CHAPTER XI.

ONE JOT THAT PASSED FROM THE LAW.

On that very night the grand, lonely, immovable presbyter disappeared, and in that council was seen no more. But the next day came the emperor's sister Constantia, the widow of Licinius, and Licinius, her son, and Crispus Caesar, the eldest son of Constantine, born of his first wife Minervina, and the emperor's mother, Helena, and all, casting themselves at the feet of Constantine, with tears and supplications besought him that the great, learned, and holy Arius might not be put to death. And they so vehemently urged this petition that Constantine finally seemed to give way thereto, and promised, confirming his promise with an awful oath, that he would spare the life of the presbyter. In truth, he supposed that to execute Arius would be impolitic, because it would forever alienate a very large number of his subjects, and he wished to avoid it, and also to win praises for his clemency. He therefore ordered that Arius be banished to, and closely guarded in, a strong fortress in the wildest portion of Illyricum, until, "in the opinion of the emperor, the Arians of Armenia, Egypt, and Syria, and the Goths, might have become reconciled unto the creed of Nicea."

Crispus Caesar boldly declared that he indorsed the opinions of Arius, and regarded the great heretic with larger love and reverence than any other man had ever gained from him; and the emperor heard this declaration with gloom and hatred, but in ominous silence.

And one by one, under the influence of the threats of Constantine, who still held the bishops together, determined to extort the unanimous consent of all to the acts of the council, under the specious and continuous arguments and forced interpretations of the creed, used by his partisans both lay and clerical, and under the benumbing and stupefying effects of protracted weariness and hopelessness all of them finally subscribed the creed, except Arius and six others--Eusebius of Caesarea, Eusebius of Nicomedia, Theonas, Bishop of Marmarica, Secundus, Bishop of Theuchira, Euzoius the deacon, Achillas the reader, and Saras, a presbyter--against all of whom the emperor made a decree of perpetual banishment, but gave not orders for the enforcement thereof. He was not satisfied; especially he was dissatisfied because he was unable to extort the signatures of the Eusebii; and he still waited, determined in some way to obtain these signatures. Finally, he caused Eusebius of Caesarea to be brought before him, and, assuming an air of great friendliness and concern toward him, he said: "Dear bishop, I did tell thee long ago that our differences about the Arian heresy must never be a cause of quarrel between thee and me. I wish to know what difficulty thou hast (and thy brother) in subscribing the creed?"

And Eusebius answered: "The difficulty truly is not a very large one; it is just the size and shape of an 'iota' of the Greek alphabet."

"If it is as insignificant as that," answered the emperor, "let us quietly remove it and be friends again. Tell me, therefore, what thou dost mean."

"Hast thou here the creed?" asked Eusebius.

Constantine handed the parchment to him, and Eusebius said: "This word [Greek: _homoousios_] is one which Arius condemneth as implying the identity of Father and Son, and my conscience suffereth not me to sign it; but the word [Greek: _homoiousios_], which differeth therefrom only by the one small [Greek: _iota_] therein, expresses exactly what I believe, that Father and Son are of like divine nature."

"And wouldst thou sign it if this letter had been written therein? and thy brother? and the others who are sentenced to banishment?"

"Assuredly!"

"It shall never be said," laughed Constantine, "that I have lost my friend and bishop for such a trifle!"

Then he pointed out the fact that a small "[Greek: _i_]" had been dexterously inserted between "[Greek: _homo_]" and "[Greek: _ousios_]" in both the places where the word occurred in the creed, making it the Arian [Greek: _homoiousios_], instead of the Trinitarian [Greek: _homoousios_].

"Now, bishop, give me thy signature, and communicate this arrangement confidentially unto the others, and let them come and sign also, that the creed may be unanimously signed, and all of these unseemly dissensions banished out of the established Church."

The bishop laughed lightly, but signed the confession of faith, and not long afterward all the others did so, except Arius, who was already far upon the road to the heart of Illyricum.

Constantine had now completed his long-cherished design of subverting the social and political organization of the primitive Church, and establishing a state religion, of which he might be the head in place of Jesus Christ, in whose name he founded a system that was in open rebellion against the Saviour's whole life and teachings.

It remained only for him to have the action of the OEcumenical Council confirmed by some miraculous circumstances, and the imperial ingenuity was fully equal to the occasion; for two members of the council had died at Nicea during its protracted session, and were buried in the church: With a grand and ostentatious procession by torch-light, the sacred roll of parchment was taken to their tomb and left there through the night, the emperor himself having prayed publicly that, if the departed bishops approved the action of the council, they might in some way signify their assent to the decrees and creed thereof; and early the next morning the signatures of the dead bishops were found upon the parchment! Their endorsement was unequivocal: "We, Chrysanthus and Mysonius, fully concurring with the first Holy and OEcumenical Synod, although removed from earth, have signed the volume with our own hands."

Still, the emperor did not dissolve the assembly, and, in order to gain over the personal affection even of those who had most stubbornly resisted his sacrilegious domination of the council, he provided a magnificent banquet for the members thereof, and lavished upon them every mark of love and honor. He lodged the one-eyed, hamstrung old Paphnutius in his own palace, "and often sent for him to hear the story of his persecutions; and now it was remarked how he would throw his arms round the old man, and put his lips to his eyeless socket as if to suck out with his reverential kiss the blessing which, as it were, lurked in the sacred cavity, and stroked down with his imperial hand the frightful wound; how he pressed his legs and arms, and the royal purple, to the paralyzed limbs, and put his own eyeball into the socket." And, because those maimed and tortured members of the council who had been "confessors" enjoyed the reputation of especial sanctity and honor throughout the Church, Constantine used the same disgusting demagogy in his dealings with them all, and fawned upon and flattered them in the name of Jesus, until he believed he had stolen for himself their influence in aiding him to eradicate primitive Christianity out of the East, as he had already done in the West, and so banishing the kingdom of heaven from the face of the earth; and so nourishing in the very bosom of the Church, maintained and governed by imperial authority, the ancient crimes of war, slavery, and mammon-worship, perpetuating the bondage of the people unto the ruling classes, and giving the sanction of religion to class distinctions between men and families, based upon this idolatry, which had been always the curse of human life.

And for a whole year Constantine pursued his purpose quietly, unceasingly, intelligently, by the use of a thousand different means and agencies, to reduce the East to a condition of ecclesiastical serfdom to his authority, and to confirm, popularize, and consolidate his power. But the slow, doubtful, hesitating adoption of the imperial church by the Christians of Armenia, and to a less degree by those of Syria, Egypt, and the Gothic provinces along the Danube, to whom he had sent back their teacher Ulfilas after ordaining him to be a royal bishop, inspired the emperor with misgivings of the future, and with an almost unreasoning jealousy and hatred of Crispus Caesar, his son, who was the favorite of all those regions, and of Licinius, who represented the family of the legitimate sovereign thereof, whom Constantine had dethroned and destroyed.

And the next year the emperor went to Rome to celebrate the Ides of Quintilis, the anniversary of the battle of Lake Regillus, in which, according to the chronicles of pagan Rome, the twin-gods Castor and Pollux had fought in defense of the Eternal City, and brought thereto the welcome news of victory. It was esteemed to be the most sacred ceremony known to the Roman people. During the grand festival, Constantine, believing that after the Council of Nicea his own ecclesiastical system was so powerful and so securely established that he need not longer patronize the heathen, refused to take his proper place in the ancient ritual appropriate to the occasion, and even exhibited his contempt for the empty pageantry of a legion of knights passing in solemn procession, by commenting upon their appearance with that caustic, epigrammatic wit of which few men were more thoroughly master. That large portion of the Romans who yet openly adhered to the ancient religion were insulted and furious at the conduct of the emperor, and there was a fierce riot in the streets, during which stones were hurled at the statues of the emperor, and attempts made to overthrow them.

His wife Fausta, the daughter of the fierce old emperor Maximian, inherited much of her father's cruel nature and imperious ambition. She and Constantine had three sons--Constantine, Constantius, and Constans. She had always envied Crispus Caesar the superiority which his primogenial rights gave to him as the first-born of Constantine over her own sons, and especially had her jealousy been inflamed by the splendid reputation which young Caesar had gained by the skill and courage wherewith he had defeated the vastly superior navy of Licinius in the straits of the Hellespont. Next to the great emperor himself stood Crispus Caesar, not only in official station, but in the love and admiration of the world; and her own sons occupied a far less conspicuous position, which was rendered more galling to her pride by the very prominence derived from the fact that they also were the sons of the emperor. Fausta had remarked with secret joy the open aid and friendship showed by Crispus Caesar for Arius, which fact had aroused the suspicions, as much as the victory of Crispus had excited the jealousy, of the emperor. She failed not, also, to perceive that the devotion of Constantia, the widow of Licinius, and of the Empress Helena, Constantine's mother, to this same Arius, had created a common interest and friendship between Caesar, Helena, and Constantia, while Eusebius of Nicomedia was the trusted friend and adviser of all of them, and the tutor of young Licinius. Fausta herself, the daughter of a pagan and the wife of an atheist, was as nearly devoid of religious sentiment as it was ever possible for a woman to become; and, like her husband, thought that all faith is only superstition, which may be advantageously used by a wise ruler for the government of men; and understanding better than any one else that Constantine regarded the free Arian spirit as the most dangerous element in the political future of the empire, she had cunningly employed every artifice and innuendo that could tend to inflame his personal hatred of these religious dissenters. She affected to regard the riot in the streets of Rome as arising from the machinations of the Arian recusants. Knowing that Constantine had only once visited Rome since the overthrow of Maxentius, and that he disliked the place, she pretended to desire that he should fix his imperial residence at Rome, on the ground that Milan was inconveniently situated, and that both Nicomedia and Constantinople, being in the midst of vast Arian communities, were unsafe for him.

She thought that the rioting in Rome gave her the opportunity to take some decisive step in accomplishing her long-cherished designs, and began more vehemently to press her insidious suggestions upon the gloomy soul of the atheist whom she knew to worship only himself.

"If the stone wherewith these Arian strangers who are in the city marred the head of thy statue on the Via Sacra had smitten thee, thou wouldst have been slain at once."

"But," said the emperor, dryly, passing his hand over his forehead, "I feel not the slightest pain from the blow."

"The undirected mob is powerless against thee," she said; "but this infamous act is but the unguarded expression of a sentiment common to the millions of Armenia, and to large numbers of the Egyptians and Syrians, and to nearly all of the Goths."

"What hath caused thee so much uneasiness from such a trifle as the throwing of a stone or two? The royal blood should despise such visionary fears."

"But the guardsman, Pilus, who hath lately come from Illyricum, informeth me that in the garrison it is commonly reported that the heretic Arius saith that, if Christians could lawfully bear arms, the Arians of Armenia and the Goths alone could seat Licinius upon the throne of his father, and Crispus Caesar upon thine."

"But neither Licinius, nor Crispus, nor the Arians, cherish any such treasonable designs," said Constantine.

"I fear lest thou art lulled into a false security. Ever anxious for thy safety and for thy glory, I have consulted auguries and oracles, and, although these things have no great weight with thee or with me as matters of religious faith, the oracles were always valuable portents to show the drift of popular opinion and desire; and no great statesman can afford to despise them, for that which the multitude long after doth sooner or later come to pass; and all the divinations portend calamity to thee and thy house from the Arians."

"But Licinius is a boy, and Crispus Caesar is quiet, modest, temperate, and unostentatious. He hath neither vices nor ambitions that require him to aspire higher than he already standeth."

"Thou wouldst rather cease to be than cease to rule the empire. Dominion is the dominant passion of thy lofty soul. It is the marked characteristic of thy race. There are other men mastered by similar ambition. The quiet, orderly life of Caesar may blind the eyes of mankind to an ambition that would hesitate at nothing. Thy father was such a temperate youth that he sacrificed all common lusts and appetites to win the sovereignty of Rome, and he would not have been contented long with that if he had lived. Thou didst inherit his nature with his military genius, and thou hast lived moderately in order to gain the sovereignty of the world. Crispus hath inherited from thee the great abilities which enabled him to triumph on the Hellespont and share thy glory, or rather take to himself the greater share. He would not forego the pleasures of youth and the advantages of his great position unless he were constantly meditating upon some great design. Look to thyself, Augustus."

Such insidious counsels she constantly offered to the jealous and cruel emperor, and they bore a deadly fruit. Suddenly the gallant young Caesar was seized, transported to the gloomy fortress of Pola, imprisoned, and then murdered, by order of "the most Christian Emperor Constantine," "the favorite of God," "the defender of the faith," his father! Almost immediately the young Licinius was snatched from the arms of his mother, and put to death by the order of his uncle, Constantine, "the first Christian Emperor of Rome."

"I have fortified my throne against all danger from Crispus Caesar and the Arians," said Constantine unto himself.

"The road to royal favor and to future power is opened for my splendid brood of Caesars," murmured Fausta under her breath.

"The Empress Fausta hath plotted against and murdered my gallant son Crispus, and my grandson Licinius, whom I loved. I will be revenged upon the cruel murderess or die!" was the unuttered comment of the Empress-mother Helena; and from that hour, with the slow, settled, and deliberate hatred of old age and hopeless sorrow, she sought for the life of Fausta.

The world held its breath in horror at these fearful crimes, and hardly did the historians of that age dare to commit any account thereof unto posterity. But it was impossible for the officers of the Illyrian fortress, where Arius was imprisoned, to speak of such atrocities without some knowledge thereof coming to their quiet, intelligent prisoner. When he heard of the assassination of Crispus Caesar and of Licinius, the only comment made by the stern, inflexible, incorruptible old heretic was this: "A council of Christ's Church ought not to be oecumenical and barren; and the first one already beareth terrible but legitimate fruits."

The empress-mother, old Helena, continually and skillfully directed the suspicions of her dark-souled, bloody son against the Empress Fausta herself; and, when she had prepared her vengeance so that she thought it could not fail, she accused Fausta of infidelity to the emperor, with that same Pilus, of the imperial guardsmen. Many craftily prepared circumstances corroborated the infamous and degrading accusation, and quickly and secretly the emperor put his wife to death.

"Small recompense for my great wrong," murmured Helena, "but all that I can take; for the woman's beautiful sons are also mine own grandchildren."

"I have no friend on earth," mused Constantine, "except my mother and Eusebius of Caesarea."

When the gloomy old prisoner of the Illyrian fortress heard of the murder of Fausta, upon this disgraceful charge of adultery with a guardsman, he said: "The grand name of Constantine is soaked with domestic blood and draggled in domestic filth. The royal oecumenical council beareth such strange and deadly fruit."

The officers of the fortress were held to be accountable with their lives for the heretic's safe-keeping, and vigilant spies reported to Constantine almost every word he uttered, and stole and transmitted to the emperor almost every line he wrote, and the old man's gloomy comments upon the condition of the Church, and his strange and seemingly inspired interpretations of prophecy, which he supposed to relate to Constantine and his new city of Constantinople, built upon seven hills, above the narrow straits whereto the commerce of the world resorted, doubtless aided Fausta's and Helena's conspiracies to lead him into the commission of those horrible crimes which shocked the moral sense of the world, and justified the pagans in breathless wonder as to what new atrocities would follow the legal establishment of the Christian faith--atrocities that perhaps afterward drove Julian the Apostate to struggle for the restoration of paganism. And doubtless Arius himself would long ago have perished, if the emperor had not hoped to obtain from his manuscripts and prophecies warning of every coming danger.