The Motives, Progress, and Effects of the Conversion of Constantine—Legal Establishment and Constitution of the Christian, or Catholic, Church
THE public establishment of Christianity may be considered as one of the most important and domestic revolutions which excite the most lively curiosity, and afford the most valuable instruction. The victories and the civil policy of Constantine no longer influence the state of Europe; but a considerable portion of the globe still retains the impression which it received from the conversion of that monarch; and the ecclesiastical institutions of his reign are still connected, by an indissoluble chain, with the opinions, the passions, and the interests of the present generation.
Date of the conversion of Constantine. A.D. 306
In the consideration of a subject which may be examined with impartiality, but cannot be viewed with indifference, a difficulty immediately arises of a very unexpected nature — that of ascertaining the real and precise date of the conversion of Constantine. The eloquent Lactantius, in the
midst of his court. seems impatient(1) to proclaim to the world the glorious example of the sovereign of Gaul; who, in the first moments of his reign, acknowledged and adored the majesty of the true and only God.(2) The learned Eusebius has ascribed the faith of Constantine to the miraculous sign which was displayed in A.D. 312. the heavens whilst he meditated and prepared the Italian expedition. (3) The historian Zosimus maliciously asserts that the emperor had imbrued his hands in the blood of his eldest son before he publicly A.D. 326. renounced the gods of Rome and of his ancestors.(4) The perplexity produced by these discordant authorities is derived from the behaviour of Constantine himself. According to the strictness of ecclesiastical language, the first of the Christian emperors was unworthy of that name till the moment
of his death; since it was only during his last illness that
he A.D. 337. received, as a catechumen, the imposition of hands,(5) and
was afterwards admitted, by the initiatory rites of baptism,
into the number of the faithful. (6) The Christianity of
Constantine must be allowed in a much more vague and
qualified sense; and the nicest accuracy is required in
tracing the slow and almost imperceptible gradations by
which the monarch declared himself the protector, and at
length the proselyte, of the church. It was an arduous task
to eradicate the habits and prejudices of his education, to
acknowledge the divine power of Christ and to understand
that the truth of his revelation was incompatible with the
worship of the gods. The obstacles which he had probably
experienced in his own mind instructed him to proceed with
caution in the momentous change of a national religion; and
he insensibly discovered his new opinions, as far as he
could enforce them with safety and with effect. During the
whole course of his reign, the stream of Christianity flowed
with a gentle, though accelerated, motion: but its general
direction was sometimes checked, and sometimes diverted by
the accidental circumstances of the times, and by the
prudence, or possibly by the caprice, of the monarch. His
ministers were permitted to signify the intentions of their
master in the various language which was best adapted to
their respective principles; (7) and he artfully balanced the
hopes and fears of his subjects, by publishing in the same
year two edicts; the first of A.D. 321. which enjoined the solemn
observance of Sunday, (8) and the second directed the regular
consultation of the Aruspices. (9) While this important
revolution yet remained in suspense, the Christians and the
Pagans watched the conduct of their sovereign with the same
anxiety, but with very opposite sentiments. The former were
prompted by every motive of zeal, as well as vanity, to
exaggerate the marks of his favour and the evidences of his
faith. The latter, till their just apprehensions were
changed into despair and resentment, attempted to conceal
from the world, and from themselves, that the gods of Rome
could no longer reckon the emperor in the number of their
votaries. The same passions and prejudices have engaged the
partial writers of the times to connect the public
profession of Christianity with the most glorious or the
most ignominious era of the reign of Constantine.
His Pagan superstition.
Whatever symptoms of Christian piety might transpire in the
discourses or actions of Constantine, he persevered till he
was near forty years of age in the practice of the
established religion;(10) and the same conduct which in the
court of Nicomedia might be imputed to his fear, could be
ascribed only to the inclination or policy of the sovereign
of Gaul. His liberality restored and enriched the temples of
the gods; the medals which issued from his Imperial mint are
impressed with the figures and attributes of Jupiter and
Apollo, of Mars and Hercules; and his filial piety increased
the council of Olympus by the solemn apotheosis of his
father Constantius.(11) But the devotion of Constantine was
more peculiarly directed to the genius of the Sun, the
Apollo of Greek and Roman mythology; and he was pleased to
be represented with the symbols of the God of Light and
Poetry. The unerring shafts of that deity, the brightness of
his eyes, his laurel wreath, immortal beauty, and elegant
accomplishments, seem to point him out as the patron of a
young hero. The altars of Apollo were crowned with the
votive offerings of Constantine; and the credulous multitude
were taught to believe that the emperor was permitted to
behold with mortal eyes the visible majesty of their tutelar
deity; and that, either waking or in a vision, he was
blessed with the auspicious omens of a long and victorious
reign. The Sun was universally celebrated as the invincible
guide and protector of Constantine; and the Pagans might
reasonably expect that the insulted god would pursue with
unrelenting vengeance the impiety of his ungrateful
favourite.(12)
He protects the Christians of Gaul. A.D. 306-312.
As long as Constantine exercised a limited sovereignty over
the provinces of Gaul, his Christian subjects were protected
by the authority, and perhaps by the laws, of a prince who
wisely left to the gods the care of vindicating their own
honour. If we may credit the assertion of Constantine
himself, he had been an indignant spectator of the savage
cruelties which were inflicted, by the hands of Roman
soldiers, on those citizens whose religion was their only
crime.(13) In the East and in the West he had seen the
different effects of severity and indulgence; and as the
former was rendered still more odious by the example of
Galerius, his implacable enemy, the latter was recommended
to his imitation by the authority and advice of a dying
father. The son of Constantius immediately suspended or
repealed the edicts of persecution, and granted the free
exercise of their religious ceremonies to all those who had
already professed themselves members of the church. They
were soon encouraged to depend on the favour as well as on
the justice of their sovereign, who had imbibed a secret and
sincere reverence for the name of Christ, and for the God of
the Christians.(14)
Edict of Milan. A.D. 313, March.
About five months after the conquest of Italy, the emperor
made a solemn and authentic declaration of his sentiments by
the celebrated edict of Milan, which restored peace to the
catholic church. In the personal interview of the two
western princes, Constantine, by the ascendant of genius and
power, obtained the ready concurrence of his colleague,
Licinius; the union of their names and authority disarmed
the fury of Maximin; and, after the death of the tyrant of
the East, the edict of Milan was received as a general and
fundamental law of the Roman world.(15) The wisdom of the emperors provided for the restitution of
all the civil and religious rights of which the Christians
had been so unjustly deprived. It was enacted that the
places of worship, and public lands, which had been
confiscated, should be restored to the church, without
dispute, without delay, and without expense: and this severe
injunction was accompanied with a gracious promise, that, if
any of the purchasers had paid a fair and adequate price,
they should be indemnified from the Imperial treasury. The
salutary regulations which guard the future tranquillity of
the faithful are framed on the principles of enlarged and
equal toleration; and such an equality must have been
interpreted by a recent sect as an advantageous and
honourable distinction. The two emperors proclaim to the
world that they have granted a free and absolute power to
the Christians, and to all others, of following the religion
which each individual thinks proper to prefer, to which he
has addicted his mind, and which he may deem the best
adapted to his own use. They carefully explain every
ambiguous word, remove every exception, and exact from the
governors of the provinces a strict obedience to the true
and simple meaning of an edict which was designed to
establish and secure, without any limitation, the claims of
religious liberty. They condescend to assign two weighty
reasons which have induced them to allow this universal
toleration: the humane intention of consulting the peace and
happiness of their people; and the pious hope that by such a
conduct they shall appease and propitiate the Deity, whose
seat is in heaven. They gratefully acknowledge the many
signal proofs which they have received of the divine favour;
and they trust that the same Providence will for ever
continue to protect the prosperity of the prince and people.
From these vague and indefinite expressions of piety three
suppositions may be deduced, of a different, but not of an
incompatible nature. The mind of Constantine might fluctuate
between the Pagan and the Christian religions. According to
the loose and complying notions of Polytheism, he might
acknowledge the God of the Christians as one of the many
deities who compose the hierarchy of heaven. Or perhaps he
might embrace the philosophic and pleasing idea that,
notwithstanding the variety of names, of rites, and of
opinions, all the sects and all the nations of mankind are
united in the worship of the common Father and Creator of
the universe.(16)
Use and beauty of the Christian morality.
But the counsels of princes are more frequently influenced
by views of temporal advantage than by considerations of
abstract and speculative truth. The partial and increasing
favour of Constantine may naturally be referred to the
esteem which he entertained for the moral character of the
Christians, and to a persuasion that the propagation of the
Gospel would inculcate the practice of private and public
virtue. Whatever latitude an absolute monarch may assume in
his own conduct, whatever indulgence he may claim for his
own passions, it is undoubtedly his interest that all his
subjects should respect the natural and civil obligations of
society. But the operation of the wisest laws is imperfect
and precarious. They seldom inspire virtue, they cannot
always restrain vice. Their power is insufficient to
prohibit all that they condemn, nor can they always punish
the actions which they prohibit. The legislators of
antiquity had summoned to their aid the powers of education
and of opinion. But every principle which had once
maintained the vigour and purity of Rome and Sparta was long
since extinguished in a declining and despotic empire.
Philosophy still exercised her temperate sway over the human
mind, but the cause of virtue derived very feeble support
from the influence of the Pagan superstition. Under these
discouraging circumstances a prudent magistrate might
observe with pleasure the progress of a religion which
diffused among the people a pure, benevolent, and universal
system of ethics, adapted to every duty and every condition
of life, recommended as the will and reason of the supreme
Deity, and enforced by the sanction of eternal rewards or
punishments. The experience of Greek and Roman history could
not inform the world how far the system of national manners
might be reformed and improved by the precepts of a divine
revelation; and Constantine might listen with some
confidence to the flattering, and indeed reasonable,
assurances of Lactantius. The eloquent apologist seemed
firmly to expect, and almost ventured to promise, that the
establishment of Christianity would restore the innocence
and felicity of the primitive age; that the worship of the
true God would extinguish war and dissension among those who
mutually considered themselves as the children of a common
parent; that every impure desire, every angry or selfish
passion, would be restrained by the knowledge of the Gospel;
and that the magistrates might sheath the sword of justice
among a people who would be universally actuated by the
sentiments of truth and piety, of equity and moderation, of
harmony and universal love.(17)
Theory and practice of passive obedience..
The passive and unresisting obedience which bows under the
yoke of authority, or even of oppression, must have appeared
in the eyes of an absolute monarch the most conspicuous and
useful of the evangelic virtues.(18) The primitive Christians
derived the institution of civil government, not from the
consent of the people, but from the decrees of Heaven. The
reigning emperor, though he had usurped the sceptre by
treason and murder, immediately assumed the sacred character
of vicegerent of the Deity. To the Deity alone he was
accountable for the abuse of his power; and his subjects
were indissolubly bound by their oath of fidelity to a
tyrant who had violated every law of nature and society. The
humble Christians were sent into the world as sheep among
wolves; and since they were not permitted to employ force
even in the defence of their religion, they should be still
more criminal if they were tempted to shed the blood of
their fellow-creatures in disputing the vain privileges or
the sordid possessions of this transitory life. Faithful to
the doctrine of the apostle, who in the reign of Nero had
preached the duty of unconditional submission, the
Christians of the three first centuries preserved their
conscience pure and innocent of the guilt of secret
conspiracy or open rebellion. While they experienced the
rigour of persecution, they were never provoked either to
meet their tyrants in the field, or indignantly to withdraw
themselves into some remote and sequestered corner of the
globe.(19) The protestants of France, of Germany, and of
Britain, who asserted with such intrepid courage their civil
and religious freedom, have been insulted by the invidious
comparison between the conduct of the primitive and of the
reformed Christians.(20) Perhaps, instead of censure, some
applause may be due to the superior sense and spirit of our
ancestors, who had convinced themselves that religion cannot
abolish the unalienable rights of human nature.(21) Perhaps
the patience of the primitive church may be ascribed to its
weakness as well as to its virtue. A sect of unwarlike
plebeians, without leaders, without arms, without
fortifications, must have encountered inevitable destruction
in a rash and fruitless resistance to the master of the
Roman legions. But the Christians, when they deprecated the
wrath of Diocletian, or solicited the favour of Constantine,
could allege, with truth and confidence, that they held the
principle of passive obedience, and that, in the space of
three centuries, their conduct had always been conformable
to their principles. They might add that the throne of the
emperors would be established on a fixed and permanent basis
if all their subjects, embracing the Christian doctrine,
should learn to suffer and to obey.
Divine right of Constantine.
In the general order of Providence princes and tyrants are
considered as the ministers of Heaven, appointed to rule or
to chastise the nations of the earth. But sacred history
affords many illustrious examples of the more immediate
interposition of the Deity in the government of his chosen
people. The sceptre and the sword were committed to the
hands of Moses, of Joshua, of Gideon, of David, of the
Maccabees; the virtues of those heroes were the motive or
the effect of the divine favour, the success of their arms
was destined to achieve the deliverance or the triumph of
the church. If the judges of Israel were occasional and
temporary magistrates, the kings of Judah derived from the
royal unction of their great ancestor an hereditary and
indefeasible right, which could not be forfeited by their
own vices, nor recalled by the caprice of their subjects.
The same extraordinary providence, which was no longer
confined to the Jewish people, might elect Constantine and
his family as the protectors of the Christian world; and the
devout Lactantius announces, in a prophetic tone, the future
glories of his long and universal reign.(22) Galerius and
Maximin, Maxentius and Licinius, were the rivals who shared
with the favourite of Heaven the provinces of the empire.
The tragic deaths of Galerius and Maximin soon gratified the
resentment, and fulfilled the sanguine expectations, of the
Christians. The success of Constantine against Maxentius and
Licinius removed the two formidable competitors who still
opposed the triumph of the second David, and his cause might
seem to claim the peculiar interposition of Providence. The
character of the Roman tyrant disgraced the purple and human
nature; and though the Christians might enjoy his precarious
favour, they were exposed, with the rest of his subjects, to
the effects of his wanton and capricious cruelty. The
conduct of Licinius soon betrayed the reluctance with which
he had consented to the wise and humane regulations of the
edict of Milan. The convocation of provincial synods was
prohibited in his dominions; his Christian officers were
ignominiously dismissed; and if he avoided the guilt, or
rather danger, of a general persecution, his partial
oppressions were rendered still more odious by the violation
of a solemn and voluntary engagement. (23) While the East,
according to the lively expression of Eusebius, was involved
in the shades of infernal darkness. the auspicious rays of
celestial light warmed and illuminated the provinces of the
West. The piety of Constantine was admitted as an
unexceptionable proof of the justice of his arms; and his
use of victory confirmed the opinion of the Christians, that
their hero was inspired and conducted by the Lord of Hosts.
The conquest of Italy produced a General Edict, A.D. 324 general edict of toleration; and as soon as the defeat of Licinius had invested Constantine with the sole dominion of the Roman
world, he immediately, by circular letters, exhorted all his
subjects to imitate, without delay, the example of their
sovereign, and to embrace the divine truth of Christianity.
(24)
Loyalty and zeal of the Christian party.
The assurance that the elevation of Constantine was
intimately connected with the designs of Providence
instilled into the minds of the Christians two opinions,
which, by very different means, assisted the accomplishment
of the prophecy. Their warm and active loyalty exhausted in
his favour every resource of human industry; and they
confidently expected that their strenuous efforts would be
seconded by some divine and miraculous aid. The enemies of
Constantine have imputed to interested motives the alliance
which he insensibly contracted with the Catholic church, and
which apparently contributed to the success of his ambition.
In the beginning of the fourth century the Christians still
bore a very inadequate proportion to the inhabitants of the
empire; but among a degenerate people, who viewed the change
of masters with the indifference of slaves, the spirit and
union of a religious party might assist the popular leader,
to whose service, from a principle of conscience, they had
devoted their lives and fortunes. (25) The example of his
father instructed Constantine to esteem and to reward the
merit of the Christians; and in the distribution of public
offices he had the advantage of strengthening his government
by the choice of ministers or generals in whose fidelity he
could repose a just and unreserved confidence. By the
influence of these dignified missionaries the proselytes of
the new faith must have multiplied in the court and army;
the barbarians of Germany, who filled the ranks of the
legions, were of a careless temper, which acquiesced without
resistance in the religion of their commander; and when they
passed the Alps it may fairly be presumed that a great
number of the soldiers had already consecrated their swords
to the service of Christ and of Constantine.(26) The habits
of mankind and the interest of religion gradually abated the
horror of war and bloodshed which had so long prevailed
among the Christians; and in the councils which were
assembled under the gracious protection of Constantine the
authority of the bishops was seasonably employed to ratify
the obligation of the military oath, and to inflict the
penalty of excommunication on those soldiers who threw away
their arms during the peace of the church. (27) While
Constantine in his own dominions increased the number and
zeal of his faithful adherents, he could depend on the
support of a powerful faction in those provinces which were
still possessed or usurped by his rivals. A secret
disaffection was diffused among the Christian subjects of
Maxentius and Licinius; and the resentment which the latter
did not attempt to conceal served only to engage them still
more deeply in the interest of his competitor. The regular
correspondence which connected the bishops of the most
distant provinces enabled them freely to communicate their
wishes and their designs, and to transmit without danger any
useful intelligence, or any pious contributions, which might
promote the service of Constantine, who publicly declared
that he had taken up arms for the deliverance of the church.
(28)
Expectation and belief of a miracle.
The enthusiasm which inspired the troops, and perhaps the
emperor himself, had sharpened their swords while it
satisfied their conscience. They marched to battle with the
full assurance that the same God who had formerly opened a
passage to the Israelites through the waters of Jordan, and
had thrown down the walls of Jericho at the sound of the
trumpets of Joshua, would display his visible majesty and
power in the victory of Constantine. The evidence of
ecclesiastical history is prepared to affirm that their
expectations were justified by the conspicuous miracle to
which the conversion of the first Christian emperor has been
almost unanimously ascribed. The real or imaginary cause of
so important an event deserves and demands the attention of
posterity; and I shall endeavour to form a just estimate of
the famous vision of Constantine, by a distinct
consideration of the standard, the dream, and the celestial
sign; by separating the historical, the natural, and the
marvellous parts of this extraordinary story, which, in the
composition of a specious argument, have been artfully
confounded in one splendid and brittle mass.
The Labarum, or standard of the cross..
I. An instrument of the tortures which were inflicted only
on slaves and strangers became an object of horror in the
eyes of a Roman citizen; and the ideas of guilt, of pain,
and of ignominy, were closely united with the idea of the
cross. (29) The piety, rather than the humanity, of
Constantine soon abolished in his dominions the punishment
which the Saviour of mankind had condescended to suffer;(30)
but the emperor had already learned to despise the
prejudices of his education and of his people, before he
could erect in the midst of Rome his own statue, bearing a
cross in its right hand, with an inscription which referred
the victory of his arms, and the deliverance of Rome, to the
virtue of that salutary sign, the true symbol of force and
courage.(31) The same symbol sanctified the arms of the
soldiers of Constantine, the cross glittered on their
helmet, was engraved on their shields, was interwoven into
their banners; and the consecrated emblems which adorned the
person of the emperor himself were distinguished only by
richer materials and more exquisite workmanship.(32) But the
principal standard which displayed the triumph of the cross
was styled the Labarum,(33) an obscure, though celebrated,
name, which has been vainly derived from almost all the
languages of the world. It is described(34) as a long pike
intersected by a transversal beam. The silken veil which
hung down from the beam was curiously inwrought with the
images of the reigning monarch and his children. The summit
of the pike supported a crown of gold, which enclosed the
mysterious monogram, at once expressive of the figure of the
cross and the initial letters of the name of Christ.(35) The
safety of the labarum was intrusted to fifty guards of
approved valour and fidelity their station was marked by
honours and emoluments; and some fortunate accidents soon
introduced an opinion that as long as the guards of the
labarum were engaged in the execution of their office they
were secure and invulnerable amidst the darts of the enemy.
In the second civil war Licinius felt and dreaded the power
of this consecrated banner the sight of which in the
distress of battle animated the soldiers of Constantine with
an invincible enthusiasm, and scattered terror and dismay
through the ranks of the adverse legions.(36) The Christian
emperors, who respected the example of Constantine,
displayed in all their military expeditions the standard of
the cross; but when the degenerate successors of Theodosius
had ceased to appear in person at the head of their armies,
the labarum was deposited as a venerable but useless relic
in the palace of Constantinople. (37) Its honours are still
preserved on the medals of the Flavian family. Their
grateful devotion has placed the monogram of Christ in the
midst of the ensigns of Rome. The solemn epithets of safety
of the republic, glory of the army, restoration of public
happiness, are equally applied to the religious and military
trophies; and there is still extant a medal of the emperor
Constantius, where the standard of the labarum is
accompanied with these memorable words, BY THIS SIGN THOU
SHALT CONQUER.(38)
The dream of Constantine.
II. In all occasions of danger or distress it was the
practice of the primitive Christians to fortify their minds
and bodies by the sign of the cross, which they used in all
their ecclesiastical rites, in all the daily occurrences of
life, as an infallible preservative against every species of
spiritual or temporal evil. (39) The authority of the church
might alone have had sufficient weight to justify the
devotion of Constantine, who, in the same prudent and
gradual progress, acknowledged the truth and assumed the
symbol of Christianity. But the testimony of a contemporary
writer, who in a formal treatise has avenged the cause of
religion, bestows on the piety of the emperor a more awful
and sublime character. He affirms, with the most perfect
confidence, that, in the night which preceded the last
battle against Maxentius, Constantine was admonished in a
dream to inscribe the shields of his soldiers with the
celestial sign of God, the sacred monogram of the name of
Christ; that he executed the commands of Heaven, and that his valour and obedience were rewarded by the decisive victory of the Milvian Bridge. Some considerations might perhaps incline a sceptical mind to suspect the judgment or the veracity of the rhetorician, whose pen, either from zeal or interest, was devoted to the cause of the prevailing faction.(40) He appears to have published his "Deaths of the Persecutors" at Nicomedia about three years after the Roman victory; but the interval of a thousand miles, and a thousand days, will allow an ample latitude for the invention of declaimers, the credulity of party, and the tacit approbation of the emperor himself; who might listen without indignation to a marvellous tale which exalted his fame and promoted his designs. In favour of Licinius, who still dissembled his animosity to the Christians, the same author has provided a similar vision, of a form of prayer, which was communicated by an angel, and repeated by the whole army before they engaged the legions of the tyrant Maximin.(41) The frequent repetition of miracles serves to provoke, where it does not subdue, the reason of mankind; but if the dream of Constantine is separately considered, it may be naturally explained either by the policy or the enthusiasm of the emperor. Whilst his anxiety for the approaching day, which must decide the fate of the empire, was suspended by a short and interrupted slumber, the venerable form of Christ, and the well-known symbol of his religion, might forcibly offer themselves to the active fancy of a prince who reverenced the name, and had perhaps secretly implored the power, of the God of the Christians. As readily might a consummate statesman indulge himself in the use of one of those military stratagems, one of those pious frauds, which Philip and Sertorius had employed with
such art and effect.(42) The preternatural origin of dreams was universally admitted by the nations of antiquity, and a considerable part of the Gallic army was already prepared to
place their confidence in the salutary sign of the Christian
religion. The secret vision of Constantine could be disproved only by the event; and the intrepid hero who had passed the Alps and the Apennine might view with careless despair the consequences of a defeat under the walls of
Rome. The senate and people, exulting in their own deliverance from an odious tyrant, acknowledged that the victory of Constantine surpassed the powers of man, without daring to insinuate that it had been obtained by the
protection of the gods. The triumphal arch, which was
erected about three years after the event, proclaims, in
ambiguous language, that, by the greatness of his own mind,
and by an instinct or impulse of the Divinity, he had saved
and avenged the Roman republic.(43) The Pagan orator, who had
seized an earlier opportunity of celebrating the virtues of
the conqueror, supposes that he alone enjoyed a secret and
intimate commerce with the Supreme Being, who delegated the
care of mortals to his subordinate deities; and thus assigns
a very plausible reason why the subjects of Constantine
should not presume to embrace the new religion of their
sovereign.(44)
Appearance of a cross in the sky..
III. The philosopher, who with calm suspicion examines the
dreams and omens, the miracles and prodigies, of profane or
even of ecclesiastical history, will probably conclude that,
if the eyes of the spectators have sometimes been deceived
by fraud, the understanding of the readers has much more
frequently been insulted by fiction. Every event, or
appearance, or accident, which seems to deviate from the
ordinary course of nature, has been rashly ascribed to the
immediate action of the Deity; and the astonished fancy of
the multitude has sometimes given shape and colour, language
and motion, to the fleeting but uncommon meteors of the air.
(45) Nazarius and Eusebius are the two most celebrated orators
who, in studied panegyrics, have laboured to exalt the glory
of Constantine. Nine years after the Roman victory A.D. 321 Nazarius
(46) describes an army of divine warriors, who seemed to fall
from the sky; he marks their beauty, their spirit, their
gigantic forms, the stream of light which beamed from their
celestial armour, their patience in suffering themselves to
be heard, as well as seen, by mortals; and their declaration
that they were sent, that they flew, to the assistance of
the great Constantine. For the truth of this prodigy the
Pagan orator appeals to the whole Gallic nation, in whose
presence he was then speaking; and seems to hope that the
ancient apparitions(47) would now obtain credit from this
recent and public event. The Christian fable of Eusebius,
which, in the space of twenty-six years, might arise A.D. 338 from
the original dream, is cast in a much more correct and
elegant mould. In one of the marches of Constantine he is
reported to have seen with his own eyes the luminous trophy
of the cross, placed above the meridian sun, and inscribed
with the following words: BY THIS CONQUER. This amazing
object in the sky astonished the whole army, as well as the
emperor himself who was yet undetermined in the choice of a
religion: but his astonishment was converted into faith by
the vision of the ensuing night. Christ appeared before his
eyes; and displaying the same celestial sign of the cross,
he directed Constantine to frame a similar standard, and to
march, with an assurance of victory, against Maxentius and
all his enemies. (48) The learned bishop of Caesarea appears
to be sensible that the recent discovery of this marvellous
anecdote would excite some surprise and distrust among the
most pious of his readers. Yet, instead of ascertaining the
precise circumstances of time and place, which always serve
to detect falsehood or establish truth; (49) instead of
collecting and recording the evidence of so many living
witnesses, who must have been spectators of this stupendous
miracle,(50) Eusebius contents himself with alleging a very
singular testimony, that of the deceased Constantine, who,
many years after the event, in the freedom of conversation,
had related to him this extraordinary incident of his own
life, and had attested the truth of it by a solemn oath. The
prudence and gratitude of the learned prelate forbade him to
suspect the veracity of his victorious master; but he
plainly intimates that, in a fact of such a nature, he
should have refused his assent to any meaner authority. This
motive of credibility could not survive the power of the
Flavian family, and the celestial sign, which the Infidels
might afterwards deride, (51) was disregarded by the
Christians of the age which immediately followed the
conversion of Constantine. (52) But the Catholic church, both
of the East and of the West, has adopted a prodigy which
favours, or seems to favour, the popular worship of the
cross. The vision of Constantine maintained an honourable
place in the legend of superstition till the bold and
sagacious spirit of criticism presumed to depreciate the
triumph, and to arraign the truth, of the first Christian
emperor.(53)
The conversion of Constantine might be sincere.
The Protestant and philosophic readers of the present age
will incline to believe that, in the account of his own
conversion, Constantine attested a wilful falsehood by a
solemn and deliberate perjury. They may not hesitate to
pronounce that, in the choice of a religion, his mind was
determined only by a sense of interest; and that ( according
to the expression of a profane poet(54) ) he used the altars
of the church as a convenient footstool to the throne of the
empire. A conclusion so harsh and so absolute is not,
however, warranted by our knowledge of human nature, of
Constantine, or of Christianity. In an age of religious
fervour the most artful statesmen are observed to feel some
part of the enthusiasm which they inspire; and the most
orthodox saints assume the dangerous privilege of defending
the cause of truth by the arms of deceit and falsehood.
Personal interest is often the standard of our belief, as
well as of our practice and the same motives of temporal
advantage which might influence the public conduct and
professions of Constantine would insensibly dispose his mind
to embrace a religion so propitious to his fame and
fortunes. His vanity was gratified by the flattering
assurance that he had been chosen by Heaven to reign over
the earth: success had justified his divine title to the
throne, and that title was founded on the truth of the
Christian revelation. As real virtue is sometimes excited by
undeserved applause, the specious piety of Constantine, if
at first it was only specious, might gradually, by the
influence of praise, of habit, and of example, be matured
into serious faith and fervent devotion. The bishops and
teachers of the new sect, whose dress and manners had not
qualified them for the residence of a court, were admitted
to the Imperial table; they accompanied the monarch in his
expeditions; and the ascendant which one of them, an
Egyptian or a Spaniard, (55) acquired over his mind was
imputed by the Pagans to the effect of magic.(56) Lactantius,
who has adorned the precepts of the Gospel with the
eloquence of Cicero, (57) and Eusebius, who has consecrated
the learning and philosophy of the Greeks to the service of
religion,(58) were both received into the friendship and
familiarity of their sovereign; and those able masters of
controversy could patiently watch the soft and yielding
moments of persuasion, and dexterously apply the arguments
which were the best adapted to his character and
understanding. Whatever advantages might be derived from the
acquisition of an Imperial proselyte, he was distinguished
by the splendour of his purple, rather than by the
superiority of wisdom or virtue, from the many thousands of
his subjects who had embraced the doctrines of Christianity.
Nor can it be deemed incredible that the mind of an
unlettered soldier should have yielded to the weight of
evidence which, in a more enlightened age, has satisfied or
subdued the reason of a Grotius, a Pascal, or a Locke. In
the midst of the incessant labours of his great office this
soldier employed or affected to employ, the hours of the
night in the diligent study of the Scriptures, and the
composition of theological discourses, which he afterwards
pronounced in the presence of a numerous and applauding
audience. In a very long discourse, which is still extant,
the royal preacher expatiates on the various proofs of
religion; but he dwells with peculiar complacency on the
Sibylline verses,(59) and the fourth eclogue of Virgil. (60)
Forty years before the birth of Christ, the Mantuan bard, as
if inspired by the celestial muse of Isaiah, had celebrated,
with all the pomp of oriental metaphor, the return of the
Virgin, the fall of the serpent, the approaching birth of a
godlike child, the offspring of the great Jupiter, who
should expiate the guilt of human kind and govern the
peaceful universe with the virtues of his father; the rise
and appearance of an heavenly race, a primitive nation
throughout the world; and the gradual restoration of the
innocence and felicity of the golden age. The poet was
perhaps unconscious of the secret sense and object of these
sublime predictions, which have been so unworthily applied
to the infant son of a consul, or a triumvir:(61) but if a
more splendid, and indeed specious, interpretation of the
fourth eclogue contributed to the conversion of the first
Christian emperor, Virgil may deserve to be ranked among the
most successful missionaries of the Gospel.(62)
Devotion and privileges of Constantine.
The awful mysteries of the Christian faith and worship were
concealed from the eyes of strangers, and even of
catechumens, with an affected secrecy, which served to
excite their wonder and curiosity.(63) But the severe rules
of discipline which the prudence of the bishops had
instituted were relaxed by the same prudence in favour of an
Imperial proselyte, whom it was so important to allure, by
every gentle condescension, into the pale of the church; and
Constantine was permitted, at least by a tacit dispensation,
to enjoy most of the privileges, before he had contracted
any of the obligations, of a Christian. Instead of retiring
from the congregation when the voice of the deacon dismissed
the profane multitude, he prayed with the faithful, disputed
with the bishops, preached on the most sublime and intricate
subjects of theology, celebrated with sacred rites the vigil
of Easter, and publicly declared himself, not only a
partaker, but, in some measure, a priest and hierophant of
the Christian mysteries. (64) The pride of Constantine might
assume, and his services had deserved, some extraordinary
distinction; an ill-timed rigour might have blasted the
unripened fruits of his conversion; and if the doors of the
church had been strictly closed against a prince who had
deserted the altars of the gods, the master of the empire
would have been left destitute of any form of religious
worship. In his last visit to Rome he piously disclaimed and
insulted the superstition of his ancestors, by refusing to
lead the military procession of the equestrian order, and to
offer the public vows to the Jupiter of the Capitoline Hill.
(65) Many years before his baptism and death Constantine had
proclaimed to the world that neither his person nor his
image should evermore be seen within the walls of an
idolatrous temple; while he distributed through the
provinces a variety of medals and pictures which represented
the emperor in an humble and suppliant posture of Christian
devotion.(66)
Delay of his baptism till the approach of death.
The pride of Constantine, who refused the privileges of a
catechumen, cannot easily be explained or excused; but the
delay of his baptism may be justified by the maxims and the
practice of ecclesiastical antiquity. The sacrament of
baptism(67) was regularly administered by the bishop himself,
with his assistant clergy, in the cathedral church of the
diocese, during the fifty days between the solemn festivals
of Easter and Pentecost; and this holy term admitted a
numerous band of infants and adult persons into the bosom of
the church. The discretion of parents often suspended the
baptism of their children till they could understand the
obligations which they contracted: the severity of ancient
bishops exacted from the new converts a novitiate of two or
three years; and the catechumens themselves, from different
motives of a temporal or a spiritual nature, were seldom
impatient to assume the character of perfect and initiated
Christians. The sacrament of baptism was supposed to contain
a full and absolute expiation of sin; and the soul, was
instantly restored to its original purity, and entitled to
the promise of eternal salvation. Among the proselytes of
Christianity there were many who judged it imprudent to
precipitate a salutary rite which could not be repeated; to
throw away an inestimable privilege which could never be
recovered. By the delay of their baptism they could venture
freely to indulge their passions in the enjoyment of this
world, while they still retained in their own hands the
means of a sure and easy absolution.(68) The sublime theory
of the Gospel had made a much fainter impression on the
heart than on the understanding of Constantine himself. He
pursued the great object of his ambition through the dark
and bloody paths of war and policy; and, after the victory,
he abandoned himself, without moderation, to the abuse of
his fortune. Instead of asserting his just superiority above
the imperfect heroism and profane philosophy of Trajan and
the Antonines, the mature age of Constantine forfeited the
reputation which he had acquired in his youth. As he
gradually advanced in the knowledge of truth, he
proportionably declined in the practice of virtue; and the
same year of his reign in which he convened the council of
Nice was polluted by the execution, or rather murder, of his
eldest son. This date is alone sufficient to refute the
ignorant and malicious suggestions of Zosimus(69) who affirms
that, after the death of Crispus, the remorse of his father
accepted from the ministers of Christianity the expiation
which he had vainly solicited from the Pagan pontiffs. At
the time of the death of Crispus the emperor could no longer
hesitate in the choice of a religion; he could no longer be
ignorant that the church was possessed of an infallible
remedy, though he chose to defer the application of it till
the approach of death had removed the temptation and danger
of a relapse. The bishops whom he summoned in his last
illness to the palace of Nicomedia were edified by the
fervour with which he requested and received the sacrament
of baptism, by the solemn protestation that the remainder of
his life should be worthy of a disciple of Christ, and by
his humble refusal to wear the Imperial purple after he had
been clothed in the white garment of a Neophyte. The example
and reputation of Constantine seemed to countenance the
delay of baptism. (70) Future tyrants were encouraged to
believe that the innocent blood which they might shed in a
long reign would instantly be washed away in the waters of
regeneration; and the abuse of religion dangerously
undermined the foundations of moral virtue.
Propagation of Christianity.
The gratitude of the church has exalted the virtues and
excused the failings of a generous patron, who seated
Christianity on the throne of the Roman world; and the
Greeks, who celebrate the festival of the Imperial saint,
seldom mention the name of Constantine without adding the
title of equal to the Apostles .(71) Such a comparison, if
it alludes to the character of those divine missionaries,
must be imputed to the extravagance of impious flattery. But
if the parallel is confined to the extent and number of
their evangelic victories, the success of Constantine might
perhaps equal that of the Apostles themselves. By the edicts
of toleration he removed the temporal disadvantages which
had hitherto retarded the progress of Christianity; and its
active and numerous ministers received a free permission, a
liberal encouragement, to recommend the salutary truths of
revelation by every argument which could affect the reason
or piety of mankind. The exact balance of the two religions
continued but a moment; and the piercing eye of ambition and
avarice soon discovered that the profession of Christianity
might contribute to the interest of the present, as well as
of a future life. (72) The hopes of wealth and honours, the
example of an emperor, his exhortations, his irresistible
smiles, diffused conviction among the venal and obsequious
crowds which usually fill the apartments of a palace. The
cities which signalised a forward zeal by the voluntary
destruction of their temples were distinguished by municipal
privileges and rewarded with popular donatives; and the new
capital of the East gloried in the singular advantage that
Constantinople was never profaned by the worship of idols.
(73) As the lower ranks of society are governed by imitation,
the conversion of those who possessed any eminence of birth,
of power, or of riches, was soon followed by dependent
multitudes. (74) The salvation of the common people was
purchased at an easy rate, if it be true that, in one year,
twelve thousand men were baptised at Rome, besides a
proportionable number of women and children, and that a
white garment, with twenty pieces of gold, had been promised
by the emperor to every convert.(75) The powerful influence
of Constantine was not circumscribed by the narrow limits of
his life or of his dominions. The education which he
bestowed on his sons and nephews secured to the empire a
race of princes whose faith was still more lively and
sincere, as they imbibed, in their earliest infancy, the
spirit, or at least the doctrine, of Christianity. War and
commerce had spread the knowledge of the Gospel beyond the
confines of the Roman provinces; and the barbarians, who had
disdained an humble and proscribed sect, soon learned to
esteem a religion which had been so lately embraced by the
greatest monarch and the most civilised nation of the globe.
(76) The Goths and Germans, who enlisted under the standard of Rome, revered the cross which glittered at the head of the
legions, and their fierce countrymen received at the same
time the lessons of faith and of humanity. The kings of
Iberia and Armenia worshipped the God of their protector;
and their subjects, who have invariably preserved the name
of Christians, soon formed a sacred and perpetual connection
with their Roman brethren. The Christians of Persia were
suspected, in time of war, of preferring their religion to
their country; but as long as peace subsisted between the
two empires, the persecuting spirit of the Magi was
effectually restrained by the interposition of Constantine.
(77) The rays of the Gospel illuminated the coast of India.
The colonies of Jews who had penetrated into Arabia and
Ethiopia(78) opposed the progress of Christianity; but the
labour of the missionaries was in some measure facilitated
by a previous knowledge of the Mosaic revelation; and
Abyssinia still reveres the memory of Frumentius, who, in
the time of Constantine, devoted his life to the conversion
of those sequestered regions. Under the reign of his son
Constantius, Theophilus, (79) who was himself of Indian
extraction, was invested with the double character of
ambassador and bishop. He embarked on the Red Sea with two
hundred horses of the purest breed of Cappadocia, which were
sent by the emperor of the prince of the Sabaeans, or
Homerites. Theophilus was intrusted with many other useful
or curious presents, which might raise the admiration and
conciliate the friendship of the barbarians; and he
successfully employed several years in a pastoral visit to
the churches of the torrid zone.(80)
Change of the national religion..
The irresistible power of the Roman emperors was displayed
in the important and dangerous change of the national
religion. The terrors of a military force silenced the faint
and unsupported murmurs of the Pagans, and there was reason
to expect that the cheerful submission of the Christian
clergy, as well as the people, would be the result of
conscience and gratitude. It was long since established as a
fundamental maxim of the Roman constitution, that every rank
of citizens was alike subject to the laws, and that the care
of religion was the right as well as duty of the civil
magistrate. Constantine and his successors could not easily
persuade themselves that they had forfeited, by their
conversion, any branch of the Imperial prerogatives, or that
they were incapable of giving laws to a religion which they
had protected and embraced. The emperors still continued to
exercise a supreme jurisdiction over the A.D. 312-438ecclesiastical
order; and the sixteenth book of the Theodosian code
represents, under a variety of titles, the authority which
they assumed in the government of the Catholic church.
Distinction of the spiritual and temporal powers.
But the distinction of the spiritual and temporal powers,(81)
which had never been imposed on the free spirit of Greece
and Rome, was introduced and confirmed by the legal
establishment of Christianity. The office of supreme
pontiff, which, from the time of Numa to that of Augustus,
had always been exercised by one of the most eminent of the
senators, was at length united to the Imperial dignity. The
first magistrate of the state, as often as he was prompted
by superstition or policy, performed with his own hands the
sacerdotal functions;(82) nor was there any order of priests,
either at Rome or in the provinces, who claimed a more
sacred character among men, or a more intimate communication
with the gods. But in the Christian church, which intrusts
the service of the altar to a perpetual succession of
consecrated ministers, the monarch, whose spiritual rank is
less honourable than that of the meanest deacon, was seated
below the rails of the sanctuary, and confounded with the
rest of the faithful multitude. (83) The emperor might be
saluted as the father of his people, but he owed a filial
duty and reverence to the fathers of the church; and the
same marks of respect which Constantine had paid to the
persons of saints and confessors were soon exacted by the
pride of the episcopal order.(84) A secret conflict between
the civil and ecclesiastical jurisdictions embarrassed the
operations of the Roman government; and a pious emperor was
alarmed by the guilt and danger of touching with a profane
hand the ark of the covenant. The separation of men into the
two orders of the clergy and of the laity was, indeed,
familiar to many nations of antiquity; and the priests of
India, of Persia, of Assyria, of Judea, of Ethiopia, of
Egypt, and of Gaul, derived from a celestial origin the
temporal power and possessions which they had acquired.
These venerable institutions had gradually assimilated
themselves to the manners and government of their respective
countries;(85) but the opposition or contempt of the civil
power served to cement the discipline of the primitive
church. The Christians had been obliged to elect their own
magistrates, to raise and distribute a peculiar revenue, and
to regulate the internal policy of their republic by a code
of laws, which were ratified by the consent of the people
and the practice of three hundred years. When Constantine
embraced the faith of the Christians, he seemed to contract
a perpetual alliance with a distinct and independent
society; and the privileges granted or confirmed by that
emperor, or by his successors, were accepted, not as the
precarious favours of the court, but as the just and
inalienable rights of the ecclesiastical order.
State of the bishops under the Christian emperors..
The Catholic church was administered by the spiritual and
legal jurisdiction of eighteen hundred bishops(86) of whom
one thousand were seated in the Greek, and eight hundred in
the Latin, provinces of the empire. The extent and
boundaries of their respective dioceses had been variously
and accidentally decided by the zeal and success of the
first missionaries, by the wishes of the people, and by the
propagation of the Gospel. Episcopal churches were closely
planted along the banks of the Nile, on the seacoast of
Africa, in the proconsular Asia, and through the southern
provinces of Italy. The bishops of Gaul and Spain, of Thrace
and Pontus, reigned over an ample territory, and delegated
their rural suffragans to execute the subordinate duties of
the pastoral office. (87) A Christian diocese might be spread
over a province, or reduced to a village; but all the
bishops possessed an equal and indelible character; they all
derived the same powers and privileges from the apostles,
from the people, and from the laws. While the civil and
military professions were separated by the policy of
Constantine, a new and perpetual order of ecclesiastical ministers, always respectable, sometimes dangerous, was
established in the church and state. The important review of
their station and attributes may be distributed under the
following heads:
Election of bishops.
1. The freedom of elections subsisted long after the legal
establishment of Christianity, (88) and the subjects of Rome
enjoyed in the church the privilege which they had lost in
the republic, of choosing the magistrates whom they were
bound to obey. As soon as a bishop had closed his eyes, the
metropolitan issued a commission to one of his suffragans to
administer the vacant see, and prepare, within a limited
time, the future election. The right of voting was vested in
the inferior clergy, who were best qualified to judge of the
merit of the candidates; in the senators or nobles of the
city, all those who were distinguished by their rank or
property; and finally in the whole body of the people, who
on the appointed day flocked in multitudes from the most
remote parts of the diocese,(89) and sometimes silenced, by
their tumultuous acclamations, the voice of reason and the
laws of discipline. These acclamations might accidentally
fix on the head of the most deserving competitor, of some
ancient presbyter, some holy monk, or some layman
conspicuous for his zeal and piety. But the episcopal chair
was solicited, especially in the great and opulent cities of
the empire, as a temporal rather than as a spiritual
dignity. The interested views, the selfish and angry
passions, the arts of perfidy and dissimulation, the secret
corruption, the open and even bloody violence which had
formerly disgraced the freedom of election in the
commonwealths of Greece and Rome, too often influenced the
choice of the successors of the apostles. While one of the
candidates boasted the honours of his family, a second
allured his judges by the delicacies of a plentiful table,
and a third, more guilty than his rivals, offered to share
the plunder of the church among the accomplices of his
sacrilegious hopes.(90) The civil as well as ecclesiastical
laws attempted to exclude the populace from this solemn and
important transaction. The canons of ancient discipline, by
requiring several episcopal qualifications of age, station,
etc., restrained in some measure the indiscriminate caprice
of the electors. The authority of the provincial bishops,
who were assembled in the vacant church to consecrate the
choice of the people, was interposed to moderate their
passions and to correct their mistakes. The bishops could
refuse to ordain an unworthy candidate, and the rage of
contending factions sometimes accepted their impartial
mediation. The submission or the resistance of the clergy
and people, on various occasions, afforded different
precedents, which were insensibly converted into positive
laws and provincial customs: (91) but it was everywhere
admitted, as a fundamental maxim of religious policy, that
no bishop could be imposed on an orthodox church without the
consent of its members. The emperors, as the guardians of
the public peace, and as the first citizens of Rome and
Constantinople, might effectually declare their wishes in
the choice of a primate; but those absolute monarchs
respected the freedom of ecclesiastical elections, and,
while they distributed and resumed the honours of the state
and army, they allowed eighteen hundred perpetual
magistrates to receive their important offices from the free
suffrages of the people.(92) It was agreeable to the dictates
of justice that these magistrates should not desert an
honourable station from which they could not be removed; but
the wisdom of councils endeavoured, without much success, to
enforce the residence, and to prevent the translation, of
bishops. The discipline of the West was indeed less relaxed
than that of the East; but the same passions which made
those regulations necessary rendered them ineffectual. The
reproaches which angry prelates have so vehemently urged
against each other serve; only to expose their common guilt
and their mutual indiscretion.
Ordination of the clergy
2. The bishops alone possessed the faculty of spiritual
generation, and this extraordinary privilege might
compensate, in some degree, for the painful celibacy(93)
which was imposed as a virtue, as a duty, and at length as a
positive obligation. The religions of antiquity, which
established a separate order of priests, dedicated a holy
race, a tribe or family, to the perpetual service of the
gods. (94) Such institutions were founded for possession
rather than conquest. The children of the priests enjoyed,
with proud and indolent security, their sacred inheritance;
and the fiery spirit of enthusiasm was abated by the cares,
the pleasures, and the endearments of domestic life. But the
Christian sanctuary was open to every ambitious candidate
who aspired to its heavenly promises or temporal
possessions. The office of priests, like that of soldiers or
magistrates, was strenuously exercised by those men whose
temper and abilities had prompted them to embrace the
ecclesiastical profession, or who had been selected by a
discerning bishop as the best qualified to promote the glory
and interest of the church. The bishops(95) (till the abuse
was restrained by the prudence of the laws) might constrain
the reluctant and protect the distressed, and the imposition
of hands for ever bestowed some of the most valuable
privileges of civil society. The whole body of the catholic
clergy, more numerous, perhaps, than the legions, was
exempted by the emperors from all service, private or
public, all municipal offices, and all personal taxes and
contributions, which pressed on their fellow-citizens with
intolerable weight; and the duties of their holy profession
were accepted as a full discharge of their obligations to
the republic.(96) Each bishop acquired an absolute and
indefeasible right to the perpetual obedience of the clerk
whom he ordained; the clergy of each episcopal church, with
its dependent parishes, formed a regular and permanent
society; and the cathedrals of Constantinople (97) and
Carthage(98) maintained their peculiar establishment of five
hundred ecclesiastical ministers. Their ranks(99) and numbers
were insensibly multiplied by the superstition of the times,
which introduced into the church the splendid ceremonies of
a Jewish or Pagan temple; and a long train of priests,
deacons, subdeacons, acolytes, exorcists, readers, singers,
and doorkeepers contributed, in their respective stations,
to swell the pomp and harmony of religious worship. The
clerical name and privilege were extended to many pious
fraternities, who devoutly supported the ecclesiastical
throne. (100) Six hundred parabolani, or adventurers,
visited the sick at Alexandria; eleven hundred copiate, or
grave-diggers buried the dead at Constantinople; and the
swarms of monks, who arose from the Nile, overspread and
darkened the face of the Christian world.
Property.
3. The edict of Milan secured the revenue as well as the
peace of the church. (101) The Christians not only recovered
the lands and houses of which they had been stripped by the
persecuting laws of Diocletian, but they acquired a perfect
title to all the possessions which they had hitherto enjoyed
by the connivance of the magistrate. As soon as Christianity
became the religion of the emperor and the empire, the
national clergy might claim a decent and honourable
maintenance: and the payment of an annual tax might have
delivered the people from the more oppressive tribute which
superstition imposes on her votaries. But as the wants and
expenses of the church increased with her prosperity, the
ecclesiastical order was still supported and enriched by the
voluntary oblations of the faithful. Eight years after the
edict of Milan, Constantine granted to all his subjects the
free and universal permission of bequeathing their fortunes
to the holy Catholic church; (102) and their devout
liberality, which during their lives was checked by luxury
or avarice, flowed with a profuse stream at the hour of
their death. The wealthy Christians were encouraged by the
example of their sovereign. An absolute monarch, who is rich
without patrimony, may be charitable without merit; and
Constantine too easily believed that he should purchase the
favour of Heaven if he maintained the idle at the expense of
the industrious, and distributed among the saints the wealth
of the republic. The same messenger who carried over to
Africa the head of Maxentius might be intrusted with an
epistle to Caecilian, bishop of Carthage. The emperor
acquaints him that the treasurers of the province are
directed to pay into his hands the sum of three thousand
folles, or eighteen thousand pounds sterling, and to obey
his farther requisitions for the relief of the churches of
Africa, Numidia and Mauritania. (103) The liberality of
Constantine increased in a just proportion to his faith and
to his vices. He assigned in each city a regular allowance
of corn to supply the fund of ecclesiastical charity, and
the persons of both sexes who embraced the monastic life
became the peculiar favourites of their sovereign. The
Christian temples of Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem,
Constantinople, etc., displayed the ostentatious piety of a
prince ambitious in a declining age to equal the perfect
labours of antiquity. (104) The form of these religious
edifices was simple and oblong, though they might sometimes
swell into the shape of a dome, and sometimes branch into
the figure of a cross. The timbers were framed for the most
part of cedars of Libanus; the roof was covered with tiles,
perhaps of gilt brass; and the walls, the columns, the
pavement, were incrusted with variegated marbles. The most
precious ornaments of gold and silver, of silk and gems,
were profusely dedicated to the service of the altar, and
this specious magnificence was supported on the solid and
perpetual basis of landed property. In the space of two
centuries, from the reign of Constantine to that of
Justinian, the eighteen hundred churches of the empire were
enriched by the frequent and unalienable gifts of the prince
and people. An annual income of six hundred pounds sterling
may be reasonably assigned to the bishops, who were placed
at an equal distance between riches and poverty,(105) but the
standard of their wealth insensibly rose with the dignity
and opulence of the cities which they governed. An authentic
but imperfect(106) rent-roll specifies some houses, shops,
gardens, and farms, which belonged to the three Basilicue of
Rome — St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. John Lateran — in the
provinces of Italy, Africa, and the East. They produce,
besides a reserved rent of oil, linen, paper, aromatics,
etc., a clear annual revenue of twenty-two thousand pieces
of gold, or twelve thousand pounds sterling. In the age of
Constantine and Justinian the bishops no longer possessed,
perhaps they no longer deserved, the unsuspecting confidence
of their clergy and people. The ecclesiastical revenues of
each diocese were divided into four parts, for the
respective uses of the bishop himself, of his inferior
clergy, of the poor, and of the public worship; and the
abuse of this sacred trust was strictly and repeatedly
checked.(107) The patrimony of the church was still subject
to all the public impositions of the state.(108) The clergy
of Rome, Alexandria, Thessalonica, etc., might solicit and
obtain some partial exemptions; but the premature attempt of
the great council of Rimini, which aspired to universal
freedom, was successfully resisted by the son of
Constantine.(109)
Civil Jurisdiction.
4. The Latin clergy, who erected their tribunal on the
ruins of the civil and common law, have modestly accepted,
as the gift of Constantine,(110) the independent jurisdiction
which was the fruit of time, of accident, and of their own
industry. But the liberality of the Christian emperors had
actually endowed them with some legal prerogatives which
secured and dignified the sacerdotal character.(111) 1. Under
a despotic government, the bishops alone enjoyed and
asserted the inestimable privilege of being tried only by
their peers; and even in a capital accusation, a synod of
their brethren were the sole judges of their guilt or
innocence. Such a tribunal, unless it was inflamed by
personal resentment or religious discord, might be
favourable, or even partial, to the sacerdotal order: but
Constantine was satisfied (112) that secret impunity would be less pernicious than public scandal, and the Nicene council was edified by his public declaration, that, if he surprised
a bishop in the act of adultery, he should cast his Imperial
mantle over the episcopal sinner. 2. The domestic
jurisdiction of the bishops was at once a privilege and a
restraint of the ecclesiastical order, whose civil causes
were decently withdrawn from the cognisance of a secular
judge. Their venial offences were not exposed to the shame
of a public trial or punishment and the gentle correction
which the tenderness of youth may endure from its parents or
instructors was inflicted by the temperate severity of the
bishops. But if the clergy were guilty of any crime which
could not be sufficiently expiated by their degradation from
an honourable and beneficial profession, the Roman
magistrate drew the sword of justice, without any regard to
ecclesiastical immunities. 3. The arbitration of the
bishops was ratified by a positive law and the judges were
instructed to execute, without appeal or delay, the
episcopal decrees, whose validity had hitherto depended on
the consent of the parties. The conversion of the
magistrates themselves, and of the whole empire, might
gradually remove the fears and scruples of the Christians.
But they still resorted to the tribunal of the bishops,
whose abilities and integrity they esteemed; and the
venerable Austin enjoyed the satisfaction of complaining
that his spiritual functions were perpetually interrupted by
the invidious labour of deciding the claim or the possession
of silver and gold, of lands and cattle. 4. The ancient
privilege of sanctuary was transferred to the Christian
temples, and extended, by the liberal piety of the younger
Theodosius, to the precincts of consecrated ground.(113) The
fugitive, and even guilty, suppliants were permitted to
implore either the justice or the mercy of the Deity and his
ministers. The rash violence of despotism was suspended by
the mild interposition of the church, and the lives or
fortunes of the most eminent subjects might be protected by
the mediation of the bishop.
Spiritual censures.
5. The bishop was the perpetual censor of the morals of his
people. The discipline of penance was digested into a system
of canonical jurisprudence,(114) which accurately defined the
duty of private or public confession, the rules of evidence
the degrees of guilt, and the measure of punishment. It was
impossible to execute this spiritual censure, if the
Christian pontiff who punished the obscure sins of the
multitude, respected the conspicuous vices and destructive
crimes of the magistrate: but it was impossible to arraign
the conduct of the magistrate without controlling the
administration of civil government. Some considerations of
religion, or royalty, or fear, protected the sacred persons
of the emperors from the zeal or resentment of the bishops;
but they boldly censured and excommunicated the subordinate
tyrants who were not invested with the majesty of the
purple. St. Athanasius ex-communicated one of the ministers
of Egypt, and the interdict which he pronounced of fire and
water was solemnly transmitted to the churches of
Cappodocia.(115) Under the reign of the younger Theodosius,
the polite and eloquent Synesius, one of the descendants of
Hercules,(116) filled the episcopal seat of Ptolemais, near
the ruins of ancient Cyrene,(117) and the philosophic bishop
supported with dignity the character which he had assumed
with reluctance.(118) He vanquished the monster of Libya, the
president Andronicus, who abused the authority of a venal
office, invented new modes of rapine and torture, and
aggravated the guilt of oppression by that of sacrilege.(119)
After a fruitless attempt to reclaim the haughty magistrate
by mild and religious admonition, Synesius proceeds to
inflict the last sentence of ecclesiastical justice,(120)
which devotes Andronicus, with his associates and their
families, to the abhorrence of earth and heaven. The
impenitent sinners more cruel than Phalaris or Sennacherib,
more destructive than war, pestilence, or a cloud of
locusts, are deprived of the name and privileges of
Christians, of the participation of the sacraments, and of
the hope of Paradise. The bishop exhorts the clergy, the
magistrates, and the people to renounce all society with the
enemies of christ, to exclude them from their houses and
tables, and to refuse them the common offices of life, and
the decent rites of burial. The church of Ptolemais, obscure
and contemptible as she may appear, addresses this
declaration to all her sister churches of the world; and the
profane who reject her decrees will be involved in he guilt
and punishment of Andronicus and his impious followers.
These spiritual terrors were enforced by a dexterous
application to the Byzantine court; the trembling president
implored the mercy of the church, and the descendant of
Hercules enjoyed the satisfaction of raising a prostrate
tyrant from the ground. (121) Such principles and such
examples insensibly prepared the triumph of the Roman
pontiffs, who have trampled on the necks of kings.
Freedom of public preaching.
6. Every popular government has experienced the effects of
rude or artificial eloquence. The coldest nature is
animated, the firmest reason is moved, by the rapid
communication of the prevailing impulse; and each hearer is
affected by his own passions and by those of the surrounding
multitude. The ruin of civil liberty had silenced the
demagogues of Athens and the tribunes of Rome; the custom of
preaching, which seems to constitute a considerable part of
Christian devotion, had not been introduced into the temples
of antiquity; and the ears of monarchs were never invaded by
the harsh sound of popular eloquence till the pulpits of the
empire were filled with sacred orators, who possessed some
advantages unknown to their profane predecessors.(122) The
arguments and rhetoric of the tribune were instantly
opposed, with equal arms, by skilful and resolute
antagonists; and the cause of truth and reason might derive
an accidental support from the conflict of hostile passions.
The bishop, or some distinguished presbyter to whom he
cautiously delegated the powers of preaching, harangued,
without the danger of interruption or reply, a submissive
multitude, whose minds had been prepared and subdued by the
awful ceremonies of religion. Such was the strict
subordination of the Catholic church that the same concerted
sounds might issue at once from an hundred pulpits of Italy
or Egypt, if they were tuned(123) by the masterhand of the Roman or Alexandrian primate. The design of this institution
was laudable, but the fruits were not always salutary. The
preachers recommended the practice of the social duties; but
they exalted the perfection of monastic virtue, which is
painful to the individual, and useless to mankind. Their
charitable exhortations betrayed a secret wish that the
clergy might be permitted to manage the wealth of the
faithful for the benefit of the poor. The most sublime
representations of the attributes and laws of the Deity were
sullied by an idle mixture of metaphysical subtleties,
puerile rites, and fictitious miracles: and they expatiated,
with the most fervent zeal, on the religious merit of hating
the adversaries and obeying the a ministers of the church.
When the public peace was distracted by heresy and schism,
the sacred orators sounded the trumpet of discord, and
perhaps of sedition. The understandings of their
congregations were perplexed by mystery, their passions were
inflamed by invectives; and they rushed from the Christian
temples of Antioch, or Alexandria, prepared either to suffer
or to inflict martyrdom. The corruption of taste and
language is strongly marked in the vehement declamations of
the Latin bishops; but the compositions of Gregory and
Chrysostom have been compared with the most splendid models
of Attic, or at least of Asiatic, eloquence.(124)
Privilege of legislative assemblies
7. The representatives of the Christian republic were
regularly assembled in the spring and autumn of each year
and these synods diffused the spirit of ecclesiastical
discipline and legislation through the hundred and twenty
provinces of the Roman world. (125) The archbishop or metropolitan was empowered by the laws to summon the
suffragan bishops of his province; to revise their conduct,
to vindicate their rights, to declare their faith, and to
examine the merit of the candidates who were elected by the
clergy and people to supply the vacancies of the episcopal
college. The primates of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch,
Carthage, and afterwards Constantinople, who exercised a
more ample jurisdiction, convened the numerous assembly of
their dependent bishops. But the convocation of great and
extraordinary synods was the prerogative of the emperor
alone. Whenever the emergencies of the church required this
decisive measure, he despatched a peremptory summons to the
bishops or the deputies of each province, with an order for
the use of post-horses and a competent allowance for the
expenses A.D. 314.of their journey. At an early period, when
Constantine was the protector rather than the proselyte of
Christianity, he referred the African controversy to the
council of Arles; in which the bishops of York, of Treves,
of Milan, and of Carthage, met as friends and brethren, to
debate in their native tongue on the common interest of the
Latin A.D. 325.or Western church.(126) Eleven years afterwards, a more
numerous and celebrated assembly was convened at Nice in
Bithynia, to extinguish, by their final sentence, the subtle
disputes which had arisen in Egypt on the subject of the
Trinity. Three hundred and eighteen bishops obeyed the
summons of their indulgent master; the ecclesiastics of
every rank and sect and denomination have been computed at
two thousand and forty-eight persons; (127) the Greeks
appeared in person; and the consent of the Latins was
expressed by the legates of the Roman pontiff. The session,
which lasted about two months, was frequently honoured by
the presence of the emperor. Leaving his guards at the door,
he seated himself ( with the permission of the council ) on
a low stool in the midst of the hall. Constantine listened
with patience and spoke with modesty; and while he
influenced the debates, he humbly professed that he was the
minister, not the judge, of the successors of the apostles,
who had been established as priests and as gods upon earth.
(128) Such profound reverence of an absolute monarch towards a
feeble and unarmed assembly of his own subjects can only be
compared to the respect with which the senate had been
treated by the Roman princes who adopted the policy of
Augustus. Within the space of fifty years, a philosophic spectator of the vicissitudes of human affairs might have contemplated Tacitus in the senate of Rome, and Constantine in the council of Nice. The fathers of the Capitol and those of the church had alike degenerated from the virtues of their founders; but as the bishops were more deeply rooted
in the public opinion, they sustained their dignity with more decent pride, and sometimes opposed with a manly spirit the wishes of their sovereign. The progress of time and superstition erased the memory of the weakness, the passion, the ignorance, which disgraced these ecclesiastical synods; and the catholic world has unanimously submitted(129) to the infallible decrees of the general councils.(130)