Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part

VII.

The cruel and arbitrary disposition of Constantius, which did not
always require the provocations of guilt and resistance, was
justly exasperated by the tumults of his capital, and the
criminal behavior of a faction, which opposed the authority and
religion of their sovereign. The ordinary punishments of death,
exile, and confiscation, were inflicted with partial vigor; and
the Greeks still revere the holy memory of two clerks, a reader,
and a sub-deacon, who were accused of the murder of Hermogenes,
and beheaded at the gates of Constantinople. By an edict of
Constantius against the Catholics which has not been judged
worthy of a place in the Theodosian code, those who refused to
communicate with the Arian bishops, and particularly with
Macedonius, were deprived of the immunities of ecclesiastics, and
of the rights of Christians; they were compelled to relinquish
the possession of the churches; and were strictly prohibited from
holding their assemblies within the walls of the city. The
execution of this unjust law, in the provinces of Thrace and Asia
Minor, was committed to the zeal of Macedonius; the civil and
military powers were directed to obey his commands; and the
cruelties exercised by this Semi- Arian tyrant in the support of
the _Homoiousion_, exceeded the commission, and disgraced the
reign, of Constantius. The sacraments of the church were
administered to the reluctant victims, who denied the vocation,
and abhorred the principles, of Macedonius. The rites of baptism
were conferred on women and children, who, for that purpose, had
been torn from the arms of their friends and parents; the mouths
of the communicants were held open by a wooden engine, while the
consecrated bread was forced down their throat; the breasts of
tender virgins were either burnt with red-hot egg-shells, or
inhumanly compressed betweens harp and heavy boards. 154 The
Novatians of Constantinople and the adjacent country, by their
firm attachment to the Homoousian standard, deserved to be
confounded with the Catholics themselves. Macedonius was
informed, that a large district of Paphlagonia 155 was almost
entirely inhabited by those sectaries. He resolved either to
convert or to extirpate them; and as he distrusted, on this
occasion, the efficacy of an ecclesiastical mission, he commanded
a body of four thousand legionaries to march against the rebels,
and to reduce the territory of Mantinium under his spiritual
dominion. The Novatian peasants, animated by despair and
religious fury, boldly encountered the invaders of their country;
and though many of the Paphlagonians were slain, the Roman
legions were vanquished by an irregular multitude, armed only
with scythes and axes; and, except a few who escaped by an
ignominious flight, four thousand soldiers were left dead on the
field of battle. The successor of Constantius has expressed, in a
concise but lively manner, some of the theological calamities
which afflicted the empire, and more especially the East, in the
reign of a prince who was the slave of his own passions, and of
those of his eunuchs: “Many were imprisoned, and persecuted, and
driven into exile. Whole troops of those who are styled heretics,
were massacred, particularly at Cyzicus, and at Samosata. In
Paphlagonia, Bithynia, Galatia, and in many other provinces,
towns and villages were laid waste, and utterly destroyed.” 156

154 (return) [ Socrates, l. ii. c. 27, 38. Sozomen, l. iv. c. 21.
The principal assistants of Macedonius, in the work of
persecution, were the two bishops of Nicomedia and Cyzicus, who
were esteemed for their virtues, and especially for their
charity. I cannot forbear reminding the reader, that the
difference between the _Homoousion_ and _Homoiousion_, is almost
invisible to the nicest theological eye.]

155 (return) [ We are ignorant of the precise situation of
Mantinium. In speaking of these four bands of legionaries,
Socrates, Sozomen, and the author of the acts of St. Paul, use
the indefinite terms of, which Nicephorus very properly
translates thousands. Vales. ad Socrat. l. ii. c. 38.]

156 (return) [ Julian. Epist. lii. p. 436, edit. Spanheim.]

While the flames of the Arian controversy consumed the vitals of
the empire, the African provinces were infested by their peculiar
enemies, the savage fanatics, who, under the name of
_Circumcellions_, formed the strength and scandal of the Donatist
party. 157 The severe execution of the laws of Constantine had
excited a spirit of discontent and resistance, the strenuous
efforts of his son Constans, to restore the unity of the church,
exasperated the sentiments of mutual hatred, which had first
occasioned the separation; and the methods of force and
corruption employed by the two Imperial commissioners, Paul and
Macarius, furnished the schismatics with a specious contrast
between the maxims of the apostles and the conduct of their
pretended successors. 158 The peasants who inhabited the villages
of Numidia and Mauritania, were a ferocious race, who had been
imperfectly reduced under the authority of the Roman laws; who
were imperfectly converted to the Christian faith; but who were
actuated by a blind and furious enthusiasm in the cause of their
Donatist teachers. They indignantly supported the exile of their
bishops, the demolition of their churches, and the interruption
of their secret assemblies. The violence of the officers of
justice, who were usually sustained by a military guard, was
sometimes repelled with equal violence; and the blood of some
popular ecclesiastics, which had been shed in the quarrel,
inflamed their rude followers with an eager desire of revenging
the death of these holy martyrs. By their own cruelty and
rashness, the ministers of persecution sometimes provoked their
fate; and the guilt of an accidental tumult precipitated the
criminals into despair and rebellion. Driven from their native
villages, the Donatist peasants assembled in formidable gangs on
the edge of the Getulian desert; and readily exchanged the habits
of labor for a life of idleness and rapine, which was consecrated
by the name of religion, and faintly condemned by the doctors of
the sect. The leaders of the Circumcellions assumed the title of
captains of the saints; their principal weapon, as they were
indifferently provided with swords and spears, was a huge and
weighty club, which they termed an _Israelite;_ and the
well-known sound of “Praise be to God,” which they used as their
cry of war, diffused consternation over the unarmed provinces of
Africa. At first their depredations were colored by the plea of
necessity; but they soon exceeded the measure of subsistence,
indulged without control their intemperance and avarice, burnt
the villages which they had pillaged, and reigned the licentious
tyrants of the open country. The occupations of husbandry, and
the administration of justice, were interrupted; and as the
Circumcellions pretended to restore the primitive equality of
mankind, and to reform the abuses of civil society, they opened a
secure asylum for the slaves and debtors, who flocked in crowds
to their holy standard. When they were not resisted, they usually
contented themselves with plunder, but the slightest opposition
provoked them to acts of violence and murder; and some Catholic
priests, who had imprudently signalized their zeal, were tortured
by the fanatics with the most refined and wanton barbarity. The
spirit of the Circumcellions was not always exerted against their
defenceless enemies; they engaged, and sometimes defeated, the
troops of the province; and in the bloody action of Bagai, they
attacked in the open field, but with unsuccessful valor, an
advanced guard of the Imperial cavalry. The Donatists who were
taken in arms, received, and they soon deserved, the same
treatment which might have been shown to the wild beasts of the
desert. The captives died, without a murmur, either by the sword,
the axe, or the fire; and the measures of retaliation were
multiplied in a rapid proportion, which aggravated the horrors of
rebellion, and excluded the hope of mutual forgiveness. In the
beginning of the present century, the example of the
Circumcellions has been renewed in the persecution, the boldness,
the crimes, and the enthusiasm of the Camisards; and if the
fanatics of Languedoc surpassed those of Numidia, by their
military achievements, the Africans maintained their fierce
independence with more resolution and perseverance. 159

157 (return) [ See Optatus Milevitanus, (particularly iii. 4,)
with the Donatis history, by M. Dupin, and the original pieces at
the end of his edition. The numerous circumstances which Augustin
has mentioned, of the fury of the Circumcellions against others,
and against themselves, have been laboriously collected by
Tillemont, Mém. Eccles. tom. vi. p. 147-165; and he has often,
though without design, exposed injuries which had provoked those
fanatics.]

158 (return) [ It is amusing enough to observe the language of
opposite parties, when they speak of the same men and things.
Gratus, bishop of Carthage, begins the acclamations of an
orthodox synod, “Gratias Deo omnipotenti et Christu Jesu... qui
imperavit religiosissimo Constanti Imperatori, ut votum gereret
unitatis, et mitteret ministros sancti operis _famulos Dei_
Paulum et Macarium.” Monument. Vet. ad Calcem Optati, p. 313.
“Ecce subito,” (says the Donatist author of the Passion of
Marculus), “de Constantis regif tyrannica domo.. pollutum
Macarianæ persecutionis murmur increpuit, et _duabus bestiis_ ad
Africam missis, eodem scilicet Macario et Paulo, execrandum
prorsus ac dirum ecclesiæ certamen indictum est; ut populus
Christianus ad unionem cum traditoribus faciendam, nudatis
militum gladiis et draconum præsentibus signis, et tubarum
vocibus cogeretur.” Monument. p. 304.]

159 (return) [ The Histoire des Camisards, in 3 vols. 12mo.
Villefranche, 1760 may be recommended as accurate and impartial.
It requires some attention to discover the religion of the
author.]

Such disorders are the natural effects of religious tyranny, but
the rage of the Donatists was inflamed by a frenzy of a very
extraordinary kind; and which, if it really prevailed among them
in so extravagant a degree, cannot surely be paralleled in any
country or in any age. Many of these fanatics were possessed with
the horror of life, and the desire of martyrdom; and they deemed
it of little moment by what means, or by what hands, they
perished, if their conduct was sanctified by the intention of
devoting themselves to the glory of the true faith, and the hope
of eternal happiness. 160 Sometimes they rudely disturbed the
festivals, and profaned the temples of Paganism, with the design
of exciting the most zealous of the idolaters to revenge the
insulted honor of their gods. They sometimes forced their way
into the courts of justice, and compelled the affrighted judge to
give orders for their immediate execution. They frequently
stopped travellers on the public highways, and obliged them to
inflict the stroke of martyrdom, by the promise of a reward, if
they consented, and by the threat of instant death, if they
refused to grant so very singular a favor. When they were
disappointed of every other resource, they announced the day on
which, in the presence of their friends and brethren, they should
cast themselves headlong from some lofty rock; and many
precipices were shown, which had acquired fame by the number of
religious suicides. In the actions of these desperate
enthusiasts, who were admired by one party as the martyrs of God,
and abhorred by the other as the victims of Satan, an impartial
philosopher may discover the influence and the last abuse of that
inflexible spirit which was originally derived from the character
and principles of the Jewish nation.

160 (return) [ The Donatist suicides alleged in their
justification the example of Razias, which is related in the 14th
chapter of the second book of the Maccabees.]

The simple narrative of the intestine divisions, which distracted
the peace, and dishonored the triumph, of the church, will
confirm the remark of a Pagan historian, and justify the
complaint of a venerable bishop. The experience of Ammianus had
convinced him, that the enmity of the Christians towards each
other, surpassed the fury of savage beasts against man; 161 and
Gregory Nazianzen most pathetically laments, that the kingdom of
heaven was converted, by discord, into the image of chaos, of a
nocturnal tempest, and of hell itself. 162 The fierce and partial
writers of the times, ascribing _all_ virtue to themselves, and
imputing _all_ guilt to their adversaries, have painted the
battle of the angels and dæmons. Our calmer reason will reject
such pure and perfect monsters of vice or sanctity, and will
impute an equal, or at least an indiscriminate, measure of good
and evil to the hostile sectaries, who assumed and bestowed the
appellations of orthodox and heretics. They had been educated in
the same religion and the same civil society. Their hopes and
fears in the present, or in a future life, were balanced in the
same proportion. On either side, the error might be innocent, the
faith sincere, the practice meritorious or corrupt. Their
passions were excited by similar objects; and they might
alternately abuse the favor of the court, or of the people. The
metaphysical opinions of the Athanasians and the Arians could not
influence their moral character; and they were alike actuated by
the intolerant spirit which has been extracted from the pure and
simple maxims of the gospel.

161 (return) [ Nullus infestas hominibus bestias, ut sunt sibi
ferales plerique Christianorum, expertus. Ammian. xxii. 5.]

162 (return) [ Gregor, Nazianzen, Orav. i. p. 33. See Tillemont,
tom vi. p. 501, qua to edit.]

A modern writer, who, with a just confidence, has prefixed to his
own history the honorable epithets of political and
philosophical, 163 accuses the timid prudence of Montesquieu, for
neglecting to enumerate, among the causes of the decline of the
empire, a law of Constantine, by which the exercise of the Pagan
worship was absolutely suppressed, and a considerable part of his
subjects was left destitute of priests, of temples, and of any
public religion. The zeal of the philosophic historian for the
rights of mankind, has induced him to acquiesce in the ambiguous
testimony of those ecclesiastics, who have too lightly ascribed
to their favorite hero the _merit_ of a general persecution. 164
Instead of alleging this imaginary law, which would have blazed
in the front of the Imperial codes, we may safely appeal to the
original epistle, which Constantine addressed to the followers of
the ancient religion; at a time when he no longer disguised his
conversion, nor dreaded the rivals of his throne. He invites and
exhorts, in the most pressing terms, the subjects of the Roman
empire to imitate the example of their master; but he declares,
that those who still refuse to open their eyes to the celestial
light, may freely enjoy their temples and their fancied gods. A
report, that the ceremonies of paganism were suppressed, is
formally contradicted by the emperor himself, who wisely assigns,
as the principle of his moderation, the invincible force of
habit, of prejudice, and of superstition. 165 Without violating
the sanctity of his promise, without alarming the fears of the
Pagans, the artful monarch advanced, by slow and cautious steps,
to undermine the irregular and decayed fabric of polytheism. The
partial acts of severity which he occasionally exercised, though
they were secretly promoted by a Christian zeal, were colored by
the fairest pretences of justice and the public good; and while
Constantine designed to ruin the foundations, he seemed to reform
the abuses, of the ancient religion. After the example of the
wisest of his predecessors, he condemned, under the most rigorous
penalties, the occult and impious arts of divination; which
excited the vain hopes, and sometimes the criminal attempts, of
those who were discontented with their present condition. An
ignominious silence was imposed on the oracles, which had been
publicly convicted of fraud and falsehood; the effeminate priests
of the Nile were abolished; and Constantine discharged the duties
of a Roman censor, when he gave orders for the demolition of
several temples of Phœnicia; in which every mode of prostitution
was devoutly practised in the face of day, and to the honor of
Venus. 166 The Imperial city of Constantinople was, in some
measure, raised at the expense, and was adorned with the spoils,
of the opulent temples of Greece and Asia; the sacred property
was confiscated; the statues of gods and heroes were transported,
with rude familiarity, among a people who considered them as
objects, not of adoration, but of curiosity; the gold and silver
were restored to circulation; and the magistrates, the bishops,
and the eunuchs, improved the fortunate occasion of gratifying,
at once, their zeal, their avarice, and their resentment. But
these depredations were confined to a small part of the Roman
world; and the provinces had been long since accustomed to endure
the same sacrilegious rapine, from the tyranny of princes and
proconsuls, who could not be suspected of any design to subvert
the established religion. 167

163 (return) [ Histoire Politique et Philosophique des
Etablissemens des Europeens dans les deux Indes, tom. i. p. 9.]

164 (return) [ According to Eusebius, (in Vit. Constantin. l. ii.
c. 45,) the emperor prohibited, both in cities and in the
country, the abominable acts or parts of idolatry. l Socrates (l.
i. c. 17) and Sozomen (l. ii. c. 4, 5) have represented the
conduct of Constantine with a just regard to truth and history;
which has been neglected by Theodoret (l. v. c. 21) and Orosius,
(vii. 28.) Tum deinde (says the latter) primus Constantinus
_justo_ ordine et _pio_ vicem vertit edicto; siquidem statuit
citra ullam hominum cædem, paganorum templa claudi.]

165 (return) [ See Eusebius in Vit. Constantin. l. ii. c. 56, 60.
In the sermon to the assembly of saints, which the emperor
pronounced when he was mature in years and piety, he declares to
the idolaters (c. xii.) that they are permitted to offer
sacrifices, and to exercise every part of their religious
worship.]

166 (return) [ See Eusebius, in Vit. Constantin. l. iii. c.
54-58, and l. iv. c. 23, 25. These acts of authority may be
compared with the suppression of the Bacchanals, and the
demolition of the temple of Isis, by the magistrates of Pagan
Rome.]

167 (return) [ Eusebius (in Vit. Constan. l. iii. c. 54-58) and
Libanius (Orat. pro Templis, p. 9, 10, edit. Gothofred) both
mention the pious sacrilege of Constantine, which they viewed in
very different lights. The latter expressly declares, that “he
made use of the sacred money, but made no alteration in the legal
worship; the temples indeed were impoverished, but the sacred
rites were performed there.” Lardner’s Jewish and Heathen
Testimonies, vol. iv. p. 140.]

The sons of Constantine trod in the footsteps of their father,
with more zeal, and with less discretion. The pretences of rapine
and oppression were insensibly multiplied; 168 every indulgence
was shown to the illegal behavior of the Christians; every doubt
was explained to the disadvantage of Paganism; and the demolition
of the temples was celebrated as one of the auspicious events of
the reign of Constans and Constantius. 169 The name of
Constantius is prefixed to a concise law, which might have
superseded the necessity of any future prohibitions. “It is our
pleasure, that in all places, and in all cities, the temples be
immediately shut, and carefully guarded, that none may have the
power of offending. It is likewise our pleasure, that all our
subjects should abstain from sacrifices. If any one should be
guilty of such an act, let him feel the sword of vengeance, and
after his execution, let his property be confiscated to the
public use. We denounce the same penalties against the governors
of the provinces, if they neglect to punish the criminals.” 170
But there is the strongest reason to believe, that this
formidable edict was either composed without being published, or
was published without being executed. The evidence of facts, and
the monuments which are still extant of brass and marble,
continue to prove the public exercise of the Pagan worship during
the whole reign of the sons of Constantine. In the East, as well
as in the West, in cities, as well as in the country, a great
number of temples were respected, or at least were spared; and
the devout multitude still enjoyed the luxury of sacrifices, of
festivals, and of processions, by the permission, or by the
connivance, of the civil government. About four years after the
supposed date of this bloody edict, Constantius visited the
temples of Rome; and the decency of his behavior is recommended
by a pagan orator as an example worthy of the imitation of
succeeding princes. “That emperor,” says Symmachus, “suffered the
privileges of the vestal virgins to remain inviolate; he bestowed
the sacerdotal dignities on the nobles of Rome, granted the
customary allowance to defray the expenses of the public rites
and sacrifices; and, though he had embraced a different religion,
he never attempted to deprive the empire of the sacred worship of
antiquity.” 171 The senate still presumed to consecrate, by
solemn decrees, the _divine_ memory of their sovereigns; and
Constantine himself was associated, after his death, to those
gods whom he had renounced and insulted during his life. The
title, the ensigns, the prerogatives, of sovereign pontiff, which
had been instituted by Numa, and assumed by Augustus, were
accepted, without hesitation, by seven Christian emperors; who
were invested with a more absolute authority over the religion
which they had deserted, than over that which they professed. 172

168 (return) [ Ammianus (xxii. 4) speaks of some court eunuchs
who were spoliis templorum pasti. Libanius says (Orat. pro Templ.
p. 23) that the emperor often gave away a temple, like a dog, or
a horse, or a slave, or a gold cup; but the devout philosopher
takes care to observe that these sacrilegious favorites very
seldom prospered.]

169 (return) [ See Gothofred. Cod. Theodos. tom. vi. p. 262.
Liban. Orat. Parental c. x. in Fabric. Bibl. Græc. tom. vii. p.
235.]

170 (return) [ Placuit omnibus locis atque urbibus universis
claudi protinus empla, et accessu vetitis omnibus licentiam
delinquendi perditis abnegari. Volumus etiam cunctos a
sacrificiis abstinere. Quod siquis aliquid forte hujusmodi
perpetraverit, gladio sternatur: facultates etiam perempti fisco
decernimus vindicari: et similiter adfligi rectores provinciarum
si facinora vindicare neglexerint. Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. x.
leg. 4. Chronology has discovered some contradiction in the date
of this extravagant law; the only one, perhaps, by which the
negligence of magistrates is punished by death and confiscation.
M. de la Bastie (Mém. de l’Académie, tom. xv. p. 98) conjectures,
with a show of reason, that this was no more than the minutes of
a law, the heads of an intended bill, which were found in
Scriniis Memoriæ among the papers of Constantius, and afterwards
inserted, as a worthy model, in the Theodosian Code.]

171 (return) [ Symmach. Epistol. x. 54.]

172 (return) [ The fourth Dissertation of M. de la Bastie, sur le
Souverain Pontificat des Empereurs Romains, (in the Mém. de
l’Acad. tom. xv. p. 75- 144,) is a very learned and judicious
performance, which explains the state, and prove the toleration,
of Paganism from Constantino to Gratian. The assertion of
Zosimus, that Gratian was the first who refused the pontifical
robe, is confirmed beyond a doubt; and the murmurs of bigotry on
that subject are almost silenced.]

The divisions of Christianity suspended the ruin of _Paganism;_
173 and the holy war against the infidels was less vigorously
prosecuted by princes and bishops, who were more immediately
alarmed by the guilt and danger of domestic rebellion. The
extirpation of _idolatry_ 174 might have been justified by the
established principles of intolerance: but the hostile sects,
which alternately reigned in the Imperial court were mutually
apprehensive of alienating, and perhaps exasperating, the minds
of a powerful, though declining faction. Every motive of
authority and fashion, of interest and reason, now militated on
the side of Christianity; but two or three generations elapsed,
before their victorious influence was universally felt. The
religion which had so long and so lately been established in the
Roman empire was still revered by a numerous people, less
attached indeed to speculative opinion, than to ancient custom.
The honors of the state and army were indifferently bestowed on
all the subjects of Constantine and Constantius; and a
considerable portion of knowledge and wealth and valor was still
engaged in the service of polytheism. The superstition of the
senator and of the peasant, of the poet and the philosopher, was
derived from very different causes, but they met with equal
devotion in the temples of the gods. Their zeal was insensibly
provoked by the insulting triumph of a proscribed sect; and their
hopes were revived by the well-grounded confidence, that the
presumptive heir of the empire, a young and valiant hero, who had
delivered Gaul from the arms of the Barbarians, had secretly
embraced the religion of his ancestors.

173 (return) [ As I have freely anticipated the use of _pagans_
and _paganism_, I shall now trace the singular revolutions of
those celebrated words. 1. in the Doric dialect, so familiar to
the Italians, signifies a fountain; and the rural neighborhood,
which frequented the same fountain, derived the common
appellation of _pagus_ and _pagans_. (Festus sub voce, and
Servius ad Virgil. Georgic. ii. 382.) 2. By an easy extension of
the word, pagan and rural became almost synonymous, (Plin. Hist.
Natur. xxviii. 5;) and the meaner rustics acquired that name,
which has been corrupted into _peasants_ in the modern languages
of Europe. 3. The amazing increase of the military order
introduced the necessity of a correlative term, (Hume’s Essays,
vol. i. p. 555;) and all the _people_ who were not enlisted in
the service of the prince were branded with the contemptuous
epithets of pagans. (Tacit. Hist. iii. 24, 43, 77. Juvenal.
Satir. 16. Tertullian de Pallio, c. 4.) 4. The Christians were
the soldiers of Christ; their adversaries, who refused his
_sacrament_, or military oath of baptism might deserve the
metaphorical name of pagans; and this popular reproach was
introduced as early as the reign of Valentinian (A. D. 365) into
Imperial laws (Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. ii. leg. 18) and
theological writings. 5. Christianity gradually filled the cities
of the empire: the old religion, in the time of Prudentius
(advers. Symmachum, l. i. ad fin.) and Orosius, (in Præfat.
Hist.,) retired and languished in obscure villages; and the word
_pagans_, with its new signification, reverted to its primitive
origin. 6. Since the worship of Jupiter and his family has
expired, the vacant title of pagans has been successively applied
to all the idolaters and polytheists of the old and new world. 7.
The Latin Christians bestowed it, without scruple, on their
mortal enemies, the Mahometans; and the purest _Unitarians_ were
branded with the unjust reproach of idolatry and paganism. See
Gerard Vossius, Etymologicon Linguæ Latinæ, in his works, tom. i.
p. 420; Godefroy’s Commentary on the Theodosian Code, tom. vi. p.
250; and Ducange, Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitat. Glossar.]

174 (return) [ In the pure language of Ionia and Athens were
ancient and familiar words. The former expressed a likeness, an
apparition (Homer. Odys. xi. 601,) a representation, an _image_,
created either by fancy or art. The latter denoted any sort of
_service_ or slavery. The Jews of Egypt, who translated the
Hebrew Scriptures, restrained the use of these words (Exod. xx.
4, 5) to the religious worship of an image. The peculiar idiom of
the Hellenists, or Grecian Jews, has been adopted by the sacred
and ecclesiastical writers and the reproach of _idolatry_ has
stigmatized that visible and abject mode of superstition, which
some sects of Christianity should not hastily impute to the
polytheists of Greece and Rome.]