SKETCHES

OF

CHURCH HISTORY.

From A.D. 33 to the Reformation.

BY THE LATE
Rev. J. C. ROBERTSON, M.A.
CANON OF CANTERBURY.

PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE TRACT COMMITTEE.

LONDON:
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE,
NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, CHARING CROSS, W.C.
43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C.
26, ST. GEORGE'S PLACE, HYDE PARK CORNER, S.W.
BRIGHTON: 135, NORTH STREET.
New York: E. & J. B. YOUNG & CO.
1887.

EXPLANATION OF THE MAP.

(To be read after Chapter XXII.)

The Map is meant to give the names of such places only as are mentioned in the History.

The bounds of the patriarchates of Constantinople, Antioch, and Jerusalem are marked as they were settled at the Council of Chalcedon, in the year 451.

Only the northern part of the Alexandrian patriarchate is seen, as the Map does not reach far enough to take in Abyssinia, which belonged to it.

At the time of the Council of Nicæa (A.D. 325) the bishop of Rome's patriarchate was confined to the middle and the south of Italy, with the Islands of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica. It afterwards grew by degrees, until at length it took in all the countries of the west, although it had lost Illyricum, which was once a part of it. But this was not until long after the time to which our little book relates, and in the meanwhile its extent varied very much. The reason why its bounds, at the time of the Council of Chalcedon, or in the days of Gregory the Great, cannot well be marked in a map is, that in some countries the bishops of Rome had much influence, but had not power. They gave advice to the bishops of Gaul (or France), Spain, and Africa, and sometimes ventured to give them directions. But they could not make the bishops of those countries obey their directions, and had not authority over them in the same way as the patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, or Jerusalem had over the bishops within their patriarchates. To mark such countries as belonging to the Roman patriarchate would be too much; to mark them as if they had no connexion with it would be too little.

SKETCHES
OF
CHURCH HISTORY.

CHAPTER I.

THE AGE OF THE APOSTLES.
FROM A.D. 33 TO A.D. 100.

The beginning of the Christian Church is reckoned from the great day on which the Holy Ghost came down, according as our Lord had promised to His Apostles. At that time, "Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven," were gathered together at Jerusalem, to keep the Feast of Pentecost (or Feast of Weeks), which was one of the three holy seasons at which God required His people to appear before Him in the place which He had chosen (Deuteronomy xvi. 16). Many of these devout men were converted, by what they then saw and heard, to believe the Gospel; and, when they returned to their own countries, they carried back with them the news of the wonderful things which had taken place at Jerusalem. After this, the Apostles went forth "into all the world," as their Master had ordered them, to "preach the Gospel to every creature" (St. Mark xvi. 15). The Book of Acts tells us something of what they did, and we may learn something more about it from the Epistles. And, although this be but a small part of the whole, it will give us a notion of the rest, if we consider that, while St. Paul was preaching in Asia Minor, in Greece, and at Rome, the other Apostles were busily doing the same work in other countries.

We must remember, too, the constant coming and going which in those days took place throughout the world; how Jews from all quarters went up to keep the passover and other feasts at Jerusalem; how the great Roman empire stretched from our own island of Britain as far as Persia and Ethiopia, and people from all parts of it were continually going to Rome and returning. We must consider how merchants travelled from country to country on account of their trade; how soldiers were sent into all quarters of the empire, and were moved about from one country to another. And from these things we may get some understanding of the way in which the knowledge of the Gospel would be spread, when once it had taken root in the great cities of Jerusalem and Rome. Thus it came to pass, that, by the end of the first hundred years after our Saviour's birth, something was known of the Christian faith throughout all the Roman empire, and even in countries beyond it; and if in many cases, only a very little was known, still even that was a gain, and served as a preparation for more.

The last chapter of the Acts leaves St. Paul at Rome, waiting for his trial on account of the things which the Jews had laid to his charge. We find from the Epistles that he afterwards got his liberty, and returned into the East. There is reason to suppose that he also visited Spain, as he had spoken of doing in his Epistle to the Romans (ch. xv. 28); and it has been thought by some that he even preached in Britain; but this does not seem likely. He was at last imprisoned again at Rome, where the wicked Emperor Nero persecuted the Christians very cruelly; and it is believed that both St. Peter and St. Paul were put to death there in the year of our Lord 68. The bishops of Rome afterwards set up claims to great power and honour, because they said that St. Peter was the first bishop of their church, and that they were his successors. But although we may reasonably believe that the Apostle was martyred at Rome, there does not appear to be any good ground for thinking that he had been settled there as bishop of the city.

All the Apostles, except St. John, are supposed to have been martyred (or put to death for the sake of the Gospel). St. James the Less, who was bishop of Jerusalem, was killed by the Jews in an uproar, about the year 62. Soon after this, the Romans sent their armies into Judea, and, after a bloody war, they took the city of Jerusalem, destroyed the Temple, and scattered the Jews all over the earth. Thus the Jews were punished, as our Lord had foretold, for the great sin of which they had been guilty in refusing to believe in Him, and in putting Him to death.

Thirty years after Nero's time another cruel emperor, Domitian, raised a fresh persecution against the Christians (A.D. 95). Among those who suffered were some of his own near relations; for the Gospel had now made its way among the great people of the earth, as well as among the poor, who were the first to listen to it. There is a story that the emperor was told that some persons of the family of David were living in the Holy Land, and that he sent for them, because he was afraid lest the Jews should set them up as princes, and should rebel against his government. They were two grandchildren of St. Jude, who was one of our Lord's kinsmen after the flesh, and therefore belonged to the house of David and the old kings of Judah. But these two were plain countrymen, who lived quietly and contentedly on their little farm, and were not likely to lead a rebellion, or to claim earthly kingdoms. And when they were carried before the emperor, they showed him their hands, which were rough and horny from working in the fields; and in answer to his questions about the kingdom of Christ, they said that it was not of this world, but spiritual and heavenly, and that it would appear at the end of the world, when the Saviour would come again to judge both the quick and the dead. So the emperor saw that there was nothing to fear from them, and he let them go.

It was during Domitian's persecution that St. John was banished to the island of Patmos, where he saw the visions which are described in his "Revelation." All the other Apostles had been long dead, and St. John had lived many years at Ephesus, where he governed the churches of the country around. After his return from Patmos he went about to all these churches, that he might repair the hurt which they had suffered in the persecution. In one of the towns which he visited, he noticed a young man of very pleasing looks, and called him forward, and desired the bishop of the place to take care of him. The bishop did so, and, after having properly trained the youth, he baptised and confirmed him. But when this had been done, the bishop thought that he need not watch over him so carefully as before; and the young man fell into vicious company, and went on from bad to worse, until at length he became the head of a band of robbers, who kept the whole country in terror. When the Apostle next visited the town, he asked after the charge which he had put into the bishop's hands. The bishop, with shame and grief, answered that the young man was dead, and, on being further questioned, he explained that he meant dead in sins, and told all the story. St. John, after having blamed him because he had not taken more care, asked where the robbers were to be found, and set off on horseback for their haunt, where he was seized by some of the band, and was carried before the captain. The young man, on seeing him, knew him at once, and could not bear his look, but ran away to hide himself. But the Apostle called him back, told him that there was yet hope for him through Christ, and spoke in such a moving way that the robber agreed to return to the town. There he was once more received into the Church as a penitent; and he spent the rest of his days in repentance for his sins, and in thankfulness for the mercy which had been shown to him.

St. John, in his old age, was much troubled by false teachers, who had begun to corrupt the Gospel. These persons are called heretics, and their doctrines are called heresy, from a Greek word which means to choose, because they chose to follow their own fancies, instead of receiving the Gospel as the Apostles and the Church taught it. Simon the sorcerer, who is mentioned in the eighth chapter of the Acts, is counted as the first heretic, and even in the time of the Apostles a number of others arose, such as Hymenæus, Philetus, and Alexander, who are mentioned by St. Paul (1 Tim. i. 19, 20; 2 Tim. ii. 17, 18). These earliest heretics were mostly of the kind called Gnostics,—a word which means that they pretended to be more knowing than ordinary Christians; and perhaps St. Paul may have meant them especially when he warned Timothy against "science" (or knowledge) "falsely so called" (1 Tim. vi. 20). Their doctrines were a strange mixture of Jewish and heathen notions with Christianity; and it is curious that some of the very strangest of their opinions have been brought up again from time to time by people who fancied that they had found out something new, while they had only fallen into old errors, which had been condemned by the Church hundreds of years before.

St. John lived to about the age of a hundred. He was at last so weak that he could not walk into the church; so he was carried in, and used to say continually to his people, "Little children, love one another." Some of them, after a time, began to be tired of hearing this, and asked him why he repeated the words so often, and said nothing else to them. The Apostle answered, "Because it is the Lord's commandment, and if this be done it is enough."

CHAPTER II.

ST. IGNATIUS.

A.D. 116.

When our Lord ascended into Heaven, He left the government of His Church to the Apostles. We are told that during the forty days between His rising from the grave and His ascension, He gave commandments unto the Apostles, and spoke of the things pertaining (or belonging) to the kingdom of God (Acts i. 2, 3). Thus they knew what they were to do when their Master should be no longer with them; and one of the first things which they did, even without waiting until His promise of sending the Holy Ghost should be fulfilled, was to choose St. Matthias into the place which had been left empty by the fall of the traitor Judas (Acts i. 15-26).

After this we find that they appointed other persons to help them in their work. First, they appointed the deacons, to take care of the poor and to assist in other services. Then they appointed presbyters (or elders), to undertake the charge of congregations. Afterwards, we find St. Paul sending Timothy to Ephesus, and Titus into the island of Crete (now called Candia), with power to "ordain elders in every city" (Tit. i. 5), and to govern all the churches within a large country. Thus, then, three kinds (or orders) of ministers of the Church are mentioned in the Acts and Epistles. The deacons are lowest; the presbyters, or elders, are next; and, above these, there is a higher order, made up of the Apostles themselves, with such persons as Timothy and Titus, who had to look after a great number of presbyters and deacons, and were also the chief spiritual pastors (or shepherds) of the people who were under the care of these presbyters and deacons. In the New Testament, the name of bishops (which means overseers) is sometimes given to the Apostles and other clergy of the highest order, and sometimes to the presbyters; but after a time it was given only to the highest order, and when the Apostles were dead, the bishops had the chief government of the Church. It has since been found convenient that some bishops should be placed above others, and should be called by higher titles, such as archbishops and patriarchs; but these all belong to the same order of bishops; just as in a parish, although the rector and the curate have different titles, and one of them is above the other, they are both most commonly presbyters (or, as we now say, priests), and so they both belong to the same order in the ministry.

One of the most famous among the early bishops was St. Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, the place where the disciples were first called Christians (Acts xi. 26). Antioch was the chief city of Syria, and was so large that it had more than two hundred thousand inhabitants. St. Peter himself is said to have been its bishop for some years; and, although this is perhaps a mistake, it is worth remembering, because we shall find by-and-by that much was said about the bishops of Antioch being St. Peter's successors, as well as the bishops of Rome.

Ignatius had known St. John, and was made bishop of Antioch about thirty years before the Apostle's death. He had governed his church for forty years or more, when the Emperor Trajan came to Antioch. In the Roman history, Trajan is described as one of the best among the emperors; but he did not treat the Christians well. He seems never to have thought that the Gospel could possibly be true, and thus he did not take the trouble to inquire what the Christians really believed or did. They were obliged in those days to hold their worship in secret, and mostly by night, or very early in the morning, because it would not have been safe to meet openly; and hence, the heathens, who did not know what was done at their meetings, were tempted to fancy all manner of shocking things, such as that the Christians practised magic; that they worshipped the head of an ass; that they offered children in sacrifice; and that they ate human flesh! It is not likely that the Emperor Trajan believed such foolish tales as these; and, when he did make some inquiry about the ways of the Christians, he heard nothing but what was good of them. But still he might think that there was some mischief behind; and he might fear lest the secret meetings of the Christians should have something to do with plots against his government; and so, as I have said, he was no friend to them.

When Trajan came to Antioch, St. Ignatius was carried before him. The emperor asked what evil spirit possessed him, so that he not only broke the laws by refusing to serve the gods of Rome, but persuaded others to do the same. Ignatius answered, that he was not possessed by any evil spirit; that he was a servant of Christ; that by His help he defeated the malice of evil spirits; and that he bore his God and Saviour within his heart. After some more questions and answers, the emperor ordered that he should be carried in chains to Rome, and there should be devoured by wild beasts. When Ignatius heard this terrible sentence, he was so far from being frightened, that he burst forth into thankfulness and rejoicing, because he was allowed to suffer for his Saviour, and for the deliverance of his people.

It was a long and toilsome journey, over land and sea, from Antioch to Rome; and an old man, such as Ignatius, was ill able to bear it, especially as winter was coming on. He was to be chained, too, and the soldiers who had the charge of him behaved very rudely and cruelly to him. And no doubt the emperor thought that, by sending so venerable a bishop in this way to suffer so fearful and so disgraceful a death (to which only the very lowest wretches were usually sentenced), he should terrify other Christians into forsaking their faith. But instead of this, the courage, and the patience with which St. Ignatius bore his sufferings gave the Christians fresh spirit to endure whatever might come on them.

The news that the holy bishop of Antioch was to be carried to Rome soon spread, and at many places on the way the bishops, clergy, and people flocked together, that they might see him, and pray and talk with him, and receive his blessing. And when he could find time, he wrote letters to various churches, exhorting them to stand fast in the faith, to be at peace among themselves, to obey the bishops who were set over them, and to advance in all holy living. One of the letters was written to the Church at Rome, and was sent on by some persons who were travelling by a shorter way. St. Ignatius begs, in this letter, that the Romans will not try to save him from death. "I am the wheat of God," he says, "let me be ground by the teeth of beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of Christ. Rather do ye encourage the beasts, that they may become my tomb, and may leave nothing of my body, so that, when dead, I may not be troublesome to any one." He even says that, if the lions should hang back, he will himself provoke them to attack him. It would not be right for ordinary people to speak in this way, and the Church has always disapproved of those who threw themselves in the way of persecution. But a holy man who had served God for so many years as Ignatius, might well speak in a way which would not become ordinary Christians. When he was called to die for his people and for the truth of Christ, he might even take it as a token of God's favour, and might long for his deliverance from the troubles and the trials of this world, as St. Paul said of himself, that he "had a desire to depart, and to be with Christ" (Phil. i. 23).

He reached Rome just in time for some games which were to take place a little before Christmas; for the Romans were cruel enough to amuse themselves with setting wild beasts to tear and devour men, in vast places called amphitheatres, at their public games. When the Christians of Rome heard that Ignatius was near the city, great numbers of them went out to meet him, and they said that they would try to persuade the people in the amphitheatre to beg that he might not be put to death. But he entreated, as he had before done in his letter, that they would do nothing to hinder him from glorifying God by his death; and he knelt down with them, and prayed that they might continue in faith and love, and that the persecution might soon come to an end. As it was the last day of the games, and they were nearly over, he was then hurried into the amphitheatre (called the Coliseum), which was so large that tens of thousands of people might look on. And in this place (of which the ruins are still to be seen), St. Ignatius was torn to death by wild beasts, so that only a few of his larger bones were left, which the Christians took up and conveyed to his own city of Antioch.

CHAPTER III.

ST. JUSTIN, MARTYR.

A.D. 166.

Although Trajan was no friend to the Gospel, and put St. Ignatius to death, he made a law which must have been a great relief to the Christians. Until then, they were liable to be sought out, and any one might inform against them; but Trajan ordered that they should not be sought out, although, if they were discovered, and refused to give up their faith, they were to be punished. The next emperor, too, whose name was Hadrian (A.D. 117 to 138), did something to make their condition better; but it was still one of great hardship and danger. Notwithstanding the new laws, any governor of a country, who disliked the Christians, had the power to persecute and vex them cruelly. And the common people among the heathens still believed the horrid stories of their killing children and eating human flesh. If there was a famine or a plague,—if the river Tiber, which runs through Rome, rose above its usual height and did mischief to the neighbouring buildings,—or if the emperor's armies were defeated in war, the blame of all was laid on the Christians. It was said that all these things were judgments from the gods, who were angry because the Christians were allowed to live. And then at the public games, such as those at which St. Ignatius was put to death, the people used to cry out, "Throw the Christians to the lions! away with the godless wretches!" For, as the Christians were obliged to hold their worship secretly, and had no images like those of the heathen gods, and did not offer any sacrifices of beasts, as the heathens did, it was thought that they had no God at all; since the heathens could not raise their minds to the thought of that God who is a spirit, and who is not to be worshipped under any bodily shape. It was, therefore, a great relief when the Emperor Antoninus Pius (A.D. 138 to 161), who was a mild and gentle old man, ordered that governors and magistrates should not give way to such outcries, and that the Christians should no longer be punished for their religion only, unless they were found to have done wrong in some other way.

There were now many learned men in the Church, and some of these began to write books in defence of their faith. One of them, Athenagoras, had undertaken, while he was a heathen, to show that the Gospel was all a deceit; but when he looked further into the matter, he found that it was very different from what he had fancied; and then he was converted, and, instead of writing against the Gospel, he wrote in favour of it.

Another of these learned men was Justin, who was born at Samaria, and was trained in all the wisdom of the Greeks. For the Greeks, as they were left without such light as God had given to the Jews, set themselves to seek out wisdom in all sorts of ways. And, as they had no certain truth from heaven to guide them, they were divided into a number of different parties, such as the Epicureans, and the Stoics, who disputed with St. Paul at Athens (Acts xvii. 18). These all called themselves philosophers (which means, lovers of wisdom); and each kind of them thought to be wiser than all the rest. Justin, then, having a strong desire to know the truth, tried one kind of philosophy after another, but could not find rest for his spirit in any of them.

One day, as he was walking thoughtfully on the sea-shore, he observed an old man of grave and mild appearance, who was following him closely, and at length entered into talk with him. The old man told Justin that it was of no use to search after wisdom in the books of the philosophers; and went on to speak of God the maker of all things, of the prophecies which He had given to men in the time of the Old Testament, and how they had been fulfilled in the life and death of the blessed Jesus. Thus Justin was brought to the knowledge of the Gospel; and the more he learnt of it, the more was he convinced of its truth, as he came to know how pure and holy its doctrines and its rules were, and as he saw the love which Christians bore towards each other, and the patience and firmness with which they endured sufferings and death for their Master's sake. And now, although he still called himself a philosopher, and wore the long cloak which was the common dress of philosophers, the wisdom which he taught was not heathen but Christian wisdom. He lived mostly at Rome, where scholars flocked to him in great numbers. And he wrote books in defence of the Gospel against heathens, Jews, and heretics, or false Christians.

The old Emperor Antoninus Pius, under whom the Christians had been allowed to live in peace and safety, died in the year 161, and was succeeded by Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, whom he had adopted as his son. Marcus Aurelius was not only one of the best emperors, but in many ways was one of the best of all the heathens. He had a great character for gentleness, kindness, and justice, and he was fond of books, and liked to have philosophers and learned men about him. But, unhappily, these people gave him a very bad notion of Christianity; and, as he knew no more of it than what they told him, he took a strong dislike to it. And thus, although he was just and kind to his other subjects, the Christians suffered more under his reign than they had ever done before. All the misfortunes that took place, such as rebellions, defeats in war, plague, and scarcity, were laid to the blame of the Christians; and the emperor himself seems to have thought that they were in fault, as he made some new laws against them.

Now the success which Justin had as a teacher at Rome had long raised the envy and malice of the heathen philosophers; and, when these new laws against the Christians came out, one Crescens, a philosopher of the kind called Cynics, or doggish (on account of their snarling, currish ways), contrived that Justin should be carried before a judge, on the charge of being a Christian. The judge questioned him as to his belief, and as to the meetings of the Christians; to which Justin answered that he believed in one God, and in the Saviour Christ, the Son of God, but he refused to say anything which could betray his brethren to the persecutors. The judge then threatened him with scourging and death: but Justin replied that the sufferings of this world were nothing to the glory which Christ had promised to His people in the world to come. Then he and the others who had been brought up for trial with him were asked whether they would offer sacrifice to the gods of the heathen, and as they refused to do this, and to forsake their faith, they were all beheaded (A.D. 166). And on account of the death which he thus suffered for the Gospel, Justin has ever since been especially styled "The Martyr."

CHAPTER IV.

ST. POLYCARP.

A.D. 166.

About the same time with Justin the Martyr, St. Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, was put to death. He was a very old man; for it was almost ninety years since he had been converted from heathenism. He had known St. John, and is supposed to have been made bishop of Smyrna by that Apostle himself; and he had been a friend of St. Ignatius, who, as we have seen, suffered martyrdom fifty years before. From all these things, and from his wise and holy character, he was looked up to as a father by all the Churches, and his mild advice had sometimes put an end to differences of opinion which but for him might have turned into lasting quarrels.

When the persecution reached Smyrna, in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, a number of Christians suffered with great constancy, and the heathen multitude, being provoked at their refusal to give up their faith, cried out for the death of Polycarp. The aged bishop, although he was ready to die for his Saviour, remembered that it was not right to throw himself in the way of danger; so he left the city, and went first to one village in the neighbourhood, and then to another. But he was discovered in his hiding-place, and when he saw the soldiers who were come to seize him, he calmly said, "God's will be done!" He desired that some food should be given to them, and, while they were eating, he spent the time in prayer. He was then set on an ass, and led towards Smyrna; and, when he was near the town, one of the heathen magistrates came by in his chariot, and took him up into it. The magistrate tried to persuade Polycarp to sacrifice to the gods; but finding that he could make nothing of him, he pushed him out of the chariot so roughly that the old man fell and broke his leg. But Polycarp bore the pain without showing how much he was hurt, and the soldiers led him into the amphitheatre, where great numbers of people were gathered together. When all these saw him, they set up loud cries of rage and savage delight; but Polycarp thought, as he entered the place, that he heard a voice saying to him, "Be strong and play the man!" and he did not heed all the shouting of the crowd. The governor desired him to deny Christ, and said that, if he would, his life should be spared. But the faithful bishop answered, "Fourscore and six years have I served Christ, and He hath never done me wrong; how then can I now blaspheme my King and Saviour?" The governor again and again urged him, as if in a friendly way, to sacrifice; but Polycarp stedfastly refused. He next threatened to let wild beasts loose on him; and as Polycarp still showed no fear, he said that he would burn him alive. "You threaten me," said the bishop, "with a fire which lasts but a short time; but you know not of that eternal fire which is prepared for the wicked." A stake was then set up, and a pile of wood was collected around it. Polycarp walked to the place with a calm and cheerful look, and, as the executioners were going to fasten him to the stake with iron cramps, he begged them to spare themselves the trouble: "He who gives me the strength to bear the flames," he said, "will enable me to remain steady." He was therefore only tied to the stake with cords, and as he stood thus bound, he uttered a thanksgiving for being allowed to suffer after the pattern of his Lord and Saviour. When his prayer was ended, the wood was set on fire, but we are told that the flames swept round him, looking like the sail of a ship swollen by the wind, while he remained unhurt in the midst of them. One of the executioners, seeing this, plunged a sword into the martyr's breast, and the blood rushed forth in such a stream that it put out the fire. But the persecutors, who were resolved that the Christians should not have their bishop's body, lighted the wood again, and burnt the corpse, so that only a few of the bones remained; and these the Christians gathered out, and gave them an honourable burial. It was on Easter eve that St. Polycarp suffered, in the year of our Lord 166.

CHAPTER V.

THE MARTYRS OF LYONS AND VIENNE.

A.D. 177.

Many other martyrs suffered in various parts of the empire under the reign of Marcus Aurelius. Among the most famous of these are the martyrs of Lyons and Vienne, in the south of France (or Gaul, as it was then called), where a company of missionaries from Asia Minor had settled with a bishop named Pothinus at their head. The persecution at Lyons and Vienne was begun by the mob of those towns, who insulted the Christians in the streets, broke into their houses, and committed other such outrages against them. Then a great number of Christians were seized, and imprisoned in horrid dungeons, where many died from want of food, or from the bad and unwholesome air. The bishop, Pothinus, who was ninety years of age, and had long been very ill, was carried before the governor, and was asked, "Who is the God of Christians?" Pothinus saw that the governor did not put this question from any good feeling; so he answered, "If thou be worthy, thou shalt know." The bishop, old and feeble as he was, was then dragged about by soldiers, and such of the mob as could reach him gave him blows and kicks, while others, who were further off, threw anything which came to hand at him; and, after this cruel usage, he was put into prison, where he died within two days.

The other prisoners were tortured for six days together in a variety of horrible ways. Their limbs were stretched on the rack; they were cruelly scourged; some had hot plates of iron applied to them, and some were made to sit in a red-hot iron chair. The firmness with which they bore these dreadful trials gave courage to some of their brethren, who at first had agreed to sacrifice, so that these now again declared themselves Christians, and joined the others in suffering. As all the tortures were of no effect, the prisoners were at length put to death. Some were thrown to wild beasts; but those who were citizens of Rome were beheaded; for it was not lawful to give a Roman citizen up to wild beasts, just as we know from St. Paul's case at Philippi that it was not lawful to scourge a citizen (Acts xvi. 37).

Among the martyrs was a boy from Asia, only fifteen years old, who was taken every day to see the tortures of the rest, in the hope that he might be frightened into denying his Saviour; but he was not shaken by the terrible sights, and for his constancy he was cruelly put to death on the last day. The greatest cruelties of all, however, were borne by a young woman named Blandina. She was slave to a Christian lady; and, although the Christians regarded their slaves with a kindness very unlike the usual feeling of heathen masters towards them, this lady seems yet to have thought that a slave was not likely to endure tortures so courageously as a free person; and she was the more afraid because Blandina was not strong in body. But the poor slave's faith was not to be overcome. Day after day she bravely bore every cruelty that the persecutors could think of; and all that they could wring out from her was, "I am a Christian, and nothing wrong is done among us!"

The heathen were not content with putting the martyrs to death with tortures, or allowing them to die in prison. They cast their dead bodies to the dogs, and caused them to be watched day and night, lest the other Christians should give them burial; and after this, they burnt the bones, and threw the ashes of them into the river Rhone, by way of mocking at the notion of a resurrection. For, as St. Paul had found at Athens (Acts xvii. 32), and elsewhere, there was no part of the Gospel which the heathen in general thought so hard to believe as the doctrine that that which is "sown in corruption" shall hereafter be "raised in incorruption;" that that which "is sown a natural body" will one day be "raised a spiritual body" (1 Cor. xv. 42-44).

CHAPTER VI.

TERTULLIAN—PERPETUA AND HER COMPANIONS.

A.D. 181-206.

The Emperor Marcus Aurelius died in 181, and the Church was little troubled by persecution for the following twenty years.

About this time a false teacher named Montanus made much noise in the world. He was born in Phrygia, and seems to have been crazed in his mind. He used to fall into fits, and while in them, he uttered ravings which were taken for prophecies, or messages from heaven: and some women who followed him also pretended to be prophetesses. These people taught a very strict way of living, and thus many persons who wished to lead holy lives were deceived into running after them. One of these was Tertullian, of Carthage, in Africa, a very clever and learned man, who had been converted from heathenism, and had written some books in defence of the Gospel. But he was of a proud and impatient temper, and did not rightly consider how our Lord Himself had said that there would always be a mixture of evil with the good in His Church on earth (St. Matt. xiii. 38, 48). And hence, when Montanus pretended to set up a new church, in which there should be none but good and holy people, Tertullian fell into the snare, and left the true Church to join the Montanists (as the followers of Montanus were called). From that time he wrote very bitterly against the Church; but he still continued to defend the Gospel in his books against Jews and heathens, and all kinds of false teachers, except Montanus. And when he was dead, his good deeds were remembered more than his fall, so that, with all his faults, his name has always been held in respect.

After more than twenty years of peace, there were cruel persecutions in some places, under the reign of Severus. The most famous of the martyrs who then suffered were Perpetua and her companions, who belonged to the same country with Tertullian, and perhaps to his own city, Carthage. Perpetua was a young married lady, and had a little baby only a few weeks old. Her father was a heathen, but she herself had been converted, and was a catechumen—which was the name given to converts who had not yet been baptized, but where in a course of catechising, or training for baptism. When Perpetua had been put into prison, her father went to see her, in the hope that he might persuade her to give up her faith. "Father," she said, "you see this vessel standing here; can you call it by any other than its right name?" He answered, "No." "Neither," said Perpetua, "can I call myself anything else than what I am—a Christian." On hearing this, her father flew at her in such anger that it seemed as if he would tear out her eyes; but she stood so quietly that he could not bring himself to hurt her; and he went away and did not come again for some time.

In the meanwhile Perpetua and some of her companions were baptized; and at her baptism she prayed for grace to bear whatever sufferings might be in store for her. The prison in which she and the others were shut up was a horrible dungeon, where Perpetua suffered much from the darkness, the crowded state of the place, the heat and closeness of the air, and the rude behaviour of the guards. But most of all she was distressed about her poor little child, who was separated from her, and was pining away. Some kind Christians, however, gave money to the keepers of the prison, and got leave for Perpetua and her friends to spend some hours of the day in a lighter part of the building, where her child was brought to see her. And after a while she took him to be always with her, and then she felt as cheerful as if she had been in a palace.

The martyrs were comforted by dreams, which served to give them courage and strength to bear their sufferings, by showing them visions of blessedness which was to follow. When the day was fixed for their trial, Perpetua's father went again to see her. He begged her to take pity on his old age, to remember all his kindness to her, and how he had loved her best of all his children. He implored her to think of her mother and her brothers, and of the disgrace which would fall on all the family if she were to be put to death as an evil-doer. The poor old man shed a flood of tears; he humbled himself before her, kissing her hands, throwing himself at her feet, and calling her Lady instead of Daughter. But, although Perpetua was grieved to the heart, she could only say, "God's pleasure will be done on us. We are not in our own power, but in His!"

One day, as the prisoners were at dinner, they were suddenly hurried off to their trial. The market-place, where the judge was sitting, was crowded with people, and when Perpetua was brought forward, her father crept as close to her as he could, holding out her child, and said, "Take pity on your infant." The judge himself entreated her to pity the little one and the old man, and to sacrifice; but, painful as the trial was, she steadily declared that she was a Christian, and that she could not worship false gods. At these words, her father burst out into such loud cries that the judge ordered him to be put down from the place where he was standing, and to be beaten with rods. Perhaps the judge did not mean so much to punish the old man for being noisy as to try whether the sight of his suffering might not move his daughter; but, although Perpetua felt every blow as if it had been laid upon herself, she knew that she must not give way. She was condemned, with her companions, to be exposed to wild beasts; and, after she had been taken back to prison, her father visited her once more. He seemed as if beside himself with grief; he tore his white beard, he cursed his old age, and spoke in a way that might have moved a heart of stone. But still Perpetua could only be sorry for him; she could not give up her Saviour.

The prisoners were kept for some time after their condemnation, that they might be put to death at some great games which were to be held on the birthday of one of the emperor's sons; and during this confinement their behaviour had a great effect on many who saw it. The gaoler himself was converted by it, and so were others who had gone to gaze at them. At length the appointed day came, and the martyrs were led into the amphitheatre. The men were torn by leopards and bears; Perpetua and a young woman named Felicitas, who had been a slave, were put into nets and thrown before a furious cow, who tossed them and gored them cruelly: and when this was over, Perpetua seemed as if she had not felt it, but were awaking from a trance, and she asked when the cow was to come. She then helped Felicitas to rise from the ground, and spoke words of comfort and encouragement to others. When the people in the amphitheatre had seen as much as they wished of the wild beasts, they called out that the prisoners should be killed. Perpetua and the rest then took leave of each other, and walked with cheerful looks and firm steps into the middle of the amphitheatre, where men with swords fell on them and dispatched them. The executioner who was to kill Perpetua was a youth, and was so nervous that he stabbed her in a place where the hurt was not deadly; but she herself took hold of his sword, and showed him where to give her the death-wound.

CHAPTER VII.

ORIGEN.

A.D. 185-254.

The same persecution in which Perpetua and her companions suffered at Carthage raged also at Alexandria in Egypt, where a learned man named Leonides was one of the martyrs (A.D. 202). Leonides had a son named Origen, whom he had brought up very carefully, and had taught to get some part of the Bible by heart every day. And Origen was very eager to learn, and was so good and so clever that his father was afraid to show how fond and how proud he was of him, lest the boy should become forward and conceited. So when Origen asked questions of a kind which few boys would have thought of asking, his father used to check him; but when he was asleep Leonides would steal to his bedside and kiss him, thanking God for having given him such a child, and praying that Origen might always be kept in the right way.

When the persecution began, Origen, who was then about seventeen years old, wished that he might be allowed to die for his faith; but his mother hid his clothes, and so obliged him to stay at home; and all that he could do was to write to his father in prison, and to beg that he would not fear lest the widow and orphans should be left destitute, but would be steadfast in his faith, and would trust in God to provide for their relief.

The persecutors were not content with killing Leonides, but seized on all his property, so that the widow was left in great distress, with seven children, of whom Origen was the eldest. A Christian lady kindly took Origen into her house; and after a time, young as he was, he was made master of the Catechetical School, a sort of college, where the young Christians of Alexandria were instructed in religion and learning. The persecution had slackened for a while, but it began again, and some of Origen's pupils were martyred. He went with them to their trial, and stood by them in their sufferings; but although he was ill-used by the mob of Alexandria, he was himself allowed to go free.

Origen had read in the Gospel, "Freely ye have received, freely give" (St. Matt. x. 8), and he thought that therefore he ought to teach for nothing. In order, therefore, that he might be able to do this, he sold a quantity of books which he had written out, and lived for a long time on the price of them, allowing himself only about fivepence a day. His food was of the poorest kind; he had but one coat, through which he felt the cold of winter severely; he sat up the greater part of the night, and then lay down on the bare floor. When he grew older, he came to understand that he had been mistaken in some of his notions as to these things, and to regret that, by treating himself so hardly, he had hurt his health beyond repair. But still, mistaken as he was, we must honour him for going through so bravely with what he took to be his duty.

He soon grew so famous as a teacher, that even Jews, heathens, and heretics went to hear him; and many of them were so led on by him that they were converted to the Gospel. He travelled a great deal: some of his journeys were taken because he had been invited into foreign countries that he might teach the Gospel to people who were desirous of instruction in it, or that he might settle disputes about religion. And he was invited to go on a visit to the mother of the Emperor Alexander Severus, who was himself friendly to Christianity, although not a Christian. Origen, too, wrote a great number of books in explanation of the Bible, and on other religious subjects; and he worked for no less than eight-and-twenty years at a great book, called the Hexapla, which was meant to show how the Old Testament ought to be read in Hebrew and in Greek.

But, although he was a very good, as well as a very learned man, Origen fell into some strange opinions, from wishing to clear away some of those difficulties which, as St. Paul says, made the Gospel seem "foolishness" to the heathen philosophers (1 Cor. i. 23). Besides this, Demetrius, the bishop of Alexandria, although he had been his friend, had some reasons for not wishing to ordain him to be one of the clergy; and when Origen had been ordained a presbyter (or priest) in the Holy Land, where he was on a visit, Demetrius was very angry. He said that no man ought to be ordained in any church but that of his own home; and he brought up stories about some rash things which Origen had done in his youth, and questions about the strange doctrines which he held. Origen, finding that he could not hope for peace at Alexandria, went back to his friend the bishop of Cæsarea, by whom he had been ordained, and he spent many years at Cæsarea, where he was more sought after as a teacher than ever. At one time he was driven into Cappadocia, by the persecution of a savage emperor named Maximin, who had murdered the gentle Alexander Severus; but he returned to Cæsarea, and lived there until another persecution began under the Emperor Decius.

This was by far the worst persecution that had yet been known. It was the first which was carried on throughout the whole empire, and no regard was now paid to the old laws which Trajan and other emperors had made for the protection of the Christians. They were sought out, and were made to appear in the market-place of every town, where they were required by the magistrates to sacrifice, and, if they refused, were sentenced to severe punishment. The emperor wished most to get at the bishops and clergy; for he thought that, if the teachers were put out of the way, the people would soon give up the Gospel. Although many martyrs were put to death at this time, the persecutors did not so much wish to kill the Christians, as to make them disown their religion; and, in the hope of this, many of them were starved, and tortured, and sent into banishment in strange countries, among wild people who had never before heard of Christ. But here the emperor's plans were notably disappointed; for the banished bishops and clergy had thus an opportunity of making the Gospel known to those poor wild tribes, whom it might not have reached for a long time if the Church had been left in quiet.

We shall hear more about the persecution in the next chapter. Here I shall only say that Origen was imprisoned and cruelly tortured. He was by this time nearly seventy years old, and was weak in body from the labours which he had gone through in study, and from having hurt his health by hard and scanty living in his youth; so that he was ill able to bear the pains of the torture, and, although he did not die under it, he died of its effects soon after (A.D. 254).

Decius himself was killed in battle (A.D. 251), and his persecution came to an end. And when it was over, the faithful understood that it had been of great use, not only by helping to spread the Gospel, in the way which has been mentioned, but in purifying the Church, and in rousing Christians from the carelessness into which too many of them had fallen during the long time of ease and quiet which they had before enjoyed. For the trials which God sends on His people in this world are like the chastisements of a loving Father; and, if we accept them rightly, they will all be found to turn out to our good.

CHAPTER VIII.

ST. CYPRIAN.

PART I. A.D. 200-253.

About the same time with Origen lived St Cyprian, bishop of Carthage. He was born about the year 200, and had been long famous as a professor of heathen learning, when he was converted at the age of forty-five. He then gave up his calling as a teacher, and, like the first Christians at Jerusalem (Acts iv. 34-5), he sold a fine house and gardens, which he had near the town, and gave the price, with a large part of his other money, to the poor. He became one of the clergy of Carthage, and when the bishop died, about three years after, Cyprian was so much loved and respected that he was chosen in his place (A.D. 248).

Cyprian tried with all his power to do the duties of a good bishop, and to get rid of many wrong things which had grown upon his Church during the long peace which it had enjoyed. But about two years after he was made bishop, the persecution under Decius broke out, when, as was said in the last chapter, the persecutors tried especially to strike at the bishops and clergy, and to force them to deny their faith. Now Cyprian would have been ready and glad to die, if it would have served the good of his people; but he remembered how our Lord had said, "When they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another" (St. Matt. x. 23), and how He Himself withdrew from the rage of His enemies, because His "hour was not yet come" (St. John viii. 20, 59; xi. 54). And it seemed to the good bishop, that for the present it would be best to go out of the way of his persecutors. But he kept a constant watch over all that was done in his church, and he often wrote to his clergy and people from the place where he was hidden.

But in the meanwhile, things went on badly at Carthage. Many had called themselves Christians in the late quiet times who would not have done so if there had been any danger about it. And now, when the danger came, numbers of them ran into the market-place at Carthage, and seemed quite eager to offer sacrifice to the gods of the heathen. Others, who did not sacrifice, bribed some officers of the Government to give them tickets, certifying that they had sacrificed; and yet they contrived to persuade themselves that they had done nothing wrong by their cowardice and deceit! There were, too, some mischievous men among the clergy, who had not wished Cyprian to be bishop, and had borne him a grudge ever since he was chosen. And now these clergymen set on the people who had lapsed (or fallen) in the persecution, to demand that they should be taken back into the Church, and to say that some martyrs had given them letters which entitled them to be admitted at once.

In those days it was usual, when any Christian was known to have been guilty of a heavy sin, that (as is said in our Commination service), he should be "put to open penance" by the Church; that is, that he should be required to show his repentance publicly. Persons who were in this state were not allowed to receive the holy sacrament of the Lord's Supper, as all other Christians then did very often. The worst sinners were obliged to stand outside the church-door, where they begged those who were going in to pray that their sins might be forgiven; and those of the penitents who were let into the church had places in it separate from other Christians. Sometimes penance lasted for years; and always until the penitents had done enough to prove that they were truly grieved for their sins, so that the clergy might hope that they were received to God's mercy for their Redeemer's sake. But as it was counted a great and glorious thing to die for the truth of Christ, and martyrs were highly honoured in the Church, penitents had been in the habit of going to them while they were in prison awaiting death, and of entreating the martyrs to plead with the Church for the shortening of the appointed penance. And it had been usual, out of regard for the holy martyrs, to forgive those to whom they had given letters desiring that the penitents might be gently treated. But now these people at Carthage, instead of showing themselves humble, as true penitents would have been, came forward in an insolent manner, as if they had a right to claim that they might be restored to the Church; and the martyrs' letters (or rather what they called martyrs' letters) were used in a way very different from anything that had ever been allowed. Cyprian had a great deal of trouble with them; but he dealt wisely in the matter, and at length had the comfort of settling it. But, as people are always ready to find fault in one way or another, some blamed him for being too strict with the lapsed, and others for being too easy; and each of these parties went so far as to set up a bishop of its own against him. After a time, however, he got the better of these enemies, although the straiter sect (who were called Novatianists, after Novatian, a presbyter of Rome) lasted for three hundred years or more.

PART II. A.D. 253-257.

Shortly after the end of the persecution, a terrible plague passed through the empire, and carried off vast numbers of people. Many of the heathen thought that the plague was sent by their gods to punish them for allowing the Christians to live; and the mobs of towns broke out against the Christians, killing some of them, and hurting them in other ways.

But instead of returning evil for evil, the Christians showed what a spirit of love they had learnt from their Lord and Master; and there was no place where this was more remarkably shown than at Carthage. The heathen there were so terrified by the plague that they seemed to have lost all natural feeling, and almost to be out of their senses. When their friends fell sick, they left them to die without any care; when they were dead, they cast out their bodies into the street; and the corpses which lay about unburied were not only shocking to look at, but made the air unwholesome, so that there was much more danger of the plague than before. But while the heathen were behaving in this way, and each of them thought only of himself, Cyprian called the Christians of Carthage together, and told them that they were bound to do very differently. "It would be no wonder," he said, "if we were to attend to our own friends; but Christ our Lord charges us to do good to heathens and publicans also, and to love our enemies. HE prayed for them that persecuted Him, and if we are His disciples, we ought to do so too." And then the good bishop went on to tell his people what part each of them should take in the charitable work. Those who had money were to give it, and were to do such acts of kindness as they could besides. The poor, who had no silver or gold to spare, were to give their labour in a spirit of love. So all classes set to their tasks gladly, and they nursed the sick and buried the dead, without asking whether they were Christian or heathens.

When the heathens saw these acts of love, many of them were brought to wonder what it could be that made the Christians do them; and how they came to be so kind to poor and old people, to widows, and orphans, and slaves; and how it was that they were always ready to raise money for buying the freedom of captives, or for helping their brethren who were in any kind of trouble. And from wondering and asking what it was that led Christians to do such things, which they themselves would never have thought of doing, many of the heathen were brought to see that the Gospel was the true religion, and they forsook their idols to follow Christ.

After this, Cyprian had a disagreement with Stephen, bishop of Rome. Rome was the greatest city in the whole world, and the capital of the empire. There were many Christians there even in the time of the Apostles, and, as years went on, the church of Rome grew more and more, so that it was the greatest, and richest, and most important church of all. Now the bishops who were at the head of this great church were naturally reckoned the foremost of all bishops, and had more power than any other; so that if a proud man got the bishopric of Rome, it was too likely that he might try to set himself up above his brethren, and to lay down the law to them. Stephen was, unhappily, a man of this kind, and he gave way to the temptation, and tried to lord it over other bishops and their churches. But Cyprian held out against him, and made him understand that the bishop of Rome had no right to give laws to other bishops, or to meddle with the churches of other countries. He showed that, although St. Peter (from whom Stephen pretended that the bishops of Rome had received power over others) was the first of the Apostles, he was not of a higher class or order than the rest; and, therefore, that, although the Roman bishops stood first, the other bishops were their equals, and had received an equal share in the Christian ministry. So Stephen was not able to get the power which he wished for over other churches, and, after his death, Carthage and Rome were at peace again.

PART III. A.D. 257-258.

About six years after the death of the Emperor Decius, a fresh persecution arose under another emperor, named Valerian (A.D. 257). He began by ordering that the Christians should not be allowed to meet for worship, and that the bishops and clergy should be separated from their flocks. Cyprian was carried before the governor of Africa; and, on being questioned by him, he said, "I am a Christian and a bishop. I know no other gods but the one true God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them. It is this God that we Christians serve; to Him we pray day and night, for ourselves and all mankind, and for the welfare of the emperors themselves." The governor asked him about his clergy. "Our laws," said Cyprian, "forbid them to throw themselves in your way, and I may not inform against them; but if they be sought after, they will be found, each at his post." The governor said that no Christians must meet for worship, under pain of death; and he sentenced Cyprian to be banished to a place called Curubis, about forty miles from Carthage. It was a pleasant abode, and Cyprian lived there a year, during which time he was often visited by his friends, and wrote many letters of advice and comfort to his brethren. And, as many of these were worse treated than himself, by being carried off into savage places, or set to work underground in mines, he did all that he could to relieve their distress, by sending them money and other presents.

At the end of the year, the bishop was carried back to Carthage, where a new governor had just arrived. The emperor had found that his first law against the Christians was of little use; so he now made a second law, which was much more severe. It ordered that bishops and clergy should be put to death; that such Christians as were persons of worldly rank should lose all that they had, and be banished or killed; but it said nothing about the poorer Christians who do not seem to have been in any danger. Cyprian thought that his time was now come; and when his friends entreated him to save himself by flight, he refused. He was carried off to the governor's country house, about six miles from Carthage, where he was treated with much respect, and was allowed to have some friends with him at supper. Great numbers of his people, on hearing that he was seized, went from Carthage to the place where he was, and watched all night outside the house in fear lest their bishop should be put to death, or carried off into banishment without their knowledge. Next morning Cyprian was led to the place of judgment, which was a little way from the governor's palace. He was heated with the walk, under a burning sun; and, as he was waiting for the governor's arrival, a soldier of the guard, who had once been a Christian, kindly offered him some change of clothes. "Why," said the bishop, "should we trouble ourselves to remedy evils which will probably come to an end to-day?"

The governor took his seat, and required Cyprian to sacrifice to the gods. He refused; and the governor then desired him to consider his safety. "In so righteous a cause," answered the bishop, "there is no need of consideration;" and, on hearing the sentence, which condemned him to be beheaded, he exclaimed, "Praise be to God!" A cry arose from the Christians, "Let us go and be beheaded with him!" He was then led by soldiers to the place of execution. Many of his people climbed up into the trees which surrounded it, that they might see the last of their good bishop. After having prayed, he took off his upper clothing; he gave some money to the executioner, and as it was necessary that he should be blindfolded before suffering, he tied the bandage over his own eyes. Two of his friends then bound his hands, and the Christians placed cloths and handkerchiefs around him, that they might catch some of his blood. And thus St. Cyprian was martyred, in the year 258.

Valerian's attempts against the Gospel were all in vain. The Church had been purified and strengthened by the persecution under Decius, so that there were now very few who fell away for fear of death. The faith was spread by the banished bishops, in the same way as it had been in the last persecution[1]; and, as has ever been found, "the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the Church."

NOTES

[ [1][See page 25].

CHAPTER IX.

FROM GALLIENUS TO THE END OF THE LAST PERSECUTION.

A.D. 261-313.

Valerian, who had treated the Christians so cruelly, came to a miserable end. He led his army into Persia, where he was defeated and taken prisoner. He was kept for some time in captivity; and we are told that he used to be led forth, loaded with chains, but with the purple robes of an emperor thrown over him, that the Persians might mock at his misfortunes. And when he had died from the effects of shame and grief, it is said that his skin was stuffed with straw, and was kept in a temple, as a remembrance of the triumph which the Persians had gained over the Romans, whose pride had never been so humbled before.

When Valerian was taken prisoner, his son Gallienus became emperor (A.D. 261). Gallienus sent forth a law by which the Christians, for the first time, got the liberty of serving God without the risk of being persecuted. We might think him a good emperor for making such a law; but he really does not deserve much credit for it, since he seems to have made it merely because he did not care much either for his own religion, or for any other.

And now there is hardly anything to be said of the next forty years, except that the Christians enjoyed peace and prosperity. Instead of being obliged to hold their services in the upper rooms of houses, or in burial-places under ground, and in the dead of night, they built splendid churches, which they furnished with gold and silver plate, and with other costly ornaments. Christians were appointed to high offices, such as the government of countries; and many of them held places in the emperor's palace. And, now that there was no danger or loss to be risked by being Christians, multitudes of people joined the Church who would have kept at a distance from it if there had been anything to fear. But, unhappily, the Christians did not make a good use of all their prosperity. Many of them grew worldly and careless, and had little of the Christian about them except the name; and they quarrelled and disputed among themselves, as if they were no better than mere heathens. But it pleased God to punish them severely for their faults; for at length there came such a persecution as had never before been known.

At this time there were no fewer than four emperors at once; for Diocletian, who became emperor in the year 284, afterwards took in Maximian, Galerius, and Constantius, to share his power, and to help him in the labour of government. Galerius and Constantius, however, were not quite so high, and had not such full authority, as the other two. Galerius married Diocletian's daughter, and it was supposed that both this lady and the empress, her mother, were Christians. The priests and others, whose interest it was to keep up the old heathenism, began to be afraid lest the empresses should make Christians of their husbands; and they sought how this might be prevented.

Now the heathens had some ways by which they used to try to find out the will of their gods. Sometimes they offered sacrifices of beasts, and, when the beasts were killed, they cut them open, and judged from the appearance of the inside, whether the gods were well pleased or angry. And at certain places there were what they called oracles, where people who wished to know the will of the gods went through some ceremonies, and expected a voice to come from this or that god in answer to them. Sure enough, the voice very often did come, although it was not really from any god, but was managed by the juggling of the priests. And the answers which these voices gave were often contrived very cunningly, that they might have more than one meaning, so that, however things might turn out, the oracle was sure to come true. And now the priests set to frighten Diocletian with tricks of this kinds. When he sacrificed, the insides of the victims (as the beasts offered in sacrifice were called) were said to look in such a way as to show that the gods were angry. When he consulted the oracles, answers were given declaring that, so long as Christians were allowed to live on the earth, the gods would be displeased. And thus Diocletian, although at first he had been inclined to let them alone, became terrified, and was ready to persecute.

The first order against the Christians was a proclamation requiring that all soldiers, and all persons who held any office under the emperor, should sacrifice to the heathen gods (A.D. 298). And five years after this, Galerius, who was a cruel man, and very bitter against the Christians (although his wife was supposed to be one), persuaded Diocletian to begin a persecution in earnest.

Diocletian did not usually live at Rome, like the earlier emperors, but at Nicomedia, a town in Asia Minor, on the shore of the Propontis (now called the Sea of Marmora). And there the persecution began, by his sending forth an order that all who would not serve the gods of Rome should lose their offices; that their property should be seized, and, if they were persons of rank, they should lose their rank. Christians were no longer allowed to meet for worship; their churches were to be destroyed, and their holy books were to be sought out and burnt (Feb. 24, 303). As soon as this proclamation was set forth, a Christian tore it down, and broke into loud reproaches against the emperors. Such violent acts and words were not becoming in a follower of Him, "who, when he was reviled, reviled not again, and when he suffered, threatened not" (1 Peter ii. 23). But the man who had forgotten himself so far, showed the strength of his principles in the patience with which he bore the punishment of what he had done, for he was roasted alive at a slow fire, and did not even utter a groan.

This was in February, 303; and before the end of that year, Diocletian put forth three more proclamations against the Christians. One of them ordered that the Christian teachers should be imprisoned; and very soon the prisons were filled with bishops and clergy, while the evil-doers who were usually confined in them were turned loose. The next proclamation ordered that the prisoners should either sacrifice or be tortured; and the fourth directed that not only the bishops and clergy, but all Christians, should be required to sacrifice, on pain of torture.

These cruel laws were put in execution. Churches were pulled down, beginning with the great church of Nicomedia, which was built on a height, and overlooked the emperor's palace. All the Bibles and service-books that could be found, and a great number of other Christian writings, were thrown into the flames; and many Christians, who refused to give up their holy books, were put to death. The plate of churches was carried off, and was turned to profane uses, as the vessels of the Jewish temple had formerly been by Belshazzar.

The sufferings of the Christians were frightful, but after what has been already said of such things, I shall not shock you by telling you much about them here. Some were thrown to wild beasts; some were burnt alive, or roasted on gridirons; some had their skins pulled off, or their flesh scraped from their bones; some were crucified; some were tied to branches of trees, which had been bent so as to meet, and then they were torn to pieces by the starting asunder of the branches. Thousands of them perished by one horrible death or other, so that the heathens themselves grew tired and disgusted with inflicting or seeing their sufferings; and at length, instead of putting them to death, they sent them to work in mines, or plucked out one of their eyes, or lamed one of their hands or feet, or set bishops to look after horses or camels, or to do other work unfit for persons of their venerable character. And it is impossible to think what miseries even those who escaped must have undergone; for the persecution lasted ten years, and they had not only to witness the sufferings of their own dear relations, or friends, or teachers, but knew that the like might, at any hour, come on themselves.

It was in the East that the persecution was hottest and lasted longest; for in Europe it was not much felt after the first two years. The Emperor Constantius, who ruled over Gaul (now called France), Spain and Britain, was kind to the Christians; and after his death, his son Constantine was still more favourable to them. There were several changes among the other emperors, and the Christians felt them for better or for worse, according to the character of each emperor; but it is needless to speak much of them in a little book like this. Galerius went on in his cruelty until, at the end of eight years, he found that it had been of no use towards putting down the Gospel, and that he was sinking under a fearful disease, something like that of which Herod, who had killed St. James, died (Acts xii. 23). He then thought with grief and horror of what he had done, and (perhaps in the hope of getting some relief from the God of Christians) he sent forth a proclamation allowing them to rebuild their churches, and to hold their worship, and begging them to remember him in their prayers. Soon after this he died (A.D. 311).

The cruellest of all the persecutors was Maximin, who, from the year 305, had possession of Asia Minor, Syria, the Holy Land, and Egypt. When Galerius made his law in favour of the Christians, Maximin for a while pretended to give them the same kind of liberty in his dominions. But he soon changed again, and required that all his subjects should sacrifice—even that little babies should take some grains of incense into their hands, and should burn it in honour of the heathen gods; and when a season of great plenty followed after this, Maximin boasted that it was a sign of the favour with which the gods received his law. But it very soon appeared how false his boast was, for famine and plague began to rage throughout his dominions. The Christians, of course, had their share in the distress; but instead of triumphing over their persecutors, they showed the true spirit of the Gospel by treating them with kindness, by relieving the poor, by tending the sick, and by burying the dead, who had been abandoned by their own nearest relations.

Although there is no room to give any particular account of the martyrs here, there is one of them who especially deserves to be remembered, because he was the first who suffered in our own island. This good man, Alban, while he was yet a heathen, fell in with a poor Christian priest, who was trying to hide himself from the persecutors. Alban took him into his own house, and sheltered him there; and he was so much struck with observing how the priest prayed to God, and spent long hours of the night in religious exercises, that he soon became a believer in Christ. But the priest was hotly searched for, and information was given that he was hidden in Alban's house. And when the soldiers came to look for him there, Alban knew their errand, and put on the priest's dress, so that the soldiers seized him and carried him before the judge. The judge found that they had brought the wrong man, and, in his rage at the disappointment, he told Alban that he must himself endure the punishment which had been meant for the other. Alban heard this without any fear, and on being questioned, he declared that he was a Christian, a worshipper of the one true God, and that he would not sacrifice to idols which could do no good. He was put to the torture, but bore it gladly for his Saviour's sake, and then, as he was still firm in professing his faith, the judge gave orders that he should be beheaded. And when he had been led out to the place of execution, which was a little grassy knoll that rose gently on one side of the town, the soldier, who was to have put him to death, was so moved by the sight of Alban's behaviour, that he threw away his sword, and desired to be put to death with him. They were both beheaded, and the town of Verulam, where they suffered, has since been called St. Alban's, from the name of the first British martyr.

This martyrdom took place early in the persecution; but, (as we have seen,) Constantius afterwards protected the British Christians, and his son Constantine, who succeeded to his share in the empire, treated them with yet greater favour. In the year 312, Constantine marched against Maxentius, who had usurped the government of Italy and Africa. Constantine seems to have been brought up by his father to believe in one God, although he did not at all know who this God was, nor how He had revealed Himself in Holy Scripture. But as he was on his way to fight Maxentius, he saw in the sky a wonderful appearance, which seemed like the figure of a cross, with words around it—"By this conquer." He then caused the cross to be put on the standards (or colours) of his army; and when he had defeated Maxentius, he set up at Rome a statue of himself, with a cross in its right hand, and with an inscription which declared that he owed his victory to that saving sign. About the same time that Constantine overcame Maxentius, Licinius put down Maximin in the East. The two conquerors now had possession of the whole empire; and they joined in publishing laws by which Christians were allowed to worship God freely according to their conscience (A.D. 313).

CHAPTER X.

CONSTANTINE THE GREAT.

A.D. 313-337.

It was a great thing for the Church that the emperor of Rome should give it liberty; and Constantine, after sending forth the laws which put an end to the persecution, went on to make other laws in favour of the Christians. But he did not himself become a Christian all at once, although he built many churches, and gave rich presents to others, and although he was fond of keeping company with bishops, and of conversing with them about religion. Licinius, the emperor of the East, who had joined with Constantine in his first laws, afterwards quarrelled with him, and persecuted the eastern Christians cruelly. But Constantine defeated him in battle (A.D. 324), and the whole empire was once more united under one head.

After his victory over Licinius, Constantine declared himself a Christian, which he had not done before; and he used to attend the services of the Church very regularly, and to stand all the time that the bishops were preaching, however long their sermons might be. He used even himself to write a kind of discourses something like sermons, and to read them aloud in the palace to all his court; but he really knew very little of Christian doctrine, although he was very fond of taking part in disputes about it. And, although he professed to be a Christian, he had not yet been made a member of Christ by baptism; for, in those days, people had so high a notion of the grace of baptism, that many of them put off their baptism until they supposed that they were on their death-bed, for fear lest they should sin after being baptized, and so should lose the benefit of the sacrament. This was of course wrong; for it was a sad mistake to think that they might go on in sin so long as they were not baptized. God, we know, might have cut them off at any moment in the midst of all their sins; and even if they were spared, there was a great danger that, when they came to beg for baptism at last, they might not have that true spirit of repentance and faith without which they could not be fit to receive the grace of the sacrament. And therefore the teachers of the Church used to warn people against putting off their baptism out of a love for sin; and when any one had received clinical baptism, as it was called (that is to say, baptism on a sick-bed), if he afterwards got well again, he was thought but little of in the Church.

But to come back to Constantine. He had many other faults besides his unwillingness to take on himself the duties of a baptized Christian; and, although we are bound to thank God for having turned his heart to favour the Church, we must not be blind to the emperor's faults. Yet, with all these faults, he really believed the Gospel, and meant to do what he could for the truth.

It took a long time to put down heathenism; for it would not have been safe or wise to force people to become Christians before they had come to see the falsehood of their old religion. Constantine, therefore, only made laws against some of its worst practices, and forbade any sacrifices to be offered in the name of the empire; but he did not hinder the heathens from sacrificing on their own account if they liked.

Soon after professing himself a Christian, the emperor began to build a new capital in the East. There had been a town called Byzantium on the spot before; but the new city was far grander, and he gave it the name of Constantinople, which means the City of Constantine. It was meant to be altogether Christian,—unlike Rome, which was full of temples of heathen gods. And the emperors, from this time, usually lived at Constantinople, or at some other place in the East.

There will be more to say about Constantine in the next chapter. In the mean time, let us look at the progress of the Gospel.

It had, by this time, made its way into many countries beyond the bounds of the empire. There were Christians in Scotland and in India; there had long been great numbers of Christians in Persia and Arabia. Many of the Goths, who then lived about the Danube, had been converted by captives whom they carried off in their plundering expeditions, during the reigns of Valerian and Gallienus (about A.D. 260); and other roving tribes had been converted by the same means. About the end of the third century, Gregory, who is called the Enlightener, had gone as a missionary bishop into Armenia, where he persuaded the king, Tiridates, to receive the Gospel, and to establish it as the religion of his country; so that Armenia had the honour of being the first Christian kingdom. The Georgians were converted in the reign of Constantine; and about the same time, the Ethiopians or Abyssinians (who live to the south of Egypt) were brought to the knowledge of the truth in a very remarkable way.

There was a rich Christian of Tyre, named Meropius, who was a philosopher, and wished to make discoveries in the countries towards India, which were then but little known. So he set out in a ship of his own, sailed down the Red Sea, and made a voyage to the East. On his way back, he and his crew landed at a place on the coast of Ethiopia, in search of fresh water, when the people of the country fell on them, and killed all but two youths named Ædesius and Frumentius, who were relations of Meropius. These lads were taken to the king's court, where, as they were better educated than the Ethiopians, they soon got into great favour and power. The king died after a time, leaving a little boy to succeed him; and the two strangers were asked to carry on the government of the country until the prince should be old enough to take it into his own hands. They did this faithfully, and stayed many years in Ethiopia; and they used to look out for any Christian sailors or merchants who visited the country, and to hold meetings with such strangers and others for worship, although they were distressed that they had no clergy to minister to them. At length the young prince grew up to manhood, and was able to govern his kingdom for himself; and then Ædesius and Frumentius set out for their own country, which they had been longing to see for so many years. Ædesius got back to Tyre, where he became a deacon of the Church. But Frumentius stopped at Alexandria, and told his tale to the bishop, the great St. Athanasius (of whom we shall hear more by-and-by); and he begged that a bishop might be sent into Ethiopia to settle and govern the Church there. Athanasius, considering how faithful and wise Frumentius had shown himself in all his business, how greatly he was respected and loved by the Ethiopians, and how much he had done to spread the gospel in the land of his captivity, said that no one was so fit as he to be bishop; and he consecrated Frumentius accordingly. To this day the chief bishop of the Abyssinian Church, instead of being chosen from among the clergy of the country, is always a person sent by the Egyptian bishop of Alexandria; and thus the Abyssinians still keep up the remembrance of the way in which their Church was founded, although the bishopric of Alexandria is now sadly fallen from the height at which it stood in the days of Athanasius and Frumentius.

Constantine used his influence with the king of Persia, whose name was Sapor, to obtain good treatment for the Christians of that country; and the Gospel continued to make progress there. But this naturally raised the jealousy of the magi, who were the priests of the heathen religion of Persia, and they looked out for some means of doing mischief to the Christians. So a few years after the death of Constantine, when a war broke out between Sapor and the next emperor, Constantius, these magi got about the king, and told him that his Christian subjects would be ready to betray him to the Romans, from whom they had got their religion. Sapor then issued orders that all Christians should pay an enormous tax, unless they would worship the gods of the Persians. Their chief bishop, whose name was Symeon, on receiving this order, answered that the tax was more than they could pay, and that they worshipped the true God alone, who had made the sun, which the Persians ignorantly adored.

Sapor then sent forth a second order, that the bishops, priests, and deacons of the Christians should be put to death, that their churches should be destroyed, and that the plate and ornaments of the churches should be taken for profane uses; and he sent for Symeon, who was soon brought before him. The bishop had been used to make obeisance to the king, after the fashion of the country; but on coming into his presence now, he refused to do so, lest it should be taken as a sign of that reverence which he was resolved to give to God alone. Sapor then required him to worship the sun, and told him that by doing so he might deliver himself and his people. But the bishop answered, that if he had refused to do reverence to the king, much more must he refuse such honour to the sun, which was a thing without reason or life. On this, the king ordered that he should be thrown into prison until next day.

As he was on his way to prison, Symeon passed an old and faithful servant of the king, named Uthazanes, who had brought up Sapor from a child, and stood high in his favour. Uthazanes, seeing the bishop led away in chains, fell on his knee and saluted him in the Persian fashion. But Symeon turned away his head, and would not look at him; for Uthazanes had been a Christian, and had lately denied the faith. The old man's conscience was smitten by this, and he burst out into lamentation—"If my old and familiar friend disowns me thus, what may I expect from my God whom I have denied!" His words were heard, and he was carried before the king, who tried to move him both by threats and by kindness. But Uthazanes stood firm against everything, and, as he could not be shaken in his faith, he was sentenced to be beheaded. He then begged the king, for the sake of the love which had long been between them, to grant him the favour that it might be proclaimed why he died—that he was not guilty of any treason, but was put to death only for being a Christian. Sapor was very willing to allow this, because he thought that it would frighten others into worshipping his gods. But it turned out as Uthazanes had hoped; for when it was seen how he loved his faith better than life itself, other Christians were encouraged to suffer, and even some heathens were brought over to the Gospel. Bishop Symeon was put to death after having seen a hundred of his clergy suffer before his eyes; and the persecution was renewed from time to time throughout the remainder of Sapor's long reign.

CHAPTER XI.

THE COUNCIL OF NICÆA.

A.D. 325.

We might expect to find that, when the persecutions by the heathen were at an end within the Roman empire, Christians lived together in peace and love, according to their Lord's commandment; but it is a sad truth that they now began to be very much divided by quarrels among themselves. There had, indeed, been many false teachers in earlier times; but now, when the emperor had become a Christian, the troubles caused by such persons reached much further than before. The emperors took part in them, and made laws about them, and the whole empire was stirred by them.

Constantine was, as I have said,[2] very fond of taking a part in Church matters, without knowing much about them. Very soon after the first law by which he gave liberty to the Christians, he was called in to settle a quarrel which had been raised in Africa by the followers of one Donatus, who separated from the Church and set up bishops of their own, because they said that the bishops of Carthage and some others had not behaved rightly when the persecutors required them to deliver up the Scriptures. I will tell you more about these Donatists (as they are called) by-and-by,[3] and I mention them now only because it was they who first invited the emperor to judge in a dispute about religion.

When Constantine put down Licinius and got possession of the East (as has been said), he found that a dispute of a different kind from the quarrel of the Donatists was raging there. One Arius, a presbyter (or priest) of Alexandria, had begun some years before this time to deny that our blessed Lord was God from everlasting. Arius was a crafty man, and did all that he could to make his opinion look as well as possible; but, try as he might, he was obliged to own that he believed our Lord to be a creature. And the difference between the highest of created beings and God, the maker of all creatures, is infinite; so that it mattered little how Arius might smooth over his shocking opinion, so long as he did not allow our Lord to be truly God from all eternity.

The bishop of Alexandria, whose name was Alexander, excommunicated Arius for his impiety; that is to say, he solemnly turned him out of the Church, so that no faithful Christian should have anything to do with him in religious matters. Thus Arius was obliged to leave Egypt, and he lived for a while at Nicomedia, with a bishop who was an old friend of his. And while he was there, he made a set of songs to be sung at meals, and others for travellers, sailors, and the like. He hoped that people would learn these songs, without considering what mischief was in them; and that so his heresy would be spread.

When Constantine first heard of these troubles, he tried to quiet them by advising Alexander and Arius not to dispute about trifles. But he soon found that this would not do, and that the question whether our Lord and Saviour were God or a creature was so far from being a trifle, that it was one of the most serious of all questions. In order, therefore, to get this and some other matters settled, he gave orders for a general council to meet. Councils of bishops within a certain district had long been common. In many countries they were regularly held once or twice a year; and, besides these regular meetings, others were sometimes called together to consider any business which was particularly pressing. Some of these councils were very great; for instance, the bishop of Alexander could call together the bishops of all Egypt, and the bishop of Antioch could call together all the bishops of Syria and some neighbouring countries. But there was no bishop who could call a council of the whole Church, because there was no one who had any power over more than a part of it. But now, Constantine, as he had become a Christian, thought that he might gather a council from all quarters of his empire, and this was the first of what are called the general councils.

It met in the year 325, at Nicæa (or Nice), in Bithynia, and 318 bishops attended it. A number of clergy and other persons were also present; even some heathen philosophers went, out of curiosity to see what the Christians were to do. Many of the bishops were very homely and simple men, who had not much learning; but their great business was only to say plainly what their belief had always been, so that it might be known whether the doctrines of Arius agreed with this or no; and thus the good bishops might do their part very well, although they were not persons of any great learning or cleverness. One of these simpler bishops was drawn into talk by a philosopher, who tried to puzzle him about the truth of the Gospel. The bishop was not used to argue or to dispute much, and might have been no match for the philosopher in that way; but he contented himself with saying his Creed; and the philosopher was so struck with this, that he took to thinking more seriously of Christianity than he had ever thought before, and he ended in becoming a Christian himself.

There was a great deal of arguing about Arius and his opinions, and the chief person who spoke against him was Athanasius, a clergyman of Alexandria, who had come with the bishop, Alexander. Athanasius could not sit as a judge in the council, because he was not a bishop; but he was allowed to speak in the presence of the bishops, and pointed out to them the errors which Arius tried to hide. So at last Arius was condemned, and the emperor banished him, with some of his chief followers. And, in order to set forth the true Christian faith beyond all doubt, the council made that creed which is read in the Communion-service in our churches—all but some of the last part of it, which was made at a later time, as we shall see. It is called the Nicene Creed, from the name of the place where the council met; and the great point in it is, that it declares our blessed Lord to be "Very God of Very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance (that is to say, of the same nature) with the Father." For this truth, that our Lord has the same nature with the Almighty Father—this truth that He is really God from everlasting—was what the Arians could not be brought to own.

The emperor attended the council during the latter part of its sittings; and a story is told of him and a bishop named Acesius, who belonged to the sect of Novatianists. You will remember that this sect broke off from the Church in St. Cyprian's days, because Novatian and others thought that St. Cyprian and the Church were too easy with those who repented after having sacrificed in time of persecution[4]; and, from having begun thus, it came to be hard in its notions as to the treatment of all sorts of penitents. But, as it had been only about the treatment of persons who had behaved weakly in persecution that the Novatianists at first differed from the Church, and as persecution by the heathens was now at an end, Constantine hoped that, perhaps, they might be persuaded to return to the Church; so he invited some bishops of the sect to attend the council, and Acesius among them. When the creed had been made, Acesius declared that it was all true, and that it was the same faith which he had always believed; and he was quite satisfied with the rules which the council made as to the time of keeping Easter, and as to some other things. "Why, then," asked Constantine, "will you not join the Church?" Acesius said, that he did not think the Church strict enough in dealing with penitents. "Take a ladder, then," said the emperor, "and go up to heaven by yourself!"

NOTES

[ [2][Page 40.]

[ [3]See Chapter XXI., Parts [III.], [IV.], and [V.]

[ [4][See page 27.]

CHAPTER XII.

ST. ATHANASIUS.

PART I. A.D. 325-337.

Alexander, the bishop of Alexandria by whom Arius had been excommunicated, died soon after returning home from the Council of Nicæa; and Athanasius, who was then about thirty years of age, was chosen in his stead, and governed the Alexandrian church for six-and-forty years. Every one knows the name of St. Athanasius, from the creed which is called after it. That creed, indeed, was not made by St. Athanasius himself; but, as the Prayer-book says, it is "commonly called" his, because it sets forth the true Christian faith, of which he was the chief defender in his day. And we are bound to honour this learned and holy bishop, as the man by whom especially God was pleased that His truth should be upheld and established against all the craft of Arius and his party, and even against all the power of the emperors of Rome.

For, although Arius had been sent into banishment, he soon managed to get into favour at the emperor's court. One of his friends, a priest, gained the ear of Constantine's sister; and this princess, when she was dying, recommended the priest to the emperor. Neither Constantine nor his sister understood enough of the matter to be on their guard against the deceits of the Arian, who was able to persuade the emperor that Arius had been ill-used, and that he did not really hold the opinions for which the council had condemned him. Arius, then, was allowed to return from banishment, and Constantine desired Athanasius to receive him back into the Church, saying that he was not guilty of the errors which had been laid to his charge. But Athanasius knew that this was only a trick; and he answered that, as Arius had been condemned by a council of the whole Church, he could not be restored by anything less than another such council.

The Arians, on finding that they could not win Athanasius over, resolved to attack him. They contrived that all sorts of charges against him should be carried to the emperor; and in the year 335, a council was held at Tyre for his trial. One story was, that he had killed an Egyptian bishop, named Arsenius, that he had cut off his hand, and had used it for magical purposes (for among other things, Athanasius was said by his enemies to be a sorcerer!); and the dried hand of a man was shown, which was said to be that of Arsenius. But when the time came for examining this charge, what was the confusion of the accusers at seeing Arsenius himself brought into the council! He was dressed in a long cloak, and Athanasius lifted it up, first on one side, and then on the other, so as to show that the man was not only alive, but had both his hands safe and sound. The leaders of the Arians had known that Arsenius was not dead, but they had hoped that he would not appear. But, happily for Athanasius, one of his friends had discovered Arsenius, and had kept him hidden until the right moment came for producing him.

Athanasius was able to answer the other charges against him, as well as that about Arsenius; and the Arians, seeing that they must contrive some new accusation, sent some of his bitterest enemies into Egypt, to rake up all the tales that they could find. Athanasius knew what he might expect from people who could act so unfairly; he therefore resolved not to wait for their return, but got on board a ship which was bound for Constantinople. On arriving there, he posted himself in a spot outside the city, where he expected the emperor to pass in returning from a ride; and when Constantine came up, he threw himself in his way. The emperor was startled; but Athanasius told him who he was, and entreated him, by the thought of that judgment in which princes as well as subjects must one day appear, to order that the case should be tried before himself, instead of leaving it to judges from whom no justice was to be looked for. The emperor agreed to this, and was very angry with those who had behaved so unjustly in the council at Tyre. But after a time some of the Arians got about him and told him another story—that Athanasius had threatened to stop the sailing of the fleet which carried corn from Alexandria to Constantinople. This was a charge which touched Constantine very closely; because Constantinople depended very much on the Egyptian corn for food, and he thought that the bishop, who had so much power at Alexandria, might perhaps be able to stop the fleet, and to starve the people of the capital, if he pleased. And, whether the emperor believed the story, or whether he wished to shelter Athanasius for a while from his persecutors by putting him out of the way—he sent him into banishment at Treves, on the banks of the Moselle, in a part of Gaul which is now reckoned to belong to Germany. Except for the separation from his flock, this banishment would have been no great hardship for Athanasius; for he was treated with great respect by the bishop of Treves, and by the emperor's eldest son, who lived there, and all good men honoured him for his stedfastness in upholding the true faith.

But, although Athanasius was removed, the Alexandrian Church would not admit Arius. So, after a while, the emperor resolved to have him admitted at Constantinople, and a council of bishops agreed that it should be so. The bishop of Constantinople, whose name was Alexander, and who was almost a hundred years old, was grievously distressed at this; he desired his people to entreat God, with fasting and prayer, that it might not come to pass, and he threw himself under the altar, and prayed very earnestly that the evil which was threatened might be somehow turned away, or that, at least, he himself might not live to see it.

At length, on the evening before the day which had been fixed for receiving Arius into the Church, he was going through the streets of Constantinople, in high spirits, and talking with some friends of what was to take place on the morrow. But all at once he felt himself ill, and went into a house which was near; and in a few minutes he was dead! His death, taking place at such a time and in such a way, made a great impression, and people were ready enough to look on it as a direct judgment of God on his impiety. But Athanasius, although he felt the awfulness of the unhappy man's sudden end, did not take it on himself to speak in this way; and we too shall do well not to pronounce judgment in such cases, remembering what our Lord said as to the Galileans who were slain by Pilate, and as to the men who were killed by the falling of the tower in Siloam (St. Luke xiii. 1-5). While we abhor the errors of Arius, let us leave the judgment of him to God.

Although Constantine in his last years was very much in the hands of the Arians, we must not suppose that he meant to favour their heresy. For these people (as I have said already, and shall have occasion to say again) were very crafty, and took great pains to hide the worst of their opinions. They used words which sounded quite right, except to the few persons who, like Athanasius, were quick enough to understand what bad meanings might be disguised under these fair words. And whenever they wished to get one of the faithful bishops turned out, they took care not to attack him about his faith, but about some other things, as we have seen in the case of Athanasius. Thus they managed to blind the emperor, who did not know much about the matter, so that, while they were using him as a tool, and were persuading him to help them with all his power, he all the while fancied that he was firmly maintaining the Nicene faith.

Constantine, after all that he had done in religious disputes, was still unbaptized. Perhaps he was a catechumen, which (as has been explained before),[5] was the name given to persons who were supposed to be in a course of training for baptism; but it is not certain that he was even so much as a catechumen. At last, shortly after the death of Arius, the emperor felt himself very sick, and believed that his end was near. He sent for some bishops, and told them that he had put off his baptism because he had wished to receive it in the river Jordan, like our Lord Himself; but as God had not granted him this, he begged that they would baptize him. He was baptized accordingly, and during the remaining days of his life he refused to wear any other robes than the white dress which used then to be put on at baptism, by way of signifying the cleansing of the soul from sin. And thus the first Christian emperor died, at a palace near Nicomedia, on Whitsunday in the year 337.

PART II. A.D. 337-361.

At Constantine's death, the empire was divided between his three sons. The eldest of them, whose name was the same with his father's, and the youngest, Constans, were friendly to the true faith. But the second son, Constantius, was won over by the Arians; and as, through the death of his brothers, he got possession of the whole empire within a few years, his connexion with that party led to great mischief. All through his reign, there were unceasing disputes about religion. Councils were almost continually sitting in one place or another, and bishops were posting about to one of them after another at the emperor's expense. Constantius did not mean ill; but he went even further than his father in meddling with things which he did not understand.

The Arians went on in the same cunning way as before. I may mention, by way of example, the behaviour of Leontius, bishop of Antioch. The Catholics[6] (that is to say, those who held the faith which the Church throughout all the world held), used to sing in church, as we do—"Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;" but the Arians sang, "Glory be to the Father, by the Son, in the Holy Ghost"—for they did not allow the Second and Third Persons to be of the same nature with the First. Leontius, then, who was an Arian, and yet did not wish people to know exactly what he was, used to mumble his words, so that nobody could make them out, until he came to the part in which all parties agreed; and then he sang out loudly and clearly—"As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen." He was an old man, and sometimes he would point to his white hair, and say, "When this snow melts, there will be a great deal of mud," meaning that after his death the two parties would come to open quarrels, which he had tried to prevent during his lifetime by such crafty behaviour as that which has just been mentioned.

The three young emperors met shortly after their father's death. It was agreed between them that Athanasius should be allowed to return to Alexandria; and for this favour he was chiefly indebted to young Constantine, who had known him during his banishment at Treves. The bishop returned accordingly, and was received with great rejoicing by his flock. But in about three years his enemies contrived that he should be again turned out (A.D. 341), and he was in banishment eight years. He was then restored again (A.D. 349); but his enemies watched their time, and spared no pains to get rid of him. One by one, they contrived to thrust out all the chief bishops who would have been inclined to take part with him; and at length, in the beginning of 356, Constantius sent a general named Syrianus to Alexandria, with orders to drive out Athanasius. The Alexandrians were so much attached to their great bishop that there was a fear lest they might prevent any open attempt against him. But Syrianus contrived to throw them off their guard; and one night, while Athanasius was keeping watch, with many of his clergy and people, in one of the churches (as the Christians of those days used to do before their great festivals and at other times), Syrianus suddenly beset the church with a great number of soldiers, and a multitude made up of Arians, Jews, and the heathen rabble of the city. When Athanasius heard the noise outside the church, he sat down calmly on his throne, and desired the congregation to chant the hundred and thirty-sixth psalm, in which God's deliverances of His people in old times are celebrated; and the whole congregation joined in the last part of every verse—"For His mercy endureth for ever." The doors were shut, but the soldiers forced them open and rushed in; and it was a fearful sight to see their drawn swords and their armour flashing by the lamplight in the house of God. As they advanced up the church, many of the congregation were trodden down or crushed to death, or pierced through with their darts. Athanasius stood calm in the midst of all the terrible din. His clergy, when they saw the soldiers pushing on towards the sanctuary (as the part of the church was called which was railed off for the clergy), entreated him to save himself by flight; but he declared that he would not go until his people were safe, and waited until most of them had made their escape through doors in the upper part of the church. At last, when the soldiers were pressing very close to the sanctuary, the clergy closed round their bishop, and hurried him away by a secret passage. And when they had got him out of the church, they found that he had fainted; for although his courage was high, his body was weak and delicate, and the dreadful scene had overcome him. But he escaped to the deserts of Egypt, where he lived in peace among the monks for six years, until the death of Constantius. His enemies thought that he might, perhaps, seek a refuge in Ethiopia; and Constantius wrote to beg that the princes of that country would not shelter him, and that the bishop, Frumentius,[7] might be sent to receive instruction in the faith from the Arian bishop who was put into the see of Alexandria. But Athanasius was safe elsewhere, and Frumentius wisely stayed at home.

The new Arian bishop of Alexandria was a Cappadocian named George. He was a coarse, ignorant, and violent man, and behaved with great cruelty to Athanasius's friends—even putting many of them to death. But Athanasius, from his quiet retreat, kept a watch over all that was done as to the affairs of the Church, both at Alexandria and elsewhere; and from time to time he wrote books, which reached places where he himself could not venture to appear. So that, although he was not seen during these years, he made himself felt, both to the confusion of the Arians, and to the comfort and encouragement of the faithful.

PART III. A.D. 361-371.

Constantius had no children, and after the death of Constans (A.D. 350), his nearest male relation was a cousin named Julian. The emperor gave his sister in marriage to this cousin, and also gave him the government of a part of the empire; but he always treated him with distrust and jealousy, so that Julian never loved him. And this was not the worst of it; for Julian, who had lost his father when he was very young, and had been brought up under the direction of Constantius, took a strong dislike to his cousin's religion, which was forced on him in a way that a lively boy could not well be expected to relish. He was obliged to spend a great part of his time in attending the services of the Church, and was even made a reader, (which was one of the lowest kinds of ministers in the Church of those times;) and, unfortunately, the end of all this was, that instead of being truly religious, he learnt to be a hypocrite. When he grew older, and was left more to himself, he fell into the hands of the heathen philosophers, who were very glad to get hold of a prince who might one day be emperor. So Julian's mind was poisoned with their opinions, and he gave up all belief in the Gospel, although he continued to profess himself a Christian for nine years longer. On account of his having thus forsaken the faith he is commonly called the Apostate.

At length, when Julian was at Paris, early in the year 361, Constantius sent him some orders which neither he nor his soldiers were disposed to obey. The soldiers lifted him up on a shield and proclaimed him emperor; and Julian set out at their head to fight for the throne. He marched boldly eastward, until he came to the Danube; then he embarked his troops and descended the great river for many hundreds of miles into the country which is now called Hungary. Constantius left Antioch, and was marching to meet Julian's army, when he was taken ill, and died at a little town in Cilicia. Like his father, he was baptized only a day or two before his death.

Julian now came into possession of the empire without further dispute; and he did all that he could to set heathenism up again. But in many parts of the empire, Christianity had taken such root that very few of the people held to the old religion, or wished to see it restored. Thus, we are told that once, when the emperor went to a famous temple near Antioch, on a great heathen festival, in the hope of finding things carried on as they had been before Constantine's time, only one old priest was to be seen; and, instead of the costly sacrifices which had been offered in the former days of heathenism, the poor old man had nothing better than a single goose to offer.

Julian knew that in past times Christians had always been ready to suffer for their faith, and that the patience of the martyrs had always led to the increase of the Church. He did not think it wise, therefore, to go to work in the same way as the earlier persecuting emperors; but he contrived to annoy the Christians very much by other means, and sometimes great cruelties were committed against them under his authority. Yet, with all this, he pretended to allow them the exercise of their religion, and he gave leave to those who had been banished by Constantius to return, home,—not that he really meant to do them any kindness, but because he hoped that they would all fall to quarrelling among themselves, and that he should be able to take advantage of their quarrels. But in this hope he was happily disappointed; for they had learnt wisdom by suffering, and were disposed to make peace with each other as much as possible, while they were all threatened by the enemies of the Saviour's very name.

The first thing that the heathens of Alexandria did when they heard of the death of Constantius had been to kill the Arian bishop, George; for he had behaved in such a way that the heathens hated him even more than the Catholics did. Another Arian bishop was set up in his place; but when Julian had given leave for the banished to return, Athanasius came back, and the Arian was turned out.

The Alexandrians received Athanasius with great joy, and he did all that was in his power to reconcile the parties of Christians among themselves. For, although no one could be more earnest than he in maintaining every particle of the faith necessary for a true Christian, he was careful not to insist on things which were not necessary. He knew, too, that people who really meant alike were often divided from each other by not understanding one another's words; and he was always ready to make allowance for them as far as he could do so without giving up the truth. But Julian was afraid to let him remain at Alexandria, and was greatly provoked at hearing that he had converted and baptized some heathen ladies of rank. So the emperor wrote to the Alexandrians, telling them that, although they might choose another bishop for themselves, they must not let Athanasius remain among them, and banishing the bishop from all Egypt. Athanasius, when he heard of this, said to his friends, "Let us withdraw; this is but a little cloud which will soon pass over;" and he set off up the river Nile in a boat. After a while, another boat was seen in pursuit of him; but Athanasius then told his boatmen to turn round, and to sail down the river again; and when they met the other boat, from which they had not been seen until after turning, they answered the questions of its crew in such a way that they were allowed to pass without being suspected of having the bishop on board. Thus Athanasius got safe back to the city, and there he lay hid securely while his enemies were searching for him elsewhere. But after a little time he withdrew to the deserts, where he was welcomed and sheltered by his old friends the monks.

In his hatred of Christianity, Julian not only tried to restore heathenism, but showed favour to the Jews. He sent for some of them, and asked why they did not offer sacrifice as their law had ordered? They answered that it was not lawful to sacrifice except in the temple of Jerusalem, which was now in ruins, and did not belong to them, so that they could no longer fulfil the duty of sacrificing. Julian then gave them leave to build the temple up again, and the Jews came together in vast numbers from the different countries into which they had been scattered. Many of them had got great wealth in the lands of their banishment, and it is said that even the women laboured at the work, carrying earth in their rich silken dresses, and that tools of silver were used in the building. The Jews were full of triumph at the thought of being restored to their own land, and of reviving the greatness of David and Solomon. But it had been declared that the temple was to be overthrown, and that Jerusalem was to be "trodden down of the Gentiles," on account of the sin of God's ancient people (St. Luke xxi. 6, 24, &c.): so that this undertaking to rebuild the temple was nothing less than a daring defiance of Him who had so spoken; and it pleased Him to defeat it in a terrible manner. An earthquake scattered the foundations which had been laid; balls of fire burst forth from the ground, scorching and killing many of the workmen; their tools were melted by lightning; and stories are told of other fearful sights, which put an end to the attempt. Julian, indeed, meant to set about it once more, after returning from a war which he had undertaken against the Persians. But he never lived to do so. Athanasius was not mistaken when he said that his heathen emperor's tyranny would be only as a passing cloud; for Julian's reign lasted little more than a year and a half in all. He led his army into Persia in the spring of 363, and in June of that year he was killed in a skirmish by night.

Julian left no child to succeed him in the empire, and the army chose as his successor a Christian named Jovian, who soon undid all that Julian had done in matters of religion. The new emperor invited Athanasius to visit him at Antioch, and took his advice as to the restoration of the true faith. But Jovian's reign lasted only eight months, and Valentinian, who was then made emperor, gave the empire of the East to his brother Valens, who was a furious Arian, and treated the Catholics with great cruelty. We are told, for instance, that when eighty of their bishops had carried a petition to him, he put them on board a ship, and when it had got out to sea, the sailors, by his orders, set it on fire, and made their escape in boats, leaving the poor bishops to be burned to death.

Valens turned many orthodox bishops (that is to say, bishops of the right faith) out of their sees, and meant to turn out Athanasius, who hid himself for a while in his father's tomb. But the people of Alexandria begged earnestly that their bishop might be allowed to remain with them, and the emperor did not think it safe to deny their request, lest there should be some outbreak in the city. And thus, while the faith of which Athanasius had so long been the chief defender, and for the sake of which he had borne so much, was under persecution in all other parts of the eastern empire, the great bishop of Alexandria was allowed to spend his last years among his own flock without disturbance. He died in the year 373, at the age of seventy-six.

NOTES

[ [5][Page 18.]

[ [6]The word Catholic, which means Universal, is not to be confounded with Roman-Catholic.

[ [7][See page 41.]

CHAPTER XIII.

THE MONKS.

In the story of St. Athanasius, monks have been more than once mentioned, and it is now time to give some account of these people and of their ways.

The word monk properly means one who leads a lonely life; and the name was given to persons who professed to withdraw from the world and its business that they might give themselves up to serve God in religious thoughts and exercises. Among the Jews there had been whole classes of people who practised this sort of retirement: some, called Essenes, lived near the Dead Sea; and others, called Therapeutæ, in Egypt, where a great number of Jews had settled. Among the heathens of the East, too, a like manner of living had been common for ages, as it still continues to be; and many of them carry it to an excessive strictness, as we are told by travellers who have visited India, Thibet, and other countries of Asia.

Nothing of the kind, however, is commanded for Christians in the New Testament; and when Scripture warrant for the monkish life was sought for, the great patterns who were produced were Elijah and St. John the Baptist—the one of them an Old Testament prophet; the other, a holy man who lived, indeed, in the days when our Lord Himself was on the earth, but who was not allowed to enter into His Church, or to see it fully established by the coming of the Holy Ghost at the day of Pentecost. But still it was very natural that the notion of a life of strict poverty, retirement from the world, and employment in spiritual things, should find favour with Christians, as a means of fulfilling the duties of their holy calling; and so it seems that some of them took to this way of life very early. But the first who is named as a hermit (that is to say, a dweller in the wilderness) was Paul, a young man of Alexandria, who, in the year 251, fled from the persecution of Decius into the Egyptian desert, where he is said to have lived ninety years. Paul, although he afterwards became very famous, spent his days without being known, until, just before his death, he was visited by another great hermit, St. Antony. But Antony himself was a person of great note and importance in his own lifetime.

He was born in the district of Thebes, in Egypt, in the very same year that Paul withdrew from the world. While a boy, he was thoughtful and serious. His parents died before he had reached the age of twenty, and left him considerable wealth. One day, when in church, he was struck by hearing the story of the rich young man who was charged to sell all that he had, give to the poor, and follow our Lord (St. Luke xviii. 18-22). At another time he was moved by hearing the charge to "take no thought for the morrow" (St. Matt. vi. 34). And in order to obey these commands (as he thought), Antony parted with all that belonged to him, bade farewell to his only sister, and left his home, with the intention of living in loneliness and devotion. He carried on this life for many years, and several times changed his abode, that he might seek out some place still wilder and more remote than the last. But he grew so famous that people flocked even into the depths of the wilderness to see him. A number of disciples gathered around him, and hermits or monks began to copy his way of life in other parts of Egypt. Antony's influence became very great; he made peace between enemies, comforted mourners, and gave advice to all who asked him as to spiritual concerns; and when he took the part of any oppressed person who applied to him, his interference was always successful. Affairs of this kind sometimes obliged him to leave his cell (as the dwellings of the monks were called); but he always returned as soon as possible, for he used to say that "a monk out of his solitude is like a fish out of water." Even the emperors, Constantine and his sons, wrote to him with great respect, and asked him to visit their courts. He thanked them, but did not accept their invitation; and he wrote more than once to them in favour of St. Athanasius, whom he steadily supported in his troubles on account of the faith. On two great occasions he visited Alexandria, for the purpose of strengthening his brethren in their sufferings for the truth. The first of these visits was while the last heathen persecution, under Maximin, was raging.[8] Antony stood by the martyrs at their trials and in their death, and took all opportunities of declaring himself a Christian; but the persecutors did not venture to touch him: and, after waiting till the heat of the danger was past, he again withdrew to the wilderness. The second visit was in the time of the Arian disturbances, when his appearance had even a greater effect than before. The Catholics were encouraged by his exhortations, and a great number of conversions took place in consequence. Antony died, at the age of a hundred and five, in the year 356, a few days before the great bishop of Alexandria was driven to seek a refuge in the desert.[9]

Antony, as we have seen, was a hermit, living in the wilderness by himself. But by-and-by other kinds of monks were established, who lived in companies together. Sometimes they were lodged in clusters of little cells, each of them having his separate cell, or two or three living together; sometimes the cells were all in one large building, called a monastery. The head of each monastery, or of each cluster of cells, was called abbot, which means father. And in some cases there were many monasteries belonging to one order, so that they were all considered as one society, and there was one chief abbot over all. Thus the order founded by Pachomius, on an island in the Nile, soon spread, so that before his death it had eight monasteries, with three thousand monks among them; and about fifty years later, it had no fewer than fifty thousand monks.

These monks of Pachomius lived in cells, each of which contained three. Each cluster of cells had its abbot; the head of the order, who was called the archimandrite (which means chief of a sheep-fold), went round occasionally to visit all the societies which were under him; and the whole order met every year at the chief monastery, for the festival of Easter, and a second time in the month of August. The monks of St. Pachomius prayed many times a-day. They fasted every Wednesday and Friday, and communicated every Sunday and Saturday. They took their meals together and sang psalms before each. They were not allowed to talk at table, but sat with their hoods drawn over their faces, so that no one could see his neighbours, or anything but the food before him. Their dress was coarse and plain; the chief article of it was a rough goat-skin, in imitation of the prophet Elijah. They slept with their clothes on, not in beds, but in chairs, which were of such a shape as to keep them almost standing. They spent their time not only in prayers and other religious exercises, but in various kinds of simple work, such as labouring in the fields, weaving baskets, ropes, and nets, or making shoes. They had boats in which they sent the produce of their labour down the Nile to Alexandria; and the money which they got by selling it was not only enough to keep them, but enabled them to redeem captives, and to do such other acts of charity.

This account of the monks of St. Pachomius will give some notion of the monkish life in general, although one order differed from another in various ways. All that the monks had was considered to belong to them in common, after the pattern of the first Christians, as was supposed (Acts ii. 34; iv. 32); and no one was allowed to have anything of his own. Thus we are told that when a monk was found at his death to have left a hundred pieces of silver, which he had earned by weaving flax, his brethren, who were about three thousand in number, met to consider what should be done with the money. Some were for giving it to the Church; some, to the poor. But the fathers of the society quoted St. Peter's words to Simon the sorcerer, "Thy money perish with thee" (Acts viii. 20); and on the strength of this text (which in truth had not much to do with the matter), they ordered that it should be buried with its late owner. St. Jerome, who tells the story, says that this was not done out of any wish to condemn the dead monk, but in order that others might be deterred from hoarding.

These different kinds of monks were first established in various parts of Egypt; but their way of life was soon taken up in other countries; and societies of women, who were called nuns (that is to say mothers), were formed under the same kind of rules.

One thing which had much to do with making monkish life so common was, that when persecution by the heathen was at an end, many Christians felt the want of something which might assure them that they were separate from the world, as Christ's true people ought to be. It was no longer enough that they should call themselves Christians; for the world had come to call itself Christian too. Perhaps we may think that it would have been better if those who wished to live religiously had tried to go on doing their duty in the world, and to improve it by the example and the influence of holy and charitable lives, instead of running away from it. And they were certainly much mistaken if they fancied that by hiding themselves in the desert they were likely to escape temptation. For temptations followed them into their retreats, and we have only too many proofs, in the accounts of famous monks, that the effect of this mistake was often very sad indeed. And we may be sure that if the good men who in those days were active in recommending the life of monks had been able to foresee how things would turn out, they would have been much more cautious in what they said of it.

It was not every one who was fit for such a life, and many took it up without rightly considering whether they were fit for it. The kind of work which was provided for them was not enough to occupy them thoroughly, and many of them suffered grievously from temptations to which their idleness laid them open. It was supposed, indeed, that they might find the thoughts of heavenly things enough to fill their minds; and, when a philosopher asked Antony how he could live without books, he answered that for him the whole creation was a book, always at hand, in which he could read God's word whenever he pleased. But it was not every one who could find such delight in that great book; and many of the monks, for want of employment, were tormented by all sorts of evil thoughts, nay, some of them were even driven into madness by their way of life.

The monks ran into very strange mistakes as to their duty towards their kindred. Even Antony himself, although he was free from many of the faults of spiritual pride and the like, which became too common among his followers, thought himself bound to overcome his love for his young sister. And, as another sample of the way in which monks were expected to deaden their natural affections, I may tell you how his disciple Pior behaved. Pior, when a youth, left his father's house, and vowed that he would never again look on any of his relations—which was surely a very rash and foolish and wrong vow. He went into the desert, and had lived there fifty years, when his sister heard that he was still alive. She was too infirm to go in search of him, but she contrived that the abbot, under whose authority he was, should order him to pay her a visit. Pior went accordingly, and, when he had reached her house, he stood in front of it, and sent to tell her that he was there. The poor old woman made all haste to get to him; her heart was full of love and delight at the thoughts of seeing her brother again after so long a separation. But as soon as Pior heard the door opening, he shut his eyes, and he kept them shut all through the meeting. He refused to go into his sister's house, and when he had let her see him for a short time in this way, without showing her any token of kindness, he hurried back to the desert.

In later times monks were usually ordained as clergy of the Church. But at first it was not intended that they should be so, and in each monastery there were only so many clergy as were needed for the performance of Divine service and other works of the ministry. And in those early days, many monks had a great fear of being ordained clergymen or bishops, because they thought that the active business in which bishops and other clergy were obliged to engage, would hinder their reaching to the higher degrees of holiness. Thus a famous monk, named Ammonius, on being chosen for a bishopric, cut off one of his ears, thinking that this blemish would prevent his being made a priest, as it would have done under the law of Moses (Lev. xxi. 17-23); and when he was told that it was not so in the Christian Church, he threatened to cut out his tongue.

It was not long before the sight of the great respect which was paid to the monks led many worthless people to call themselves monks for the sake of what they might get by doing so. These fellows used to go about, wearing heavy chains, uncouthly dressed, and behaving roughly; and they told outrageous stories of visions and of fights with devils which they pretended to have had. By such tricks they got large sums of money from people who were foolish enough to encourage them; and they spent it in the most shameful ways.

But besides these vile hypocrites, many monks who seem to have been sincere enough ran into very strange extravagances. There was one kind of them called Grazers, who used to live among mountains, without any roof to shelter them, browsing, like beasts, on grass and herbs, and by degrees growing much more like beasts than men. And in the beginning of the fifth century, one Symeon founded a new sort of monks, who were called Stylites (that is to say, pillar saints), from a Greek word, which means a pillar. Symeon was a Syrian, and lived on the top of one pillar after another for seven-and-thirty years. Each pillar was higher than the one before it; the height of the last of them was forty cubits (or seventy feet), and the top of it was only a yard across. There Symeon was to be seen, with a heavy iron chain round his neck, and great numbers of people flocked to visit him; some of them even went all the way from our own country. And when he was dead, a monk, named Daniel, got the old cowl which he had worn, and built himself a pillar near Constantinople, where he lived three-and-thirty years. The high winds sometimes almost blew him from his place, and sometimes he was covered for days with snow and ice, until the emperor Leo made him submit to let a shed be built round the top of his pillar. The fame and influence which these monks gained were immense. They were supposed to have the power of prophecy and of miracles; they were consulted even by emperors and kings, in the most important matters; and sometimes, on great occasions, when a stylite descended from his pillar, or some famous hermit left his cell, and appeared among the crowds of a city, he was able to make everything bend to his will.

We must not be blind to the serious errors of monkery; but we are bound also to own that God was pleased to make it the means of great good. The monks did much for the conversion of the heathen, and when the ages of darkness came on, after the overthrow of the Roman empire in the West, they rendered inestimable service in preserving the knowledge of learning and religion, which, but for them, might have utterly perished from the earth.

NOTES

[ [8][See page 36.]

[ [9][See page 54.]

CHAPTER XIV.

ST. BASIL AND ST. GREGORY OF NAZIANZUM. COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE.

PART I. A.D. 373-381.

Although St. Athanasius was now dead, God did not fail to raise up champions for the true faith. Three of the most famous of these were natives of Cappadocia—namely, Basil, his brother Gregory of Nyssa, and his friend Gregory of Nazianzum. But although Gregory of Nyssa was a very good and learned man, and did great service to the truth by his writings, there was nothing remarkable in the story of his life; so I shall only tell you about the other two.

Basil and Gregory of Nazianzum were both born about the year 329. Basil was of a noble Christian family. Gregory's father had belonged to a strange sect called Hypsistarians, whose religion was a mixture of Jewish and heathen notions; but he had been converted from it by his wife, Nonna, who was a very pious and excellent woman, and, before his son's birth, he had risen to be bishop of Nazianzum.

The two youths became acquainted at school in Cappadocia, and, when they were afterwards sent to the famous schools of Athens, they grew into the closest friendship. They lived and read and walked together: Gregory says that they had all things common, and that it was as if they had only one soul in two bodies. Athens was an excellent place for learning all that the wise men of this world could teach, and therefore students flocked to it from distant countries. But it was a dangerous place for Christian young men; for the teachers were heathen philosophers, and knew well how to entangle them in arguments, so that many of the pupils, who did not rightly understand the grounds of their faith, were deceived into giving it up. Thus, at the very time when Basil and Gregory were at Athens, Julian was also there, sucking in the heathen notions which led to so much evil when he afterwards became emperor. But the two Cappadocians kept themselves clear from all the snares of "philosophy and vain deceit" (Coloss. ii. 8); and although they were the foremost of all the students in Athens for learning, and might have hoped to make a great figure in the world by their talents, they resolved to give up all worldly ambition, and to devote themselves to the ministry of the Church.

So they were both ordained to be clergymen, and their friendship continued as warm as ever. Gregory did many kind offices to Basil, and at length, when the archbishopric of Cæsarea, the chief city of Cappadocia, fell vacant, Gregory had a great share in getting his friend chosen to it. Basil was now in a very high office, with many bishops under him; and he had become noted as one of the chief defenders of the Catholic faith. And when the emperor Valens set up Arianism in all other parts of his dominions, Basil remained at his post, and kept the Church of Cæsarea free from the heresy. Valens came into Cappadocia, and was angry that, while his wishes were obeyed everywhere else, Basil should hold out against them: so he sent an officer named Modestus to Cæsarea, and ordered him to require the archbishop to submit, on pain of being turned out. Modestus told Basil his errand, and threatened him with loss of his property, torture, banishment, and even death, in case of his refusal. But Basil was not at all daunted. "Think of some other threat," he said, "for these have no influence on me. As for loss of property, I run no risk, for I have nothing to lose except these mean garments and a few books. Nor does a Christian care for banishment, since he has no home upon earth, but makes every country his own; or rather, he looks on the whole world as God's, and on himself as God's pilgrim upon earth. Neither can tortures harm me, for my body is so weak that the first blow would kill me; and death would be a gain, for it would but send me the sooner to Him for whom I live and labour, and to whom I have long been journeying."

Modestus returned to his master with an account of what had been said, and Valens himself soon after came to Cæsarea. But when he went to the cathedral on the festival of the Epiphany, and saw Basil at the head of his clergy, and witnessed their solemn service, he was struck with awe. He wished to make an offering, as the custom was, but none of the clergy went to receive his gift, and he almost fainted at the thought of being thus rejected from the Church, as if he had no part or lot in it. He afterwards sent for Basil, and had some conversation with him; and the end of the affair was, that he not only left Basil in possession of his see, but bestowed a valuable estate on a hospital which the archbishop had lately founded.

While Basil had risen, by Gregory's help, to be an archbishop, Gregory himself was still a presbyter. He would not have taken even this office but that his father ordained him to it almost by force; and he had a great dread of being raised to the high and difficult office of a bishop. But Basil, for certain reasons, wished to establish a bishop in a little town called Sasima, and he fixed on his old friend, without, perhaps, thinking so much as he ought to have thought, whether the place and the man were likely to suit each other. The old bishop of Nazianzum did all that he could to overcome his son's unwillingness, and Gregory was consecrated; but he thought himself unkindly used, and complained much of Basil's behaviour in the matter.

After a time, Basil and other leaders of the orthodox (that is, of those who held the right faith) urged Gregory to undertake a mission to Constantinople, and he agreed to go, in the hope of being able to do some good (A.D. 378). The bishopric of that great city had been in the hands of Arians for nearly forty years, and although there were many people of other sects there, the orthodox were but a handful. Gregory, when he began his labours, found that there was a strong feeling against him and his doctrine. He could not get the use of any church, and was obliged to hold his service in a friend's house. He was often attacked by the Arian mob; he was stoned; he was carried before the magistrates on charges of disturbing the peace; the house which he had turned into a chapel was broken into by night, and shocking outrages were committed in it. But the good Gregory held on notwithstanding all this, and, after a while, his mild and grave character, his eloquent and instructive preaching, and the piety of his life, wrought a great change, so that his little place of worship became far too small to hold the crowds which flocked to it. While Gregory was thus employed, Basil died, in the year 380.

PART II.

Both parts of the empire were now again under orthodox princes. Valens had lost his life in war, without leaving any children (A.D. 378), so that Valentinian's sons, Gratian and Valentinian the Second, were heirs to the whole. But Gratian felt the burden of government too much for himself, a lad of nineteen, and for his little brother, who was but seven years old; and he gave up the East to a brave Spaniard, named Theodosius, in the hope that he would be able to defend it.

Theodosius came to Constantinople in the year 380, and found things in the state which has just been described. He turned the Arian bishop and his clergy out of the churches, and gave Gregory possession of the cathedral. Gregory knew that the emperor wished to help the cause of the true faith, and he did as Theodosius wished; but he was very sad and uneasy at being thus thrust on a flock of which the greater part as yet refused to own him.

Theodosius then called a council, which met at Constantinople in the year 381, and is reckoned as the second General Council (the Council of Nicæa[10] having been the first). One act of this council was to add to the Nicene Creed some words about the Holy Ghost, by way of guarding against the errors of a party who were called Macedonians, after one Macedonius, who had been bishop of Constantinople; for these people denied the true doctrine as to the Holy Ghost, although they had given up the errors of Arius as to the Godhead of our blessed Lord.

But afterwards, some of the bishops who attended the council fell to disputing about the choice of a bishop for Antioch; and Gregory, who tried to persuade them to agree, found that, instead of heeding his advice, they all fell on him; and they behaved so shamefully to him that he gave up his bishopric, which, indeed, he had before wished to do. Theodosius was very sorry to lose so good a man from that important place; but Gregory was glad to get away from its troubles and anxieties to the quiet life which he best loved. He took charge of the diocese of Nazianzum (which had been vacant since his father's death, some year's before), until a regular bishop was appointed to it; and he spent his last days in retirement, soothing himself with religious poetry and music. One of the holiest men of our own Church, Bishop Ken (the author of the Morning and Evening Hymns), used often to compare himself with St. Gregory of Nazianzum; for Bishop Ken, too, was driven from his bishopric in troubled times, and, in the poverty, sickness, and sorrow of his last years, he, too, used to find relief in playing on his lute, and in writing hymns and other devout poems.

Theodosius was resolved to establish the right faith, according as the council had laid it down. But it seems that at one time some of the bishops were afraid lest an Arian, named Eunomius, should get an influence over his mind, and should persuade him to favour the Arians. And there is a curious story of the way in which one of these bishops, who was a homely old man, from some retired little town, tried to show the emperor that he ought not to encourage heretics. On a day when a number of bishops went to pay their respects at court, this old man, after having saluted the emperor very respectfully, turned to his eldest son, the young emperor Arcadius, and stroked his head as if he had been any common boy. Theodosius was very angry at this behaviour, and ordered that the bishop should be turned out. But as the officers of the palace were hurrying him towards the door, the old man addressed the emperor, and told him that as he was angry on account of the slight offered to the prince, even so would the Heavenly Father be offended with those who should refuse to His Son the honours which they paid to Himself. Theodosius was much struck by this speech; he begged the bishop's forgiveness, and showed his regard for the admonition by keeping Eunomius and the rest of the Arians at a distance.

The emperor then made some severe laws, forbidding all sorts of sects to hold their worship, and requiring them to join the Catholic Church. Now this was, no doubt, a great mistake; for it is impossible to force religious belief on people; and although Christian princes ought to support the true faith by making laws in favour of it, it is wrong to make men pretend a belief which they do not feel in their hearts. But Theodosius had not had the same opportunities which we have since had of seeing how useless such laws are, and what mischief they generally do; so that, instead of blaming him, we must give him credit for acting in the way which he believed most likely to promote the glory of God and the good of his subjects. And, although some of his laws seem very severe, there is reason to think that these were never acted on.

But about the same time, in another part of the empire, which had been usurped by one Maximus, an unhappy man, named Priscillian, and some of his companions, were put to death on account of heresy. Such things became sadly too common afterwards; but at the time the punishment of Priscillian struck all good men with horror. St. Martin, bishop of Tours, who was called "The Apostle of the Gauls," did all that he could to prevent it. St. Ambrose (of whom you will hear more in the next chapter) would not, on any account, have to do with the bishops who had been concerned in it; and the chief of these bishops was afterwards turned out of his see, and died in banishment. We may do well to remember that this first instance of punishing heresy with death, was under the government of an usurper, who had made his way to power by rebellion and murder.

NOTES

[ [10][See chapter XI.]

CHAPTER XV.

ST. AMBROSE.

A.D. 374-397.

The greatest bishop of the West in these times was St. Ambrose, of Milan. He was born about the year 340, and thus was ten or twelve years younger than St. Basil and St. Gregory of Nazianzum. His father had held a very high office under the emperors; Ambrose himself was brought up as a lawyer, and had risen to be governor of Liguria, a large country in the north of Italy, of which Milan was the chief city.

The bishop of Milan, who was an Arian, died in the year 374, and then a great dispute arose between the orthodox and the Arians as to choosing a new bishop, so that it seemed as if they might even come to blows about it. When both parties were assembled in the cathedral for the election, the governor, Ambrose, went and made them a speech, desiring them to manage their business peaceably; and it is said that, as soon as he had done, a little child's voice was heard crying out "Ambrose bishop!" All at once, the whole assembly caught up the words, which seemed to have something providential in them; and they insisted that the governor should be the new bishop. Now although Ambrose had been brought up as a Christian, he was still only a catechumen, and had never thought of being a bishop, or a clergyman of any kind; and he was afraid to undertake so high and holy an office. He therefore did all that he could to get himself excused. He tried to make the people of Milan think that his temper was too severe; but they saw through his attempts. He then escaped from the town more than once, but he was brought back. Valentinian, who was then emperor, approved the choice of a bishop; and Ambrose was first baptized, and a few days afterwards he was consecrated.

He now studied very hard, in order to make up for his want of preparation for his office. He was very active in all sorts of pious and charitable works, and he soon became famous as a preacher. His steady firmness in maintaining the orthodox faith was especially shown when Valentinian's widow, Justina, who was an Arian, wished to take one of the churches of Milan from the Catholics, and to give it to her own sect; and after a hard struggle, Ambrose got the better of her. He afterwards gained a very great influence both over Justina's son, Valentinian II., and over his elder brother Gratian. And when Gratian had been murdered by the friends of Maximus (the same Maximus who put Priscillian to death), and Theodosius came into the West to avenge his murder (A.D. 388), Ambrose had no less power with Theodosius than he had had with the younger emperors.

Theodosius took up his abode for a time at Milan after he had defeated and slain the usurper Maximus. Soon after his arrival in the city, he went to service at the cathedral, and was going to seat himself in the part of it nearest to the altar, as at Constantinople the emperor's seat was in that part of the church. But Ambrose stopped him, and told him that none but the clergy were allowed to sit there; and he begged the emperor to take a place at the head of the people outside the altar-rails. Theodosius was so far from being angry at this, that he thanked the bishop, and explained to him how it was that he had made the mistake of going within the rails; and when he got back to Constantinople, he astonished his courtiers by ordering that his seat should be removed to a place answering to that in which he had sat at Milan; for that, he said, was much more seemly and proper.

There are other stories about Ambrose's dealings with Theodosius; but I shall mention only one, which is the most famous of all. One day when there was to be a great chariot race at Thessalonica, it happened that a famous charioteer, who was a favourite with the people of the town, had been put in prison by the governor on account of a very serious crime. On this a mob went to the governor, and demanded that the man should be set at liberty. The governor refused; and thereupon the mob grew furious, and murdered him, with a number of his soldiers and other persons. The emperor might have been excused for showing heavy displeasure at this outrage; but unhappily the great fault of his character was a readiness to give way to violent fits of passion; and on hearing what had been done, his anger knew no bounds. Ambrose, who was afraid lest some serious mischief should follow, did all that he could to soothe the emperor, and got a promise from him that the Thessalonians should be spared. But some other advisers afterwards got about Theodosius, and again inflamed his mind against the offenders, so that he gave orders for a fearful act of cruel and treacherous vengeance. The people of Thessalonica were invited in the emperor's name to some games in the circus or amphitheatre, which was a building open to the sky, and large enough to hold many thousands. And when they were all gathered together in the place, instead of the amusement which had been promised them, they were fallen on by soldiers, who for three hours carried on a savage butchery; sparing neither old men, women, nor children, and making no difference between innocent and guilty, Thessalonian or stranger. Among those who had come to see the games there was a foreign merchant, who had had no concern in the outrage of the mob, which was punished in this frightful way. He had two sons with him, and he offered his own life, with all that he had, if the soldiers would but spare one of them. The soldiers were willing to agree to this, but the poor father could not make up his mind which of the sons he should choose; and the soldiers, who were too much enraged by their horrid work to make any allowance for his feelings, stabbed both the youths before his eyes at the same moment. The number of persons slain in the massacre is not certain: there were at least as many as seven thousand, and some writers say that there were fifteen thousand.

When Ambrose heard of this shocking affair, he was filled with grief and horror; for he had relied on the emperor's promise to spare the Thessalonians, and great care had been taken that he should not know anything of the orders which had been afterwards sent off. He wrote a letter to Theodosius, exhorting him to repent, and telling him that, unless he did so, he could not be admitted to the holy Communion. This letter brought the emperor to feel that he had done very wrongly; but Ambrose wished to make him feel it far more. As Theodosius was about to enter the cathedral, the bishop met him in the porch, and, laying hold on his robe, desired him to withdraw, because he was a man stained with innocent blood. The emperor said that he was deeply grieved for his offence; but Ambrose told him that this was not enough—that he must show some more public proofs of his repentance for so great a sin. The emperor withdrew accordingly to his palace, where he shut himself up for eight months, refusing to wear his imperial robes, and spending his time in sadness and penitence. At length, when Christmas was drawing near, he went to the bishop, and humbly begged that he might be admitted into the Church again. Ambrose desired him to give some substantial token of his sorrow, and the emperor agreed to make a law by which no sentence of death should be executed until thirty days after it had been passed. This law was meant to prevent any more such sad effects of sudden passion in princes as the massacre of Thessalonica. The emperor was then allowed to enter the church, where he fell down on the pavement, with every appearance of the deepest grief and humiliation; and it is said that from that time he never spent a day without remembering the crime into which his passion had betrayed him.

Theodosius was the last emperor who kept up the ancient glory of Rome. He is called "the Great," and in many respects was well deserving of the name. He died in 395, and St. Ambrose died within two years after, on Easter eve, in the year 397.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE TEMPLE OF SERAPIS.

A.D. 391.

In the account of Constantine, it was mentioned that the emperors after their conversion did not try to put down heathenism by force, or all at once.[11] For the wise teachers of the Church knew that this would not be the right way of going to work, but that it would be more likely to make the heathens obstinate, than to convert them. Thus St. Augustine (of whom I shall have more to tell you by-and-by) says in one of his sermons—"We must first endeavour to break the idols in their hearts. When they themselves become Christians, they will either invite us to the good work of destroying their idols, or they will be beforehand with us in doing so. And in the mean while, we must pray for them, not be angry with them."

But in course of time, as the people were more and more brought off from heathenism, and as the belief of the Gospel worked its way more thoroughly among all classes of them, laws were sent forth against offering sacrifices, burning incense, and the like, to the heathen gods. These laws were by degrees made stricter and stricter, until, in the reign of Theodosius, it was forbidden to do any act of heathen worship. And I may now tell you what took place as to the idols of Egypt in this reign.

It was in the year 391 that an old heathen temple at Alexandria was given up to the bishop of the city, who wished to build a church on the spot. In digging out the foundation for the church, some strange and disgusting things, which had been used in the heathen worship, were found; and some of the Christians carried these about the streets by way of mocking at the religion of the heathens. The heathen part of the inhabitants were enraged; a number of them made an uproar, killed some Christians, and then shut themselves up in the temple of one of their gods called Serapis, whom they believed to be the protector of Alexandria. This temple was surrounded by the houses of the priests and other buildings; and the whole was so vast and so magnificent, that it was counted as one of the wonders of the world.

The rioters, who had shut themselves up in the temple, used to rush out from it now and then, killing some of the Christians who fell in their way, and carrying off others as prisoners. These prisoners were desired to offer sacrifice: if they refused, they were cruelly tortured, and some of them were even crucified. A report of these doings was sent to Theodosius, and he ordered that all the temples of Alexandria should be destroyed. The governor invited the defenders of the temple of Serapis to attend in the market-place, where the emperor's sentence was to be read; and, on hearing what it was, they fled in all directions, so that the soldiers, who were sent to the temple, found nobody there to withstand them.

The idol of Serapis was of such vast size that it reached from one side of the temple to the other. It was adorned with jewels, and was covered with plates of gold and silver; and its worshippers believed that, if it were hurt in any way, heaven and earth would go to wreck. So when a soldier mounted a ladder, and raised his axe against it, the heathens who stood by were in great terror, and even some of the Christians could not help feeling a little uneasiness as to what might follow. But the stout soldier first made a blow which struck off one of the idol's cheeks, and then dashed his axe into one of his knees. Serapis, however, bore all this quietly, and the bystanders began to draw their breath more freely. The soldier worked away manfully, and, after a while, the huge head of the idol came crashing down, when a swarm of rats, which had long made their home in it, rushed forth, and scampered off in all directions. Even the heathens who were in the crowd, on seeing this, began to laugh at their god. The idol was demolished, and the pieces of it were carried into the circus, where a bonfire was made of them; and, in examining the temple, a number of tricks by which the priests had deceived the people were found out, so that many heathens were converted in consequence of having thus seen the vanity of their old religion, and the falsehood of the means by which it was kept up.

Egypt, as you perhaps know, does not depend on rain for its crops, but on the rising of the river Nile, which floods the country at a certain season; and the heathens had long said that the Christians were afraid to destroy the idols of Egypt, lest the gods should punish them by not allowing the water to rise. After the destruction of Serapis, the usual time for the rising of the river came, but there were no signs of it; and the heathens began to be in great delight, and to boast that their gods were going to take vengeance. Some weak Christians, too, began to think that there might be some truth in this, and sent to ask the emperor what should be done. "Better," he said, "that the Nile should not rise at all, than that we should buy the fruitfulness of Egypt by idolatry!" After a while the Nile began to swell; it soon mounted above the usual height of its flood, and the Pagans were now in hopes that Serapis was about to avenge himself by such a deluge as would punish the Christians for the destruction of the idol; but they were again disappointed by seeing the waters sink down to their proper level.

The emperor's orders were executed by the destruction of the Egyptian temples and their idols. But we are told that the bishop of Alexandria saved one image as a curiosity, and lest people should afterwards deny that their forefathers had ever been so foolish as to worship such things. Some say that this image was a figure of Jupiter, the chief of the heathen gods; others say that it was the figure of a monkey; for even monkeys were worshipped by the Egyptians!

NOTES

[ [11][Page 39.]

CHAPTER XVII.

CHURCH GOVERNMENT.

By this time the Gospel had not only been firmly settled as the religion of the great Roman empire, but had made its way into most other countries of the world then known. Here, then, we may stop to take a view of some things connected with the Church; and it will be well, in doing so, to remember what is wisely said by our own Church, in her thirty-fourth article, which is about "the Traditions of the Church" (that is to say, the practices handed down in the Church):—"It is not necessary that traditions and ceremonies be in all places one, and utterly like; for at all times they have been divers" (that is, they have differed in different parts of Christ's Church), "and they may be changed according to the diversities of countries, times, and men's manners, so that nothing be ordained against God's word."

First, then, as to the ministers of the Church. The three orders which had been from the beginning,—bishops, presbyters (or priests), and deacons,[12] were considered to stand by themselves, as the only orders necessary to a church. But early in the third century a number of other orders were introduced, all lower than that of deacons. These were the sub-deacons, who helped the deacons in the care of the poor, and of the property belonging to the church; the acolyths, who lighted the lamps, and assisted in the celebration of the sacraments; the exorcists, who took charge of persons suffering from afflictions resembling the possession by devils which is spoken of in the New Testament; the readers, whose business it was to read the Scriptures in church; and the doorkeepers. All these were considered to belong to the clergy; just as if among ourselves the organist, the clerk, the sexton, the singers, and the bell-ringers of a church were to be reckoned as clergy, and were to be appointed to their offices by a religious ceremony or ordination. But these new orders were not used everywhere, and, as has been said, the persons who were in these orders were not considered to be clergy in the same way as those of the three higher orders which had been ever since the days of the Apostles.

There were also, in the earliest times, women called deaconesses, such as Phœbe, who is mentioned in the Epistle to the Romans (xvi. I). These deaconesses (who were often pious widows) were employed among Christians of their own sex, for such works of mercy and instruction as were not fit for men to do (or, at least, were supposed not to be so according to the manners of the Greeks, and of the other ancient nations). But the order of deaconesses does not seem to have lasted long.

All bishops, as I have said already, are of one order.[13] But in course of time, it was found convenient for the government of the Church, that some of them should be placed higher than others; and the way in which this was settled was very natural. The bishops of a country found it desirable to meet sometimes, that they might consult with each other, as we are told that the Apostles did at Jerusalem (Acts xv.); and in most countries these meetings (which were called synods or councils) came to be regularly held once or twice a year. The chief city of each district was naturally the place of meeting; and the bishop of this city was naturally the chairman or president of the assembly —just as we read that, in the council of the Apostles, St. James, who was bishop of Jerusalem, where it was held, spoke with the greatest authority, after all the rest, and that his "sentence" was given as the judgment of the assembly. These bishops, then, got the title of metropolitans, because each was bishop of the metropolis (or mother-city) of the country in which the council was held; and thus they came to be considered higher than their brethren. And, of course, when any messages or letters were to be sent to the churches of other countries, the metropolitan was the person in whose name it was done.

And, as all this was the natural course of things in every country, it was also natural that the bishops of very great cities should be considered as still higher than the ordinary metropolitans. Thus the bishoprics of Rome, of Alexandria, and of Antioch, which were the three greatest cities of the empire, were regarded as the chief bishoprics, and as superior to all others. Those of Rome and Antioch were both supposed to have been founded by St. Peter, and Alexandria was believed to have been founded by St. Mark, under the direction of St. Peter. Hence it afterwards came to be thought that this was the cause of their greatness; and the bishops of Rome, especially, liked to have this believed, because they could then pretend to claim some sort of especial power, which they said that our Lord had given to St. Peter above the other Apostles, and that St. Peter had left it to his successors. But such claims were quite unfounded, and it is clear that the real reason why these three churches stood higher than others was that they were in the three greatest cities of the whole empire.

But the Church of Rome had many advantages over Alexandria and Antioch, as well as over every other. It was the greatest and the richest of all, so that it could send help to distressed Christians in all countries. No other church of the West had an Apostle to boast of, but Rome could boast of the two great Apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul, who had laboured in it, and had given their blood for the faith in the Gospel in it. Most of the western nations had received their knowledge of the Gospel through the Roman Church, and on this account they looked up with respect to it as a mother. And as people from all parts of the empire were continually going to Rome and returning, the Church of the great capital kept up a constant intercourse with other churches in all quarters. Thus the bishops of Rome were naturally much respected everywhere, and, so long as they did not take too much upon themselves, great regard was paid to their opinion; but when they tried to interfere with the rights of other bishops, or to lord it over other churches, they were firmly withstood, and were desired to keep within their proper bounds, as Stephen of Rome was by St. Cyprian of Carthage.[14]

Another thing must be mentioned as creditable to the Roman Church, and as one which did much to raise the power of its bishops. The heresies which we have read of, all began in the East, where the people were more sharp-witted and restless in their thoughts than those of the West. The Romans, on the other hand, had not the turn of mind which led to these errors, but rather attended to practical things. Hence they were disposed to hold to the faith which had come down to them from their fathers, and to defend it against the new opinions which were brought forward from time to time. This steadiness, then, gave them a great advantage over the Christians of the East, who were frequently changing from one thing to another. It gained for the Roman Church much credit and authority; and when the great Arian controversy arose, the effects of the difference between the eastern and the western character were vastly increased. The Romans (except for a short time, when a bishop named Liberius was won over by the Arians) kept to their old faith. The eastern parties looked to the bishop of Rome as if he had the whole western Church in his hands. They constantly carried their quarrels to him, asking him to give his help, and he was the strongest friend that they could find anywhere. And when the side which Rome had always upheld got the victory at last, the importance of the Roman bishops rose in consequence. But even after all this, if the bishop of Rome tried to meddle with other churches, his right to do so was still denied. Many canons (that is to say, rules of the Church) were made to forbid the carrying of any quarrel for judgment beyond the country in which it began; and, however glad the churches of Africa and of the East were to have the bishop of Rome for a friend, they would never allow him to assume the airs of a master.

And from the time when Constantinople was built in the place of Byzantium, a new great Church arose. Byzantium had been only a common bishopric, and for a time Constantinople was not called anything more than a common bishopric; but in real importance it was very much more, so that even a bishop of Antioch, the third see in the whole Christian world, thought himself advanced when he was made bishop of Constantinople instead. But the second General Council (which as we have seen[15] was held at Constantinople in the year 381) made a canon by which Constantinople was placed next to Rome, "because," as the canon said, "it is a new Rome." This raised the jealousy, not only of Antioch, and still more of Alexandria, at having an upstart bishopric (as they considered it) put over their heads; but it gave great offence to the bishops of Rome, who could not bear such a rivalry as was now threatened, and were besides very angry on account of the reason which was given for placing Constantinople next after Rome. For the council, when it said that Constantinople was to be second among all Churches, because of its being "a new Rome," meant to say that the reason why Rome itself stood first was nothing more than its being the old capital of the empire, whereas the bishops of Rome wished it to be thought that their power was founded on their being the successors of St. Peter.

We shall by-and-by see something of the effects of these jealousies.

NOTES

[ [12][Page 6.]

[ [13][Page 6.]

[ [14][Page 29.]

[ [15][Page 70.]

CHAPTER XVIII.

CHRISTIAN WORSHIP.

PART I.

In the early days of the Gospel, while the Christians were generally poor, and when they were obliged to meet in fear of the heathen, their worship was held in private houses, and sometimes in burial-places under-ground. But after a time buildings were expressly set apart for worship. It has been mentioned that in the years of quiet, between the death of Valerian and the last persecution (A.D. 261-303), these churches were built much more handsomely than before, and were furnished with gold and silver plate and other rich ornaments.[16] And after the conversion of Constantine, they became still finer and costlier. The clergy then wore rich dresses at service, the music was less simple, and the ceremonies were multiplied. Some of the old heathen temples were turned into churches; but temples were not built in a shape very suitable for Christian worship, and the pattern of the new churches was rather taken from the halls of justice, called Basilicas, which were to be found in every large town. These buildings were of an oblong shape, with a broad middle part, and on each side of it an aisle, separated from it by a row of pillars. This lower part of the basilica was used by merchants who met to talk about their business, and by all sorts of loungers who met to tell and hear the news. But at the upper end of the oblong there was a half circle, with its floor raised above the level of the rest; and in the middle of this part the judge of the city sat. Now if you will compare this description with the plan of a church, you will see that the broad middle part of the basilica answers to what is called the body or nave of the church; that the side aisles are alike in each; and that the further part of the basilica, with its raised floor, answers to the chancel of a church; while the holy table, or altar, stands in the place answering to the judge's seat in the basilica. Some of these halls were given up by the emperors to be turned into churches, and the plan of them was found convenient as a pattern in the building of new churches.

On entering a church, the first part was the Porch, in which there were places for the catechumens (that is to say, those who were preparing for baptism); for those who were supposed to be possessed with devils, and who were under the care of the exorcists;[17] and for the lowest kinds of those who were undergoing penance. Beyond this porch were the Beautiful Gates, which opened into the Nave of the church. Just within these gates were those penitents whose time of penance was nearly ended; and the rest of the nave was the place for the faithful—that is to say, for those who were admitted to all the privileges of Christians. At the upper end of the nave, a place called the Choir was railed in for the singers; and then, last of all, came the raised part or chancel, which has been spoken of. This was called the Sanctuary, and was set apart for the clergy only. The women sat in church apart from the men; sometimes they were in the aisles, and sometimes in galleries. Churches generally had a court in front of them or about them, in which were the lodgings of the clergy, and a building for the administration of baptism, called the Baptistery.

In the early times, churches were not adorned with pictures or statues; for Christians were at first afraid to have any ornaments of the kind, lest they should fall into idolatry like the heathen. No such things as images or pictures of our Lord, or of His saints, were known among them; and in their every-day life, instead of the figures of gods, with which the heathens used to adorn their houses, their furniture, their cups, and their seals, the Christians made use of emblems only. Thus, instead of pretending to make a likeness of our Lord's human form, they made a figure of a shepherd carrying a lamb on his shoulders, to signify the Good Shepherd who gave his life for his sheep (St. John x. 11). Other ornaments of the same kind were—a dove, signifying the Holy Ghost; a ship, signifying the Church, the ark of salvation, sailing towards heaven; a fish, which was meant to remind them of their having been born again in the water, at their baptism; a musical instrument called a lyre, to signify Christian joy; and an anchor, the figure of Christian hope. About the year 300, the Council of Elvira, in Spain, made a canon forbidding pictures in church, which shows that the practice had then begun, and was growing; and also that in Spain, at least, it was thought to be dangerous (as indeed it too surely proved to be). And a hundred years later, Epiphanius, a famous bishop of Salamis, in the island of Cyprus, tore a curtain which he found hanging in a church, with a figure of our Lord, or of some saint, painted on it. He declared that such things were altogether unlawful, and desired that the curtain might be used to bury some poor man in, promising to send the church a plain one instead of it.

Christians used to sign themselves with the sign of the cross on many occasions, and figures of the cross were early set up in churches. But crucifixes (which are figures of our Lord on the cross, although ignorant people sometimes call the cross itself a crucifix) were not known until hundreds of years after the time of which we are now speaking.

PART II.

The church-service of Christians was always the same as to its main parts, although there were little differences as to order and the like. Justin Martyr, who lived (as we have seen) about the middle of the second century,[18] describes the service as it was in his time. It began, he says, with readings from the Scriptures; then followed a discourse by the chief clergyman who was present; and there was much singing, of which a part was from the Old Testament psalms, while a part was made up of hymns on Christian subjects. The discourses of the clergy were generally meant to explain the Scripture lessons which had been read. At first these discourses were very plain, and as much as possible like ordinary talk; and from this they got the name of homilies, which properly meant nothing more than conversations. But by degrees they grew to be more like speeches, and people used to flock to them, just as many do now, from a wish to hear something fine, rather than with any notion of taking the preacher's words to heart, and trying to be made better by them. And in the fourth century, when a clergyman preached eloquently, the people used to cheer him on by clapping their hands, waving their handkerchiefs, and shouting out, "Orthodox!" "Thirteenth apostle!" or other such cries. Good men, of course, did not like to be treated in this way, as if they were actors at a theatre; and we often find St. Chrysostom and St. Augustine (of both of whom you will hear by-and-by) objecting to it in their sermons, and begging their hearers not to show their admiration in such foolish and unseemly ways. But it seems that the people went on with it nevertheless; and no doubt there must have been some preachers who were vain enough and silly enough to be pleased with it.

In the time of the Apostles the sacrament of the Lord's Supper was celebrated in the evening, as it had been by our blessed Lord Himself on the night in which He was betrayed. Thus it was, for instance, when the disciples at Troas "came together upon the first day of the week (Sunday) to break bread" (that is, to celebrate the Lord's Supper), and "Paul preached unto them, and continued his speech until midnight" (Acts xx. 7). In the service for this sacrament there was a thanksgiving to God for His bounty in bestowing the fruits of the earth. The congregation offered gifts of bread and wine, and from these the elements which were to be consecrated were taken. They also brought gifts of money, which was used for the relief of the poor, for the support of the clergy, and for other good and religious purposes. Either before or after the sacrament, there was a meal called the Love-feast, for which all the members of the congregation brought provisions, according as they could afford. All of them sat down to it as equals, in token of their being alike in Christ's brotherhood; and it ended with psalm-singing and prayer. But even in very early days (as St. Paul shows us in his first epistle to the Corinthians, xi. 21, 22), there was sad misbehaviour at these meals; and besides this, such religious feasts gave the heathen an excuse for their stories that the Christians met to feed on human flesh and to commit other abominations in secret.[19] For these reasons, after a time, the love-feast was separated from the holy Communion, and at length it was entirely given up.

In the second century, the administration of the Lord's Supper, instead of being in the evening as at first, was added on to the morning service, and then a difference was made between the two parts of the service. At the earlier part of it the catechumens and penitents might be present, but when the Communion office was going to begin, a deacon called out, "Let no one of the catechumens or of the hearers stay." After this none were allowed to remain except those who were entitled to communicate, which all baptized Christians did in those days, unless they were shut out from the Church on account of their misdeeds. The "breaking of bread" in the Lord's Supper was at first daily, as we know from the early chapters of the Acts (ii. 46); but this practice does not seem to have lasted beyond the time when the faith of the Christians was in its first warmth, and it became usual to celebrate the holy Communion on the Lord's day only. When Christianity became the religion of the empire, and there was now no fear of persecution, the earlier part of the service was open not only to catechumens and penitents, but to Jews and heathens; and in the fifth century, when the Church was mostly made up of persons who had been baptized and trained in Christianity from their infancy, the distinction between the "service of the catechumens" and the "service of the faithful" was no longer kept up.

The length of time during which converts were obliged to be catechumens before being admitted to baptism differed in different parts of the Church. In some places it was two years, in some three years; but if during this time they fell sick and appeared to be in danger of death, they were baptized without waiting any longer.

At baptism, those who received it professed their faith, or their sponsors did so for them, and from this began the use of creeds, containing, in few words, the chief articles of the Christian faith. The sign of the cross was made over those who were baptized, "in token that they should not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified, and manfully to fight under His banner against sin, the world, and the devil, and to continue Christ's faithful soldiers and servants unto their life's end." The kiss of peace was given to them in token of their being taken into spiritual brotherhood; white robes were put on them, to signify their cleansing from sin; and a mixture of milk and honey was administered to them, as if to give them a foretaste of their heavenly inheritance, of which the earthly Canaan, "flowing with milk and honey" (Exod. iii. 8, &c.) had been a figure. Other ceremonies were added in the fourth century, such as the use of salt and lights, and an anointing with oil in token of their being "made kings and priests to God" (Rev. i. 6; 1 Pet. ii. 5-9), besides the anointing with a mixture called chrism at confirmation, which had been practised in earlier times.

The usual time of baptism was the season from Easter-eve to Whitsuntide; but in case of danger, persons might be baptized at any time.

PART III.

During the fourth century there was a growth of superstitions and corruptions in the Church. Great numbers of converts came into it, bringing their old heathen notions with them, and not well knowing what they might expect, but with an eager desire to find as much to interest them in the worship and life of Christians as they had found in the ceremonies and shows of their former religion. And in order that such converts might not be altogether disappointed, the Christian teachers of the age allowed a number of things which soon began to have very bad effects; thus, as we are told in the preface to our own Prayer-book, St. Augustine complained that in his time (which was about the year 400) ceremonies "were grown to such a number that the estate of Christian people was in worse case concerning that matter than were the Jews." Among the corruptions which were now growing, although they did not come to a head until afterwards, one was an excess of reverence for saints, which led to the practices of making addresses to them, and of paying superstitious honours to their dead bodies. Another corruption was the improper use of paintings or images, which even in St. Augustine's time had gone so far that, as he owns with sorrow, many of the ignorant were "worshippers of pictures." Another was the fashion of going on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, in which Constantine's mother, Helena, set an example which was soon followed by thousands, who not only fancied that the sight of the places hallowed by the great events of Scripture would kindle or heighten their devotion, but that prayers would be especially pleasing to God if they were offered up in such places. And thus great numbers flocked to Palestine from all quarters, and even from Britain, among other countries; and on their return they carried back with them water from the Jordan, earth from the Redeemer's sepulchre, or what they believed to be chips of the true cross, which was supposed to have been found during Helena's visit to Jerusalem. The mischiefs of this fashion soon showed themselves. St. Basil's brother, Gregory of Nyssa, wrote a little book expressly for the purpose of persuading people not to go on pilgrimage. He said that he himself had been neither better nor worse for a visit which he had paid to the Holy Land; but that such a pilgrimage might even be dangerous for others, because the inhabitants of the country were so vicious that there was more likelihood of getting harm from them than good from the sight of the holy places. "We should rather try," he said, "to go out of the body than to drag it about from place to place." Another very learned man of the same time, St. Jerome, although he had taken up his own abode at Bethlehem, saw so much of the evils which arose from pilgrimages that he gave very earnest warnings against them. "It is no praise," he says, "to have been at Jerusalem, but to have lived religiously at Jerusalem. The sight of the places where our Lord died and rose again are profitable to those who bear their own cross and daily rise again with Him. But for those who say, 'The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord' (Jerem. vii. 4), let them hear the Apostle's words, 'Ye are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you' (1 Cor. iii. 16). The court of heaven is open to approach from Jerusalem and from Britain alike; 'for the kingdom of God is within you'" (St. Luke xvii. 21).

There were, indeed, some persons who rose up to oppose the errors of which I have been speaking. But unhappily they mixed up the truths which they wished to teach with so many errors of their own, and they carried on their opposition so unwisely, that, instead of doing good, they did harm, by setting people against such truth as they taught on account of the error which was joined with it, and of the wrong way which they took of teaching it. By such opposition the growth of superstition was not checked, but advanced and strengthened.

NOTES

[ [16][Page 32.]

[ [17][Page 81.]

[ [18][See Chapter III.]

[ [19][See page 7.]

CHAPTER XIX.