous vices, if Paul of Samosata had
preserved the purity of the orthodox faith, his reign over the capital
of Syria would have ended only with his life; and had a seasonable
persecution intervened, an effort of courage might perhaps have placed
him in the rank of saints and martyrs. * Some nice and subtle errors,
which he imprudently adopted and obstinately maintained, concerning the
doctrine of the Trinity, excited the zeal and indignation of the Eastern
churches. From Egypt to the Euxine Sea, the bishops were in arms and
in motion. Several councils were held, confutations were published,
excommunications were pronounced, ambiguous explanations were by turns
accepted and refused, treaties were concluded and violated, and at
length Paul of Samosata was degraded from his episcopal character,
by the sentence of seventy or eighty bishops, who assembled for that
purpose at Antioch, and who, without consulting the rights of the clergy
or people, appointed a successor by their own authority. The
manifest irregularity of this proceeding increased the numbers of the
discontented faction; and as Paul, who was no stranger to the arts of
courts, had insinuated himself into the favor of Zenobia, he maintained
above four years the possession of the episcopal house and office. * The
victory of Aurelian changed the face of the East, and the two contending
parties, who applied to each other the epithets of schism and heresy,
were either commanded or permitted to plead their cause before the
tribunal of the conqueror. This public and very singular trial affords
a convincing proof that the existence, the property, the privileges, and
the internal policy of the Christians, were acknowledged, if not by the
laws, at least by the magistrates, of the empire. As a Pagan and as a
soldier, it could scarcely be expected that Aurelian should enter
into the discussion, whether the sentiments of Paul or those of his
adversaries were most agreeable to the true standard of the orthodox
faith. His determination, however, was founded on the general principles
of equity and reason. He considered the bishops of Italy as the most
impartial and respectable judges among the Christians, and as soon as
he was informed that they had unanimously approved the sentence of the
council, he acquiesced in their opinion, and immediately gave orders
that Paul should be compelled to relinquish the temporal possessions
belonging to an office, of which, in the judgment of his brethren, he
had been regularly deprived. But while we applaud the justice, we should
not overlook the policy, of Aurelian, who was desirous of restoring and
cementing the dependence of the provinces on the capital, by every means
which could bind the interest or prejudices of any part of his subjects.
Amidst the frequent revolutions of the empire, the Christians still
flourished in peace and prosperity; and notwithstanding a celebrated Êra
of martyrs has been deduced from the accession of Diocletian, the
new system of policy, introduced and maintained by the wisdom of that
prince, continued, during more than eighteen years, to breathe the
mildest and most liberal spirit of religious toleration. The mind of
Diocletian himself was less adapted indeed to speculative inquiries,
than to the active labors of war and government. His prudence rendered
him averse to any great innovation, and though his temper was not very
susceptible of zeal or enthusiasm, he always maintained an habitual
regard for the ancient deities of the empire. But the leisure of the two
empresses, of his wife Prisca, and of Valeria, his daughter, permitted
them to listen with more attention and respect to the truths of
Christianity, which in every age has acknowledged its important
obligations to female devotion. The principal eunuchs, Lucian and
Dorotheus, Gorgonius and Andrew, who attended the person, possessed
the favor, and governed the household of Diocletian, protected by their
powerful influence the faith which they had embraced. Their example was
imitated by many of the most considerable officers of the palace, who,
in their respective stations, had the care of the Imperial ornaments,
of the robes, of the furniture, of the jewels, and even of the private
treasury; and, though it might sometimes be incumbent on them to
accompany the emperor when he sacrificed in the temple, they enjoyed,
with their wives, their children, and their slaves, the free exercise
of the Christian religion. Diocletian and his colleagues frequently
conferred the most important offices on those persons who avowed their
abhorrence for the worship of the gods, but who had displayed abilities
proper for the service of the state. The bishops held an honorable rank
in their respective provinces, and were treated with distinction and
respect, not only by the people, but by the magistrates themselves.
Almost in every city, the ancient churches were found insufficient to
contain the increasing multitude of proselytes; and in their place more
stately and capacious edifices were erected for the public worship of
the faithful. The corruption of manners and principles, so forcibly
lamented by Eusebius, may be considered, not only as a consequence, but
as a proof, of the liberty which the Christians enjoyed and abused
under the reign of Diocletian. Prosperity had relaxed the nerves of
discipline. Fraud, envy, and malice prevailed in every congregation. The
presbyters aspired to the episcopal office, which every day became an
object more worthy of their ambition. The bishops, who contended with
each other for ecclesiastical preeminence, appeared by their conduct to
claim a secular and tyrannical power in the church; and the lively faith
which still distinguished the Christians from the Gentiles, was shown
much less in their lives, than in their controversial writings.
Notwithstanding this seeming security, an attentive observer might
discern some symptoms that threatened the church with a more violent
persecution than any which she had yet endured. The zeal and rapid
progress of the Christians awakened the Polytheists from their supine
indifference in the cause of those deities, whom custom and education
had taught them to revere. The mutual provocations of a religious war,
which had already continued above two hundred years, exasperated the
animosity of the contending parties. The Pagans were incensed at the
rashness of a recent and obscure sect, which presumed to accuse their
countrymen of error, and to devote their ancestors to eternal misery.
The habits of justifying the popular mythology against the invectives
of an implacable enemy, produced in their minds some sentiments of faith
and reverence for a system which they had been accustomed to consider
with the most careless levity. The supernatural powers assumed by the
church inspired at the same time terror and emulation. The followers
of the established religion intrenched themselves behind a similar
fortification of prodigies; invented new modes of sacrifice, of
expiation, and of initiation; attempted to revive the credit of their
expiring oracles; and listened with eager credulity to every impostor,
who flattered their prejudices by a tale of wonders. Both parties seemed
to acknowledge the truth of those miracles which were claimed by their
adversaries; and while they were contented with ascribing them to the
arts of magic, and to the power of dÊmons, they mutually concurred in
restoring and establishing the reign of superstition. Philosophy, her
most dangerous enemy, was now converted into her most useful ally. The
groves of the academy, the gardens of Epicurus, and even the portico
of the Stoics, were almost deserted, as so many different schools of
scepticism or impiety; and many among the Romans were desirous that the
writings of Cicero should be condemned and suppressed by the authority
of the senate. The prevailing sect of the new Platonicians judged
it prudent to connect themselves with the priests, whom perhaps they
despised, against the Christians, whom they had reason to fear. These
fashionable Philosophers prosecuted the design of extracting allegorical
wisdom from the fictions of the Greek poets; instituted mysterious
rites of devotion for the use of their chosen disciples; recommended the
worship of the ancient gods as the emblems or ministers of the Supreme
Deity, and composed against the faith of the gospel many elaborate
treatises, which have since been committed to the flames by the prudence
of orthodox emperors.
Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
Constantine.--Part VI.
Although the policy of Diocletian and the humanity of Constantius
inclined them to preserve inviolate the maxims of toleration, it was
soon discovered that their two associates, Maximian and Galerius,
entertained the most implacable aversion for the name and religion of
the Christians. The minds of those princes had never been enlightened
by science; education had never softened their temper. They owed their
greatness to their swords, and in their most elevated fortune they still
retained their superstitious prejudices of soldiers and peasants. In the
general administration of the provinces they obeyed the laws which
their benefactor had established; but they frequently found occasions of
exercising within their camp and palaces a secret persecution, for which
the imprudent zeal of the Christians sometimes offered the most specious
pretences. A sentence of death was executed upon Maximilianus, an
African youth, who had been produced by his own father *before the
magistrate as a sufficient and legal recruit, but who obstinately
persisted in declaring, that his conscience would not permit him to
embrace the profession of a soldier. It could scarcely be expected that
any government should suffer the action of Marcellus the Centurion to
pass with impunity. On the day of a public festival, that officer threw
away his belt, his arms, and the ensigns of his office, and exclaimed
with a loud voice, that he would obey none but Jesus Christ the eternal
King, and that he renounced forever the use of carnal weapons, and the
service of an idolatrous master. The soldiers, as soon as they recovered
from their astonishment, secured the person of Marcellus. He was
examined in the city of Tingi by the president of that part of
Mauritania; and as he was convicted by his own confession, he was
condemned and beheaded for the crime of desertion. Examples of such a
nature savor much less of religious persecution than of martial or even
civil law; but they served to alienate the mind of the emperors, to
justify the severity of Galerius, who dismissed a great number of
Christian officers from their employments; and to authorize the opinion,
that a sect of enthusiastics, which avowed principles so repugnant to
the public safety, must either remain useless, or would soon become
dangerous, subjects of the empire.
After the success of the Persian war had raised the hopes and the
reputation of Galerius, he passed a winter with Diocletian in the palace
of Nicomedia; and the fate of Christianity became the object of their
secret consultations. The experienced emperor was still inclined to
pursue measures of lenity; and though he readily consented to exclude
the Christians from holding any employments in the household or the
army, he urged in the strongest terms the danger as well as cruelty
of shedding the blood of those deluded fanatics. Galerius at length
extorted from him the permission of summoning a council, composed of a
few persons the most distinguished in the civil and military departments
of the state. The important question was agitated in their presence,
and those ambitious courtiers easily discerned, that it was incumbent
on them to second, by their eloquence, the importunate violence of the
CÊsar. It may be presumed, that they insisted on every topic which might
interest the pride, the piety, or the fears, of their sovereign in the
destruction of Christianity. Perhaps they represented, that the glorious
work of the deliverance of the empire was left imperfect, as long as an
independent people was permitted to subsist and multiply in the heart
of the provinces. The Christians, (it might specially be alleged,)
renouncing the gods and the institutions of Rome, had constituted a
distinct republic, which might yet be suppressed before it had acquired
any military force; but which was already governed by its own laws and
magistrates, was possessed of a public treasure, and was intimately
connected in all its parts by the frequent assemblies of the bishops,
to whose decrees their numerous and opulent congregations yielded an
implicit obedience. Arguments like these may seem to have determined the
reluctant mind of Diocletian to embrace a new system of persecution;
but though we may suspect, it is not in our power to relate, the secret
intrigues of the palace, the private views and resentments, the jealousy
of women or eunuchs, and all those trifling but decisive causes which
so often influence the fate of empires, and the councils of the wisest
monarchs.
The pleasure of the emperors was at length signified to the Christians,
who, during the course of this melancholy winter, had expected, with
anxiety, the result of so many secret consultations. The twenty-third of
February, which coincided with the Roman festival of the Terminalia,
was appointed (whether from accident or design) to set bounds to the
progress of Christianity. At the earliest dawn of day, the PrÊtorian
prÊfect, accompanied by several generals, tribunes, and officers of
the revenue, repaired to the principal church of Nicomedia, which was
situated on an eminence in the most populous and beautiful part of
the city. The doors were instantly broke open; they rushed into the
sanctuary; and as they searched in vain for some visible object of
worship, they were obliged to content themselves with committing to the
flames the volumes of the holy Scripture. The ministers of Diocletian
were followed by a numerous body of guards and pioneers, who marched in
order of battle, and were provided with all the instruments used in
the destruction of fortified cities. By their incessant labor, a sacred
edifice, which towered above the Imperial palace, and had long excited
the indignation and envy of the Gentiles, was in a few hours levelled
with the ground.
The next day the general edict of persecution was published; and though
Diocletian, still averse to the effusion of blood, had moderated
the fury of Galerius, who proposed, that every one refusing to offer
sacrifice should immediately be burnt alive, the penalties inflicted on
the obstinacy of the Christians might be deemed sufficiently rigorous
and effectual. It was enacted, that their churches, in all the provinces
of the empire, should be demolished to their foundations; and the
punishment of death was denounced against all who should presume to
hold any secret assemblies for the purpose of religious worship. The
philosophers, who now assumed the unworthy office of directing the blind
zeal of persecution, had diligently studied the nature and genius of the
Christian religion; and as they were not ignorant that the speculative
doctrines of the faith were supposed to be contained in the writings
of the prophets, of the evangelists, and of the apostles, they most
probably suggested the order, that the bishops and presbyters should
deliver all their sacred books into the hands of the magistrates; who
were commanded, under the severest penalties, to burn them in a public
and solemn manner. By the same edict, the property of the church was at
once confiscated; and the several parts of which it might consist
were either sold to the highest bidder, united to the Imperial domain,
bestowed on the cities and corporations, or granted to the solicitations
of rapacious courtiers. After taking such effectual measures to abolish
the worship, and to dissolve the government of the Christians, it was
thought necessary to subject to the most intolerable hardships the
condition of those perverse individuals who should still reject the
religion of nature, of Rome, and of their ancestors. Persons of
a liberal birth were declared incapable of holding any honors or
employments; slaves were forever deprived of the hopes of freedom, and
the whole body of the people were put out of the protection of the law.
The judges were authorized to hear and to determine every action that
was brought against a Christian. But the Christians were not permitted
to complain of any injury which they themselves had suffered; and thus
those unfortunate sectaries were exposed to the severity, while they
were excluded from the benefits, of public justice. This new species of
martyrdom, so painful and lingering, so obscure and ignominious, was,
perhaps, the most proper to weary the constancy of the faithful: nor can
it be doubted that the passions and interest of mankind were disposed on
this occasion to second the designs of the emperors. But the policy of a
well-ordered government must sometimes have interposed in behalf of
the oppressed Christians; * nor was it possible for the Roman princes
entirely to remove the apprehension of punishment, or to connive at
every act of fraud and violence, without exposing their own authority
and the rest of their subjects to the most alarming dangers.
This edict was scarcely exhibited to the public view, in the most
conspicuous place of Nicomedia, before it was torn down by the hands
of a Christian, who expressed at the same time, by the bitterest
invectives, his contempt as well as abhorrence for such impious and
tyrannical governors. His offence, according to the mildest laws,
amounted to treason, and deserved death. And if it be true that he was
a person of rank and education, those circumstances could serve only to
aggravate his guilt. He was burnt, or rather roasted, by a slow fire;
and his executioners, zealous to revenge the personal insult which had
been offered to the emperors, exhausted every refinement of cruelty,
without being able to subdue his patience, or to alter the steady and
insulting smile which in his dying agonies he still preserved in his
countenance. The Christians, though they confessed that his conduct
had not been strictly conformable to the laws of prudence, admired the
divine fervor of his zeal; and the excessive commendations which they
lavished on the memory of their hero and martyr, contributed to fix a
deep impression of terror and hatred in the mind of Diocletian.
His fears were soon alarmed by the view of a danger from which he very
narrowly escaped. Within fifteen days the palace of Nicomedia, and even
the bed-chamber of Diocletian, were twice in flames; and though both
times they were extinguished without any material damage, the singular
repetition of the fire was justly considered as an evident proof that it
had not been the effect of chance or negligence. The suspicion naturally
fell on the Christians; and it was suggested, with some degree of
probability, that those desperate fanatics, provoked by their present
sufferings, and apprehensive of impending calamities, had entered into
a conspiracy with their faithful brethren, the eunuchs of the
palace, against the lives of two emperors, whom they detested as the
irreconcilable enemies of the church of God. Jealousy and resentment
prevailed in every breast, but especially in that of Diocletian. A great
number of persons, distinguished either by the offices which they had
filled, or by the favor which they had enjoyed, were thrown into prison.
Every mode of torture was put in practice, and the court, as well as
city, was polluted with many bloody executions. But as it was found
impossible to extort any discovery of this mysterious transaction, it
seems incumbent on us either to presume the innocence, or to admire the
resolution, of the sufferers. A few days afterwards Galerius hastily
withdrew himself from Nicomedia, declaring, that if he delayed his
departure from that devoted palace, he should fall a sacrifice to the
rage of the Christians. The ecclesiastical historians, from whom alone
we derive a partial and imperfect knowledge of this persecution, are at
a loss how to account for the fears and dangers of the emperors. Two
of these writers, a prince and a rhetorician, were eye-witnesses of
the fire of Nicomedia. The one ascribes it to lightning, and the divine
wrath; the other affirms, that it was kindled by the malice of Galerius
himself.
As the edict against the Christians was designed for a general law of
the whole empire, and as Diocletian and Galerius, though they might not
wait for the consent, were assured of the concurrence, of the Western
princes, it would appear more consonant to our ideas of policy, that the
governors of all the provinces should have received secret instructions
to publish, on one and the same day, this declaration of war within
their respective departments. It was at least to be expected, that the
convenience of the public highways and established posts would have
enabled the emperors to transmit their orders with the utmost despatch
from the palace of Nicomedia to the extremities of the Roman world; and
that they would not have suffered fifty days to elapse, before the edict
was published in Syria, and near four months before it was signified to
the cities of Africa. This delay may perhaps be imputed to the cautious
temper of Diocletian, who had yielded a reluctant consent to the
measures of persecution, and who was desirous of trying the experiment
under his more immediate eye, before he gave way to the disorders and
discontent which it must inevitably occasion in the distant provinces.
At first, indeed, the magistrates were restrained from the effusion
of blood; but the use of every other severity was permitted, and
even recommended to their zeal; nor could the Christians, though
they cheerfully resigned the ornaments of their churches, resolve to
interrupt their religious assemblies, or to deliver their sacred books
to the flames. The pious obstinacy of Felix, an African bishop, appears
to have embarrassed the subordinate ministers of the government. The
curator of his city sent him in chains to the proconsul. The proconsul
transmitted him to the PrÊtorian prÊfect of Italy; and Felix, who
disdained even to give an evasive answer, was at length beheaded at
Venusia, in Lucania, a place on which the birth of Horace has conferred
fame. This precedent, and perhaps some Imperial rescript, which was
issued in consequence of it, appeared to authorize the governors of
provinces, in punishing with death the refusal of the Christians to
deliver up their sacred books. There were undoubtedly many persons who
embraced this opportunity of obtaining the crown of martyrdom; but there
were likewise too many who purchased an ignominious life, by discovering
and betraying the holy Scripture into the hands of infidels. A great
number even of bishops and presbyters acquired, by this criminal
compliance, the opprobrious epithet of Traditors; and their offence was
productive of much present scandal and of much future discord in the
African church.
The copies as well as the versions of Scripture, were already so
multiplied in the empire, that the most severe inquisition could no
longer be attended with any fatal consequences; and even the sacrifice
of those volumes, which, in every congregation, were preserved for
public use, required the consent of some treacherous and unworthy
Christians. But the ruin of the churches was easily effected by the
authority of the government, and by the labor of the Pagans. In some
provinces, however, the magistrates contented themselves with shutting
up the places of religious worship. In others, they more literally
complied with the terms of the edict; and after taking away the doors,
the benches, and the pulpit, which they burnt as it were in a funeral
pile, they completely demolished the remainder of the edifice. It
is perhaps to this melancholy occasion that we should apply a very
remarkable story, which is related with so many circumstances of variety
and improbability, that it serves rather to excite than to satisfy
our curiosity. In a small town in Phrygia, of whose names as well as
situation we are left ignorant, it should seem that the magistrates and
the body of the people had embraced the Christian faith; and as some
resistance might be apprehended to the execution of the edict, the
governor of the province was supported by a numerous detachment of
legionaries. On their approach the citizens threw themselves into the
church, with the resolution either of defending by arms that sacred
edifice, or of perishing in its ruins. They indignantly rejected the
notice and permission which was given them to retire, till the soldiers,
provoked by their obstinate refusal, set fire to the building on all
sides, and consumed, by this extraordinary kind of martyrdom, a great
number of Phrygians, with their wives and children.
Some slight disturbances, though they were suppressed almost as soon as
excited, in Syria and the frontiers of Armenia, afforded the enemies of
the church a very plausible occasion to insinuate, that those troubles
had been secretly fomented by the intrigues of the bishops, who
had already forgotten their ostentatious professions of passive and
unlimited obedience. The resentment, or the fears, of Diocletian, at
length transported him beyond the bounds of moderation, which he had
hitherto preserved, and he declared, in a series of cruel edicts,
his intention of abolishing the Christian name. By the first of these
edicts, the governors of the provinces were directed to apprehend all
persons of the ecclesiastical order; and the prisons, destined for
the vilest criminals, were soon filled with a multitude of bishops,
presbyters, deacons, readers, and exorcists. By a second edict, the
magistrates were commanded to employ every method of severity, which
might reclaim them from their odious superstition, and oblige them to
return to the established worship of the gods. This rigorous order was
extended, by a subsequent edict, to the whole body of Christians, who
were exposed to a violent and general persecution. Instead of those
salutary restraints, which had required the direct and solemn testimony
of an accuser, it became the duty as well as the interest of the
Imperial officers to discover, to pursue, and to torment the most
obnoxious among the faithful. Heavy penalties were denounced against
all who should presume to save a prescribed sectary from the just
indignation of the gods, and of the emperors. Yet, notwithstanding the
severity of this law, the virtuous courage of many of the Pagans, in
concealing their friends or relations, affords an honorable proof,
that the rage of superstition had not extinguished in their minds the
sentiments of nature and humanity.
Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
Constantine.--Part VII.
Diocletian had no sooner published his edicts against the Christians,
than, as if he had been desirous of committing to other hands the
work of persecution, he divested himself of the Imperial purple. The
character and situation of his colleagues and successors sometimes urged
them to enforce and sometimes inclined them to suspend, the execution of
these rigorous laws; nor can we acquire a just and distinct idea of
this important period of ecclesiastical history, unless we separately
consider the state of Christianity, in the different parts of the
empire, during the space of ten years, which elapsed between the first
edicts of Diocletian and the final peace of the church.
The mild and humane temper of Constantius was averse to the oppression
of any part of his subjects. The principal offices of his palace
were exercised by Christians. He loved their persons, esteemed their
fidelity, and entertained not any dislike to their religious principles.
But as long as Constantius remained in the subordinate station of CÊsar,
it was not in his power openly to reject the edicts of Diocletian, or to
disobey the commands of Maximian. His authority contributed, however, to
alleviate the sufferings which he pitied and abhorred. He consented with
reluctance to the ruin of the churches; but he ventured to protect the
Christians themselves from the fury of the populace, and from the rigor
of the laws. The provinces of Gaul (under which we may probably include
those of Britain) were indebted for the singular tranquillity which they
enjoyed, to the gentle interposition of their sovereign. But Datianus,
the president or governor of Spain, actuated either by zeal or policy,
chose rather to execute the public edicts of the emperors, than to
understand the secret intentions of Constantius; and it can scarcely be
doubted, that his provincial administration was stained with the blood
of a few martyrs. The elevation of Constantius to the supreme and
independent dignity of Augustus, gave a free scope to the exercise of
his virtues, and the shortness of his reign did not prevent him from
establishing a system of toleration, of which he left the precept and
the example to his son Constantine. His fortunate son, from the first
moment of his accession, declaring himself the protector of the church,
at length deserved the appellation of the first emperor who publicly
professed and established the Christian religion. The motives of his
conversion, as they may variously be deduced from benevolence, from
policy, from conviction, or from remorse, and the progress of the
revolution, which, under his powerful influence and that of his sons,
rendered Christianity the reigning religion of the Roman empire, will
form a very interesting and important chapter in the present volume of
this history. At present it may be sufficient to observe, that every
victory of Constantine was productive of some relief or benefit to the
church.
The provinces of Italy and Africa experienced a short but violent
persecution. The rigorous edicts of Diocletian were strictly and
cheerfully executed by his associate Maximian, who had long hated the
Christians, and who delighted in acts of blood and violence. In the
autumn of the first year of the persecution, the two emperors met at
Rome to celebrate their triumph; several oppressive laws appear to
have issued from their secret consultations, and the diligence of the
magistrates was animated by the presence of their sovereigns., After
Diocletian had divested himself of the purple, Italy and Africa were
administered under the name of Severus, and were exposed, without
defence, to the implacable resentment of his master Galerius. Among the
martyrs of Rome, Adauctus deserves the notice of posterity. He was of
a noble family in Italy, and had raised himself, through the successive
honors of the palace, to the important office of treasurer of the
private Jemesnes. Adauctus is the more remarkable for being the only
person of rank and distinction who appears to have suffered death,
during the whole course of this general persecution.
The revolt of Maxentius immediately restored peace to the churches of
Italy and Africa; and the same tyrant who oppressed every other class of
his subjects, showed himself just, humane, and even partial, towards the
afflicted Christians. He depended on their gratitude and affection, and
very naturally presumed, that the injuries which they had suffered, and
the dangers which they still apprehended from his most inveterate enemy,
would secure the fidelity of a party already considerable by their
numbers and opulence. Even the conduct of Maxentius towards the bishops
of Rome and Carthage may be considered as the proof of his toleration,
since it is probable that the most orthodox princes would adopt the same
measures with regard to their established clergy. Marcellus, the former
of these prelates, had thrown the capital into confusion, by the severe
penance which he imposed on a great number of Christians, who, during
the late persecution, had renounced or dissembled their religion. The
rage of faction broke out in frequent and violent seditions; the
blood of the faithful was shed by each other's hands, and the exile of
Marcellus, whose prudence seems to have been less eminent than his
zeal, was found to be the only measure capable of restoring peace to
the distracted church of Rome. The behavior of Mensurius, bishop of
Carthage, appears to have been still more reprehensible. A deacon of
that city had published a libel against the emperor. The offender took
refuge in the episcopal palace; and though it was somewhat early to
advance any claims of ecclesiastical immunities, the bishop refused
to deliver him up to the officers of justice. For this treasonable
resistance, Mensurius was summoned to court, and instead of receiving a
legal sentence of death or banishment, he was permitted, after a short
examination, to return to his diocese. Such was the happy condition of
the Christian subjects of Maxentius, that whenever they were desirous of
procuring for their own use any bodies of martyrs, they were obliged to
purchase them from the most distant provinces of the East. A story is
related of AglÊ, a Roman lady, descended from a consular family, and
possessed of so ample an estate, that it required the management of
seventy-three stewards. Among these Boniface was the favorite of his
mistress; and as AglÊ mixed love with devotion, it is reported that he
was admitted to share her bed. Her fortune enabled her to gratify
the pious desire of obtaining some sacred relics from the East. She
intrusted Boniface with a considerable sum of gold, and a large quantity
of aromatics; and her lover, attended by twelve horsemen and three
covered chariots, undertook a remote pilgrimage, as far as Tarsus in
Cilicia.
The sanguinary temper of Galerius, the first and principal author of the
persecution, was formidable to those Christians whom their misfortunes
had placed within the limits of his dominions; and it may fairly be
presumed that many persons of a middle rank, who were not confined by
the chains either of wealth or of poverty, very frequently deserted
their native country, and sought a refuge in the milder climate of
the West. As long as he commanded only the armies and provinces of
Illyricum, he could with difficulty either find or make a considerable
number of martyrs, in a warlike country, which had entertained the
missionaries of the gospel with more coldness and reluctance than any
other part of the empire. But when Galerius had obtained the supreme
power, and the government of the East, he indulged in their fullest
extent his zeal and cruelty, not only in the provinces of Thrace and
Asia, which acknowledged his immediate jurisdiction, but in those
of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, where Maximin gratified his own
inclination, by yielding a rigorous obedience to the stern commands of
his benefactor. The frequent disappointments of his ambitious views,
the experience of six years of persecution, and the salutary reflections
which a lingering and painful distemper suggested to the mind of
Galerius, at length convinced him that the most violent efforts of
despotism are insufficient to extirpate a whole people, or to subdue
their religious prejudices. Desirous of repairing the mischief that he
had occasioned, he published in his own name, and in those of Licinius
and Constantine, a general edict, which, after a pompous recital of the
Imperial titles, proceeded in the following manner:--
"Among the important cares which have occupied our mind for the utility
and preservation of the empire, it was our intention to correct
and reestablish all things according to the ancient laws and public
discipline of the Romans. We were particularly desirous of reclaiming
into the way of reason and nature, the deluded Christians who had
renounced the religion and ceremonies instituted by their fathers;
and presumptuously despising the practice of antiquity, had invented
extravagant laws and opinions, according to the dictates of their fancy,
and had collected a various society from the different provinces of our
empire. The edicts, which we have published to enforce the worship of
the gods, having exposed many of the Christians to danger and distress,
many having suffered death, and many more, who still persist in their
impious folly, being left destitute of any public exercise of religion,
we are disposed to extend to those unhappy men the effects of our wonted
clemency. We permit them therefore freely to profess their private
opinions, and to assemble in their conventicles without fear or
molestation, provided always that they preserve a due respect to the
established laws and government. By another rescript we shall signify
our intentions to the judges and magistrates; and we hope that our
indulgence will engage the Christians to offer up their prayers to the
Deity whom they adore, for our safety and prosperity for their own, and
for that of the republic." It is not usually in the language of edicts
and manifestos that we should search for the real character or the
secret motives of princes; but as these were the words of a dying
emperor, his situation, perhaps, may be admitted as a pledge of his
sincerity.
When Galerius subscribed this edict of toleration, he was well assured
that Licinius would readily comply with the inclinations of his friend
and benefactor, and that any measures in favor of the Christians would
obtain the approbation of Constantine. But the emperor would not venture
to insert in the preamble the name of Maximin, whose consent was of
the greatest importance, and who succeeded a few days afterwards to the
provinces of Asia. In the first six months, however, of his new reign,
Maximin affected to adopt the prudent counsels of his predecessor; and
though he never condescended to secure the tranquillity of the church
by a public edict, Sabinus, his PrÊtorian prÊfect, addressed a
circular letter to all the governors and magistrates of the provinces,
expatiating on the Imperial clemency, acknowledging the invincible
obstinacy of the Christians, and directing the officers of justice
to cease their ineffectual prosecutions, and to connive at the secret
assemblies of those enthusiasts. In consequence of these orders, great
numbers of Christians were released from prison, or delivered from the
mines. The confessors, singing hymns of triumph, returned into their
own countries; and those who had yielded to the violence of the tempest,
solicited with tears of repentance their readmission into the bosom of
the church.
But this treacherous calm was of short duration; nor could the
Christians of the East place any confidence in the character of their
sovereign. Cruelty and superstition were the ruling passions of the soul
of Maximin. The former suggested the means, the latter pointed out the
objects of persecution. The emperor was devoted to the worship of the
gods, to the study of magic, and to the belief of oracles. The prophets
or philosophers, whom he revered as the favorites of Heaven, were
frequently raised to the government of provinces, and admitted into his
most secret councils. They easily convinced him that the Christians had
been indebted for their victories to their regular discipline, and that
the weakness of polytheism had principally flowed from a want of
union and subordination among the ministers of religion. A system of
government was therefore instituted, which was evidently copied from the
policy of the church. In all the great cities of the empire, the
temples were repaired and beautified by the order of Maximin, and
the officiating priests of the various deities were subjected to the
authority of a superior pontiff destined to oppose the bishop, and to
promote the cause of paganism. These pontiffs acknowledged, in their
turn, the supreme jurisdiction of the metropolitans or high priests
of the province, who acted as the immediate vicegerents of the emperor
himself. A white robe was the ensign of their dignity; and these
new prelates were carefully selected from the most noble and opulent
families. By the influence of the magistrates, and of the sacerdotal
order, a great number of dutiful addresses were obtained, particularly
from the cities of Nicomedia, Antioch, and Tyre, which artfully
represented the well-known intentions of the court as the general sense
of the people; solicited the emperor to consult the laws of justice
rather than the dictates of his clemency; expressed their abhorrence of
the Christians, and humbly prayed that those impious sectaries might at
least be excluded from the limits of their respective territories. The
answer of Maximin to the address which he obtained from the citizens of
Tyre is still extant. He praises their zeal and devotion in terms of
the highest satisfaction, descants on the obstinate impiety of the
Christians, and betrays, by the readiness with which he consents to
their banishment, that he considered himself as receiving, rather than
as conferring, an obligation. The priests as well as the magistrates
were empowered to enforce the execution of his edicts, which were
engraved on tables of brass; and though it was recommended to them to
avoid the effusion of blood, the most cruel and ignominious punishments
were inflicted on the refractory Christians.
The Asiatic Christians had every thing to dread from the severity of
a bigoted monarch who prepared his measures of violence with such
deliberate policy. But a few months had scarcely elapsed before the
edicts published by the two Western emperors obliged Maximin to suspend
the prosecution of his designs: the civil war which he so rashly
undertook against Licinius employed all his attention; and the defeat
and death of Maximin soon delivered the church from the last and most
implacable of her enemies.
In this general view of the persecution, which was first authorized by
the edicts of Diocletian, I have purposely refrained from describing the
particular sufferings and deaths of the Christian martyrs. It would have
been an easy task, from the history of Eusebius, from the declamations
of Lactantius, and from the most ancient acts, to collect a long series
of horrid and disgustful pictures, and to fill many pages with racks and
scourges, with iron hooks and red-hot beds, and with all the variety
of tortures which fire and steel, savage beasts, and more savage
executioners, could inflict upon the human body. These melancholy scenes
might be enlivened by a crowd of visions and miracles destined either to
delay the death, to celebrate the triumph, or to discover the relics of
those canonized saints who suffered for the name of Christ. But I cannot
determine what I ought to transcribe, till I am satisfied how much I
ought to believe. The gravest of the ecclesiastical historians, Eusebius
himself, indirectly confesses, that he has related whatever might
redound to the glory, and that he has suppressed all that could tend to
the disgrace, of religion. Such an acknowledgment will naturally
excite a suspicion that a writer who has so openly violated one of the
fundamental laws of history, has not paid a very strict regard to the
observance of the other; and the suspicion will derive additional
credit from the character of Eusebius, * which was less tinctured with
credulity, and more practised in the arts of courts, than that of
almost any of his contemporaries. On some particular occasions, when
the magistrates were exasperated by some personal motives of interest or
resentment, the rules of prudence, and perhaps of decency, to overturn
the altars, to pour out imprecations against the emperors, or to strike
the judge as he sat on his tribunal, it may be presumed, that every mode
of torture which cruelty could invent, or constancy could endure, was
exhausted on those devoted victims. Two circumstances, however, have
been unwarily mentioned, which insinuate that the general treatment of
the Christians, who had been apprehended by the officers of justice,
was less intolerable than it is usually imagined to have been. 1. The
confessors who were condemned to work in the mines were permitted by the
humanity or the negligence of their keepers to build chapels, and freely
to profess their religion in the midst of those dreary habitations. 2.
The bishops were obliged to check and to censure the forward zeal of
the Christians, who voluntarily threw themselves into the hands of the
magistrates. Some of these were persons oppressed by poverty and debts,
who blindly sought to terminate a miserable existence by a glorious
death. Others were allured by the hope that a short confinement would
expiate the sins of a whole life; and others again were actuated by the
less honorable motive of deriving a plentiful subsistence, and perhaps
a considerable profit, from the alms which the charity of the faithful
bestowed on the prisoners. After the church had triumphed over all her
enemies, the interest as well as vanity of the captives prompted them to
magnify the merit of their respective sufferings. A convenient distance
of time or place gave an ample scope to the progress of fiction; and the
frequent instances which might be alleged of holy martyrs, whose wounds
had been instantly healed, whose strength had been renewed, and whose
lost members had miraculously been restored, were extremely convenient
for the purpose of removing every difficulty, and of silencing every
objection. The most extravagant legends, as they conduced to the honor
of the church, were applauded by the credulous multitude, countenanced
by the power of the clergy, and attested by the suspicious evidence of
ecclesiastical history.
Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
Constantine.--Part VIII.
The vague descriptions of exile and imprisonment, of pain and torture,
are so easily exaggerated or softened by the pencil of an artful
orator, * that we are naturally induced to inquire into a fact of a more
distinct and stubborn kind; the number of persons who suffered death in
consequence of the edicts published by Diocletian, his associates, and
his successors. The recent legendaries record whole armies and
cities, which were at once swept away by the undistinguishing rage of
persecution. The more ancient writers content themselves with pouring
out a liberal effusion of loose and tragical invectives, without
condescending to ascertain the precise number of those persons who were
permitted to seal with their blood their belief of the gospel. From
the history of Eusebius, it may, however, be collected, that only nine
bishops were punished with death; and we are assured, by his particular
enumeration of the martyrs of Palestine, that no more than ninety-two
Christians were entitled to that honorable appellation. As we are
unacquainted with the degree of episcopal zeal and courage which
prevailed at that time, it is not in our power to draw any useful
inferences from the former of these facts: but the latter may serve
to justify a very important and probable conclusion. According to the
distribution of Roman provinces, Palestine may be considered as
the sixteenth part of the Eastern empire: and since there were some
governors, who from a real or affected clemency had preserved their
hands unstained with the blood of the faithful, it is reasonable
to believe, that the country which had given birth to Christianity,
produced at least the sixteenth part of the martyrs who suffered
death within the dominions of Galerius and Maximin; the whole might
consequently amount to about fifteen hundred, a number which, if it is
equally divided between the ten years of the persecution, will allow an
annual consumption of one hundred and fifty martyrs. Allotting the same
proportion to the provinces of Italy, Africa, and perhaps Spain, where,
at the end of two or three years, the rigor of the penal laws was either
suspended or abolished, the multitude of Christians in the Roman empire,
on whom a capital punishment was inflicted by a judicial, sentence, will
be reduced to somewhat less than two thousand persons. Since it cannot
be doubted that the Christians were more numerous, and their enemies
more exasperated, in the time of Diocletian, than they had ever been in
any former persecution, this probable and moderate computation may teach
us to estimate the number of primitive saints and martyrs who sacrificed
their lives for the important purpose of introducing Christianity into
the world.
We shall conclude this chapter by a melancholy truth, which obtrudes
itself on the reluctant mind; that even admitting, without hesitation or
inquiry, all that history has recorded, or devotion has feigned, on
the subject of martyrdoms, it must still be acknowledged, that the
Christians, in the course of their intestine dissensions, have inflicted
far greater severities on each other, than they had experienced from
the zeal of infidels. During the ages of ignorance which followed the
subversion of the Roman empire in the West, the bishops of the Imperial
city extended their dominion over the laity as well as clergy of the
Latin church. The fabric of superstition which they had erected, and
which might long have defied the feeble efforts of reason, was at length
assaulted by a crowd of daring fanatics, who from the twelfth to the
sixteenth century assumed the popular character of reformers. The church
of Rome defended by violence the empire which she had acquired by fraud;
a system of peace and benevolence was soon disgraced by proscriptions,
war, massacres, and the institution of the holy office. And as the
reformers were animated by the love of civil as well as of religious
freedom, the Catholic princes connected their own interest with that of
the clergy, and enforced by fire and the sword the terrors of spiritual
censures. In the Netherlands alone, more than one hundred thousand of
the subjects of Charles V. are said to have suffered by the hand of the
executioner; and this extraordinary number is attested by Grotius, a man
of genius and learning, who preserved his moderation amidst the fury
of contending sects, and who composed the annals of his own age and
country, at a time when the invention of printing had facilitated the
means of intelligence, and increased the danger of detection. If we are
obliged to submit our belief to the authority of Grotius, it must be
allowed, that the number of Protestants, who were executed in a single
province and a single reign, far exceeded that of the primitive martyrs
in the space of three centuries, and of the Roman empire. But if the
improbability of the fact itself should prevail over the weight of
evidence; if Grotius should be convicted of exaggerating the merit and
sufferings of the Reformers; we shall be naturally led to inquire what
confidence can be placed in the doubtful and imperfect monuments of
ancient credulity; what degree of credit can be assigned to a courtly
bishop, and a passionate declaimer, * who, under the protection
of Constantine, enjoyed the exclusive privilege of recording the
persecutions inflicted on the Christians by the vanquished rivals or
disregarded predecessors of their gracious sovereign.
Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.--Part I.
Foundation Of Constantinople.--Political System Constantine,
And His Successors.--Military Discipline.--The Palace.--The
Finances.
The unfortunate Licinius was the last rival who opposed the greatness,
and the last captive who adorned the triumph, of Constantine. After a
tranquil and prosperous reign, the conqueror bequeathed to his family
the inheritance of the Roman empire; a new capital, a new policy, and
a new religion; and the innovations which he established have been
embraced and consecrated by succeeding generations. The age of the
great Constantine and his sons is filled with important events; but
the historian must be oppressed by their number and variety, unless he
diligently separates from each other the scenes which are connected only
by the order of time. He will describe the political institutions that
gave strength and stability to the empire, before he proceeds to relate
the wars and revolutions which hastened its decline. He will adopt the
division unknown to the ancients of civil and ecclesiastical affairs:
the victory of the Christians, and their intestine discord, will supply
copious and distinct materials both for edification and for scandal.
After the defeat and abdication of Licinius, his victorious rival
proceeded to lay the foundations of a city destined to reign in future
times, the mistress of the East, and to survive the empire and religion
of Constantine. The motives, whether of pride or of policy, which
first induced Diocletian to withdraw himself from the ancient seat
of government, had acquired additional weight by the example of
his successors, and the habits of forty years. Rome was insensibly
confounded with the dependent kingdoms which had once acknowledged
her supremacy; and the country of the CÊsars was viewed with cold
indifference by a martial prince, born in the neighborhood of the
Danube, educated in the courts and armies of Asia, and invested with
the purple by the legions of Britain. The Italians, who had received
Constantine as their deliverer, submissively obeyed the edicts which he
sometimes condescended to address to the senate and people of Rome;
but they were seldom honored with the presence of their new sovereign.
During the vigor of his age, Constantine, according to the various
exigencies of peace and war, moved with slow dignity, or with active
diligence, along the frontiers of his extensive dominions; and was
always prepared to take the field either against a foreign or a domestic
enemy. But as he gradually reached the summit of prosperity and the
decline of life, he began to meditate the design of fixing in a more
permanent station the strength as well as majesty of the throne. In the
choice of an advantageous situation, he preferred the confines of Europe
and Asia; to curb with a powerful arm the barbarians who dwelt between
the Danube and the Tanais; to watch with an eye of jealousy the conduct
of the Persian monarch, who indignantly supported the yoke of an
ignominious treaty. With these views, Diocletian had selected and
embellished the residence of Nicomedia: but the memory of Diocletian was
justly abhorred by the protector of the church: and Constantine was not
insensible to the ambition of founding a city which might perpetuate
the glory of his own name. During the late operations of the war against
Licinius, he had sufficient opportunity to contemplate, both as a
soldier and as a statesman, the incomparable position of Byzantium;
and to observe how strongly it was guarded by nature against a hostile
attack, whilst it was accessible on every side to the benefits of
commercial intercourse. Many ages before Constantine, one of the most
judicious historians of antiquity had described the advantages of a
situation, from whence a feeble colony of Greeks derived the command of
the sea, and the honors of a flourishing and independent republic.
If we survey Byzantium in the extent which it acquired with the
august name of Constantinople, the figure of the Imperial city may be
represented under that of an unequal triangle. The obtuse point, which
advances towards the east and the shores of Asia, meets and repels
the waves of the Thracian Bosphorus. The northern side of the city is
bounded by the harbor; and the southern is washed by the Propontis, or
Sea of Marmara. The basis of the triangle is opposed to the west, and
terminates the continent of Europe. But the admirable form and division
of the circumjacent land and water cannot, without a more ample
explanation, be clearly or sufficiently understood.
The winding channel through which the waters of the Euxine flow with
a rapid and incessant course towards the Mediterranean, received the
appellation of Bosphorus, a name not less celebrated in the history,
than in the fables, of antiquity. A crowd of temples and of votive
altars, profusely scattered along its steep and woody banks, attested
the unskilfulness, the terrors, and the devotion of the Grecian
navigators, who, after the example of the Argonauts, explored the
dangers of the inhospitable Euxine. On these banks tradition long
preserved the memory of the palace of Phineus, infested by the obscene
harpies; and of the sylvan reign of Amycus, who defied the son of Leda
to the combat of the cestus. The straits of the Bosphorus are terminated
by the Cyanean rocks, which, according to the description of the poets,
had once floated on the face of the waters; and were destined by the
gods to protect the entrance of the Euxine against the eye of profane
curiosity. From the Cyanean rocks to the point and harbor of Byzantium,
the winding length of the Bosphorus extends about sixteen miles, and its
most ordinary breadth may be computed at about one mile and a half. The
new castles of Europe and Asia are constructed, on either continent,
upon the foundations of two celebrated temples, of Serapis and of
Jupiter Urius. The oldcastles, a work of the Greek emperors, command
the narrowest part of the channel in a place where the opposite banks
advance within five hundred paces of each other. These fortresses were
destroyed and strengthened by Mahomet the Second, when he meditated the
siege of Constantinople: but the Turkish conqueror was most probably
ignorant, that near two thousand years before his reign, continents by
a bridge of boats. At a small distance from the old castles we discover
the little town of Chrysopolis, or Scutari, which may almost be
considered as the Asiatic suburb of Constantinople. The Bosphorus, as
it begins to open into the Propontis, passes between Byzantium and
Chalcedon. The latter of those cities was built by the Greeks, a
few years before the former; and the blindness of its founders, who
overlooked the superior advantages of the opposite coast, has been
stigmatized by a proverbial expression of contempt.
The harbor of Constantinople, which may be considered as an arm of the
Bosphorus, obtained, in a very remote period, the denomination of the
Golden Horn. The curve which it describes might be compared to the horn
of a stag, or as it should seem, with more propriety, to that of an
ox. The epithet of golden was expressive of the riches which every wind
wafted from the most distant countries into the secure and capacious
port of Constantinople. The River Lycus, formed by the conflux of two
little streams, pours into the harbor a perpetual supply of fresh water,
which serves to cleanse the bottom, and to invite the periodical
shoals of fish to seek their retreat in that convenient recess. As the
vicissitudes of tides are scarcely felt in those seas, the constant
depth of the harbor allows goods to be landed on the quays without the
assistance of boats; and it has been observed, that in many places the
largest vessels may rest their prows against the houses, while their
sterns are floating in the water. From the mouth of the Lycus to that
of the harbor, this arm of the Bosphorus is more than seven miles in
length. The entrance is about five hundred yards broad, and a strong
chain could be occasionally drawn across it, to guard the port and city
from the attack of a hostile navy.
Between the Bosphorus and the Hellespont, the shores of Europe and Asia,
receding on either side, enclose the sea of Marmara, which was known to
the ancients by the denomination of Propontis. The navigation from the
issue of the Bosphorus to the entrance of the Hellespont is about one
hundred and twenty miles. Those who steer their westward course through
the middle of the Propontis, amt at once descry the high lands of Thrace
and Bithynia, and never lose sight of the lofty summit of Mount Olympus,
covered with eternal snows. They leave on the left a deep gulf, at
the bottom of which Nicomedia was seated, the Imperial residence of
Diocletian; and they pass the small islands of Cyzicus and Proconnesus
before they cast anchor at Gallipoli; where the sea, which separates
Asia from Europe, is again contracted into a narrow channel.
The geographers who, with the most skilful accuracy, have surveyed the
form and extent of the Hellespont, assign about sixty miles for the
winding course, and about three miles for the ordinary breadth of those
celebrated straits. But the narrowest part of the channel is found to
the northward of the old Turkish castles between the cities of Sestus
and Abydus. It was here that the adventurous Leander braved the passage
of the flood for the possession of his mistress. It was here likewise,
in a place where the distance between the opposite banks cannot exceed
five hundred paces, that Xerxes imposed a stupendous bridge of boats,
for the purpose of transporting into Europe a hundred and seventy
myriads of barbarians. A sea contracted within such narrow limits may
seem but ill to deserve the singular epithet of broad, which Homer, as
well as Orpheus, has frequently bestowed on the Hellespont. * But
our ideas of greatness are of a relative nature: the traveller, and
especially the poet, who sailed along the Hellespont, who pursued
the windings of the stream, and contemplated the rural scenery, which
appeared on every side to terminate the prospect, insensibly lost the
remembrance of the sea; and his fancy painted those celebrated straits,
with all the attributes of a mighty river flowing with a swift current,
in the midst of a woody and inland country, and at length, through a
wide mouth, discharging itself into the ∆gean or Archipelago. Ancient
Troy, seated on a an eminence at the foot of Mount Ida, overlooked the
mouth of the Hellespont, which scarcely received an accession of waters
from the tribute of those immortal rivulets the Simois and Scamander.
The Grecian camp had stretched twelve miles along the shore from the
SigÊan to the RhÊtean promontory; and the flanks of the army were
guarded by the bravest chiefs who fought under the banners of Agamemnon.
The first of those promontories was occupied by Achilles with his
invincible myrmidons, and the dauntless Ajax pitched his tents on the
other. After Ajax had fallen a sacrifice to his disappointed pride,
and to the ingratitude of the Greeks, his sepulchre was erected on the
ground where he had defended the navy against the rage of Jove and of
Hector; and the citizens of the rising town of RhÊteum celebrated his
memory with divine honors. Before Constantine gave a just preference to
the situation of Byzantium, he had conceived the design of erecting the
seat of empire on this celebrated spot, from whence the Romans derived
their fabulous origin. The extensive plain which lies below ancient
Troy, towards the RhÊtean promontory and the tomb of Ajax, was first
chosen for his new capital; and though the undertaking was soon
relinquished the stately remains of unfinished walls and towers
attracted the notice of all who sailed through the straits of the
Hellespont.
We are at present qualified to view the advantageous position of
Constantinople; which appears to have been formed by nature for the
centre and capital of a great monarchy. Situated in the forty-first
degree of latitude, the Imperial city commanded, from her seven hills,
the opposite shores of Europe and Asia; the climate was healthy and
temperate, the soil fertile, the harbor secure and capacious; and the
approach on the side of the continent was of small extent and easy
defence. The Bosphorus and the Hellespont may be considered as the two
gates of Constantinople; and the prince who possessed those important
passages could always shut them against a naval enemy, and open them to
the fleets of commerce. The preservation of the eastern provinces
may, in some degree, be ascribed to the policy of Constantine, as the
barbarians of the Euxine, who in the preceding age had poured their
armaments into the heart of the Mediterranean, soon desisted from
the exercise of piracy, and despaired of forcing this insurmountable
barrier. When the gates of the Hellespont and Bosphorus were shut, the
capital still enjoyed within their spacious enclosure every production
which could supply the wants, or gratify the luxury, of its numerous
inhabitants. The sea-coasts of Thrace and Bithynia, which languish
under the weight of Turkish oppression, still exhibit a rich prospect of
vineyards, of gardens, and of plentiful harvests; and the Propontis
has ever been renowned for an inexhaustible store of the most exquisite
fish, that are taken in their stated seasons, without skill, and almost
without labor. But when the passages of the straits were thrown open for
trade, they alternately admitted the natural and artificial riches of
the north and south, of the Euxine, and of the Mediterranean. Whatever
rude commodities were collected in the forests of Germany and Scythia,
and far as the sources of the Tanais and the Borysthenes; whatsoever was
manufactured by the skill of Europe or Asia; the corn of Egypt, and the
gems and spices of the farthest India, were brought by the varying
winds into the port of Constantinople, which for many ages attracted the
commerce of the ancient world.
[See Basilica Of Constantinople]
The prospect of beauty, of safety, and of wealth, united in a single
spot, was sufficient to justify the choice of Constantine. But as some
decent mixture of prodigy and fable has, in every age, been supposed to
reflect a becoming majesty on the origin of great cities, the emperor
was desirous of ascribing his resolution, not so much to the uncertain
counsels of human policy, as to the infallible and eternal decrees
of divine wisdom. In one of his laws he has been careful to instruct
posterity, that in obedience to the commands of God, he laid the
everlasting foundations of Constantinople: and though he has not
condescended to relate in what manner the celestial inspiration was
communicated to his mind, the defect of his modest silence has been
liberally supplied by the ingenuity of succeeding writers; who describe
the nocturnal vision which appeared to the fancy of Constantine, as he
slept within the walls of Byzantium. The tutelar genius of the city, a
venerable matron sinking under the weight of years and infirmities, was
suddenly transformed into a blooming maid, whom his own hands adorned
with all the symbols of Imperial greatness. The monarch awoke,
interpreted the auspicious omen, and obeyed, without hesitation,
the will of Heaven The day which gave birth to a city or colony was
celebrated by the Romans with such ceremonies as had been ordained by
a generous superstition; and though Constantine might omit some rites
which savored too strongly of their Pagan origin, yet he was anxious
to leave a deep impression of hope and respect on the minds of the
spectators. On foot, with a lance in his hand, the emperor himself led
the solemn procession; and directed the line, which was traced as the
boundary of the destined capital: till the growing circumference was
observed with astonishment by the assistants, who, at length, ventured
to observe, that he had already exceeded the most ample measure of a
great city. "I shall still advance," replied Constantine, "till He, the
invisible guide who marches before me, thinks proper to stop." Without
presuming to investigate the nature or motives of this extraordinary
conductor, we shall content ourselves with the more humble task of
describing the extent and limits of Constantinople.
In the actual state of the city, the palace and gardens of the Seraglio
occupy the eastern promontory, the first of the seven hills, and cover
about one hundred and fifty acres of our own measure. The seat of
Turkish jealousy and despotism is erected on the foundations of a
Grecian republic; but it may be supposed that the Byzantines were
tempted by the conveniency of the harbor to extend their habitations
on that side beyond the modern limits of the Seraglio. The new walls of
Constantine stretched from the port to the Propontis across the enlarged
breadth of the triangle, at the distance of fifteen stadia from the
ancient fortification; and with the city of Byzantium they enclosed
five of the seven hills, which, to the eyes of those who approach
Constantinople, appear to rise above each other in beautiful order.
About a century after the death of the founder, the new buildings,
extending on one side up the harbor, and on the other along the
Propontis, already covered the narrow ridge of the sixth, and the broad
summit of the seventh hill. The necessity of protecting those suburbs
from the incessant inroads of the barbarians engaged the younger
Theodosius to surround his capital with an adequate and permanent
enclosure of walls. From the eastern promontory to the golden gate,
the extreme length of Constantinople was about three Roman miles; the
circumference measured between ten and eleven; and the surface might be
computed as equal to about two thousand English acres. It is impossible
to justify the vain and credulous exaggerations of modern travellers,
who have sometimes stretched the limits of Constantinople over the
adjacent villages of the European, and even of the Asiatic coast. But
the suburbs of Pera and Galata, though situate beyond the harbor, may
deserve to be considered as a part of the city; and this addition may
perhaps authorize the measure of a Byzantine historian, who assigns
sixteen Greek (about fourteen Roman) miles for the circumference of
his native city. Such an extent may not seem unworthy of an Imperial
residence. Yet Constantinople must yield to Babylon and Thebes, to
ancient Rome, to London, and even to Paris.
Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.--Part II.
The master of the Roman world, who aspired to erect an eternal monument
of the glories of his reign could employ in the prosecution of that
great work, the wealth, the labor, and all that yet remained of the
genius of obedient millions. Some estimate may be formed of the expense
bestowed with Imperial liberality on the foundation of Constantinople,
by the allowance of about two millions five hundred thousand pounds
for the construction of the walls, the porticos, and the aqueducts. The
forests that overshadowed the shores of the Euxine, and the celebrated
quarries of white marble in the little island of Proconnesus, supplied
an inexhaustible stock of materials, ready to be conveyed, by the
convenience of a short water carriage, to the harbor of Byzantium. A
multitude of laborers and artificers urged the conclusion of the work
with incessant toil: but the impatience of Constantine soon discovered,
that, in the decline of the arts, the skill as well as numbers of
his architects bore a very unequal proportion to the greatness of his
designs. The magistrates of the most distant provinces were therefore
directed to institute schools, to appoint professors, and by the hopes
of rewards and privileges, to engage in the study and practice of
architecture a sufficient number of ingenious youths, who had received
a liberal education. The buildings of the new city were executed by
such artificers as the reign of Constantine could afford; but they were
decorated by the hands of the most celebrated masters of the age of
Pericles and Alexander. To revive the genius of Phidias and Lysippus,
surpassed indeed the power of a Roman emperor; but the immortal
productions which they had bequeathed to posterity were exposed without
defence to the rapacious vanity of a despot. By his commands the cities
of Greece and Asia were despoiled of their most valuable ornaments. The
trophies of memorable wars, the objects of religious veneration, the
most finished statues of the gods and heroes, of the sages and poets,
of ancient times, contributed to the splendid triumph of Constantinople;
and gave occasion to the remark of the historian Cedrenus, who observes,
with some enthusiasm, that nothing seemed wanting except the souls of
the illustrious men whom these admirable monuments were intended
to represent. But it is not in the city of Constantine, nor in the
declining period of an empire, when the human mind was depressed by
civil and religious slavery, that we should seek for the souls of Homer
and of Demosthenes.
During the siege of Byzantium, the conqueror had pitched his tent on the
commanding eminence of the second hill. To perpetuate the memory of
his success, he chose the same advantageous position for the principal
Forum; which appears to have been of a circular, or rather elliptical
form. The two opposite entrances formed triumphal arches; the porticos,
which enclosed it on every side, were filled with statues; and the
centre of the Forum was occupied by a lofty column, of which a mutilated
fragment is now degraded by the appellation of the burnt pillar. This
column was erected on a pedestal of white marble twenty feet high; and
was composed of ten pieces of porphyry, each of which measured about ten
feet in height, and about thirty-three in circumference. On the summit
of the pillar, above one hundred and twenty feet from the ground, stood
the colossal statue of Apollo. It was a bronze, had been transported
either from Athens or from a town of Phrygia, and was supposed to be the
work of Phidias. The artist had represented the god of day, or, as it
was afterwards interpreted, the emperor Constantine himself, with a
sceptre in his right hand, the globe of the world in his left, and a
crown of rays glittering on his head. The Circus, or Hippodrome, was a
stately building about four hundred paces in length, and one hundred in
breadth. The space between the two met or goals were filled with statues
and obelisks; and we may still remark a very singular fragment of
antiquity; the bodies of three serpents, twisted into one pillar of
brass. Their triple heads had once supported the golden tripod which,
after the defeat of Xerxes, was consecrated in the temple of Delphi by
the victorious Greeks. The beauty of the Hippodrome has been long since
defaced by the rude hands of the Turkish conquerors; but, under the
similar appellation of Atmeidan, it still serves as a place of exercise
for their horses. From the throne, whence the emperor viewed the
Circensian games, a winding staircase descended to the palace; a
magnificent edifice, which scarcely yielded to the residence of Rome
itself, and which, together with the dependent courts, gardens, and
porticos, covered a considerable extent of ground upon the banks of the
Propontis between the Hippodrome and the church of St. Sophia. We
might likewise celebrate the baths, which still retained the name
of Zeuxippus, after they had been enriched, by the munificence of
Constantine, with lofty columns, various marbles, and above threescore
statues of bronze. But we should deviate from the design of this
history, if we attempted minutely to describe the different buildings
or quarters of the city. It may be sufficient to observe, that whatever
could adorn the dignity of a great capital, or contribute to the benefit
or pleasure of its numerous inhabitants, was contained within the walls
of Constantinople. A particular description, composed about a century
after its foundation, enumerates a capitol or school of learning, a
circus, two theatres, eight public, and one hundred and fifty-three
private baths, fifty-two porticos, five granaries, eight aqueducts or
reservoirs of water, four spacious halls for the meetings of the senate
or courts of justice, fourteen churches, fourteen palaces, and four
thousand three hundred and eighty-eight houses, which, for their size
or beauty, deserved to be distinguished from the multitude of plebeian
inhabitants.
The populousness of his favored city was the next and most serious
object of the attention of its founder. In the dark ages which succeeded
the translation of the empire, the remote and the immediate consequences
of that memorable event were strangely confounded by the vanity of the
Greeks and the credulity of the Latins. It was asserted, and believed,
that all the noble families of Rome, the senate, and the equestrian
order, with their innumerable attendants, had followed their emperor
to the banks of the Propontis; that a spurious race of strangers and
plebeians was left to possess the solitude of the ancient capital; and
that the lands of Italy, long since converted into gardens, were at once
deprived of cultivation and inhabitants. In the course of this history,
such exaggerations will be reduced to their just value: yet, since the
growth of Constantinople cannot be ascribed to the general increase of
mankind and of industry, it must be admitted that this artificial colony
was raised at the expense of the ancient cities of the empire. Many
opulent senators of Rome, and of the eastern provinces, were probably
invited by Constantine to adopt for their country the fortunate spot,
which he had chosen for his own residence. The invitations of a master
are scarcely to be distinguished from commands; and the liberality of
the emperor obtained a ready and cheerful obedience. He bestowed on his
favorites the palaces which he had built in the several quarters of the
city, assigned them lands and pensions for the support of their dignity,
and alienated the demesnes of Pontus and Asia to grant hereditary
estates by the easy tenure of maintaining a house in the capital. But
these encouragements and obligations soon became superfluous, and
were gradually abolished. Wherever the seat of government is fixed, a
considerable part of the public revenue will be expended by the prince
himself, by his ministers, by the officers of justice, and by the
domestics of the palace. The most wealthy of the provincials will be
attracted by the powerful motives of interest and duty, of amusement
and curiosity. A third and more numerous class of inhabitants will
insensibly be formed, of servants, of artificers, and of merchants, who
derive their subsistence from their own labor, and from the wants or
luxury of the superior ranks. In less than a century, Constantinople
disputed with Rome itself the preeminence of riches and numbers. New
piles of buildings, crowded together with too little regard to health
or convenience, scarcely allowed the intervals of narrow streets for the
perpetual throng of men, of horses, and of carriages. The allotted space
of ground was insufficient to contain the increasing people; and the
additional foundations, which, on either side, were advanced into the
sea, might alone have composed a very considerable city.
The frequent and regular distributions of wine and oil, of corn or
bread, of money or provisions, had almost exempted the poorest citizens
of Rome from the necessity of labor. The magnificence of the first
CÊsars was in some measure imitated by the founder of Constantinople:
but his liberality, however it might excite the applause of the people,
has in curred the censure of posterity. A nation of legislators and
conquerors might assert their claim to the harvests of Africa, which
had been purchased with their blood; and it was artfully contrived by
Augustus, that, in the enjoyment of plenty, the Romans should lose
the memory of freedom. But the prodigality of Constantine could not be
excused by any consideration either of public or private interest; and
the annual tribute of corn imposed upon Egypt for the benefit of his
new capital, was applied to feed a lazy and insolent populace, at the
expense of the husbandmen of an industrious province. * Some other
regulations of this emperor are less liable to blame, but they are less
deserving of notice. He divided Constantinople into fourteen regions or
quarters, dignified the public council with the appellation of senate,
communicated to the citizens the privileges of Italy, and bestowed on
the rising city the title of Colony, the first and most favored daughter
of ancient Rome. The venerable parent still maintained the legal and
acknowledged supremacy, which was due to her age, her dignity, and to
the remembrance of her former greatness.
As Constantine urged the progress of the work with the impatience of
a lover, the walls, the porticos, and the principal edifices were
completed in a few years, or, according to another account, in a
few months; but this extraordinary diligence should excite the less
admiration, since many of the buildings were finished in so hasty and
imperfect a manner, that under the succeeding reign, they were preserved
with difficulty from impending ruin. But while they displayed the vigor
and freshness of youth, the founder prepared to celebrate the dedication
of his city. The games and largesses which crowned the pomp of this
memorable festival may easily be supposed; but there is one circumstance
of a more singular and permanent nature, which ought not entirely to be
overlooked. As often as the birthday of the city returned, the statute
of Constantine, framed by his order, of gilt wood, and bearing in his
right hand a small image of the genius of the place, was erected on a
triumphal car. The guards, carrying white tapers, and clothed in their
richest apparel, accompanied the solemn procession as it moved through
the Hippodrome. When it was opposite to the throne of the reigning
emperor, he rose from his seat, and with grateful reverence adored the
memory of his predecessor. At the festival of the dedication, an edict,
engraved on a column of marble, bestowed the title of Second or New Rome
on the city of Constantine. But the name of Constantinople has prevailed
over that honorable epithet; and after the revolution of fourteen
centuries, still perpetuates the fame of its author.
The foundation of a new capital is naturally connected with the
establishment of a new form of civil and military administration.
The distinct view of the complicated system of policy, introduced by
Diocletian, improved by Constantine, and completed by his immediate
successors, may not only amuse the fancy by the singular picture of a
great empire, but will tend to illustrate the secret and internal causes
of its rapid decay. In the pursuit of any remarkable institution, we may
be frequently led into the more early or the more recent times of the
Roman history; but the proper limits of this inquiry will be included
within a period of about one hundred and thirty years, from the
accession of Constantine to the publication of the Theodosian code; from
which, as well as from the Notitia * of the East and West, we derive the
most copious and authentic information of the state of the empire.
This variety of objects will suspend, for some time, the course of the
narrative; but the interruption will be censured only by those readers
who are insensible to the importance of laws and manners, while they
peruse, with eager curiosity, the transient intrigues of a court, or the
accidental event of a battle.
Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.--Part III.
The manly pride of the Romans, content with substantial power, had
left to the vanity of the East the forms and ceremonies of ostentatious
greatness. But when they lost even the semblance of those virtues which
were derived from their ancient freedom, the simplicity of Roman manners
was insensibly corrupted by the stately affectation of the courts of
Asia. The distinctions of personal merit and influence, so conspicuous
in a republic, so feeble and obscure under a monarchy, were abolished
by the despotism of the emperors; who substituted in their room a severe
subordination of rank and office from the titled slaves who were seated
on the steps of the throne, to the meanest instruments of arbitrary
power. This multitude of abject dependants was interested in the support
of the actual government from the dread of a revolution, which might at
once confound their hopes and intercept the reward of their services. In
this divine hierarchy (for such it is frequently styled) every rank was
marked with the most scrupulous exactness, and its dignity was displayed
in a variety of trifling and solemn ceremonies, which it was a study to
learn, and a sacrilege to neglect. The purity of the Latin language
was debased, by adopting, in the intercourse of pride and flattery, a
profusion of epithets, which Tully would scarcely have understood,
and which Augustus would have rejected with indignation. The principal
officers of the empire were saluted, even by the sovereign himself, with
the deceitful titles of your Sincerity, your Gravity, your Excellency,
your Eminence, your sublime and wonderful Magnitude, your illustrious
and magnificent Highness. The codicils or patents of their office were
curiously emblazoned with such emblems as were best adapted to explain
its nature and high dignity; the image or portrait of the reigning
emperors; a triumphal car; the book of mandates placed on a table,
covered with a rich carpet, and illuminated by four tapers; the
allegorical figures of the provinces which they governed; or the
appellations and standards of the troops whom they commanded Some of
these official ensigns were really exhibited in their hall of audience;
others preceded their pompous march whenever they appeared in public;
and every circumstance of their demeanor, their dress, their ornaments,
and their train, was calculated to inspire a deep reverence for the
representatives of supreme majesty. By a philosophic observer, the
system of the Roman government might have been mistaken for a splendid
theatre, filled with players of every character and degree, who repeated
the language, and imitated the passions, of their original model.
All the magistrates of sufficient importance to find a place in the
general state of the empire, were accurately divided into three classes.
1. The Illustrious. 2. The Spectabiles, or Respectable. And, 3. the
Clarissimi; whom we may translate by the word Honorable. In the times
of Roman simplicity, the last-mentioned epithet was used only as a
vague expression of deference, till it became at length the peculiar
and appropriated title of all who were members of the senate, and
consequently of all who, from that venerable body, were selected to
govern the provinces. The vanity of those who, from their rank and
office, might claim a superior distinction above the rest of the
senatorial order, was long afterwards indulged with the new appellation
of Respectable; but the title of Illustrious was always reserved to some
eminent personages who were obeyed or reverenced by the two subordinate
classes. It was communicated only, I. To the consuls and patricians; II.
To the PrÊtorian prÊfects, with the prÊfects of Rome and Constantinople;
III. To the masters-general of the cavalry and the infantry; and IV. To
the seven ministers of the palace, who exercised their sacred functions
about the person of the emperor. Among those illustrious magistrates who
were esteemed coordinate with each other, the seniority of appointment
gave place to the union of dignities. By the expedient of honorary
codicils, the emperors, who were fond of multiplying their favors, might
sometimes gratify the vanity, though not the ambition, of impatient
courtiers.
I. As long as the Roman consuls were the first magistrates of a free
state, they derived their right to power from the choice of the people.
As long as the emperors condescended to disguise the servitude which
they imposed, the consuls were still elected by the real or apparent
suffrage of the senate. From the reign of Diocletian, even these
vestiges of liberty were abolished, and the successful candidates who
were invested with the annual honors of the consulship, affected to
deplore the humiliating condition of their predecessors. The Scipios and
the Catos had been reduced to solicit the votes of plebeians, to pass
through the tedious and expensive forms of a popular election, and to
expose their dignity to the shame of a public refusal; while their own
happier fate had reserved them for an age and government in which the
rewards of virtue were assigned by the unerring wisdom of a gracious
sovereign. In the epistles which the emperor addressed to the two
consuls elect, it was declared, that they were created by his sole
authority. Their names and portraits, engraved on gilt tables of ivory,
were dispersed over the empire as presents to the provinces, the cities,
the magistrates, the senate, and the people. Their solemn inauguration
was performed at the place of the Imperial residence; and during a
period of one hundred and twenty years, Rome was constantly deprived of
the presence of her ancient magistrates. On the morning of the first of
January, the consuls assumed the ensigns of their dignity. Their dress
was a robe of purple, embroidered in silk and gold, and sometimes
ornamented with costly gems. On this solemn occasion they were attended
by the most eminent officers of the state and army, in the habit of
senators; and the useless fasces, armed with the once formidable axes,
were borne before them by the lictors. The procession moved from the
palace to the Forum or principal square of the city; where the consuls
ascended their tribunal, and seated themselves in the curule chairs,
which were framed after the fashion of ancient times. They immediately
exercised an act of jurisdiction, by the manumission of a slave, who was
brought before them for that purpose; and the ceremony was intended
to represent the celebrated action of the elder Brutus, the author
of liberty and of the consulship, when he admitted among his
fellow-citizens the faithful Vindex, who had revealed the conspiracy of
the Tarquins. The public festival was continued during several days in
all the principal cities in Rome, from custom; in Constantinople,
from imitation in Carthage, Antioch, and Alexandria, from the love of
pleasure, and the superfluity of wealth. In the two capitals of
the empire the annual games of the theatre, the circus, and the
amphitheatre, cost four thousand pounds of gold, (about) one hundred and
sixty thousand pounds sterling: and if so heavy an expense surpassed the
faculties or the inclinations of the magistrates themselves, the sum
was supplied from the Imperial treasury. As soon as the consuls had
discharged these customary duties, they were at liberty to retire into
the shade of private life, and to enjoy, during the remainder of the
year, the undisturbed contemplation of their own greatness. They no
longer presided in the national councils; they no longer executed the
resolutions of peace or war. Their abilities (unless they were employed
in more effective offices) were of little moment; and their names served
only as the legal date of the year in which they had filled the chair
of Marius and of Cicero. Yet it was still felt and acknowledged, in the
last period of Roman servitude, that this empty name might be compared,
and even preferred, to the possession of substantial power. The title
of consul was still the most splendid object of ambition, the noblest
reward of virtue and loyalty. The emperors themselves, who disdained
the faint shadow of the republic, were conscious that they acquired
an additional splendor and majesty as often as they assumed the annual
honors of the consular dignity.
The proudest and most perfect separation which can be found in any age
or country, between the nobles and the people, is perhaps that of the
Patricians and the Plebeians, as it was established in the first age of
the Roman republic. Wealth and honors, the offices of the state, and the
ceremonies of religion, were almost exclusively possessed by the former
who, preserving the purity of their blood with the most insulting
jealousy, held their clients in a condition of specious vassalage. But
these distinctions, so incompatible with the spirit of a free people,
were removed, after a long struggle, by the persevering efforts of the
Tribunes. The most active and successful of the Plebeians accumulated
wealth, aspired to honors, deserved triumphs, contracted alliances,
and, after some generations, assumed the pride of ancient nobility. The
Patrician families, on the other hand, whose original number was
never recruited till the end of the commonwealth, either failed in the
ordinary course of nature, or were extinguished in so many foreign
and domestic wars, or, through a want of merit or fortune, insensibly
mingled with the mass of the people. Very few remained who could derive
their pure and genuine origin from the infancy of the city, or even from
that of the republic, when CÊsar and Augustus, Claudius and Vespasian,
created from the body of the senate a competent number of new Patrician
families, in the hope of perpetuating an order, which was still
considered as honorable and sacred. But these artificial supplies (in
which the reigning house was always included) were rapidly swept away by
the rage of tyrants, by frequent revolutions, by the change of
manners, and by the intermixture of nations. Little more was left when
Constantine ascended the throne, than a vague and imperfect tradition,
that the Patricians had once been the first of the Romans. To form
a body of nobles, whose influence may restrain, while it secures the
authority of the monarch, would have been very inconsistent with the
character and policy of Constantine; but had he seriously entertained
such a design, it might have exceeded the measure of his power to
ratify, by an arbitrary edict, an institution which must expect the
sanction of time and of opinion. He revived, indeed, the title of
Patricians, but he revived it as a personal, not as an hereditary
distinction. They yielded only to the transient superiority of the
annual consuls; but they enjoyed the pre-eminence over all the great
officers of state, with the most familiar access to the person of the
prince. This honorable rank was bestowed on them for life; and as they
were usually favorites, and ministers who had grown old in the Imperial
court, the true etymology of the word was perverted by ignorance and
flattery; and the Patricians of Constantine were reverenced as the
adopted Fathers of the emperor and the republic.
II. The fortunes of the PrÊtorian prÊfects were essentially different
from those of the consuls and Patricians. The latter saw their ancient
greatness evaporate in a vain title. The former, rising by degrees from
the most humble condition, were invested with the civil and military
administration of the Roman world. From the reign of Severus to that of
Diocletian, the guards and the palace, the laws and the finances, the
armies and the provinces, were intrusted to their superintending care;
and, like the Viziers of the East, they held with one hand the seal,
and with the other the standard, of the empire. The ambition of the
prÊfects, always formidable, and sometimes fatal to the masters whom
they served, was supported by the strength of the PrÊtorian bands; but
after those haughty troops had been weakened by Diocletian, and finally
suppressed by Constantine, the prÊfects, who survived their fall,
were reduced without difficulty to the station of useful and obedient
ministers. When they were no longer responsible for the safety of the
emperor's person, they resigned the jurisdiction which they had hitherto
claimed and exercised over all the departments of the palace. They were
deprived by Constantine of all military command, as soon as they had
ceased to lead into the field, under their immediate orders, the flower
of the Roman troops; and at length, by a singular revolution, the
captains of the guards were transformed into the civil magistrates
of the provinces. According to the plan of government instituted by
Diocletian, the four princes had each their PrÊtorian prÊfect; and after
the monarchy was once more united in the person of Constantine, he still
continued to create the same number of Four PrÊfects, and intrusted to
their care the same provinces which they already administered. 1. The
prÊfect of the East stretched his ample jurisdiction into the three
parts of the globe which were subject to the Romans, from the cataracts
of the Nile to the banks of the Phasis, and from the mountains of Thrace
to the frontiers of Persia. 2. The important provinces of Pannonia,
Dacia, Macedonia, and Greece, once acknowledged the authority of the
prÊfect of Illyricum. 3. The power of the prÊfect of Italy was not
confined to the country from whence he derived his title; it extended
over the additional territory of RhÊtia as far as the banks of the
Danube, over the dependent islands of the Mediterranean, and over that
part of the continent of Africa which lies between the confines of
Cyrene and those of Tingitania. 4. The prÊfect of the Gauls comprehended
under that plural denomination the kindred provinces of Britain and
Spain, and his authority was obeyed from the wall of Antoninus to the
foot of Mount Atlas.
After the PrÊtorian prÊfects had been dismissed from all military
command, the civil functions which they were ordained to exercise over
so many subject nations, were adequate to the ambition and abilities of
the most consummate ministers. To their wisdom was committed the supreme
administration of justice and of the finances, the two objects which,
in a state of peace, comprehend almost all the respective duties of the
sovereign and of the people; of the former, to protect the citizens
who are obedient to the laws; of the latter, to contribute the share
of their property which is required for the expenses of the state. The
coin, the highways, the posts, the granaries, the manufactures, whatever
could interest the public prosperity, was moderated by the authority of
the PrÊtorian prÊfects. As the immediate representatives of the Imperial
majesty, they were empowered to explain, to enforce, and on some
occasions to modify, the general edicts by their discretionary
proclamations. They watched over the conduct of the provincial
governors, removed the negligent, and inflicted punishments on the
guilty. From all the inferior jurisdictions, an appeal in every matter
of importance, either civil or criminal, might be brought before the
tribunal of the prÊfect; but his sentence was final and absolute; and
the emperors themselves refused to admit any complaints against the
judgment or the integrity of a magistrate whom they honored with such
unbounded confidence. His appointments were suitable to his dignity; and
if avarice was his ruling passion, he enjoyed frequent opportunities
of collecting a rich harvest of fees, of presents, and of perquisites.
Though the emperors no longer dreaded the ambition of their prÊfects,
they were attentive to counterbalance the power of this great office by
the uncertainty and shortness of its duration.
From their superior importance and dignity, Rome and Constantinople
were alone excepted from the jurisdiction of the PrÊtorian prÊfects. The
immense size of the city, and the experience of the tardy, ineffectual
operation of the laws, had furnished the policy of Augustus with a
specious pretence for introducing a new magistrate, who alone could
restrain a servile and turbulent populace by the strong arm of arbitrary
power. Valerius Messalla was appointed the first prÊfect of Rome, that
his reputation might countenance so invidious a measure; but, at the end
of a few days, that accomplished citizen resigned his office, declaring,
with a spirit worthy of the friend of Brutus, that he found himself
incapable of exercising a power incompatible with public freedom. As
the sense of liberty became less exquisite, the advantages of order
were more clearly understood; and the prÊfect, who seemed to have been
designed as a terror only to slaves and vagrants, was permitted to
extend his civil and criminal jurisdiction over the equestrian and noble
families of Rome. The prÊtors, annually created as the judges of law
and equity, could not long dispute the possession of the Forum with a
vigorous and permanent magistrate, who was usually admitted into the
confidence of the prince. Their courts were deserted, their number,
which had once fluctuated between twelve and eighteen, was gradually
reduced to two or three, and their important functions were confined to
the expensive obligation of exhibiting games for the amusement of the
people. After the office of the Roman consuls had been changed into a
vain pageant, which was rarely displayed in the capital, the prÊfects
assumed their vacant place in the senate, and were soon acknowledged
as the ordinary presidents of that venerable assembly. They received
appeals from the distance of one hundred miles; and it was allowed as
a principle of jurisprudence, that all municipal authority was derived
from them alone. In the discharge of his laborious employment, the
governor of Rome was assisted by fifteen officers, some of whom had been
originally his equals, or even his superiors. The principal departments
were relative to the command of a numerous watch, established as a
safeguard against fires, robberies, and nocturnal disorders; the custody
and distribution of the public allowance of corn and provisions; the
care of the port, of the aqueducts, of the common sewers, and of the
navigation and bed of the Tyber; the inspection of the markets,
the theatres, and of the private as well as the public works. Their
vigilance insured the three principal objects of a regular police,
safety, plenty, and cleanliness; and as a proof of the attention of
government to preserve the splendor and ornaments of the capital, a
particular inspector was appointed for the statues; the guardian, as
it were, of that inanimate people, which, according to the extravagant
computation of an old writer, was scarcely inferior in number to the
living inhabitants of Rome. About thirty years after the foundation
of Constantinople, a similar magistrate was created in that rising
metropolis, for the same uses and with the same powers. A perfect
equality was established between the dignity of the two municipal, and
that of the four PrÊtorian prÊfects.
Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.--Part IV.
Those who, in the imperial hierarchy, were distinguished by the title
of Respectable, formed an intermediate class between the illustrious
prÊfects, and the honorable magistrates of the provinces. In this class
the proconsuls of Asia, Achaia, and Africa, claimed a preÎminence, which
was yielded to the remembrance of their ancient dignity; and the appeal
from their tribunal to that of the prÊfects was almost the only mark of
their dependence. But the civil government of the empire was distributed
into thirteen great Dioceses, each of which equalled the just measure
of a powerful kingdom. The first of these dioceses was subject to the
jurisdiction of the count of the east; and we may convey some idea of
the importance and variety of his functions, by observing, that six
hundred apparitors, who would be styled at present either secretaries,
or clerks, or ushers, or messengers, were employed in his immediate
office. The place of Augustal prefect of Egypt was no longer filled by
a Roman knight; but the name was retained; and the extraordinary powers
which the situation of the country, and the temper of the inhabitants,
had once made indispensable, were still continued to the governor. The
eleven remaining dioceses, of Asiana, Pontica, and Thrace; of Macedonia,
Dacia, and Pannonia, or Western Illyricum; of Italy and Africa; of Gaul,
Spain, and Britain; were governed by twelve vicars or vice-prefects,
whose name sufficiently explains the nature and dependence of their
office. It may be added, that the lieutenant-generals of the Roman
armies, the military counts and dukes, who will be hereafter mentioned,
were allowed the rank and title of Respectable.
As the spirit of jealousy and ostentation prevailed in the councils
of the emperors, they proceeded with anxious diligence to divide the
substance and to multiply the titles of power. The vast countries
which the Roman conquerors had united under the same simple form of
administration, were imperceptibly crumbled into minute fragments; till
at length the whole empire was distributed into one hundred and
sixteen provinces, each of which supported an expensive and splendid
establishment. Of these, three were governed by proconsuls, thirty-seven
by consulars, five by correctors, and seventy-one by presidents.
The appellations of these magistrates were different; they ranked in
successive order, the ensigns of and their situation, from accidental
circumstances, might be more or less agreeable or advantageous. But they
were all (excepting only the pro-consuls) alike included in the class of
honorable persons; and they were alike intrusted, during the pleasure of
the prince, and under the author
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