Diocletian rose through an army career to become a consul
and
governor of Moesia under Carus before becoming
Emperor in 284,
challenging and defeating Carinus.
The reforms he implemented
starting in 285 stabilized
the Roman empire from foreign aggression,
army take-overs, and civil wars.
His court only visited Rome
once
briefly in the next twenty years.
Diocletian first appointed Maximian
as Caesar and then
as Augustus to rule the Western empire.
The
praetorian guard was reduced to being a garrison of Rome.
Diocletian
kept on many Carinus officials, including
Aristobulus a principal
minister of the Carus house.
The military was greatly increased.
Caracalla, seventy years before, had only 33 legions;
but Diocletian
had about sixty.
Lactantius complained (and exaggerated) that
each of the
four Emperors had more troops than any one earlier
Emperor.
To smooth the succession and extend imperial power
Diocletian
by 293 also appointed Constantius to be Caesar
in the West under
Maximian
and Galerius to be Caesar in the East under himself.
His expanded administration and building programs required
more
funds; increased taxes based on land (iugum) and
persons (caput) fell heavily on agriculture.
Many tenant farmers
had to abandon their fields.
Maximian crushed a peasant revolt in Gaul
and for several
years
responded to attacks
by Alamanni, Burgundians, and Franks.
A Messapian
named Carausius plundered Saxon and Frankish
pirates in the English
channel, claimed to rule Britain,
and based his navy at Gesoriacum
(Boulogne).
Diocletian left his headquarters at Nicomedia in Bithynia
to defeat the Sarmatians in the Danube region in 289 and 292.
His army crushed another revolt of Nubian Blemmyes.
In 293 Constantius
took Gesoriacum away from Carausius,
who was then killed by his
chief minister Allectus.
Two years later Constantius and praetorian
prefect
Asclepiodotus with two fleets regained Britain
by defeating
and killing Allectus.
Galerius repelled Gothic invaders; he ordered
land reclaimed
to make room for Carpi settlers.
In 296 Diocletian
besieged Alexandria for eight months
to end a rebellion led by
Achilleus and
Domitius Domitianus, killing thousands.
Maximian
and Constantius defeated invasions by Alamanni
in Gaul, while
Galerius controlled the Danube area.
Maximian suppressed an uprising
of Moors in Africa in 298.
Persian king Narses (r. 293-303) deposed Vahram III and
expelled
the Christian convert Tiridates III (r. 287-330)
from the throne
of Armenia.
The Persians defeated the army of Galerius in the
plains
near Carrhae in 296.
After this humiliation the next year
Diocletian sent Galerius
back with an army of 25,000 through Armenia.
The army of Narses was destroyed,
and the Persian royal family
was captured.
A treaty was agreed upon, and the border between
the
two large empires was moved east of the Tigris River.
Wild inflation caused Diocletian to introduce new coins
and
a revised taxation system in 296.
However, his expenditures on
war, governmental bureaucracy,
and building up his capital at
Nicomedia
continued to increase prices.
So in 301 Diocletian issued
an edict setting maximum prices
and wages; infringement was enforced
with capital punishment.
He condemned excessive avarice that
profiteered
wherever the army went.
Diocletian published a list of maximum
prices and wages,
though a picture painter could still make 150 denarii per day,
and silk dyed purple cost more than gold.
Diocletian separated civil and military authority
and reduced
the size of administrative provinces
by doubling the number to
more than a hundred,
organized into twelve dioceses—six in the
East
(Orient, Pontus, Asia, Thrace, Moesia, and Pannonia) and
six
in the West (Britain, Gaul, Vienne, Italy, Spain, and Africa).
Diocletian instituted strict penalties for tax evasion,
but he
also banned the sale of children.
An important contributor to the Palestinian Talmud,
Jochanan, died in 279.
During the reign of Diocletian
Judah III
was patriarch (280-300)
and sent Ami, Assi, and Chiya to inspect
the religious
and educational institutions in Judea.
In one town
an armed guard appeared,
but no teachers could be found.
They
responded by pointing out that such guardians are
destroyers of
the city; the true guards are the teachers.
When Abbahu heard
that the Torah was no longer observed
in Samaria, he sent
Ami and Assi, who investigated and
determined that the Samaritans
were heathens.
While most Christians were uniting, this rupture
weakened
both the Jews and the Samaritans.
Abbahu (d. 320) lectured
on the broader interpretations
(Aggadah), while others
like Chiya bar Abba
confined themselves to the laws (Halakhah).
For twenty years Diocletian tolerated Christianity in the East.
An example of the Christian-Roman conflict over military
service was the case of Maximilian, a twenty-year-old
Numidian, who was
called to be enrolled
as a soldier in 295 CE.
He declared that
he was a Christian and could not fight.
The proconsul Dion tried
to mark him, but he refused.
Dion gave him the choice of bearing
arms,
or he would be killed.
Maximilian asserted that he was not
a soldier
of this world, but a soldier of God.
Dion asked him
who persuaded him, and he said that
it was his own mind and the
one who called him.
Dion tried to get his father to convince him,
but the father
said his son knew what was best for him.
Maximilian
continued to refuse to bear arms.
Even when he was told that other
Christians
are soldiers and fight, he replied that others may
know
what is best for them;
but as a Christian it was unlawful
for him to do evil.
Believing that he was going to Christ,
Maximilian
was beheaded.
Three years later the centurion Marcellus threw
away
his arms and refused to obey anyone
but Jesus
Christ; he was beheaded too.
Galerius dismissed many Christian officers from their positions.
In 303 Galerius persuaded Diocletian to issue an edict to
demolish
all churches in the empire and make holding secret
religious meetings
a capital crime.
Church property was confiscated,
and Christian
books were burned in public squares.
Judges were to hear any accusation
against a Christian;
but Christians were not permitted to complain
of any injury.
When the edict was posted in Nicomedia,
a Christian
tore it down and was burned to death.
Diocletian was opposed to
bloodshed;
but after two fires in his palace were blamed on Christians,
this policy changed.
News of revolts in Melitene and Syria led
by Christians
also stimulated prosecution of Christian leaders,
filling the prisons.
The North African bishop Felix was beheaded
in Lucania.
When Diocletian was ill, Galerius issued a fourth
edict
that required everyone to sacrifice on pain of death.
The
persecution may have brought on
Diocletian's illness and retirement
in 305.
Caesarea bishop Eusebius described how Christians were
supernaturally
protected from beasts incited to attack them
in the arena so that
the martyrs
had to be butchered by the sword.
At Thebes in Egypt
as many as a hundred people were
tortured and put to death in
one day.
The Christians ignored the tortures, spoke of their devotion
to God in joy, laughed, and sang to their last breath.
A little
town in Phrygia, in which all were Christians,
was surrounded
by soldiers and completely massacred.
Later when authorities ordered
the killing to stop,
orders were given to gouge out eyes and maim
one leg.
Eusebius recorded that bishops of Nicomedia, Tyre, Emesa,
Gaza, and several in Egypt were all killed.
In 305 Maximian also was persuaded to retire in Lucania.
Galerius
ruled the East and Constantius the West,
holding Gaul, Britain,
and Spain.
Since Severus controlled Italy, Africa, and Pannonia,
he became Caesar along with the nephew of Galerius,
Maximin Daia,
who oppressively ruled Egypt and Syria.
When Constantius in 293
married Helena,
a step-daughter of Emperor Maximian, to become
Caesar,
his son Constantine went to serve Diocletian in the wars
against Persia and in Egypt.
In 305 Constantius requested his
son's assistance in his attack
on the Picts (Caledonians) in northern
Britain.
Constantine traveled quickly
and helped his father to
victory in Britain.
When Constantius died at York the next year,
Constantine was
acclaimed Emperor by the army.
Galerius, however, declared Severus
Augustus as
Western Emperor and named Constantine Caesar.
In Rome
the son of Maximian, Maxentius, strengthened
by the disgruntled
praetorian guard, was declared princeps,
and he was supported
by Africa and its grain.
He and the Senate sent the imperial insignia
to his father Maximian, who came out of retirement.
Galerius responded to this challenge
by ordering Severus against
them.
Bribes and old loyalties won soldiers from Severus to
Maximian, and Severus retreated to Ravenna,
where he was imprisoned.
Maximian
went to Gaul and gave his daughter Fausta
in marriage to Constantine.
Galerius left Licinius in Illyricum and marched into Italy;
but
he had the same trouble as Severus and had to
retreat to Pannonia,
as Severus was killed.
In 307 Maximian quarreled with his son
Maxentius in Rome
and tried to tear the imperial purple from his
body.
The next year Galerius conferred with Diocletian
and Maximian
at Carnuntum.
Licinius was appointed as Augustus, and so it could
be said
there were six Emperors, not counting the retired Diocletian.
In Rome the strict Marcellus became bishop and was
opposed by
those more willing to forgive lapsed Christians.
Their conflicts
in the streets became so bloody
that Maxentius banished Marcellus.
In 308 Eusebius was elected bishop of Rome;
but he too was opposed
and banished to Sicily.
A different Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea,
wrote that
Maxentius dishonored countless free women with his
lust
and that at least one Christian wife of a senator
committed
suicide to preserve her chastity.
He also wrote that Maxentius
had his guards kill many Romans.
Constantine and his army gained experience fighting off
barbarians
in the Rhine region.
The elderly Maximian tried to take his troops
away and was
eventually besieged and captured at Massilia (Marseilles)
before committing suicide in 310.
Constantine changed his image
from the Herculius of his
dead father-in-law to the Invincible
Sun (Sol Invictus),
claiming descent from Emperor Claudius
II.
In Africa Domitius Alexander declared himself Emperor,
but
he was defeated and killed by forces of Maxentius
which punished
Carthage in 311.
That year Galerius levied taxes to celebrate
twenty years of rule;
after years of persecuting them he issued
an edict legally
recognizing Christians as he was dying of illness.
Maximin Daia marched north to claim Asia;
he captured Byzantium
but was stopped by Licinius
at the Bosphorus and defeated at Adrianople.
Daia, holding Asia, resumed the persecution.
When Licinius was
betrothed to Constantine's sister Constantia,
Maxentius and Maximin
Daia allied.
Miltiades became bishop of Rome, and Christians in
the West
were given even greater tolerance
than in the recent
edict of the dying Galerius.
In 312 Constantine with an army of 40,000 marched from
Gaul and took Turin and the imperial palace at Milan.
Constantine prevented
his men from plundering cities
and was welcomed with enthusiasm
in Italy.
After a short siege Verona surrendered.
In order to
avoid the defeats by evil spirits experienced
by Severus and Galerius,
Constantine turned to Christianity.
Two contemporary Christian
writers described Constantine's
vision of a cross of light with
the saying "Conquer by this."
Eusebius wrote that he
saw this in the sky at noon
and that it was followed by a dream;
according to Lactantius he merely saw it in a dream.
As he approached
Rome, Constantine had his soldiers
paint the Greek letters chi
and rho on their shields
as an emblem for Christ.
Constantine's
army defeated that of Maxentius
at the Milvian bridge,
and Maxentius
was drowned in the Tiber.
The sons of Maxentius were put to death,
but Constantine stopped his men from killing his supporters.
The
Senate declared Constantine Augustus.
Maximin Daia had died at Tarsus, leaving the East to Licinius,
who ordered killed the sons of Daia, Severus, and Galerius.
Constantine
met Licinius at Milan in 313, and they agreed
upon religious freedom
throughout the Roman empire.
The next year Constantine granted
ecclesiastics free transport
and the use of inns, horses, and
mules at public expense.
Constantine nominated Bassianus, who
had married his sister
Anastasia, as Caesar; but a conspiracy
of Bassianus and
supporters of Licinius was discovered.
Constantine's
army of 20,000 defeated the 35,000 of Licinius
at Cibalae in Pannonia; in the treaty
Licinius lost all his European territory except
Thrace.
The Donatist controversy arose in Africa after Diocletian
had
ordered Christians to give up their books.
Those who obeyed (Some
turned in apocryphal books.)
were called traditores.
In
311 two bishops were chosen in Carthage, because
the Donatists
believed that Felix was a traditore
and could not consecrate
his successor Caecilian.
The next year Constantine sent Caecilian
money for
the "catholic church" and directed him to
turn in
the troublesome people to the civil authorities.
In 313
a small council in Rome decided in favor of Caecilian,
and the
next year a larger council of Western churches
at Arles confirmed
that Felix was not a traditore.
They also confirmed the
Roman date of Easter and
other doctrines already accepted in Rome.
The Emperor decided against the Donatists
again at Milan in 316.
A persecution began, and Donatist fanatics
were involved in disorders.
The next year Constantine ordered authorities not to retaliate,
and in 321 the useless persecution
was ended when he granted toleration.
About 320 Licinius banned church councils and meetings
except
in the open air outside of cities;
women and men were not allowed
to worship together.
In 323 Constantine in attacking Goths
entered
the territory of Licinius.
At Adrianople the army of Licinius
was defeated
by Constantine's as 34,000 were killed.
Constantine's
navy, led by his son Crispus,
defeated the fleet of Licinius.
While Constantine was besieging Byzantium,
Licinius raised another
large army in Bithynia;
but Constantine invaded Asia and at Chrysopolis
his army slaughtered another 25,000 men.
Licinius was defeated
and banished to Thessalonica.
Thus in 324 the era of persecuting
Christians ended.
Constantine began transforming the city of Byzantium.
Pagan temples remained, but sacrifices were banned.
40,000 Goths
constructed new buildings, and in 330
the new capital of Constantinople
was officially dedicated with forty days of festivities.
Diocletian and Constantine increased the
Oriental pomp of the
imperial court.
The Emperor's power grew,
as every official was
nominated by him.
Even the advising sacred council had to stand
up
in the presence of Constantine.
A master of the offices (magister
officiorum) was
created in 320 to oversee most of the administration.
The praetorian guard was disbanded, and praetorian prefects
lost
their military functions as they became civil officials
on judicial
and financial matters.
The Senate gave up its jurisdiction as
the city prefect's
court of law took up all civil suits and criminal
cases in Rome.
The chaos of the third century had increased the
power of wealthy land-owners called latifundia,
and they
transformed their tenant farmers called coloni
into hereditary
serfs who could be bound by chains,
while most land was still
cultivated by slaves.
In 321 Constantine granted women the right
to control
their property except in landed estate sales,
and to
safeguard their modesty
he prohibited summoning women before tribunals.
Constantine tried to get rid of concubinage;
divorces required
just causes;
and adultery was prosecuted as a capital crime.
Constantine imposed new taxes on gold and silver
for merchants and corporations
and on senators based on their land.
The state
with its bureaucracy and large military establishment
increased
its control of the economy.
Most occupations became hereditary.
Feudal tenures developed, and sons of soldiers were required
to
follow their father's profession or be punished.
Military levies
could be escaped by paying 42 pieces of gold,
and some youths
lacking such funds cut off fingers
on their right hands in order
to avoid military service.
Constantine prevented the exposure of children
by assisting
poor parents.
He instituted laws to protect those who could not
pay their
taxes from being tortured or imprisoned,
not allowing
working farmers to be
dragged off to extraordinary burdens.
However,
some tax collectors, who tried to escape into the
military, were
to be dragged back to the municipal duty.
Some thanked Constantine
for remitting
tax arrears for five years.
Yet his laws on rape
included capital punishment against
consenting couples who elope
without their parents' permission
also as well as painful executions
of slaves who assisted them.
Constantine attempted to reduce
unjust
exactions and bribery of officials.
He began prison reform, and
some claimed he abolished
crucifixion and branding the face;
but
laws against informers specified that slaves or freedmen
who inform
against their masters were to be crucified.
Laws on slavery required
owners to keep loved ones together.
To protect the Emperor on
cases of treason
torture could still be applied.
Constantine tried to ameliorate past persecutions by releasing
Christian martyrs from imprisonment or slave labor
or by restoring
their property to their living relatives.
The church inherited
their property when there were no heirs.
He promoted Christians
to high offices and forbade
other governors to offer sacrifice.
Constantine prayed that all would become Christians,
but he did
not compel anyone to do so.
Constantine became concerned about the controversy that
grew
from the excommunication of Arius
by Alexander in Alexandria.
Christians were becoming divided over verbal conflicts.
The Emperor
believed these disputes should have been buried
in profound silence,
and he called for mutual forgiveness.
So many of God's people
should not be divided
over such insignificant issues.
Constantine
believed it was childish ignorance to quarrel
over trivial and
unessential points,
and in a letter he encouraged them to
resume
their mutual feelings of friendship.
However, the conflict was
too large to be resolved by a letter,
and Constantine ordered
a universal council to be held at
Nicaea in Bithynia in 325 to
resolve such questions.
According to Eusebius this was attended
by 255 bishops
from various nations throughout the empire,
though
the vast majority were from the East.
Constantine began by burning the complaints the bishops
made
against each other, and he told the council that
he considered
intestine strife within the church as more evil
and dangerous
than any kind of war.
Eusebius, who also spoke, credited Constantine
with bringing
them to one mind on every disputed question.
The
celebration of Easter was set so as not to have it
in common with
the Jews, whom Constantine detested.
After the conference he sent
a letter to the churches
urging them to adopt its decrees and
indicating that
they would be bound by them.
He exhorted the bishops
to avoid contentious disputes
and jealousy of each other.
Constantine ordered a church built at the holy place of the
Savior's resurrection in Jerusalem, and the temple of Aeclepius
at Aegae was razed to the ground by his order.
The temple of Venus
at Phoenician Heliopolis
was replaced by the city's first church.
Constantine issued an edict against the heresies that
included Novatians, Valentinians, Marcionites, Paulians,
and Cataphrygians,
and they were forbidden to meet
in public or privately.
Searches
were made for their prohibited books.
As more churches were built,
the Greek word for
church (ekklesia) meaning "assembly"
was beginning to be
replaced by kyriakon meaning "the
Lord's house."
Constantine exempted all Christian clergy
from public duties,
because he considered their serving God
an
immense contribution to the community's welfare.
Eusebius in his Life of Constantine also wrote that
the
Emperor tried to equalize oppressive taxes.
When Scythians
attacked the Sarmatians,
they armed their slaves in defense.
After
overcoming the invaders, the slaves turned on their
masters and
drove them out so that the Sarmatians
had to take refuge in Constantine's
empire.
The Emperor accepted some into the Roman army
and allotted
land to the others.
Constantine forbade by law placing a statue
of him
in any temple, and he prohibited the worship of idols
and
every kind of sacrifice.
Eusebius wrote that bloody combats of
gladiators were
no longer allowed to pollute cities,
though actually
circus games continued to be popular.
An imperial decree prohibited
a Christian
from being a slave to a Jew.
Because of Constantine's
clemency, capital punishment
was no longer a deterrent,
and some
criticized the Emperor for that.
In an oration Constantine commended
the view of Plato
that the spirits of the good and virtuous enter
the fairest
mansions of heaven after separating from the body.
He believed that the propensity to good or evil
depended on human
will and that a life of virtue
comes nearest to the divine uncreated
being.
He believed that God is pleased with virtue
and that every
act of goodness is rewarded.
Constantine had by his second wife Fausta three sons,
whom
he had made Caesars at ten-year intervals.
To celebrate the twentieth
year of his reign Constantine
moved his court from Nicomedia to
Rome.
Apparently his oldest son Crispus was suspected of a
conspiracy;
for Constantine had him executed
after a short and private trial
in 326.
About this time Constantine also had Licinius and his
son
put to death and possibly his wife Fausta
and several of his
friends.
After the civil wars the last dozen years of
Constantine's
reign were fairly peaceful.
In 331 Sarmatians and Vandals were
defeated by Goths
and appealed to Constantine, whose son Constantine
won a victory over Gothic king Araric
the next year after he had
invaded Moesia.
A treaty gave the Goths subsidies of iron, grain,
oil,
and other needed items, retained Araric's son as hostage,
and kept the Goths as allies of Rome.
Sarmatians then attacked
the Goths
and encroached on the empire.
Constantine allowed the
Gothic king Geberic
to defeat Wisumar, the Vandal king,
while
killing many Sarmatians.
Trying to fight the Goths by arming their
slaves,
these Limigantes turned against their masters and
drove
the Sarmatians out of their territory.
About 300,000 Sarmatians
were given land by
Constantine to settle in Pannonia and other
provinces.
Near the end of his life Constantine also elevated
his two nephews Dalmatius to Caesar
and Hannibalianus to Nobilissimus.
Only when he was dying did Constantine ask to be baptized;
but
then he took off his royal purple
and passed on in a white Christian
robe.
Arnobius taught rhetoric in Sicca on the
Nubian border southwest
of Carthage.
He converted to Christianity as an adult and wrote
Adversus Gentes (Against the Gentiles) about 303.
The first
two books defend Christianity,
and the next five attack Roman
religion.
Arnobius argued that wars are diminishing because of
Christ's teaching not to requite evil with evil
but even shed
our own blood
rather than stain our hands and conscience.
Savage
ferocity is being softened, as some have begun
to withhold hostile
hands from fellow creatures.
If all people capable of reason would
listen
to these peaceful rules,
the whole world may turn the use
of steel into peaceful occupations,
uniting in harmony and respecting
the sanctity of treaties.
Lactantius was born about the middle of the third century.
He studied in the school of Arnobius at Sicca.
He surpassed his
teacher as a master of rhetoric and was
invited to teach at Nicomedia
by Emperor Diocletian.
Since most people there spoke Greek while
he taught Latin,
Lactantius had few students and suffered poverty.
He converted to Christianity during the persecution in 303.
He
was considered an old man about 317 when he settled
in Gaul and
tutored Crispus, the oldest son of Constantine.
Lactantius died
about ten years later,
and the Emperor executed his son Crispus in 326.
The principal work of Lactantius, Divine Institutes,
was published about 307 and was
designed to complete the Latin writings of
Tertullian, Minucius
Felix, and Cyprian.
The work is dedicated to Constantine, whom
he praised
as the first Roman Prince to repudiate errors and
acknowledge the one true God, restoring justice
and expiating the shameful
deeds of others.
Lactantius aimed to direct the learned to true
wisdom
and the unlearned to true religion.
Lactantius began by
asserting it is better to investigate
and know human and divine
things
than to be occupied in heaping up riches.
Some have given
up property and pleasures in order to
follow the simple truth
without impediments,
believing that truth offers the greatest
good.
Lactantius believed that truth
is the secret of the Highest
God,
creator of all, and that it cannot be attained
by our own
ability and perceptions.
Otherwise there would be no difference
between God and humans.
Lactantius admitted that bitterness is mingled with the virtues
and that pleasures season the vices, causing some
to be seduced
by evils;
but these errors can be encountered by religion.
Philosophy
is more valuable than rhetoric,
because philosophers teach right
living, which is useful to all,
while speaking well is needed
only by a few.
Lactantius found the cause of perverseness
in ignorance
of oneself.
He believed religion needs wisdom,
and wisdom cannot
be approved without religion.
He observed the providence of God
in the beauty and design of the universe.
There must be only one
God,
because otherwise other gods would be lesser.
He criticized
the licentious behavior of the Roman
and barbarian gods, and he
saw the heavenly bodies,
like the sun and moon, as the work of
the
divine creator rather than as gods.
The second book of the Divine Institutes
is on the origin
of error.
Lactantius noticed that many people never remember God
until they are in trouble.
He observed that from prosperity arises
luxury
and other vices that lead to impiety.
In the third book
he criticized various philosophers.
Moral philosophy is the most
important,
because these errors really affect one's life.
Yet
daily experiments can teach us what is truer and better.
Philosophers
disagree on what is the chief good.
Lactantius discounted the
goals of pleasure,
living according to nature, and worldly success
as ends shared by other animals.
Knowing and worshipping God is
what elevates humans.
Ultimate happiness is found in immortality,
which is gained by religion in knowing God.
He criticized Stoics
for approving suicide.
Lactantius believed God placed us in the
body,
and we should not withdraw from it
except by God's command.
We must endure violence offered to us with equanimity,
because
the death of an innocent person
cannot be unavenged; but taking
vengeance
is in the hands of the great Judge (God).
In the fourth book on true wisdom and religion
Lactantius argued
that the example of Jesus
and the religion of the Catholic church
are best.
He derived the word "religion" from the Latin
religare,
meaning "to bind again."
It is the
bond of piety, because God binds humans to Himself.
Christian
reunion of humans with God is through reconciliation.
The original
unity was separated by sin
but has been restored again.
The fifth book discusses justice.
Lactantius noted, "Most
wicked murderers have
invented impious laws against the pious."1
He asked what should be done to those tyrants
who inflicted tortures
on the innocent
and yet wish to appear just and prudent
when they
are clearly wrong.
Yet the number of Christians has been increasing
and has not been lessened by persecutions.
Because they have not
turned away from God,
the truth has prevailed by its own power.
Certainly these martyrs have
demonstrated the virtue of courage.
For Lactantius no one is poor in the sight of God
except the unjust,
and no one is rich,
except those full of virtues.
Greeks and Romans
did not possess justice, because
they had people differing by
degrees from poor to rich
and from humble to powerful.
Without
equity there is no real justice.
Lactantius believed that riches
do not make one illustrious
unless they make one conspicuous by
good works.
The truly rich use their wealth for works of justice
and charity; those who seem poor may be rich,
because they desire
nothing.
In humility the free and slaves are equal, the rich and poor,
because God's sight distinguishes by virtue.
The unjust and those
ignorant of God may abound
in riches,
power, and honors, for these
are the rewards of injustice;
but they are not perpetual
and are
sought through lust and violence.
The just and wise do not desire
what belongs to another
lest they should injure anyone and violate
the laws of humanity.
They even do not defend their own if it
is taken by violence.
To bear with injury inflicted is virtuous.
Lactantius believed that God allowed the persecutions
so that
the people of God could be increased.
Many were driven from their
false gods,
because they hated cruelty.
They wanted to know what
that good is which believers
defended even to death, preferring
it to everything pleasant
and beloved in life so that neither
loss of goods
nor torture could deter them.
In the sixth book on true worship Lactantius pointed out that
knowledge precedes virtue but must be united with it,
because
knowledge is of no avail
unless it is followed by right action.
Virtue restrains anger, desire, and lust in order to flee from
vice,
for almost all wrong and dishonest actions
result from these
emotions.
Thus crimes and disgraceful actions can be eliminated
if these emotions are calmed by virtue.
Lactantius argued that
it is not virtue to defend the good
or be an enemy of the bad,
because virtue is not subject to chance.
He believed that the
philosophers, though they may be
naturally good, are not wise
as long as they are ignorant of God,
the Head of virtue and knowledge.
For him the first duty of justice is to be united with God
in
religion, and the second, to be united with humans,
is called
mercy or kindness.
Worshipers of God share this virtue in the
common life.
This brotherhood means never doing evil
but always
doing good.
The God of Lactantius prescribes this good
as aiding
the oppressed and giving food to the destitute.
A kind God wishes
us to be a social animal,
as all humans require mutual support.
Thus hospitality is a principal virtue, and it is a great work
of justice to protect and defend orphans
and widows who need assistance.
Why fear poverty when the philosophers
praise it as a calm life.
Lactantius recommended examining your conscience
and healing
your wounds.
God commands repentance, offers mercy and forgives
sins.
The fear of God can free one from all other fears.
Lactantius
questioned some traditional values.
Frugality may arise from the
love of possessing,
and prodigality may give food to the needy
out of pity.
Money may lead to vice if it is spent on one's own
appetites,
but it is a virtue to lay it out well.
Those who give
way to grief and anger in doing wrong
do not fulfill the duty
of virtue.
Whoever tries to return an injury desires to imitate
the
very person by whom one had been injured.
How can imitating
a bad person be good?
The wise do not try to remove their adversaries,
which cannot be done without guilt and danger;
but they wish to
put an end to the conflict,
which may be done with justice and
mutual advantage.
Thus patience is the very great virtue of the
just person;
for patience opposes all vices.
For Lactantius the
three passions that drive people to crime
are anger, desire, and
lust.
Those who know Christ may repent and be forgiven.
Repentance
recognizes the wisdom of God's justice.
Those who do the will
of God will be strengthened
in their struggles with a heroic passion.
The seventh and last book of the Divine Institutes
is
on the happy life.
Lactantius believed the chief good is the immortality
that
only God can grant, and virtue is rewarded
not on earth but
by life eternal.
Thus ultimately piety is confirmed.
In his Epitome
of the Divine Institutes Lactantius concluded
by exhorting
everyone to train themselves for justice,
self-restraint, and
virtue so that an adversary waging war
may not be able with force,
terror, or torture to drive them
to senseless fictions; but they
may uprightly acknowledge
the one true God, cast away pleasures,
hold to innocence,
be of service to as many as possible, and with
God
as their judge gain incorruptible treasures by good works
and with the merits of their virtue gain
the crown of faith and
the reward of immortality.
Lactantius wrote "A Treatise on the Anger of God"
to counter
Stoic conceptions, arguing that God is angry at the
impious
and unjust just as God loves and is kind to the pious
and just.
God is moved to take vengeance against the wicked and
destroys the pestilent and guilty
in order to promote the interests
of the good.
Lactantius showed this from history in his short
work
"On the Manner in Which the Persecutors Died."
In the era of Constantine he could argue that God raised up
princes
to rescind the impious and bloody edicts of tyrants
in order to
provide for the welfare of humanity.
Past clouds have been dispelled,
and peace gladdens all hearts.
Lactantius noted that Nero was
killed soon after
he crucified Peter and executed Paul.
Domitian
persecuted the just and suffered due punishment.
Decius afflicted
the church and was quickly slain
by barbarians and his own army.
Valerian persecuted Christians and suffered the humiliation
of
being captured and killed by the Persians.
Aurelian's edicts shed
blood in distant provinces,
and he was assassinated by his friends
in Thrace.
Lactantius described in more detail the persecution started
by
Diocletian and carried out by Maximian and Galerius.
Lactantius
blamed the mother of Galerius for instigating her
son to persuade
Emperor Diocletian to destroy Christians.
Diocletian tried to
avoid bloodshed but became ill and retired.
Galerius changed the
milder punishments of exile,
imprisonment, and slavery in the
mines to the cruelty of
burning, crucifying, and exposing to wild
beasts;
even minor offenses resulted in torture.
As he began to
gain power,
Constantine restored the rights of Christians.
Galerius
tried to collect money to celebrate
twenty years of rule; but
before he could do so,
God struck him with a horrible disease,
which obliged him to
acknowledge God and atone for his misdeeds
before he died.
Daia revoked the toleration Galerius had granted,
and his idea of clemency was to mutilate
ears, noses, hands, feet,
and eyes rather than kill.
Daia's excessive taxes caused famine,
while he personally debauched countless women.
Lactantius wrote how Constantine was guided by a dream
to have
his soldiers use a Christian sign on their shields,
and Licinius
was told how to pray.
Thus both Constantine won battles in the
West
and Licinius in the East against Daia even though their armies
were usually outnumbered by their enemies.
When Licinius returned
to Nicomedia after meeting
Constantine at Milan, he published
their agreement to
restore the rights and goods of Christians.
According to Lactantius eventually
Daia died of poisoning at Tarsus.
Licinius put to death sons of Galerius, Severus, and Daia.
Thus
Lactantius exulted in the victory
of the Christians as led by
Constantine.
When Constantine died in 337, his three sons and
two nephews were ruling portions of his empire.
The armies (under whose influence
is not really known)
decided only the three sons would rule, and
all other relatives
including the two nephews and their families,
except the child Julian and his brother Gallus, were killed.
The
powerful prefect Ablavius was also eliminated.
Constantine II
held Gaul, Spain and Britain,
and as eldest was given his father's
new capital.
Constantius ruled over the East and Egypt.
Constans,
the youngest at 17, was given
the rest of Roman Europe and Africa.
After taking care of his father's funeral and settling all
this,
Constantius had to rush off to fight the Persians, who were
besieging Nisibis, which would withstand
three such attacks by
Shapur II.
Armenia under Roman-educated Tiridates III (r. 287-330)
had become Christian about 314
and had formed good relations with
Constantine.
Despite internal divisions Armenia held off the Persian
invasions until the death of King Khosrov II (r. 331-338).
Many
Christians in Persia were massacred.
The army of Constantius finally
defeated the Persians,
probably in 344, putting to death
the crown
prince after Shapur fled.
Armenian king Tigranes V was handed
over
to Shapur and blinded in 350.
During the long reign of Shapur II (r. 309-379) Jews were
saved
from worse persecution by the sympathy of his
mother Ifra-Ormuzd.
Babylonian Rabba died in flight from Pumbedita about 330.
Shapur persecuted
Christians and moved an estimated
71,000 Jews to Susiana and Ispahan.
After Shapur ordered Raba punished for exercising criminal
jurisdiction,
Ifra sent Raba 400 golden denars.
In 339 Constantius proclaimed
the death penalty for
marriages between Christians and Jews
or
for circumcision of a Christian slave.
Jews were also forbidden
from proselytizing heathen slaves.
During the pressure of the
Persian war in 351 Ursicinus
made Jews in Palestine violate their
Sabbath
to supply the Roman army.
A revolt started in Sepphoris
and spread,
but by the next year Sepphoris had been razed,
while
Tiberias and Lydda were damaged.
In 357 under the influence of
Eusebius, Constantius
proclaimed that Christians who joined Jewish
communities
were to have their property confiscated,
and Jews
themselves were burdened with heavy taxes.
Hillel II wrote down
the rules for determining the
Jewish calendar in 359,
thus enabling
communities to be more independent.
Constantine II tried to legislate for Africa, and in 339
he
attempted to take Italy from his brother Constans;
but he was
killed in an ambush at Aquileia the next year.
Constans thus acquired
the Gauls, Spain, and Britain.
His army drove back the Franks
for two years,
and in 343 he crossed over to Britain
to take on
the Picts and Scots.
In 350 a court conspiracy organized by Marcellinus
and led
by Magnentius took control while Constans was off hunting.
Constans fled and was murdered at the foot of the Pyrenees.
In
Rome Nepotianus, a cousin of Constantius, ruled for a
month before
he was killed by soldiers of Magnentius.
In Illyricum military
commander Vetranio was acclaimed
Emperor and appealed to Constantius
but then allied himself to Magnentius.
Both then sent an embassy
to Constantius, who arrived
and won over the Illyricum troops
with his oratory.
Vetranio submitted to Constantius and was allowed
to retire to Prusa on a pension.
Emperor Constantius appointed
his nephew
Gallus Caesar and married him to his sister Constantia.
Taking Vetranio's army and his own, Constantius marched into
Gaul to meet Magnentius, who used tactics to harass them.
Constantius
offered the provinces west of the Alps in a treaty,
but Magnentius
refused.
In a bloody battle at Mursa the army of Constantius was twice
that of Magnentius; they won although they lost 30,000
men,
while the army of Magnentius had 24,000 killed.
This slaughter
greatly weakened the imperial army and
was the first victory of
newly formed heavy cavalry.
Constantius granted amnesty to all
but the leaders;
Magnentius fled and eventually committed suicide.
Many others suspected of opposing Constantius
were executed or
banished.
Fearing powerful generals and distrusting his ministers,
Constantius
in Oriental fashion relied on palace eunuchs,
especially his chamberlain
Eusebius, to govern.
Provincial complaints were disregarded, as
justice and honors
were sold to increase the wealth of these officials.
Pro-prefect Martinus complained that the innocent in
provinces he governed were being punished.
Martinus threatened to resign
and was accused by Paul "the Chain."
Martinus tried
to kill Paul, and failing, committed suicide.
Paul then returned
to the Emperor with many chained prisoners,
who either lost their
property, were banished, or executed.
Constantius supported the
Arian Christianity popular in the East,
and he prohibited offering
pagan sacrifices anywhere in the
empire under penalty of death
and confiscation of property.
At age 24 Gallus was made Caesar and from Antioch ruled
harshly
five eastern dioceses.
The slightest rumors led to executions.
Others had their property confiscated
and were driven into exile.
This Caesar did not even bother to give such victims
the appearance
of a trial.
Gallus ordered the leading senators of Antioch executed,
but this was stopped by Honoratus, count of the East.
Instead
of acting to alleviate a famine, Gallus turned
over Syrian governor
Theophilus
to be murdered by a mob in Antioch.
This caused Constantius
to send Eastern prefect
Domitian to summon Gallus to Italy.
When
the Caesar had Domitian arrested, palace quaestor
Montius warned
the guards they were essentially
overthrowing the rule of Constantius.
Gallus roused his soldiers against Montius, and they
roughly took Domitian and Montius into the streets,
where they were trampled
to death.
Before he died, Montius had named Epigonus and
Eusebius as officials who had promised to help him.
Caesar held treason
trials, and the first two executed
had these names, although they
were
not the ones Montius meant.
Musonian became praetorian prefect
for the East,
and in these trials he gained property from the
rich
while condemning the innocent poor.
Meanwhile Persians were
invading
Armenia and Mesopotamia.
In 354 Constantius went to Valentia to stop the Alamanni
raids
into Gaul led by brothers Gundomad and Vadomar.
According to historian
Ammianus Marcellinus, Constantius
addressed his troops and persuaded
them to accept
a peace treaty with the Alamanni.
To get Gallus
to meet him at Milan, Constantius invited his
sister Constantia,
Caesar's wife, to visit him.
She died along the way, and Gallus
was eventually
beheaded for his crimes.
At Milan commander Ursecinus
and the prince Julian were
both accused of treason but were able
to defend themselves.
The patronage of Empress Eusebia allowed
Julian to study at the Academy in Athens.
Julian's mother had died a few months after his birth,
and
he was only six when his father was murdered.
He was well educated
by his tutor Mardonius in Greek
literature and philosophy and
was raised as a Christian
by the Arian Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia
and later of Constantinople.
Julian studied the writings of the
greatest rhetorician of the era,
Libanius, who promoted Hellenism
and despised Christianity.
The orphan was also influenced by Neo-Platonism
as taught
at Pergamum by Aidesios and Chrysanthius, two disciples
of the occult Iamblichus, and by Maximus in Ephesus,
where Julian
was initiated when he adopted the ancient
religion and the cult
of the Invincible Sun.
As rhetorical exercises Julian wrote two
orations praising
Emperor Constantius according to the traditional
form.
Since Julian likely resented the murder of his family and
the
"Christian" rule of the Emperor,
the sincerity of
these has been questioned.
Julian agreed with Plato that man and
especially a king
should rely on God as found within the soul
rather than on the actions of other men.
Piety is the child of
Justice, which obviously
is the more divine type of soul.
Julian's
"Panegyric in Honor of the Empress Eusebia"
shows a
more sincere respect and gratitude for the woman
who helped and
advised him.
Julian expressed his religious beliefs in prose hymns
to the Sun and the Mother of the gods.
The Emperor Constantius campaigned against the
Alamanni tribe
Lentienses in Raetia.
Silvanus was accused of plotting, and under
torture
Eusebius admitted being part of the conspiracy.
Silvanus
declared himself Emperor,
and Ursecinus was sent by Constantius.
Ursecinus pretended to be sympathetic to Sylvanus
but arranged
to have him assassinated
while on his way to a Christian service
after a reign of one month.
Constantius appointed Julian Caesar in 355 and assigned him
to govern afflicted Gaul.
After marrying Helena, sister of Constantius,
Julian learned
that Franks had taken Cologne,
and the Alamanni
had attacked Autun.
Julian led his army against the Alamanni,
and he recovered Cologne.
Known for his self-discipline of working
and studying at night
and eating the food of the common soldiers,
Julian was usually popular with the soldiers.
He sent provincial
governors to hear cases,
checked on the results,
and often moderated
the punishments.
Yet Julian punished officials and judges
who
abused their positions.
During his government Julian reduced the
taxation in Gaul
from 25 gold pieces to seven.
Alamanni king Chnodomar,
Serapio, and other kings
ravaged Gaul with an army of 35,000;
but in 357 they were soundly defeated by Julian's army
in a battle
by the Rhine in which the Romans were said
to have lost only 250
men, while 6,000 dead Alamanni
were counted, and many were carried
away by the river.
Julian sent Chnodomar to Constantius and then
persuaded
his men to invade beyond the Rhine
to take prisoners
and burn their houses.
These disasters convinced the Alamanni
kings Suomar
and Hortar to accept the harsh terms of Julian.
In
five years Julian restored security and prosperity to Gaul,
recovering
20,000 prisoners.
The officials of Constantius continued to gain wealth
from
the provinces.
Rufinus was praetorian prefect, and Arbitio was
master of the cavalry.
Constantius had a huge obelisk moved from
Thebes in Egypt
to the circus of Rome, and he pleased Christians
and angered
pagans by removing the altar to Victory from the Senate-house.
Persians were raiding Mesopotamia for men and cattle.
Shapur II
sent an offer to Constantius in which he
acknowledged that perfect
justice rules and hoped that the
Romans had learned by disasters
what results from the
greed to possess what belongs to others.
He claimed Mesopotamia and Armenia from his grandfather
and asked
the Roman Emperor to hand it over.
Shapur commented, "Never
will I accept the principle
which your overweening pride leads
you to enunciate,
that all is fair in war that brings success,
whether it be achieved by force or fraud."2
Yet Shapur concluded
by threatening to mobilize
his forces to take this territory.
Constantius replied by accusing Shapur of greed
and noting that
although Rome may lose a battle,
it had never lost an entire war.
Meanwhile Constantius used his forces to despoil and burn the
land of the Sarmatians and Quadi in the Danube region.
However,
when they surrendered, they were allowed to keep
their homes if
they gave up all prisoners along with hostages
and promised to
obey the Romans.
After similar devastation Constantius forced
the rebelling
Limigantes to emigrate from the territory
they took
from their former masters.
He placed the "free" Sarmatians
under the rule
of the pliant king Zizais.
Infantry commander Barbatio
and his wife were investigated
by Arbitio and beheaded for plotting.
Wealthy trader Antoninus became a financial official and
then
a staff officer under the Roman commander in
Mesopotamia; financial
reverses caused by greedy persons
led him to transfer his debts
to the imperial treasury
and begin spying for the Persians.
Shapur
and his Persian army invaded Mesopotamia
and spent 73 days losing
30,000 men besieging Amida.
Ammianus and a few escaped from Amida;
but most Romans were massacred or captured.
The Persian king of
kings then ordered Singara dismantled
and Bezabde fortified while
he returned to Persia.
While Constantius was wintering in Sirmium, in the Danube
region
the Limigantes began roaming outside of
the territory assigned
to them.
At a meeting with Constantius,
they even tried to kill
the Emperor.
He escaped, and his army slaughtered many of the
rebels.
The Persian threat led Constantius to request more than
half
of Julian's army for the East.
At Paris Julian hesitated,
because the local soldiers had
volunteered to serve with the understanding
that they would
not be stationed beyond the Alps.
Not wanting
to leave their families, a force going to
Emperor Constantius
stopped in Paris
to proclaim Julian Augustus instead.
Julian tried
to dissuade them; but failing to do so,
he accepted the position
of Emperor,
promising each man five gold pieces and a pound of
silver.
Julian sent a letter of explanation to Constantius,
who
chose to deal first with the Persian threat.
Julian's army campaigned
for three months against the
Attuarii Franks on the lower Rhine
before wintering more to the east in Vienne.
Constantius confirmed
his diplomatic relationship with
Armenian king Arsaces but failed
to recapture Bezabde.
In the spring of 361 Julian managed to remove
the threat
of an Alamanni invasion
when he captured Vadomar by
treachery.
Julian publicly announced that he entrusted his safety
to the
immortal gods, thus renouncing the religion and friendship
of
Constantius, who increased his cavalry and reinforced the
imperial
legions in preparation for civil war.
Julian replaced the prefect
of Gaul nominated by Constantius
and sent cavalry commanded by
Jovius and Jovinus into Italy.
The Roman Senate accepted Julian's
claims but advised him
to respect the author of his own fortune.
Julian sent letters explaining his position to Rome, Sparta,
Corinth, and Athens; but only the one to Athens is extant.
In
that he praised Athens for its glorious history
and then described
his life.
When Constantius and his two brothers first became
Emperors, Julian, their cousin, had experienced six cousins,
his father, and two uncles put to death without a trial.
He and his brother
Gallus were sent into exile.
For six years they were imprisoned
on a farm in Cappadocia.
Their property had been inherited by
Constantius.
After Constantius had Gallus made Caesar and then
murdered,
Julian was protected at Milan by Empress Eusebia.
Julian
believed that the wisdom of the gods sees the whole
and may direct
one to bring about what is best.
Constantius sent Julian into
Gaul with only 360 soldiers
but gave him command of all the forces
there in 357,
and Julian was able to drive out the barbarians
in three years.
He claimed he captured 10,000 prisoners
in one
siege across the Rhine.
Julian complained that the Emperor hired
the notorious
sycophants Paul and Gaudentius to attack him
and
replaced his friend Sallust.
When the soldiers proclaimed Julian
Emperor,
he persuaded them not to punish the friends of Constantius.
Julian referred to the cruelty Constantius practiced
everywhere but did not describe it.
Julian marched east to be welcomed at Sirmium,
where he pleased
the people by celebrating with chariot races.
Two legions from
Sirmium led by Nigrinus mutinied in favor of
Constantius and held
out in the fortress at Aquileia,
where they were besieged by Jovinus.
Fortunately a civil war was avoided when Constantius
became ill
and died on November 3, 361.
It was reported that he named Julian
as his successor,
and this was accepted by the army.
Constantius
had mistrusted military heroes and kept them
from gaining political
power by using eunuchs
and administrators to crush any suspicion
of treason.
Yet he appointed only experienced
veterans to command
troops.
The many civil and foreign wars demanded excessive taxation,
and greedy tax collectors were greatly hated.
Constantius oversaw
and in some ways promoted much
dissension among the Christians;
Ammianus commented that bishops
traveling to synods hamstrung
the postal service.
Julian was informed that he was undisputed Emperor by the
officers
Theolaifus and Aligildus, while the eunuch Eusebius
and the court
party were forced to give up
their plan to appoint someone else.
Agilo was sent to Aquileia and was able to persuade
the resistance
to surrender.
Nigrinus and two other leaders were put to death,
but the rest were pardoned.
Julian stopped in Dacia before
triumphantly
entering Constantinople.
He appointed Secundus Salutius praetorian
prefect and
ordered Mamertinus, Arbitio, Agilo, and Nevitta
to
assist in the treason trials.
Paul "the chain" and Apodemius,
who had conducted treason
trials for Constantius, were executed
along with Eusebius and
Gaul treasurer Ursulus, whose only crime
seems to have been that troops hated him.
Julian on February 4, 362 ordered the temples
opened and public
sacrifices.
He proclaimed tolerance of all Christian worship and
allowed the bishops banished by Constantius to return.
Ammianus
argued that by permitting Christians to practice
their varying
beliefs boldly Julian hoped the new religion
would weaken itself
by its divisions.
Churches lost their state privileges and subsidies
such as
public transport, and Christian clergy
were no longer
exempt from taxes.
Julian decreed that pagans should be preferred
to Christians
for public offices, and Ammianus criticized him
for prohibiting
Christians from teaching rhetoric or literature.
Temples of the old religion were to be returned
to their former
owners.
After seeing an elegantly dressed barber, the new Emperor
greatly reduced the number of servants in the palace.
He tried
to relieve the people's distress by reducing taxes.
The spies,
agents, and informers, who had repressed many
to protect Constantius,
were dismissed.
Julian proclaimed the senate at Constantinople
equal to that
of the revered Roman Senate.
Julian knew that he
had a temper, and so he encouraged
those around him to criticize
him when necessary.
He once even fined himself for violating a
court procedure.
Gaudentius and another Julian, who had been sent by
Constantius
to oppose Julian in Africa,
were arrested and executed.
Artemius,
the army commander in Egypt, who had committed
outrageous crimes,
was also put to death.
When Alexandrians murdered their repressive
bishop,
George of Cappadocia, the Emperor merely admonished them.
Julian prepared his troops for a war with the Persians.
Bloody
sacrifices of numerous bulls, white birds,
and other
animals provided
large quantities of meat for his troops.
Julian revoked the special
taxes on Jews and appointed
Alypius of Antioch to restore the
great temple at Jerusalem
so that they could sacrifice;
but calamities
from fires or earthquake
caused the project to be abandoned.
Julian wrote "To the Uneducated Cynics," contrasting
contemporaries, who imitated Diogenes
in only the easiest
and least burdensome ways rather than seeing
the noble side
of him, Antisthenes, and Crates.
Julian urged the
philosophical pursuit of making oneself
like God by acquiring
knowledge of the essential nature
of things, arguing the gods
know all things.
In another oration to a Cynic Julian complained
that
Heracleios treated the gods irreverently in expounding a
myth,
and he argued that only ethical philosophers and theologians
should be allowed to interpret myths.
In "The Caesars"
Julian satirized the Roman Emperors
from Julius
Caesar to Constantius.
A contest between Julius
Caesar, Octavian,
Trajan,
Marcus
Aurelius, and Constantine
was won by Marcus
Aurelius.
Julian and his army spent some time in the metropolis
of Antioch, where a poor harvest and greedy monopolists
sent the price of
bread so high that many went hungry.
Julian had the wealthy senators
put in prison for a while,
and during the licentious Saturnalia
festival
the Emperor was greatly satirized.
He responded with
his own sarcastic writing called
Beard-hater in which he
satirized
his own person and austere practices.
His own self-restraint
is contrasted to the indulgent
independence of the Antiochians.
Julian asked if he had wronged them in any way.
He let them elect
their richest men to the Senate;
but when their greed raised prices
on scarce grain,
he set a fair price and imported 400,000 measures
of wheat.
Was their ingratitude because he fed them
from his own
purse?
Yet Julian concluded by taking responsibility for wrongs
done to him, because he had transformed them
to ungracious ways.
Julian was upset that Antioch, which was strongly Christian,
did
not support his animal sacrifices.
When a fire broke out in the
temple at Daphne,
Christians were suspected.
Julian closed the
main church in Antioch
and sacrilegiously robbed its treasures.
Julian wanted the ancient religion to adopt many of the
innovations
of Christianity, such as its
hierarchical organization and its
charity.
He wrote to a pagan priest urging him to practice philanthropy,
because it gains the good will of the gods.
Julian asked who had
ever become poor
by helping one's neighbors.
Julian found that
giving lavishly to the poor
brought blessings from the gods.
Money,
he wrote, should be shared with all men,
but more generously with
the good, though he noted that
we give to the humanity of the
poor,
not to their moral character.
Julian believed humans are
social animals.
Along with reverence towards the gods and benevolence
toward humans, he recommended personal chastity.
He wrote that
if a priest proves to be wicked,
he should have his office taken
from him.
He warned the priest against the discourses of Epicurus
and the skeptical Pyrrho.
He urged prayer both in private and
in public.
Priests should avoid licentious theatrical shows
and
hunting spectacles with dogs.
Julian admitted that the Galileans
had gained ascendancy
by their philanthropic deeds.
Julian also
wrote a book against the Galileans,
which only survived in quotations
from the
Christian Cyril of Alexandria.
Most of these are from
the first of three books
and discuss Moses and the Jews.
Julian sent Procopius with an army along the Tigris;
but they
were not able to join the forces of the Armenian king
Arsaces,
because Persian king Narses
had already seized Armenia.
The Christian
Arsaces resented the way Julian treated him
as an enemy of the
gods.
Julian's army of 65,000 crossed the
Euphrates and invaded
Mesopotamia.
Food and supplies were provided
by 1100 ships in
the Euphrates River.
The Romans besieged and took Porisabora,
where 2500
surrendered before the city was set on fire.
A Persian
force led by the Surena captured a Roman standard,
causing Julian
to dismiss the officers of the patrol
and put to death every tenth
soldier who ran away.
Then he praised his army for their victory
at Porisabora
and promised each soldier one hundred pieces of
silver.
As they invaded Assyria, Julian's army took what
they
wanted and then burned the crops and huts.
The Assyrians reacted
by flooding the fields from the canals.
Julian encouraged his
men by
offering the riches of the Persians as spoils.
They stormed
and sacked the city of Maiozamalcha,
reducing it to ruins.
Julian
rejected peace offers from the Persians and
advice from his generals
to abandon Persia.
Instead he had all the ships burned
but twelve
small ones put on wagons.
The Persians deserted their villages, drove away their cattle,
and burned their fields so that Julian's army soon had to retreat
toward the Roman territory of Corduene
while repulsing Persian
attacks.
During a sudden rearguard action Julian neglected to
put on
his breastplate, and a spear pierced his ribs and entered
his liver.
The Emperor was carried into a tent; unable to fight
anymore,
he discoursed on how the soul is superior to the body
and on how death is a blessing,
before finding out for himself
June 26, 363.
There were no relatives to succeed him,
and he refrained
from trying to name the best man.
A senior staff officer, Jovian, was elected Emperor,
and he
negotiated a peace with the Surena that conceded
to the Persians
the five provinces east of the Tigris and the
towns of Nisibis
and Singara without their inhabitants.
The Romans agreed not to
interfere on behalf of Armenia,
much of which was seized by Parthians.
The treaty was intended to last thirty years.
Jovian was a Christian
and
reversed many of Julian's pagan policies.
Devoted to the Nicene
Creed, Jovian proclaimed religious
toleration and allowed sacrifices
at pagan temples,
though
he ordered sacrilegious rites of magic
severely punished.
The Roman army marched west, and in 364 on
the way
through Bithynia and Galatia
Jovian was found dead in
his bed.
Valentinian, an impressive Pannonian officer, was elected
Emperor
by the traveling court and the army.
He was encouraged to select
a co-Emperor
and chose his brother Valens to rule the East.
Valentinian
I (r. 364-375) also followed the Nicene Creed and
restored the
clergy's privileges granted by Constantine I,
tolerating paganism
and diverse beliefs.
Valens (r. 364-378), however, declared himself
an Arian and persecuted heretics.
Non-Arian monks, who abandoned
society for the desert,
were forced to do civic duties
and even
serve in the imperial army.
About 370 Arian priests accompanied
3,000 soldiers
marching from Alexandria; of the 5,000 monks in
the desert
of Nitria apparently many refused
to cooperate and
were slaughtered.
The frontiers of the empire were being challenged
by the
Alamanni
in Gaul and Raetia, by the Sarmatians and Quadi in
Pannonia, by
the Picts, Saxons, Scots, and Attacotti in Britain,
by the Austoriani
and Moors in Africa, by the Goths in Thrac
and Moesia, and by
the Persians, who had invaded Armenia.
Valentinian set up court
at Milan,
leaving Constantinople to Valens.
Procopius was from
a noble Cilician family
and claimed the imperial power by inheritance.
He used this argument and monetary rewards to win over
Goths sent
to Constantinople and war-like tribes in Thrace,
but he alienated
Arbitio by burning his house
when he did not rush to his defense.
Procopius took over Bithynia and the Hellespont but was
defeated
by the army of Valens in Phrygia and beheaded.
Valens spent three
years fighting the rebelling Goths until
he and Athanaric, meeting
on the Danube River,
agreed to a treaty in 369.
Valentinian himself led a large army across the Rhine in 368
and defeated the Alamanni at Solicinium.
Smaller campaigns in
the Rhine region
were carried out in 371 and 374.
When Valentinian
became ill,
he appointed his son Gratian to succeed him.
Valentinian
could be quite cruel, ordering Illyricum treasurer
Diocles burned
at the stake and
local senators executed in Pannonia.
The historian
Ammianus lamented that such power frightened
the Emperor's enemies
into silence so that
wrong actions were not corrected.
He also
criticized Valentinian for allowing military leaders
to
harm the
state while punishing
the offenses of common soldiers.
Persia's Shapur II invited Armenian king Arsaces to a banquet,
then had his eyes put out before having him tortured
and killed
some years later.
This and other incursions stimulated the Romans
to break the
treaty by sending help to the Armenians.
Valentinian
empowered Maximin as pro-prefect of Rome
and appointed Leo to
help him prosecute many people
for treason, sorcery, fornication,
and adultery,
re-instituting torture and resulting in many executions.
Former urban prefect Praetextatus and others complained
that punishments
were out of proportion to the offenses
and argued that no senator
should be
subjected to torture for anything.
Emperor Valentinian
denied that he made such a decree,
and so Praetextatus was able
to get the cruel edict repealed.
Theodosius crossed to Britain with an army to defeat the
plundering
Picts and Scots, winning popularity
by restoring most of it to
the owners.
Theodosius brought about reforms in Britain,
rebuilding
cities and garrison towns.
He dismissed secret service agents,
who were convicted
of taking bribes for passing on information.
In Germany Valentinian and his army were able to keep back
the
barbarians, although an attempt
to capture Alamanni king Macrianus
failed.
Valentinian sent Palladius to investigate
the government
of Africa; but the corrupt commander
Romanus managed to inveigle
him into silence by
getting officers to relinquish their donatives
to Palladius.
The Moorish prince Firmus collected persecuted Donatists,
frustrated soldiers, and urged provincials
to claim the imperial
crown.
Valentinian sent Theodosius, who spent two years
fighting
the Moors before they were defeated
and Firmius killed himself.
After Valentinian died in 375, Theodosius was beheaded
by intriguing
enemies in Carthage.
While Theodosius was campaigning in Mauretania
and Africa,
the Quadi and Sarmatians invaded Pannonia after Maximin
invited Quadi king Gabinius to dinner
and had him treacherously
killed.
Eventually an army in Moesia led by the younger
Theodosius
defeated the Free Sarmatians.
In the East many conspiracies had formed against the intolerant
Valens, and in Antioch the jails
overflowed with suspects on trial.
After an attempt on his life by targeteer Sallustius,
Valens had
some condemned to death
even before they knew they were suspected.
Suspects and witnesses were tortured for information.
Because
of obscure prophecies regarding the syllables "Theo,"
the innocent Theodorus and the
rest of the accused were all beheaded.
The philosopher Maximus, who had taught Julian,
had predicted that those who heard the oracle
would be executed, and he was
taken to his native
Ephesus and beheaded too.
Throughout the East
anyone whom an informer
accused of treason or magic was liable
to be executed.
Valens was persuaded by praetorian prefect Modestus
to pay
less attention to civil suits, allowing corrupt judges
and
advocates to enrich themselves and win high positions by
selling
out the interests of the poor to military commanders
and those
with influence in the palace.
Valens had given refuge to the young Armenian king Pap;
but
some corrupt men in the government charged Pap,
who escaped with
300 men from Tarsus.
The Emperor Valens sent an army after them,
but Pap was welcomed safely back to his kingdom.
The Armenian
king remained loyal in spite of false accusations
but was also
treacherously slain at a banquet.
Shapur was upset by Pap's death
and sent the Surena to take
over Armenian territories that had
been grabbed by the
Roman commander in Mesopotamia Urbicius
and
his cavalry leader Victor.
Because the Goths were overrunning
Thrace,
the Romans could not stop this.
Meanwhile in 374 Valentinian made peace
with Macrianus on the
Rhine.
After battling the Quadi Valentinian became so angry at
their
envoys that he died of a busted blood vessel in 375.
Because
of the expensive Persian campaign
and the construction of elaborate
defenses in the north
to stop frontier incursions, Valentinian
had had to impose
high taxes to pay troops.
Ammianus believed
that although he disciplined soldiers for
trivial offenses, Valentinian
let serious offenses by superiors
go unchecked, resulting in disturbances
in Britain
and devastation in Africa and Illyricum.
He did ban
the exposing of infants and subsidized fourteen
physicians in
the fourteen districts of Rome.
Valentinian also promoted educational
academies in Rome
and Constantinople that taught both Latin and
Greek.
He was succeeded in the West by his 16-year-old son Gratian.
Christianity began spreading among the Goths in Asia in the
third century, and their bishop Theophilus represented them
at
the ecumenical council in Nicaea in 325.
During the fourth century
Ulfila taught Arian doctrine and
translated the Gospels, using
a Gothic alphabet he invented.
Hermanric ruled over a Gothic empire
that
extended from the Baltic to the Black Sea.
However, many
of his vassals joined the
invading Huns instead of resisting them.
After Hermanric had the wife of the chief Roxolani torn apart
by horses, her brothers wounded the Gothic king.
Hermanric died
in despair and was succeeded by Withimer;
but he was slain in
a decisive battle against the Huns and Alani.
Thus the eastern
Ostrogoths ("bright Goths") succumbed to
the Huns, though
Alatheus and Saphrax took the infant king
Witheric, leading a
western migration toward the Dniester.
The banks of that river
were defended by the western Visigoths
("Wise Goths")
led by King Athanaric, who tried to remain firm;
but most of the
Goths abandoned him.
Fritigern and Alavivus led the Visigoth Thervingi to spread
along the bank of the Danube, sending agents to Valens for
permission
to cross the Danube into Roman territory.
Fritigern and his followers
in conflict with Athanaric
at this time adopted Arian Christianity.
The Emperor did allow about 200,000 men and their families
to
settle in Thrace; but Greuthungi king Videric's
similar request
was rejected.
Athanaric, fearing rejection also, retired with
his people to
Caucalanda, driving away the Sarmatians.
The Thervingi
suffered from inadequate supplies because of
corrupt government
by Lupicinus and Maximus,
who imposed heavy taxes on the hungry
immigrants.
Food was sold for high prices, and soon the Visigoths
were
selling their children into slavery for dog-meat to survive.
Such abuses by Roman soldiers stimulated
the Goths to roam around
Thrace.
When Lupicinus brought troops against the Visigoth rebellion
led by Fritigern and Alavivus, the Ostrogoth Greuthungi led
by Alatheus and Saphrax began sneaking across the Danube.
The desperate
Ostrogoths accepted the military leadership
of Fritigern and attacked
the troops of Lupicinus,
killing many and taking their weapons.
In 377 Valens sent legions from the Armenia conflict;
these
forces were outnumbered and suffered losses,
while Gratian sent
general Frigeridus with Pannonian
and Transalpine troops.
Both
sides had heavy casualties in the battle at Salices.
A threatened
alliance of the Goths with the Alans and Huns
caused Saturninus
to pull his imperial troops away from
the river, and soon Goths
were devastating all of Thrace,
though the army of Frigeridus
defeated the Goths and Taifali
under Gothic chief Farnobius.
The next year Gratian's forces defeated the Alammanic tribe of
Lentienses, who had been raiding across the border of Raetia.
According to Ammianus only 5,000 of 40,000 armed men
escaped slaughter
by the Roman troops.
In 378 Valens decided to fight the Goths
without waiting
for reinforcements from Gratian,
and he was defeated
and killed at Adrianople.
Only a third of the Roman army escaped,
and Ammianus
called it the second worst massacre of Roman troops
ever.
The Goths besieged Adrianople, and in reckless attacks
many
on both sides were killed.
Goths with some Huns and Alans that
Fritigern had recruited
moved against Constantinople; but a group
of Saracens
helped the Romans save their capital.
Ammianus Marcellinus
concluded his history with an account
of how Taurus commander
Julius ordered all the Romans in
charge of Goths in Asia to round
them up by promisin
to pay their wages; then they were all put
to death.
Ammianus credited this "wise plan"
with saving
the East from serious danger.
Five months after Valens died, Emperor Gratian presented the
32-year-old general Theodosius as Augustus to rule over
Thrace,
Asia, Egypt, and because of the Goth crisis
over Dacia and Macedonia
as well.
In 380 Theodosius became dangerously ill and was baptized
by the Catholic bishop of Thessalonica, Acholius,
before campaigning
against the Goths.
The next year after Gregory of Nazianzus was
made bishop
of Constantinople, Theodosius expelled from churches
in his
dominions all clergy not accepting the Nicene creed.
During
his reign Emperor Theodosius issued fifteen edicts
against heretics,
mostly against those
who rejected the doctrine of the Trinity.
Theodosius gave Athanaric refuge in Constantinople.
When the
Visigoth king died in 382, he was honored
with a funeral.
Many
Visigoths became loyal to the Roman empire,
as Theodosius made
a treaty with Fritigern,
allowing them to settle as allies in
Lower Moesia.
The Goths became divided, some following the liberal
peace
and justice of Fravitta and many supporting the
aggressive
independence of Eriwulf.
After a bitter argument at a banquet
with Theodosius, Fravitta,
afraid of civil war breaking out, killed
Eriwulf with his sword.
The imperial palace-guards restrained
the Goths from taking revenge.
After roaming around northern Europe
for a few years the
Ostrogoths led by Alatheus returned to the
Danube.
The army of Theodosius defeated them,
and they agreed
to settle in Phrygia and Lydia.
While Emperor Gratian diverted himself slaying wild beasts,
an army rival of Theodosius in Britain named Maximus defeated
the Picts and Scots and was acclaimed Augustus by his army.
His
revolt gathered strength as
he and his followers invaded Gaul
in 383.
After some fighting even his own troops abandoned Gratian,
as he fled Paris toward Lyons with only 300 horses.
The governor
of that province turned Gratian over to
Andragathius, the cavalry
general of Maximus,
and he was put to death.
Theodosius negotiated
an agreement with the usurping
Maximus, giving him territory beyond
the Alps as long as
Gratian's young brother Valentinian II could
rule Italy, Africa,
and Western Illyricum.
In 385 Priscillian,
bishop of Avila in Spain, and six others
were tortured and executed
for heresy
by a prefect of Maximus.
The Arian Justina was able
to get
her young son Valentinian II to grant religious toleration
to the dioceses ruled by him from Milan.
In 387 Maximus invaded Italy, murdered the general
Merobaudes,
and entered Milan in triumph as Valentinian and
his mother fled
to Thessalonica, where they were joined by
Theodosius, who had
recently married Valentinian's sister Galla.
Theodosius raised
a large army with support from Goths, Huns,
and Alans, and the
next year advanced against Maximus,
who was defeated and surrendered
at Aquileia,
where he and a few in his guard were executed.
The
fleet of Maximus was defeated off Sicily,
and his son Victor,
who had been ruling Gaul,
was killed by general Arbogast.
A general
pardon quieted Italy, and Theodosius spent
three years in Milan,
taking one trip to Rome.
The West was restored to Valentinian
II, now 17,
and the death of his mother facilitated his conversion
by Ambrose to the orthodox faith.
During the civil war against
Maximus some Goths deserted
to Macedonia and ravaged its neighbors.
In 387 Theodosius made a treaty with Persian king
Shapur III (r.
383-388), giving the Persians four-fifths of
Armenia and the Roman
empire one-fifth.
Franks crossed the Rhine and raided so effectively,
defeating
Roman forces, that Theodosius sent general
Arbogast to help the
West; but he began by
putting to death the infant son of Maximus.
The Frankish general turned against his former tribe,
demanding the Franks restore booty
and turn over those who instigated the
war.
They refused, but in 389 Arbogast negotiated a treaty
with
the Marcomir and Sunno.
The next year Visigoths led by the young
Alaric invaded Thrace.
Theodosius issued an edict allowing inhabitants
in the region
to carry arms and attack marauders.
In 391 Theodosius
was ambushed and defeated
on the Maritza,
but the Emperor was
rescued by general Promotus.
After Promotus was killed in the
war, Theodosius appointed
the Vandal Stilicho commander in Thrace.
He was able to surround the rebellious Goths on the Maritza,
and
the Emperor let them go free under a treaty in 392.
Costs of the civil war against Maximus and his decennalia
celebrations
led Theodosius to impose extra taxes on Antioch.
After their riots
threw down his statues, Antiochians awaited
his displeasure; but
he was forgiving.
However, in 390 at Thessalonica general Botheric
imprisoned
a popular chariot driver for seducing his male lover.
The angry racing fans murdered Botheric and several of his
officers,
dragging their bodies through the streets.
Theodosius ordered
a treacherous revenge.
The Thessalonicans were invited to attend
games in the circus,
and then soldiers surrounded and massacred
about 7,000.
Because of this, Milan bishop Ambrose would not give
communion to the Emperor until he performed
public penance on
December 25.
In 391 and 392 Theodosius issued edicts against paganism.
Sacrifices
and divination were prohibited as treason,
and a commission was
established in the East
to shut the temples, seize idols, abolish
priestly privileges,
and confiscate pagan property
for the Emperor,
his army, or the church.
In Egypt the temple of Serapis was demolished
in 391,
and the great library of Alexandria was destroyed.
That
year Theodosius freed children who had been sold as
slaves by
their poor fathers.
War captives were still enslaved.
After Stilicho
defeated Rhadagaisus, 200,000 Goths and
Germans were put up for
sale, lowering the price of a slave
from 25 gold pieces to one.
Gladiator shows continued.
In 391 the consul Symmachus complained
that 29 Saxon
prisoners chose suicide rather than public exhibition.
The last celebration of the ancient Olympic games was in 393.
Libanius, the great rhetorican of Antioch and advocate
of paganism,
who had tried to get Theodosius to punish those
who destroyed
temples, was nearly 80 when he died in 393.
In 392 the Frankish general Arbogast had Valentinian II
murdered
(Some said it was suicide.) at Vienne and set up the
rhetorician
Eugenius as Emperor in order to restore paganism.
To prepare for
the approaching civil war Arbogast's army
devastated the territories
of the Bructeri and Chamavi,
recruiting Alamanni and Franks to
join their forces.
Theodosius marched against them using many
Goths.
Arbitio changed sides to the East, and a hurricane seemed
to show divine favor for the army of Theodosius.
The troops of
the usurpers ran away in panic,
and Eugenius was killed in 394
as Arbogast fled and committed suicide.
Theodosius granted a general
pardon,
but his health deteriorated.
His son Honorius was summoned
from Constantinople
and arrived in Milan to see his father die
on January 17, 395.
Perhaps the diplomacy of Theodosius had contributed
to
making the Goths better allies than the Alamanni
and Franks
in the West.
He eased penalties that affected the sons of criminals.
Because of brigands in Macedonia, he allowed victims
to slay those
who robbed them.
Theodosius was succeeded by his sons Arcadius,
18,
in the East, and Honorius, only 11, in the West.
Origen's higher morality of voluntary celibacy and poverty
prepared the way for the asceticism
that developed into monasticism.
The examples of the Essenes and the Therapeutae may also
have
influenced its first appearing in Egypt.
During the Decian persecution
of 250 21-year-old
Paul of Thebes retired into a distant cave,
and according to
Jerome's short life of him he lived there for
ninety years,
finally meeting Antony just before he died.
Antony
was born about 251 into a Christian family near Thebes.
About
270 his parents died, leaving him a considerable estate
and the
care of his sister.
Six months later he took the advice of Jesus
and gave his
300 acres to local inhabitants, sold his property
to
benefit the poor, and entrusted his sister to some pious virgins.
He studied the local Christian ascetics in order to learn virtues
such as graciousness, continual prayer, gentleness, charity,
watching,
steadfastness, fasting, mildness, patience, and love.
When he
was about 35, he withdrew into seclusion
and thus founded the
anchorite tradition.
At first he lived in a sepulcher.
He spent
twenty years in the ruins of a castle and his last
years on Mount
Colzim, where he died
after a very long life in 356.
Believing he should work, Antony wove baskets
while he prayed
as constantly as he could.
He ate one meal a day after sunset
of
bread, salt, and water and sometimes dates.
In this Egyptian
climate, bread could keep for six months;
so Antony might only
see visitors
who brought bread twice a year.
He slept on the ground
or on straw.
A hair shirt, sheepskin, and loin-cloth were his
only clothes.
He was often tempted by devils but always believed
that
Christ had broken their power to do him any real harm.
He
argued that the mind itself is superior to learning,
and his only
books were his memories and the natural world.
When he learned
that the Emperor had become a Christian,
he advised him to think
of the future judgment and so practice
justice, love people, and
care for the poor.
Athanasius wrote in his biography of Antony
of the desert
that he healed many people and encouraged them to
take up
a solitary life, inducing numerous monks to go forth into
the
deserts and the mountains.
Antony asked why possess things
one cannot take away.
Rather it is better to possess prudence,
justice, temperance,
courage, understanding, faith, charity, love
of the poor,
gentleness, and hospitality, which can be taken into
the next life.
He noted that Greeks go abroad to study letters,
but he found heaven and virtue where he was.
Virtue, therefore, needs only our will,
since it is within us and grows from us.
For virtue grows when the soul keeps the
understanding according to nature.
It is according to nature when it remains
as it was made.
Now it was made beautiful and perfectly straight.3
For Antony the soul becomes evil when it bends
and gets twisted
away from nature.
So the task is to remain as God made us.
If
we give our minds to evil, we become wicked.
The task would be
difficult if what we seek is outside
of ourselves; but it is easy,
because it is within us.
By keeping our soul as we received it
from God,
we may recognize His work as it was made.
Antony urged
fighting not to be mastered by anger
nor to be enslaved by desires.
He had ways of distinguishing between good and evil visions.
He
counseled others not to fear Satan,
because the devil can do nothing.
In his "First Letter" Antony described three kinds
of souls.
The first, like Abraham, are called by the Spirit of
God.
The second, like David, respond to the written law.
The third
kind have hard hearts and persist in sin;
but God sends them afflictions
so they may repent.
Repentance works first from a call by the
Spirit,
which teaches one how to return to God
and makes rules
for the mind and body.
The guiding Spirit opens the eyes of the
soul and teaches
the mind how to discriminate and how to purify
the soul
and body, leading them back to their original condition.
Antony also described three movements of the body:
the soul consents
to the first, which are natural;
the second results from gluttony
and excessive drinking;
and in the third evil spirits tempt us
out of envy.
The latter result when the mind spurns
the testimonies
of the Spirit.
When the mind prays to the Spirit, then it can
expel
the afflictions that come from greed.
The mind may learn
how to discipline the eyes, ears,
tongue, hands, belly, genitals,
and feet.
The soul may also be tempted apart from the body by
pride,
insolence, hatred, envy, anger,
cowardice, impatience,
and so on.
If one gives oneself to God wholeheartedly, the Spirit
of
repentance using prolonged fasts, vigils, study of scripture,
many prayers, and by renouncing the world
may bring help by God's
mercy.
The other six letters of Antony emphasis self-knowledge and
preparing for the presence of Jesus.
For Antony those who know
themselves know God,
the dispensations of the Creator, their time,
and the essential unity that is immortal.
Antony believed that
unless one hates all earthly possessions
and renounces them, stretching
out one's heart to God,
one cannot be saved.
Because of unity,
to do wrong to one's neighbor is
to do wrong to oneself, and to
do good to one's neighbor
is to do good to oneself.
He wrote,
"You should not regard your progress and entry
into the service
of God as your own work;
rather a divine power supports you always."4
During the persecution under Maximinus in 311 Antony
followed
the martyrs to Alexandria, and he ministered
to the confessors
in the mines and prisons.
He zealously appeared with them before
the tribunal,
and he mourned when he was not selected for martyrdom.
After the persecution ended, he went back to his monastery.
Miracles
were attributed to his prayers
and urging of others to pray.
According
to Athanasius he opposed the Arians and taught
people not to defile
themselves by associating with them.
Antony persuaded many soldiers
and wealthy people to put
aside their burdens and become monks.
Athanasius called him a "healer given to Egypt by God."5
When banished in 340 Athanasius took two of Antony's monks
to
Rome, introducing the ascetic way of monks.
When Athanasius returned
six years later,
he was greeted by Antony.
Until the very end
of his centenarian life Antony maintained
a good disposition and
better health than those with rich diets,
baths, and many clothes;
he had all his teeth
although they were worn nearly to the gums.
Antony opposed mummification and requested
that his body be buried
in a secret place.
Hilarion was born near Gaza; but as a youth he studied in
Alexandria,
where he became a Christian
and spent two months with Antony.
When his parents died in 306, he was only 15;
but Hilarion gave
his inheritance to his brothers and the poor,
becoming a hermit
on a road near Gaza
while weaving baskets for his subsistence.
He fasted, chanted the Old Testament, and sang psalms.
His cell was only five feet high; he slept on the ground,
only
changed his garment after it turned to rags,
and cut his hair
each Easter.
According to Jerome's biography he healed many,
expelled
demons, and converted Saracens.
His reputation for holiness was
said to have attracted
as many as ten thousand visitors.
Hilarion
established a Palestinian monastery in 329 and then
traveled to
Thebes in Egypt, North Africa, Sicily, Dalmatia,
and finally to
Cyprus in order to find solitude.
He was credited with prophesying
the religious revolution
decreed by Emperor Julian, and he died
in 371.
Pachomius was born to Egyptian parents and served
in the army
under the tyrannical Maximin when he was
campaigning against Constantine
and Licinius.
Pachomius was won over by the kind treatment
he
received from Christians in Thebes.
After his discharge from the
army, he was baptized
and in 313 began to study with the aged
hermit Palemon,
who ate only bread and salt, spending half the
night
singing psalms and meditating.
In 325 Pachomius believed
he was directed by an angel
to found a monastery on the island
of Tabenne in the Nile,
which by his death in 348 had grown to
nine cloisters
with several thousand monks.
A century later it
had 50,000 members.
His rules, thought to have been communicated
by an angel,
were translated into Latin by Jerome.
Rigid vows
were not required
until after three years of probation.
In addition
to weaving, monks worked at ship-building
and farming so they
could support the poor and the sick.
Monks were graded for their
piety into 24 classes
represented by the letters of the Greek
alphabet.
Monks lived three per cell and kept silence
and their
faces covered during common meals.
Pachomius also established
a cloister for nuns,
but he refused to see his sister.
Other female
cloisters developed around the sister of
Antony and the wife of
Ammon.
After Pachomius fifty monasteries sprang up on the
Nitrian
mountain with seven bakeries to supply anchorites.
Eustathius founded monasteries in Armenia, Pontus, and
Paphlagonia;
but his sect believed that marriage prevented
salvation, was condemned
for this by a council at Gangra
about 341, and eventually died
out.
Audians founded monasteries in Scythia that lasted about
a
century, and Euchites called Enthusiasts roamed around
Mesopotamia
and Syria praying continually
while despising labor.
They were
persecuted near the end of the 4th century
by ecclesiastical and
civil authorities but managed to survive.
In Rome Jovinian wrote
in opposition to monasticism,
criticizing its asceticism.
He believed
eating with thanksgiving was as good as fasting
and that being
married was of equal merit with celibacy
although he himself never
married.
About 390 Jovinian was excommunicated by the
bishop of
Rome, Siricius,
who opposed the marriage of priests.
Athanasius was born about 298 and so
was a child during the Diocletian persecution.
In 313 Alexandrian bishop Alexander saw
the young Athanasius
playing a bishop with his friends, took the
youth into his care,
appointing him his secretary and later archdeacon.
Athanasius probably wrote
The Incarnation of the Word of God
before the Arian controversy began.
In this work he emphasized
the moral necessity of the divine
incarnation because of the increase
of adulteries, thefts,
murder, rape, corruption, injustice, and
various iniquities
perpetrated by individuals and groups.
Cities
warred against cities, and nations rose against nations,
dividing
the whole earth into factions and battles
as they strove to outdo
each other in their wickedness.
Christ assumed a body in order
to show the way to salvation
and overcome death by surrendering
his own temple
to destruction by sinful people, demonstrating
life
by resurrection after an undeniable public execution.
Athanasius
argued his case to Jews and Greeks and concluded,
"One cannot
possibly understand the teaching of the saints
unless one has
a pure mind and is trying to imitate their life."6
About 319 an Alexandrian priest named Arius began teaching
a Neo-Platonist doctrine that emphasized the oneness of God
but
making Christ as the word of God a secondary deity
substantially
different than the uncreated Father
and subordinate to his will.
The ideas of Arius were published in his poem Thalia.
Arius
taught that although Christ created the world,
he was created
by the one God and was thus not as divine.
At a council of one
hundred bishops called in 321
by bishop Alexander 98 condemned
Arius;
his two supporters and other clerics were deposed.
Arius
went to bishop Eusebius in Caesarea,
and the famous church historian
helped by sending to others
such as the Nicomedia bishop also
named Eusebius,
who summoned a council of bishops that reinstated
Arius.
He then returned to Alexandria, where the conflict raged.
When his emissaries failed to mediate the conflict,
Emperor
Constantine called the first ecumenical meeting.
Athanasius accompanied
his bishop to the council at Nicaea
in 325 and distinguished himself
by his arguments refuting the
doctrines of Arius that he believed
denied the deity of Christ.
About twenty Arian bishops were led
by Eusebius
of Nicomedia; but their proposed creed was defeated,
and all but two of them abandoned it.
Eusebius of Caesarea offered
a creed without the word
homoousios, but a majority insisted
the word be added
to what became the Nicene creed.
Under Constantine's
leadership the council decided in favor
of a divine trinity of
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in which the
Son (Christ and the
Word of God) is considered to be of the
same essence (homoousios)
as the Father (God).
Arius and two Egyptian bishops refused to
sign the formula
and were declared heretics.
In the first civil
punishment of heresy the
books of Arius were ordered burned.
This
council also settled the Meletian controversy that
previously
had disturbed Alexandria, and it established the
Roman rather
than the Jewish dating of Easter.
Twenty canons helped to resolve
problems concerning those
who had fallen away during the persecutions,
enabled schismatics to return, prohibited ordination of eunuchs
and recent converts, and established the jurisdictions under
the
bishops of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem.
Three years later in 328 Athanasius was made bishop of
Alexandria
even though he was not quite old enough.
Constantine was persuaded
by Eusebius of Caesarea
to recall Arius from exile.
At an Arian
church council led by the historian Eusebius at Tyre
in 335 Athanasius
was condemned and deposed for making
false accusations against
Arius, and the next year he was
banished to Gaul by the Emperor
for disturbing the peace of
the church and threatening to disrupt
the grain supply from Egypt.
Arius had been acquitted of heresy
by a council at Jerusalem
the year before, but he died in his
eighties
of cholera at Constantinople in 336.
Emperor Constantine
II recalled Athanasius from exile in 338;
but under Constantius
Arianism prevailed in the East,
and Athanasius was banished again.
Constantius and his brother Constans, who was ruling the West,
called a council at Sardica in 343 to resolve the conflict;
but
when the Arian bishops stayed away
because Athanasius was admitted,
the Nicene doctrine was confirmed.
Instead the Eastern bishops
met at nearby Philippopolis
and confirmed the Antioch council
held two years earlier.
Athanasius was restored in 346; but after Constans died in
350,
Constantius called four councils within seven years to promote
a moderated Arianism that taught a similarity (homoiousios)
of essence rather than a difference.
Yet this resulted in the
banning of bishops Liberius of Rome,
Hosius of Cordova, Hilary
of Poitiers, Lucifer of Calaris,
and again Athanasius, who in
356 was driven out of his
cathedral by 5,000 soldiers and was
replaced
by the avaricious Arian George of Cappadocia.
Then in
359 Eastern bishops met at Seleucia in Isauria
while Western bishops
conferred at Rimini in Italy.
As Jerome put it, everyone seemed
to wake up one day to
lament and marvel at finding themselves
Arian.
After Constantius died in 361, George was murdered,
enabling
Athanasius to return again, only to be sent into exile
the next
year by Julian until the pagan Emperor died in 363.
Athanasius
was banished a final fifth time in 365
by Emperor Valens but was
reinstated the next year
and was able to spend the rest of his
life in peace
corresponding with Basil,
who founded monasteries
in Cappadocia.
In writing to Epictetus, bishop of Corinth, Athanasius defended
the humanity of Christ, and in a letter to Dracontius he urged
the monk to leave the desert to serve the episcopate.
Athanasius
remains controversial to this day as scholars
are divided; some
criticize him for using Mafia-like tactics,
while others claim
that in his battles against the world he only
used spiritual weapons
and never favored the use of force.
He suffered frequent persecution,
but his supporters say
he never practiced it against others, following
the maxim that
orthodoxy should persuade faith, not force it.
Athanasius died in 373, and for a time
Arians were able to oppress
their opponents in Alexandria.
Cyril became bishop of Jerusalem about 350;
but he was deposed
by a local council of bishops in 357.
One of the charges was selling
church property
to relieve the poor during a famine.
His deposition
was confirmed by an Arian council in 360.
After Constantius died
in 361, Cyril was restored when
Emperor Julian allowed all exiled
prelates to return.
He was deposed again by Emperor Valens in
367
and allowed to return to his position
at Jerusalem by Theodosius
in 379.
He died in 386.
His Catachetical Lectures were
written forty years earlier.
In these Cyril emphasized that
faith
and works are equally important.
He believed that faith involved
subscribing
to a creed and trusting in God.
Works depend on one's
free will,
not heredity or environmental factors.
For Cyril good
works did not exclude the moderate use
of wealth, the body, sex,
marriage, clothes, wine, and food,
because he believed the body
is beautiful
and merits tender treatment.
He believed in confession
and taught that
salvation depends on baptism or martyrdom.
Basil was born about 329 in the Cappadocia capital at
Caesarea,
which is along the military road
between Antioch and Constantinople.
His paternal grandmother Macrina was a devout Christian
and had
been a disciple of Gregory Thaumaturgos,
and his maternal grandfather
died a Christian martyr.
Basil's father was a prominent lawyer
and teacher of rhetoric.
His younger brother was known as Gregory
of Nyssa.
Basil, Gregory, and their brother Peter became bishops;
Basil, Gregory, and their sister Macrina
were canonized as saints.
Basil studied at Constantinople, perhaps with Libanius,
and while
learning at Athens from 351 to 356
he met his best friend, Gregory
of Nazianzus.
Basil began a secular career at Caesarea,
but the
piety of his sister Macrina influenced him
to take up an ascetic
life.
Basil and some friends established a monastic community
on his family estate at Annesi in Pontus.
He retreated from the
city as a source of many evils,
but still he found that even in
solitude
he could not forsake himself.
Tormented by restlessness,
the next year
Basil toured the monasteries of Egypt.
He adopted
and adapted the cenobite (community)
monasticism practiced by
Pachomius.
He eventually found that seclusion from the world's
business,
celibacy, solitude, study of the scriptures,
living
with Godly men, prayer, contemplation,
and ascetic severity could
help train
the wild passions in order to attain quietness of soul.
Basil disagreed with his Arian bishop Dianius, who died in
362.
His successor, Eusebius, disliked the asceticism of Basil,
who withdrew to Annesi.
Basil was ordained a priest in 364.
About
this time Basil wrote a treatise against the
Arian Eunomius, who
was so extreme in his views
he had even been banished by Constantius.
When the church was threatened by the Arian Emperor Valens
in
365, Basil returned to Caesarea and tried to unite the
semi-Arians
and supporters of the Nicene doctrine under the
formula of "three
persons in one substance."
Basil studied with his friend
Gregory, and together they made
extracts from the works of Origen
in the Philocalia.
When Eusebius died in 370,
Basil became
archbishop of Caesarea.
He founded charitable institutions to
help the poor, travelers,
and the sick, notably the hospital Basilias
for the many lepers in the area.
When Emperor Valens visited Caesarea
in 371,
Basil refused to submit to him.
The next year Valens divided
the province;
but Basil appointed Gregory of Nazianzus at Sasima
and his own brother Gregory at Nyssa.
However, Gregory of Nazianzus
resented Basil using their
friendship in this political way and
probably never took up the post at Sasima.
Basil wrote influential Longer Rules
and Shorter
Rules for monasteries.
He set reasonable standards for austerity
to avoid
the rivalries in ascetic rigor he saw in Egypt.
Private
fasts could not be undertaken
without the superior's permission.
Basil insisted on obedience to the superior,
although elder brothers
could admonish
the superior when necessary.
He found silence to
be a useful discipline for novices.
Basil preferred the community
monastery that could express
love of God and neighbors as they
cooperated together
in their efforts toward perfection.
Seclusion
did not offer the opportunity to practice humility,
obedience,
charity, and other social virtues.
Basil is credited with systematizing
if not founding the
common house, the common table, and prayer
in common.
By living near secular brothers and sisters the monks
could
offer a model of Christian living and could undertake
external
works to love their neighbors.
Yet both philanthropic works and
communal living were
only means to the greater end of union with
God.
In his Address to Young Men Basil defended
the study
of pagan literature.
In addition to the 365 extant letters,
Basil
wrote homilies and moral essays.
In an early letter he wrote of
the perfection of solitary life.
A Christian should not be doubtful
nor swear,
lie, speak evil, fight, or be angry.
He should be patient,
moderate, avoid slander,
and be subject to God's will.
A monk
should work without complaining and should
not offend with glances,
words, or deeds
nor be envious or hold grudges.
He should not
seek the riches of the world
but rejoice in poverty.
In an exhortation
to renounce the world Basil wrote that
the soul is an image of
heaven because the Lord dwells in it,
while the flesh is of earth
wherein live
mortal humans and irrational beasts.
The needs of
the body should be regulated
in conformity with the hours of prayer.
He began "A Discourse on Ascetical Discipline" by stating
that
foremost the monk should own nothing in this world but should
possess solitude, modesty, a modulated tone of voice,
and well-ordered
speech.
In The Morals Basil listed eighty rules for Christians,
supporting them with quotations from the scriptures.
Some of these
include not lying, imitating the equal relations
observed by children,
and being compassionate and generous.
His longest discourse is
on Rule 70 regarding appointing
blameless deacons and priests
whose past life
has been investigated and found worthy.
The last
rule calls on Christians to conform to the pattern
of what they
see and hear in Christ.
Like Antony, Basil in "Give Heed to Thyself" recommended
paying attention to oneself and to the purity
in the ruling part
of the soul.
He noted that we are easily prone to sins of thought
and believed that the impulse received from the intention
is the
major element in sin.
When the thoughts of a person run off to
sin, the imagination
may see objects of desire
and draw pictures
of sensual pleasures.
The sins of intention can occur with the
swiftness of thought.
One should pay attention to oneself instead
of to possessions
and the objects around one.
Despise the flesh
which passes away,
and be solicitous of the soul that never dies.
Acquire an exact understanding of yourself so that you may
know
how to regulate the two sides of your nature,
providing for the
needs of both body and soul.
Be soberly vigilant and watch yourself.
Basil distinguished the rational part of the soul from the
non-rational
emotions; the former should have authority,
and the latter should
submit.
Never allow the mind to become the slave of the passions
nor permit the emotions to rise up against reason
and usurp the
power of the soul.
By yielding to carnal passions the soul destroys
its proper beauty; but the practice of virtue
purifies one from
such shame.
In a homily Basil warned against anger.
Just as medical precepts
are learned by the test of experience,
so the wisdom of spiritual
counsel
can be demonstrated by the results produced.
When anger
usurps dominion over the soul,
it makes the person bestial in
a temporary madness.
He advised against trying to cure one evil
with another
by trying to outdo another in inflicting harm.
Do
not make your enemy your model
by imitating what you hate.
Basil
wrote, "If you remain unruffled, you silence your insolent
assailant by giving him a practical illustration of self-control."7
Anger may be used constructively when the soul becomes
enervated
by pleasure in order to restore it from its weak
and flaccid condition
to rigor.
How does one keep one's passions
from being aroused
against improper objects?
Basil recommends the humility
which
Jesus taught in words and illustrated in his life.
Basil also warned against envy, which he wrote is a pain
caused
by our neighbor's prosperity.
Its cure is in not regarding the
goods
of this world as admirable.
If you desire glory, he suggested
you turn your aspirations
toward acquiring virtue and free yourself
rom the desire for earthly riches.
In "On Detachment"
Basil wrote that a person with one's
best interests at heart will
be concerned with the soul
and will spare no pains to keep it
stainless and true to itself.
After Basil died on January 1, 379 Gregory of Nazianzus
composed
a funeral oration praising his friend.
He recounted how during
a famine Basil sold possessions
to buy food and got the rich to
open their storehouses
to give bread to the poor;
he set out caldrons
of pea soup for the hungry.
Gregory also told how when a widow
was violently
importuned by an assessor to marry her,
she fled
for sanctuary to the altar of a church.
Basil refused to give
her up and was summoned
before the judge, ready to undergo the
lash.
However, people heard and came
with torches and clubs, hurling
stones.
Then Basil protected the judge
from these irate men and
women.
Gregory noted that Basil had no wealth but the cross,
which
alone was his life and which he deemed
more precious than the
greatest riches.
Gregory observed that Basil could cherish virtue
with a smile of commendation
or repress vice with the reproach
of silence.
The elder Gregory of Nazianzus was converted from a
monotheistic
sect by his wife Nonna, who was later
canonized along with her
children
Gregory, Caesarius, and Gorgonia.
She consecrated her
son Gregory to serve God
even before he was born.
The younger
Gregory shared the Athenian education of his
friend Basil and
excelled at oratory, delivering funeral eulogies
of his father,
brother, sister, and Basil.
He commended his mother's self-sacrificing
love for the
poor and sick, but he noted that she was
intolerant
toward "heathen women."
This Gregory, guided by his
mother and a dream,
chose celibacy although his father
was one
of the few married bishops.
Caesarius was a renowned physician
and served
Emperor Constantius in that position.
Gregory of Nazianzus
criticized Emperor Julian and was said
to have prophesied the
evil he would cause the empire
when he knew Julian at school in
Athens.
When he was about 30, Gregory adopted an ascetic life,
though his love of his parents kept him from seclusion.
Gregory,
like Basil and later Augustine, was ordained a
presbyter (priest)
against his will in 362.
When his father died in 374, Gregory
became bishop
of Nazianzus; but he retired again
the next year
to Seleucia in Isauria.
Gregory of Nazianzus wrote that to praise Athanasius was
to
praise virtue, because he embraced virtue in its entirety.
This
Gregory from 379 worked at Constantinople to promote
what soon
became the orthodox doctrine.
The next year Emperor Theodosius
made Gregory the
capital's
patriarch and began issuing edicts
condemning the Arians.
He called the second ecumenical council
at Constantinople in 381.
After Antioch bishop Meletius died,
Gregory of Nazianzus
presided, and the patriarch of Constantinople
as the
"new Rome" was ranked second after the bishop
of Rome.
There 36 semi-Arians walked out, and 150 bishops,
none
of whom were from the Latin church,
established a revised Nicene
Creed without the
filioque (and the son) later added by
the Latin church.
When bishops from Egypt and Macedonia disputed
Gregory's election, he resigned in disgust over the party strife,
offering to sacrifice himself like Jonah
in order to save the
ship of the church.
Gregory left Constantinople and spent his
remaining years
in solitude on his paternal estate in Nazianzum.
Called the theologian, Gregory in his
Five Theological Orations emphasized
the qualities of purity and integrity.
He criticized
the Eunomians for degrading the divinity
of Christ and the Macedonians
for lessening the Holy Spirit.
Basil's younger brother Gregory of Nyssa was also influenced
by Origen, and he
too retired into a quiet life in Pontus.
Though he married, Gregory
commended virginity
as the perfect freedom of true philosophy.
The purpose of asceticism for Gregory was not to afflict
the body
but to facilitate the spiritual functions.
Basil appointed him
bishop of Nyssa in 372.
He also supported the Nicene faith, and
in 375 during
Arianizing pressure from Emperor Valens a provincial
governor accused Gregory of maladministration.
The next year he
was deposed by a synod
and driven into exile.
After Emperor Valens
died two years later,
Gratian allowed Gregory to recover his bishopric
at Nyssa.
Gregory was influential in the ecumenical council
at
Constantinople in 381.
The council sent him on a tour of Arabia
and Palestine,
where he found hatred toward brothers he believed
only should be expressed against the devil and sin.
In his extensive writing Gregory of Nyssa used Origen's
allegorical
interpretation and agreed with him that punishment
is medicinal
and educative in preparation for the universal
salvation of all
souls and the ultimate abolition of evil
as negative and thus
non-existent in God.
In his major theological work, The Great
Catechism,
written in 385, Gregory attempted to synthesize
Jewish
monotheism and Hellenic polytheism into the unique
Christian
doctrine of the trinity.
He emphasized free will and the human
ability to choose,
and he applied the Platonic doctrine of virtue's
wholeness
to his analysis of redemption.
His Life of Moses
treated the great law-giver as a pattern
for the progress of the
soul
from the temptations of the world to a vision of God.
Hilary of Poitiers of southwestern Gaul was converted to
Christianity
along with his wife and daughter.
He was made bishop of his town
about 350,
but five years later he was banished to Phrygia
by
Emperor Constantius for refusing
to sign the condemnation of Athanasius.
Hilary wrote to Constantius,
pleading for peace within the church.
During his four years in Phrygia Hilary wrote a long work
in twelve
books On the Trinity.
After the council at Seleucia, Hilary
appealed again
to the Emperor, at least that he be allowed
to
debate the Arian issue.
To avoid this in 360 the Arians got Constantius
to send Hilary
back to Gaul, where he was welcomed
as the "Athanasius
of the West."
In 364 Hilary went to Milan to debate the Arian
bishop
Auxentius, who had taken control of that see.
Hilary died
a few years later.
Martin was born about 330 to pagan parents
in Pannonia (Hungary).
Since his father was a tribune in the army, by Roman law
Martin
was required to serve in the military also.
At age ten against
the wishes of his parents he became a
Christian catechumen.
Among
the soldiers he lived like a monk.
Once in winter he tore his
only cloak in half to clothe a beggar
that others with extra clothes
had ignored,
and in a dream he saw Jesus
with that cloak he gave away.
This stimulated Martin to be baptized.
He remained a soldier for two more years
until Emperor Julian
was offering them a bonus.
Martin refused to accept it, saying
he could not fight anymore,
because he was Christ's soldier.
When
Julian called him a coward, Martin volunteered to face
the enemy
unarmed with only the sign of the cross.
He was arrested; but
envoys made peace the next day,
and Martin was soon released from
the army.
Martin went to Poitiers bishop Hilary and was made a deacon.
In the Alps Martin got lost and was set upon by brigands;
but
his faith in danger converted one of the robbers.
When Hilary
was banished in 355,
Martin became a hermit at Milan, where he
was persecuted
and driven out by Bishop Auxentius.
Martin went
to Rome to greet the returning Hilary.
Martin was said to have
revived from death a catechumen,
who said that while he was out
of his body,
two angels told the Judge that Martin was praying
for him;
then the two angels brought him back.
In 360 Hilary provided
land at Ligugé,
where Martin established the first monastery
in Gaul.
About 371 the reluctant Martin was elected bishop at
Tours.
When a pagan of consular rank named Tetradius promised
to become a Christian if Martin expelled the demon
from his serf,
Martin healed the boy.
As bishop, Martin continued to live like
a monk
and even moved away from the city.
Martin tore down pagan temples and preached
as a missionary
as far away as Vienne.
He was credited with curing the eyes of
Paulinus of Nola.
During a synod at Bordeaux in 384 Martin appealed
to
Emperor Maximus on behalf of the Gnostic and Manichaean
Priscillian
and his followers;
but Ossanova bishop Itacius urged they be put
to death.
Although Maximus promised Martin not to spill their
blood,
his prefect Evodius had Priscillian and others beheaded.
Martin continued to intervene in order to prevent a bloody
persecution
of Spanish Priscillianists.
Martin would not join in communion
with the bishops
who were persecuting the heretics to death,
and
for a while this conflict seemed to
diminish his spiritual powers.
Martin died in 397, and his funeral
was attended by two thousand
monks.
He was one of the first non-martyrs to be canonized,
and
he became the patron saint of France.
Ambrose was born in 339 at Trier in the palace of his father,
who governed Gaul.
His father died when Ambrose was a child,
and
he was educated at Rome, living with his mother and sister
Marcellina,
who had taken a vow of virginity.
Ambrose was a successful lawyer
and was appointed
praetorian prefect for Upper Italy at Milan.
When the Arian Auxentius died in 374, so much disturbance
was
expected over the election of a new bishop
that Ambrose went to
prevent a riot.
A child cried out, "Ambrose for bishop,"
and he was unanimously elected.
In eight days he was baptized
and passed through the grades
of the church's ministry.
Ambrose
sold his estates and used his gold and silver
to help the poor,
leaving an allowance for Marcellina.
He began studying the scriptures
and the works of Origen
and Basil.
Any member of his congregation could speak
with Ambrose
at any time.
He preached so persuasively for virginity that mothers
kept
their daughters away from his sermons.
When he was accused
of trying to depopulate the empire,
he replied that wars, not
maidens,
were destroying the human race.
Ambrose was grieved by
the avarice of those in positions
of authority, because business
with them was troublesome
as they retailed everything for a price.
Before Emperor Gratian went east to fight the Goths
with the
Arian Emperor Valens in 378, he asked Ambrose
for instruction
against heresy;
the bishop responded by writing his work On
Faith.
After Valens was defeated and killed at Adrianople,
Ambrose argued this was a divine judgment against Arianism.
When
Maximus usurped the place of Gratian in 383,
Ambrose helped Justina
prevent her young son
Valentinian II from being sent to Trier.
He also went to recover the body of Gratian,
asking Maximus to
do penance for the murder of Gratian.
He cautioned the usurping
Emperor not to attack Valentinian II.
In 384 Ambrose persuaded
Valentinian to reject a request
by Symmachus to restore the statue
of Victory
in the senate at Rome.
After the Priscillian heretics
were beheaded,
Ambrose excommunicated Maximus.
Ambrose managed
to consecrate Anemius bishop
at Sirmium in spite of efforts by
Empress Justina
to place an Arian in that cathedral.
Ambrose was summoned to the court of Valentinian II
to debate
the Arian views of the younger Auxentius.
Ambrose wrote a letter
to the Emperor refusing,
because in questions of faith
bishops
usually judge Emperors, not the reverse.
He invited Auxentius
to come to his church for a
discussion before the people.
If there
is to be a conference about the faith,
it should be of bishops,
as it was under Constantine.
Ambrose advised the Emperor to obey
his own laws.
While in a church Ambrose and his congregation were
surrounded by imperial troops during holy week of 386.
Under siege
for several days they sang hymns composed
by Ambrose that eventually
influenced the soldiers.
In a sermon against Auxentius Ambrose
said he would not
depart willingly, though he would not resist
force.
His only weapons were his tears.
He cried out to the Emperor
as a free priest;
only by taking his life could he take away his
faith.
Ambrose criticized Auxentius for trying to
substitute laws
for faith.
The Church belongs to God, not to Caesar.
The Emperor
is within the Church, not above it,
and a good Emperor aims to
help the Church, not oppose it.
While Emperor Theodosius was residing at Milan
after defeating
Maximus,
Bishop Ambrose had two confrontations with him.
After
Christians pulled down a synagogue at Kallinikum
in Mesopotamia,
Theodosius ordered the bishop to rebuild it.
Ambrose protested
that a bishop should not be required
to erect a structure for
another religion and refused to
sing mass until the Emperor revoked
his order.
After the massacre ordered by Theodosius at Thessalonica
in 390, Ambrose made the Emperor do public penance
before he would
receive his offering at the altar.
He did not give Theodosius
absolution until he issued a law
delaying capital punishment
until
thirty days after its pronouncement.
When Arbogast took control
of the West and made
Eugenius Emperor, Ambrose departed from Milan
before Eugenius arrived,
sending him a letter appealing to his
conscience.
Ambrose strengthened the people against the invaders,
and the forces of Theodosius soon defeated those of Arbogast.
A few months later in 395 at Milan Theodosius die
in the arms
of Ambrose, who delivered his funeral oration.
Ambrose himself
died a day or two before Easter in 397.
Ambrose wrote a book on Christian ethics called
On the Duties
of Ministers.
Modeled on Cicero's On Duties, Ambrose
aimed to show
that Christian ethics are superior to pagan ideas
and,
deriving from the Old Testament, much older too.
The
first book is on virtue.
Ambrose took seriously the advice of
Jesus to sell all our
goods and give to the poor in order to enter
life and be perfect.
The young should fear God, obey their parents,
honor elders, and preserve their purity.
One should not despise
humility but love patience and modesty.
Anger must be guarded.
Language should be mild, kind, courteous, and free of insults.
Ambrose recommended three principles:
controlling passions with
reason, proportioning efforts to the
importance of the goal, and
maintaining
the correct order and timing of one's actions.
Ambrose also emphasized the four classic virtues of
wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance.
Wisdom is the source of all
virtues, because it comes from
the author of our being, whom we
must seek in order
to learn how God rules and judges the world.
Ambrose's order of right goes from God
to country to parents and
then to others.
Society is held together by justice and also kindness,
which consists of good will and liberality.
Courage enables us
to train the mind and reduce the flesh
so that one listens to
the commands of reason.
This means loving what is best
and having
contempt for the world.
Temperance means being peaceful, gentle,
moderate,
and attentive to what is virtuous.
The second book is on what is useful.
Ambrose found scriptures
taught that eternal life comes from
the knowledge of God and the
fruits of good works.
Riches do not help one live in a holy way
and may be a hindrance, while poverty may help.
For Ambrose what
is useful is what brings one closer to God;
thus the virtuous
is most useful.
Nothing is more useful than being loved;
therefore
one should be kind to others and serve them.
Giving impartial
and prudent advice may also help.
Liberality may also win friends,
but one should not be sparing to the needy.
Yet beggars can be
greedy, and so one must be prudent
if one is to sustain the poor.
Company with the good and wise is useful,
while defending the
weak and offering hospitality
enhance one's reputation.
Being
too mild may present a false virtue.
One should act mercifully.
Ambrose was hated by some for melting down sacred
vessels to redeem
captives; but he argued that the
Church's gold should be spent
on those in need,
preferring to preserve living vessels rather
than gold ones.
In the third book of On the Duties of Ministers Ambrose
agreed with Cicero that one should not increase one's own
advantage
to the disadvantage of others.
Humans live in community; if one
is injured,
the whole is wounded.
The Church rises in one body
bound together
in the oneness of faith and love.
Because of human
unity the advantage of the individual
is the same as that of everyone,
and so nothing should be
considered advantageous that is not for
the common good.
Ambrose believed we should never do evil
even
if one would not be discovered.
He wrote that we should exclude
the love of money
from our hearts, because it leads to shrewdness
and tricks
to profit from the misfortune of others.
We are obligated
to avoid fraud, deceit, and false promises.
Saints by seeking
virtue have achieved what is useful.
Ambrose found friendship
to be the most beautiful thing
in the world, and no one is more
hateful
than the person who violates it.
Yet he cautioned that
friendship should not be placed
above religion, patriotism, or
justice.
We should reproach an erring friend but without harshness,
bitterness, or arrogance, and an innocent friend
should never
be forsaken.
Most precious is friendship with God, who promises
to be our friend if we do what God commands us.
Prudentius was born in 348 at
Caesaraugusta (Zaragoza) in Spain.
He became a lawyer and governed two provinces.
He retired to write
Christian poetry in 392
and published his works in 405.
Prudentius
wrote hymns for different parts of the day
and for Christian festivals.
A hymn on the Trinity describes the divinity of Christ,
and in
"The Origin of Sin" he argued
against the Gnostic dualism
of Marcion.
Two books replied to the request by Symmachus
to restore
the altar to Victory in the Roman senate.
Psychomachia (Soul Battle) starts with Biblical heroes
but
soon turns to the allegorical portrayal of abstract qualities
in conflict with each other.
Faith takes the field and is countered
by
Worship-of-the-Old-Gods.
Chastity is attacked by Lust.
Prudentius
argued that Christ has made us humans divine too.
Patience withstands
Anger and is protected by Virtue,
who overcomes Vice.
Fury is
its own enemy, and Anger dies by her own weapons.
Pride gallops
forth to look down on Humility,
who turns to Hope.
The War-Queen
cannot rouse Brotherly Love, Justice,
Honesty, Sobriety, Fasting,
Purity, and unarmed Simplicity.
Deceit lays a trap; but Pride,
not Humility, falls into it.
Vices like Luxury, Desire, Pomp,
Strife, and Pleasure
are overcome by Sobriety.
Greed, accompanied
by Care, Hunger, Fear, Anguish,
Perjury, Pallor, Corruption, Treachery,
Falsehood, Insomnia,
and Meanness, seems to conquer the world;
but powerful Reason defends the virtues
and is reinforced by Good
Works.
Invincible Virtue strikes Avarice like a thunderbolt,
and
the teachings of the Christ drive away
Fear, Suffering, Violence,
Crime, and Fraud.
Kind Peace banishes war, and happy Concord signals the
victors
to return to their tents.
However, Discord enters their ranks
disguised as a friend.
Yet the Virtues surround her and expose
her as Heresy,
who is killed by Faith and torn to pieces.
Peaceful
Sentiments and Concord swear to love Christ.
Faith and Concord
build a temple,
and Spirit encircles private Soul.
Wisdom is enthroned
and sets in order all the government
with laws to protect humanity.
Prudentius concluded that a savage war rages in the
two-sided
human nature until Christ comes to our aid
and orders the virtues
so that Wisdom can reign forever.
This allegorical method would
become popular
in Medieval and Renaissance literature.
Prudentius composed hymns to honor those who died for
Christianity
in his Crowns of Martyrdom.
Two men in Spain were killed
for refusing to serve in the Roman army.
In 258 the bishop of
Rome, Sixtus II, and others were killed
because of an edict by
Valerian.
Lawrence was ordered to bring the gold
concealed by
the church.
Lawrence asked for three days to produce the treasures
of the church and then came back with beggars.
Lawrence was tortured
by the prefect and prophesied that
Rome would become a city of
Christian worship
and that the ancient statues would be cleansed
from blood and become guiltless.
In Lawrence's martyrdom Prudentius
saw his victory
over the ancient temples.
In Lusitania the courageous
Eulalia presented herself
voluntarily to the seat of authority
to challenge their madness,
asking why Maximian prostituted himself
to his gods
and persecuted noble hearts.
Finally Eulalia breathed
in the torturing fire and
released her soul like the whitest dove
from her mouth.
Vincent was among eighteen martyrs
who were killed in Caesaraugusta.
Vincent bravely said to Governor Datianus that his tortures
were
mere sport to Christians.
His speech was ordered imprisoned with
a cruel rack
and strokes; but Vincent became even more cheerful
and radiant, pointing out that within the body is another
who
is unconfined, undisturbed, unharmed,
and exempt from the grievous
pains.
Tarraco bishop Fructuosus and two deacons were
burned to
death in 259
because of an order by Caesar Gallienus.
Quirinus
was drowned in a river of Illyricum
during persecution by Galerius.
The longest account of a martyrdom by Prudentius was of
Romanus,
a Christian leader, who was tortured
as he preached before he
was killed at Antioch,
also during the cruel government of Galerius.
Prudentius also described the
martyrdoms of Peter, Paul, and Cyprian.
John became known as Chrysostom
(meaning "golden-mouthed"
for his eloquence)
in the 6th century.
He was born at Antioch
in Syria in 347 and was raised
by his Christian mother Anthusa.
His father had been a military officer
but died soon after John
was born.
John studied with Libanius, a stalwart pagan and the
foremost rhetorician of this century.
Before he died in 393, Libanius
said that he would have liked
to name John as his successor,
but
the Christians had carried him away.
John became a successful
lawyer and enjoyed the theater;
but after he was instructed for
three years
by Antioch bishop Meletius, he was baptized.
He wanted
to become a monk; but he agreed to stay
with his mother, and Meletius
made him a reader.
In 370 John avoided appointment as a bishop by arranging
for
a friend named Basil to be elected.
His dialog On the Priesthood
describes the white lie he told,
because he believed he was not
qualified to be a priest.
In this era talented men were often
consecrated as bishops
by the elders almost without their consent.
Mistrusting his own inexperience and ambition,
Chrysostom believed
Basil would be better.
So he deceived his friend into thinking
he would accept
the position so that Basil would not try to avoid
it.
Basil was in fact seized and ordained.
John described the
qualifications for a priest and advised
against accepting the
vocation without adequate
preparation and valid motives.
John
was afraid he would be selected for his wealth.
Chrysostom believed
that divine law excluded women
from the priesthood, and he complained
that they use
their power to select and reject priests.
A priest
must cast out the lust of domination,
be wise and patient, and
control his anger.
Chrysostom believed (and later demonstrated
himself)
that a good priest has great speaking ability
and skill
in argument.
He should be indifferent to praise and take no notice
of slander.
He warned against the doctrines of Jews and Manichaeans.
It is much easier for a monk to save his own soul
than for a priest
to save the souls of others.
Ultimately priests are entrusted
with the government
of the world and should shine like a light.
After his mother died in 374, John spent six years
as a monk
in the hills south of Antioch.
Chrysostom's early writings
praised
the monastic life and celibacy.
In two long letters to his friend
Theodore
(later bishop of Mopsuestia), who wanted to give up his
monastic vow in order to marry, Chrysostom warned him
that to
sin is human, but to persist in sin is devilish,
and to fall may
not ruin the soul,
but to remain on the ground may.
To challenge
a 373 decree by Emperor Valens compelling
monks to serve the state
in the military or civil service,
Chrysostom wrote three books
against the opponents of monasticism.
Health required John to
return to Antioch,
where Meletius ordained him a deacon.
Meletius
died while presiding at the ecumenical council
at Constantinople
in 381, and he was succeeded by Flavius,
who in 386 ordained Chrysostom
a presbyter.
When the people of Antioch, provoked by excessive taxation
for the war against Maximus and imperial celebrations,
rioted
and destroyed the statues of Emperor Theodosius
and his late wife
Flacilla,
Bishop Flavius went to Constantinople
to ask pardon
for the city.
During Lent in 387 Chrysostom preached a series
of sermons
later collected as Twenty-one Homilies on the Statues
in order to help resolve the disturbance.
Although he said it
was more a time for prayer
than for preaching, he pointed out
that he had warned them
to chastise those who resort to violence;
but they had not paid attention to him.
He criticized the "high-minded"
rich
who put wealth before virtue.
He consoled them in their fear
of punishment,
urged them to correct their vices, and reminded
them
that those who suffer unjustly gain spiritually.
He repeatedly
warned them against
taking oaths and careless speech.
Fasting
is not useful unless one also abstains from vice.
Humans are gentle
animals and are not furnished
with horns, tusks, or claws.
Humans
minister with the rational soul,
and God has provided us with
a conscience by natural law
so that we can act rationally according
to God's will.
Flavius returned with a full pardon from
Emperor
Theodosius just in time for the Easter sermon.
Chrysostom then
led the people
in giving thanks for their preservation.
In 398 Eutropius, the prime minister of Emperor Arcadius,
chose
Chrysostom to succeed Nectarius
as archbishop of Constantinople.
A military escort was sent to bring the reluctant Chrysostom
to
the capital, where he was consecrated by his rival
patriarch of
Alexandria, Theophilus.
John sold the expensive plate and furniture
of the episcopal
palace to benefit the poor and hospitals,
while
he lived simply himself.
He disciplined the clergy and opposed
the traditional custom
of allowing priests to live with "spiritual
sisters."
His eloquence helped him to gain a large following
among the people; but his castigating
the misuse of riches antagonized
the wealthy.
The eunuch Eutropius was born a slave, but in the imperial
palace he rose to be the most powerful
person in the Eastern empire.
As a eunuch he was not supposed to hold a state office,
but he
became consul in 399.
When the Goths threatened, Eutropius offered
their
commander Tribigild a donative; but he refused,
ravaged
the country, and demanded Eutropius be deposed.
Although Eutropius
had enacted a law abolishing
the right of sanctuary in churches,
he himself fled into Chrysostom's church.
The archbishop gave
him refuge and refused to give him up
to authorities, using him
as an object lesson in his sermons.
Eutropius was the first to
break his own law.
Church-goers could see a rich man
fallen from
the pinnacle of power.
Yet Chrysostom urged mercy not judgment
and asked his
congregation to pray for the captive fugitive.
When
Eutropius did leave the church,
he was captured and eventually
beheaded.
Chrysostom pointed out that the church did not leave
him,
but he left the church.
All of this showed the vanity and
insignificance of human affairs.
In 401 Chrysostom held a synod at Ephesus
and deposed six bishops
for simony.
When he returned, he found a cabal led by
Empress
Eudoxia formed against him.
Chrysostom exacerbated the conflict
by
calling her a Jezebel from the pulpit.
Fifty Origenists were
banished from Alexandria by
Bishop Theophilus; four "tall
brothers" fled to Constantinople
and appealed to Chrysostom.
Although he did not agree with their views,
John opposed their
persecution.
Epiphanius was said to have been from a poor Jewish family
in Palestine but was educated by a rich Jewish lawyer.
He was
the first Jewish convert since Paul
to become a prominent Christian
father.
In 367 he was unanimously elected
bishop of Salamis on
Cyprus.
He wrote lengthy books against heresy,
naming 80 different
heresies.
He particularly aimed his venom at anchorite followers
of
Origen he had
seen while a monk in Egypt.
In 402 Epiphanius went to Constantinople
to challenge its
bishop Chrysostom for defending Origenists
expelled
from Alexandria.
However, Epiphanius was persuaded that Alexandria
bishop
Theophilus had made false charges in order to depose John.
Epiphanius died on the return voyage to Cyprus the next year.
After Epiphanius failed to achieve his purpose,
Theophilus
went to Constantinople himself and accused
Chrysostom before a
secret council of 36 bishops,
29 of whom were from Egypt.
This
synod of the Oak deposed and banished Chrysostom
for immorality
and treason in 403.
Chrysostom refused to appear before this tribunal
and appealed for a general council.
The people were indignant
they might lose their popular
preacher; but to avoid a riot
Chrysostom
surrendered himself to imperial officers.
Nonetheless Constantinople
was on the verge of insurrection,
and on the following night the
city was convulsed
with an earthquake, which frightened Eudoxia
so much
she begged Emperor Arcadius to recall Chrysostom.
He returned
in triumph, and Theophilus sailed for Alexandria.
Later that year a silver statue of Empress Eudoxia was
erected for public adoration.
Chrysostom's sermon on Herodias raging for
the head of
John the Baptist again aroused her ire.
Arcadius was
persuaded to remove Chrysostom.
This time John refused to leave
his church and was dragged
away by imperial guards, disrupting
the resurrection vigil
of 404 as John's partisans were imprisoned
and tortured.
Chrysostom was held in the episcopal palace until
Arcadius
signed the banishment several weeks later.
John submitted
calmly and was
sent to a harsh climate in Armenia.
He appealed
to the bishop of Rome, Innocent I, and to the
Western Emperor
Honorius, who sent a delegation of five
bishops to Constantinople;
but on the way their dispatches
were stolen, and they accomplished
nothing.
In exile Chrysostom wrote 242 letters and a short treatise
on the Platonic theme that no one can harm a person
who does not
injure oneself by sin.
Depriving one of wealth is not an evil,
because riches
can be a source of evils,
and the poor often enjoy
better health.
Adversity does not injure a good person just as
advantages
do not really benefit a bad person.
After being forced
to make an exhausting journey to Pontus,
Chrysostom died in 407.
Chrysostom hated sin more than error, and he placed charity
above being orthodox.
More than seven hundred homilies by Chrysostom
still exist.
In one of his homilies he wrote that nothing could
be more
chilling than to see a Christian making no effort to save
others.
There is no excuse for not meeting
the obligation of this
great duty.
To pretend to be too weak to do so is to insult God.
In a homily on humility John noted that sin with humility
is not
as bad as being right but proud.
Humility is the basis of the
love of wisdom and all the virtues.
Consider then, he asked, into
how deep a hell sin with pride
can drag one, and how being just
and humble
can take one into heaven.
Love casts out all inequality
and knows no superiority.
Chrysostom argued that demons do not govern the world
and that
no one is controlled by the devil except through
indolence; virtue
can always be attained by being diligent.
He listed five ways
of repentance as condemning sins,
forgiving others, praying, giving
charity, and being humble.
Chrysostom reprimanded his congregation
for their apathy
and also disapproved of their applauding his
eloquence.
He urged conquering enemies by kindness and suggested
that reconciliation with enemies in this world
will save us from
judgment in the next.
Even if we are unjustly treated,
we should
pardon those who wrong us.
Jerome was born about 347 near Aquileia.
His parents were wealthy
Christians, and the family moved
to Rome when Jerome was about
12.
As a boy he played in the underground catacombs.
He was well
educated, studying Latin grammar under the
pagan Donatus and rhetoric
with the Christian convert Victorinus.
Jerome lost his chastity
in the corrupt city,
which he later painfully confessed.
He is
believed to have been baptized by Pope Liberius in 366.
He traveled
to Treves in Gaul with his friend Bonosius.
For three years he
studied scriptures in Aquileia with a group
of ascetics that included
Rufinus and several future bishops.
In 373 the group broke up,
and Jerome traveled to Antioch.
There during a nearly fatal fever
Jerome dreamed he was
brought before a Judge in dazzling light,
who accused him
of being a Ciceronian and not a Christian.
In
the dream he was flogged,
and he vowed not to own or read profane
books.
Jerome spent about five years living ascetically in the
desert
of Chalcis, and his early writings praised the monastic
life.
In 378 he was ordained a presbyter by Antioch bishop
Paulinus with the understanding that priestly functions
would not be forced
on him.
He next studied under
Gregory of Nazianzus
in Constantinople.
In 382 Jerome returned to Rome and served as a secretary
to
Pope Damasus for three years.
At the request of the Pope he began
revising the old Latin
translation of the scriptures, starting
with the Gospels.
Jerome's classes were attended by several widows
and virgins,
and he urged noble Roman families to donate charity.
Jerome assisted Marcella in transforming her Aventine palace,
founding the first convent in Rome.
He wrote that Mary remained
a virgin, arguing that references
to the brothers and sisters
of Jesus could mean cousins
or
children of Joseph by a previous marriage.
Jerome held up Mary
as the ideal for virgins to follow.
He satirized Roman virgins
who continued luxurious lives,
being carried in litters and entertaining
flatterers at lavish feasts.
His criticism of lax monks, priests,
and hypocritical virgins
led to charges being brought against
him after Damasus died.
Although Jerome was acquitted by an ecclesiastical
court,
he was forced to leave Rome to go to his diocese in Antioch.
There he was joined by the widow Paula
and her daughter Eustochium.
In 386 Jerome settled in Bethlehem,
where he would live the
rest of his life.
By 389 Paula had completed a monastery for men
headed
by Jerome with three cloisters
for women under her supervision.
Jerome had been studying Greek and Hebrew,
and his knowledge of
the latter was now greatly aided
by secret study sessions with
Rabbi Bar-Anina.
He also learned Chaldean.
While writing commentaries
on various scriptures
Jerome worked on his Latin Vulgate translation
of the
Bible that was completed in 406 and which would
dominate Christian culture for a millennium.
Jerome wrote an account of how the Theban Paul became
the first
hermit in Egypt during the Decian persecution
in 250 before Antony,
who was born the next year.
So reclusive were Paul and Antony
that they did not meet
until some ninety years later just before
Paul died.
In the longer Life of Hilarion Jerome described
many
wondrous deeds of that monk, and he also wrote how
a Syrian
monk named Malchus was forced
to marry but lived in chastity with
his wife,
who was actually already married.
Jerome's On Illustrious
Men has short biographies
of 135 literary men, all Christians
except Philo, Josephus,
and Seneca from Peter to his own contemporaries.
He included unorthodox writers such as Tatian, Novatian,
Donatus,
Photinus, Eunomius, and Priscillian.
Jerome also wrote letters, of which 120 survived.
He praised
the monastic life of celibacy and asceticism.
He warned his friend
Heliodorus that
coveting is a form of idolatry.
He wrote a long
letter to Paula's daughter Eustochium
in defense of virginity
and warning her
not to be tempted by frivolous thoughts.
Jerome
also responded to false rumors
about his relations with his lady
friends.
He advised Rusticus to learn cooperation by living with
other
monks before attempting to face a solitary life,
and he
warned him not even to look upon women.
Jerome also engaged in
several controversies.
His Dialog Against the Luciferians challenged
the view of
Lucifer that anyone who had compromised with Arianism
should be barred from ecclesiastical office.
A Roman monk named
Jovinian had taken monastic vows
but refused to join a monastery.
Jovinian also published his views that virginity, marriage and
widowhood are equal in God's eyes if one is pious,
and that it
does not matter
whether one fasts or not if one gives thanks.
These views were condemned by Pope Siricius,
Ambrose, and Augustine.
Jerome wrote so vehemently against Jovinian that
he was accused
of showing contempt for marriage.
Although he did not agree with all his views,
Jerome promoted
the writings of Origen
by translating them
from Greek into Latin, including On Principles.
Later he opposed the Origenists, translated the encyclicals
of Theophilus against them, and even was able to
get Origen condemned in the West through his friends
Pammachius, Marcella,
and Eusebius.
In the Origen
controversy Jerome sided with
Epiphanius against John of Jerusalem.
To prevent the monks of Bethlehem from being deprived
of clerical
ministration by Bishop John, Epiphanius ordained
Jerome's younger
brother Paulinian against his will,
using force to gag him.
John
appealed to Rome, Theophilus in Alexandria
and to Rufinus, praetorian
prefect in Constantinople.
This controversy was resolved,
and
Jerome's condemnation of John was never published.
Jerome had studied Origen
with his friend Rufinus;
but after a council condemned his ideas
in 400,
Rufinus remained loyal to Origen
while Jerome followed the council.
Vigilantius had accused Jerome
of Origenism.
Supported by the bishop of Toulouse, Vigilantius
criticized
the reverence people paid to relics, late vigils,
sending
alms to Jerusalem instead of to local poor,
and the exaggerated
admiration of virginity.
Jerome abused the views of Vigilantius,
as did many
other church authorities of the time, and such practices
would persist throughout the middle ages.
Jerome corresponded with Augustine, and for a time
they were
at odds because a letter by Augustine critical of
Jerome had circulated
in the West
but had not been delivered to Jerome for nine years.
Later, however, their friendship was confirmed,
and Jerome greatly
praised Augustine.
When Pelagius and his followers, who believed
that a person
could be without sin by will, were favorably received
in Palestine in 416, Augustine appealed to Jerome,
who wrote a
dialog condemning Pelagius as a heretic.
In reaction some Pelagian
monks attacked the Bethlehem
monasteries, destroyed buildings,
and killed a deacon,
though Jerome survived in a tower.
The violence
was stopped by a strong letter from
Pope Innocent to Bishop John.
The health of Jerome declined, and he died in 419.
1. Lactantius, Divine Institutes 5:11
tr. William Fletcher
in The Ante-Nicene Fathers,
ed. Alexander Roberts and James
Donaldson, volume 7, p. 147.
2. Ammianus Marcelllinus 5:4 tr. Walter Hamilton, p. 124.
3. Athanasius, St. Antony of the Desert tr. J. B. McLaughlin,
p. 27.
4. The Letters of St. Antony 6:82 tr. Samuel Rubenson,
p. 221-222.
5. Athanasius, St. Antony of the Desert, p. 99.
6. Athanasius, On the Incarnation tr. a religious of C.
S. M. V., chapter 57, p. 96.
7. Saint Basil, "Against Anger" in Ascetical Works
tr. M. Monica Wagner, p. 454.
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