Chapter 11

THE LATER EMPIRE: CHRISTIANITY IN THE ROMAN WORLD, 180-395 A.D.

74. THE "SOLDIER EMPERORS," 180-284 A.D.

THE LATER EMPIRE, 180-395 A.D.

The period called the Later Empire covers the two hundred and fifteen years from the accession of Commodus to the final division of the Roman world at the death of Theodosius. It formed, in general, a period of decline. The very existence of the empire was threatened, both from within and from without. The armies on the frontiers often set up their favorite leaders as contestants for the throne, thus provoking civil war. Ambitious governors of distant provinces sometimes revolted against a weak or unpopular emperor and tried to establish independent states. The Germans took advantage of the unsettled condition of affairs to make constant inroads. About the middle of the third century it became necessary to surrender to them the great province of Dacia, which Trajan had won. [1] A serious danger also appeared in the distant East. Here the Persians, having overcome the Parthians, [2] endeavored to recover from Roman hands the Asiatic provinces which had once belonged to the old Persian realm. Though the Persians failed to make any permanent conquest of Roman territory, their constant attacks weakened the empire at the very time when the northern barbarians had again become a menace.

"IMPERIAL PHANTOMS"

The rulers who occupied the throne during the first half of this troubled period are commonly known as the "Soldier Emperors," because so many of them owed their position to the swords of the legionaries. Emperor after emperor followed in quick succession, to enjoy a brief reign and then to perish in some sudden insurrection. Within a single year (237-238 A.D.) six rulers were chosen, worshiped, and then murdered by their troops "You little know," said one of these imperial phantoms, "what a poor thing it is to be an emperor." [3]

POLITICAL SITUATION IN 284 A.D.

The close of the third century thus found the empire engaged in a struggle for existence. No part of the Roman world had escaped the ravages of war. The fortification of the capital city by the emperor Aurelian was itself a testimony to the altered condition of affairs. The situation was desperate, yet not hopeless. Under an able ruler, such as Aurelian, Rome proved to be still strong enough to repel her foes. It was the work of the even more capable Diocletian to establish the empire on so solid a foundation that it endured with almost undiminished strength for another hundred years.

75. THE "ABSOLUTE EMPERORS," 284-395 A.D.

REIGN OF DIOCLETIAN, 284-305 A.D.

Diocletian, whose reign is one of the most illustrious in Roman history, entered the army as a common soldier, rose to high command, and fought his way to the throne. A strong, ambitious man, Diocletian resolutely set himself to the task of remaking the Roman government. His success in this undertaking entitles him to rank, as a statesman and administrator, with Augustus.

WEAKNESSES IN THE IMPERIAL SYSTEM

The reforms of Diocletian were meant to remedy those weaknesses in the imperial system disclosed by the disasters of the preceding century. In the first place, experience showed that the empire was unwieldy. There were the distant frontiers on the Rhine, Danube, and Euphrates to be guarded; there were all the provinces to be governed. A single ruler, however able and energetic, had more than he could do. In the second place, the succession to the imperial throne was uncertain. Now an emperor named his successor, now the Senate elected him, and now the swords of the legionaries raised him to the purple. Such an unsettled state of affairs constantly invited those struggles between rival pretenders which had so nearly brought the empire to destruction.

DIOCLETIAN'S REFORMS

Diocletian began his reforms by adopting a scheme for "partnership emperors." He shared the Roman world with a trusted lieutenant named Maximian. Each was to be an Augustus, with all the honors of an emperor. Diocletian ruled the East; Maximian ruled the West. Further partnership soon seemed advisable, and so each _Augustus_ chose a younger associate, or _Caesar_, to aid him in the government and at his death or abdication to become his heir. Diocletian also remodeled the provincial system. The entire empire, including Italy, was divided into more than one hundred provinces. They were grouped into thirteen dioceses and these, in turn, into four prefectures. [4] This reform much lessened the authority of the provincial governor, who now ruled over a small district and had to obey the vicar of his diocese.

THE NEW ABSOLUTISM

The emperors, from Diocletian onward, were autocrats. They bore the proud title of _Dominus_ ("Lord"). They were treated as gods. Everything that touched their persons was sacred. They wore a diadem of pearls and gorgeous robes of silk and gold, like those of Asiatic monarchs. They filled their palaces with a crowd of fawning, flattering nobles, and busied themselves with an endless round of stately and impressive ceremonials. Hitherto a Roman emperor had been an _imperator_, [5] the head of an army. Now he became a king, to be greeted, not with the old military salute, but with the bent knee and the prostrate form of adoration. Such pomps and vanities, which former Romans would have thought degrading, helped to inspire reverence among the servile subjects of a later age. If it was the aim of Augustus to disguise, it was the aim of Diocletian to display, the unbounded power of a Roman emperor.

CONSTANTINE, SOLE EMPEROR, 324-337 A.D.

There can be little doubt that Diocletian's reforms helped to prolong the existence of the empire. In one respect, however, they must be pronounced a failure. They did not end the disputes about the succession. Only two years after the abdication of Diocletian there were six rival pretenders for the title of _Augustus_. Their dreary struggles continued, until at length two emperors were left--Constantine in the West, Licinius in the East. After a few years of joint rule another civil war made Constantine supreme. The Roman world again had a single master.

REIGN OF CONSTANTINE

Constantine was an able general and a wise statesman. Two events of lasting importance have made his reign memorable. It was Constantine who recognized Christianity as one of the religions of the empire and thus paved the way for the triumph of that faith over the ancient paganism. His work in this connection will be discussed presently. It was Constantine, also, who established a new capital for the Roman world at Byzantium [6] on the Bosporus. He christened it "New Rome," but it soon took the emperor's name as Constantinople, the "City of Constantine." [7]

FOUNDATION OF CONSTANTINOPLE

Several good reasons could be urged for the removal of the world's metropolis from the Tiber to the Bosporus. The Roman Empire was ceasing to be one empire. Constantine wanted a great city for the eastern half to balance Rome in the western half. Again, Constantinople, far more than Rome, was the military center of the empire. Rome lay too far from the vulnerable frontiers; Constantinople occupied a position about equidistant from the Germans on the lower Danube and the Persians on the Euphrates. Finally, Constantine believed that Christianity, which he wished to become the prevailing religion, would encounter less opposition and criticism in his new city than at Rome, with its pagan atmosphere and traditions. Constantinople was to be not simply a new seat of government but also distinctively a Christian capital. Such it remained for more than eleven centuries. [8]

AFTER CONSTANTINE, 337-395 A.D.

After the death of Constantine the Roman world again entered on a period of disorder. The inroads of the Germans across the Danube and the Rhine threatened the European provinces of the empire with dissolution. The outlook in the Asiatic provinces, overrun by the Persians, was no less gloomy. Meanwhile the eastern and western halves of the empire tended more and more to grow apart. The separation between the two had become well marked by the close of the fourth century. After the death of the emperor Theodosius (395 A.D.) there came to be in fact, if not in name, a Roman Empire in the East and a Roman Empire in the West.

POLITICAL SITUATION IN 395 A.D.

More than four hundred years had now elapsed since the battle of Actium made Octavian supreme in the Roman world. If we except the abandonment of Trajan's conquests beyond the Danube and the Euphrates, [9] no part of the huge empire had as yet succumbed to its enemies. The subject peoples, during these four centuries, had not tried to overthrow the empire or to withdraw from its protection. The Roman state, men believed, would endure forever. Yet the times were drawing nigh when the old order of things was to be broken up; when barbarian invaders were to seize the fairest provinces as their own; and when new kingdoms, ruled by men of Germanic speech, were to arise in lands that once obeyed Rome.

76. ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS IN THE THIRD AND FOURTH CENTURIES

THE "FALL" OF ROME

Rome, it has been said, was not built in a day; the rule of Rome was not destroyed in a day. When we speak of the "fall" of Rome, we have in mind, not a violent catastrophe which suddenly plunged the civilized world into ruin, but rather the slow and gradual decay of ancient society throughout the basin of the Mediterranean. This decay set in long before the Germans and the Persians became a serious danger to the empire. It would have continued, doubtless, had there been no Germans and Persians to break through the frontiers and destroy. The truth seems to be that, during the third and fourth centuries of our era, classical civilization, like an overtrained athlete, had grown "stale."

DEPOPULATION DUE TO THE SLAVE SYSTEM

It is not possible to set forth all the forces which century after century had been sapping the strength of the state. The most obvious element of weakness was the want of men to fill the armies and to cultivate the fields. The slave system seems to have been partly responsible for this depopulation. The peasant on his little homestead could not compete with the wealthy noble whose vast estates were worked by gangs of slaves. The artisan could not support himself and his family on the pittance that kept his slave competitor alive. Peasants and artisans gradually drifted into the cities, where the public distributions of grain, wine, and oil assured them of a living with little expense and almost without exertion. In both Italy and the provinces there was a serious decline in the number of free farmers and free workingmen.

"RACE SUICIDE"

But slavery was not the only cause of depopulation. There was a great deal of what has been called "race suicide" in the old Roman world. Well-to-do people, who could easily support large families, often refused to be burdened with them. Childlessness, however, was not confined to the wealthy, since the poorer classes, crowded in the huge lodging houses of the cities, had no real family life. Roman emperors, who saw how difficult it was to get a sufficient number of recruits for the army, and how whole districts were going to waste for lack of people to cultivate them, tried to repopulate the empire by force of law. They imposed penalties for the childlessness and celibacy of the rich, and founded institutions for the rearing of children, that the poor might not fear to raise large families. Such measures were scarcely successful. "Race suicide" continued during pagan times and even during the Christian age.

LOSS OF REVENUES

The next most obvious element of weakness was the shrinkage of the revenues. The empire suffered from want of money, as well as from want of men. To meet the heavy cost of the luxurious court, to pay the salaries of the swarms of public officials, to support the idle populace in the great cities required a vast annual income. But just when public expenditures were rising by leaps and bounds, it became harder and harder to secure sufficient revenue. Smaller numbers meant fewer taxpayers. Fewer taxpayers meant a heavier burden on those who survived to pay.

ECONOMIC RUIN

These two forces--the decline in population and the decline in wealth-- worked together to produce economic ruin. It is no wonder, therefore, that in province after province large tracts of land went out of cultivation, that the towns decayed, and that commerce and manufactures suffered an appalling decline. "Hard times" settled on the Roman world.

INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY

Doubtless still other forces were at work to weaken the state and make it incapable of further resistance to the barbarians. Among such forces we must reckon Christianity itself. By the close of the fourth century Christianity had become the religion of the empire. The new faith, as we shall soon see, helped, not to support, but rather to undermine, pagan society.

77. THE PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIANITY

DECLINE OF PAGANISM

Several centuries before the rise of Christianity many Greek thinkers began to feel a growing dissatisfaction with the crude faith that had come down to them from prehistoric times. They found it more and more difficult to believe in the Olympian deities, who were fashioned like themselves and had all the faults of mortal men. [10] An adulterous Zeus, a bloodthirsty Ares, and a scolding Hera, as Homer represents them, were hardly divinities that a cultured Greek could love and worship. For educated Romans, also, the rites and ceremonies of the ancient religion came gradually to lose their meaning. The worship of the Roman gods had never appealed to the emotions. Now it tended to pass into the mere mechanical repetition of prayers and sacrifices. Even the worship of the Caesars, [11] which did much to hold the empire together, failed to satisfy the spiritual wants of mankind. It made no appeal to the moral nature; it brought no message, either of fear or hope, about a future world and a life beyond the grave.

STOICISM

During these centuries a system of Greek philosophy, called Stoicism, gained many adherents among the Romans. Any one who will read the Stoic writings, such as those of the noble emperor, Marcus Aurelius, [12] will see how nearly Christian was the Stoic faith. It urged men to forgive injuries--to "bear and forbear." It preached the brotherhood of man. It expressed a humble and unfaltering reliance on a divine Providence. To many persons of refinement Stoicism became a real religion. But since Stoic philosophy could reach and influence only the educated classes, it could not become a religion for all sorts and conditions of men.

THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES

Many Greeks found a partial satisfaction of their religious longings in secret rites called mysteries. Of these the most important grew up at Eleusis, [13] a little Attic town thirteen miles from Athens. They were connected with the worship of Demeter, goddess of vegetation and of the life of nature. The celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries came in September and lasted nine days. When the candidates for admission to the secret rites were worked up to a state of religious excitement, they entered a brilliantly lighted hall and witnessed a passion play dealing with the legend of Demeter. They seem to have had no direct moral instruction but saw, instead, living pictures and pantomimes which represented the life beyond the grave and held out to them the promise of a blessed lot in another world. As an Athenian orator said, "Those who have shared this initiation possess sweeter hopes about death and about the whole of life." [14]

INFLUENCE OF THE MYSTERIES

The Eleusinian mysteries, though unknown in the Homeric Age, were already popular before the epoch of the Persian wars. They became a Panhellenic festival open to all Greeks, women as well as men, slaves as well as freemen. The privilege of membership was later extended to Romans. During the first centuries of our era the influence of the mysteries increased, as faith in the Olympian religion declined. They formed one of the last strongholds of paganism and endured till the triumph of Christianity in the Roman world.

ORIENTAL RELIGIONS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE

The Asiatic conquests of Alexander, followed in later centuries by the extension of Roman rule over the eastern coasts of the Mediterranean, brought the classical peoples into contact with new religions which had arisen in the Orient. Slaves, soldiers, traders, and travelers carried the eastern faiths to the West, where they speedily won many followers. Even before the downfall of the republic the deities of Asia Minor, Egypt, and Persia had found a home at Rome. Under the empire many men and women were attracted to their worship.

MITHRA

Perhaps the most remarkable of the Asiatic religions was Mithraism. Mithra first appears as a Persian sun god, the leader of Ahuramazda's hosts in the ceaseless struggle against the forces of darkness and evil. [15] As a god of light Mithra was also a god of truth and purity. His worship, spreading over the length and breadth of the Roman Empire, became the noblest of all pagan faiths. Men saw in Mithra a Lord and Giver of Life, who protected the weak and miserable, cleansed the sinner, conquered death, and procured for his faithful followers the crown of immortality.

THE WORSHIP OF MITHRA

The Mithraic worship took the form of a mystery with seven grades, or degrees, through which candidates passed by ordeals of initiation. The rites included a kind of baptism with holy water, a sacrificial meal of bread and wine, and daily litanies to the sun. Mithra was represented as a youthful hero miraculously born from a rock at the dawn of day; for this reason his worship was always conducted underground in natural or artificial caves, or in cellars. At the back of one of these subterranean temples would be often a picture of Mithra slaying a bull, and an inscription: "To the Unconquerable Sun, to Mithra." [16]

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS

The new Oriental religions all appealed to the emotions. They helped to satisfy the spiritual wants of men and women, by dwelling on the need of purification from sin and by holding forth the prospect of a happier life beyond the tomb. It is not strange, therefore, that they penetrated every province of the Roman Empire and flourished as late as the fourth century of our era. Christianity had no more dangerous antagonists than the followers of Mithra and other eastern divinities.

78. RISE AND SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY

CHRISTIANITY AMONG THE JEWS

Christianity rose among the Jews, for Jesus was a Jew and his disciples were Jews. At the time of the death of Jesus [17] his immediate followers numbered scarcely a Christianity hundred persons. The catastrophe of the crucifixion struck them with sorrow and dismay. When, however, the disciples came to believe in the resurrection of their master, a wonderful impetus was given to the growth of the new religion. They now asserted that Jesus was the true Messiah, or Christ, who by rising from the dead had sealed the truth of his teachings. For several years after the crucifixion, the disciples remained at Jerusalem, preaching and making converts. The new doctrines met so much opposition on the part of Jewish leaders in the capital city that the followers of Jesus withdrew to Samaria, Damascus, and Antioch. In all these places there were large Jewish communities, among whom Peter and his fellow apostles labored zealously.

MISSIONARY LABORS OF PAUL

Up to this time the new faith had been spread only among the Jews. The first Christians did not neglect to keep up all the customs of the Jewish religion. It was even doubted for a while whether any but Jews could properly be allowed within the Christian fold. A new convert, Saul of Tarsus, afterwards the Apostle Paul, did most to admit the Gentiles, or pagans, to the privileges of the new religion. Though born a Jew, Paul had been trained in the schools of Tarsus, a city of Asia Minor which was a great center of Greek learning. He possessed a knowledge of Greek philosophy, and particularly of Stoicism. This broad education helped to make him an acceptable missionary to Greek-speaking peoples. During more than thirty years of unceasing activity Paul established churches in Asia Minor, Greece, Macedonia, and Italy. To many of these churches he wrote the letters (epistles), which have found a place in the New Testament. So large a part of the doctrines of Christianity has been derived from Paul's writings that we may well speak of him as the second founder of the Christian faith.

CHRISTIANITY AMONG THE GENTILES

Christianity advanced with marvelous rapidity over the Roman world. At the close of the first century there were Christians everywhere in Asia Minor. The second century saw the establishment of flourishing churches in almost every province of the empire. A hundred years later there were missionaries along the Rhine, on the Danube frontier, and in distant Britain. "We are but of yesterday," says a Christian writer, with pardonable exaggeration, "yet we have filled all your places of resort-- cities, islands, fortresses, towns, markets, the camp itself, the tribes, town councils, the palace, the senate, and the forum, We have left to you only the temples of your gods." [18]

CONDITIONS FAVORING THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY

Certain circumstances contributed to the success of this gigantic missionary enterprise. Alexander's conquests in the East and those of Rome in the West had done much to remove the barriers to intercourse between nations. The spread of Greek and Latin as the common languages of the Mediterranean world furnished a medium in which Christian speakers and writers could be easily understood. The scattering of the Jews after the destruction of Jerusalem [19] provided the Christians with an audience in many cities of the empire. The early missionaries, such as Paul himself, were often Roman citizens who enjoyed the protection of the Roman law and profited by the ease of travel which the imperial rule had made possible. At no other period in ancient history were conditions so favorable for the rapid spread of a new religion.

ORGANIZATION OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY

While Christianity was conquering the world, the believers in its doctrines were grouping themselves into communities or churches. Every city had a congregation of Christian worshipers. [20] They met, not in synagogues as did the Jews, but in private houses, where they sang hymns, listened to readings from the Holy Scriptures, and partook of a sacrificial meal in memory of the last supper of Jesus with his disciples. Certain officers called presbyters, [21] or elders, were chosen to conduct the services and instruct the converts. The chief presbyter received the name of "overseer," or bishop. [22] Each church had also one or more deacons, who visited the sick and relieved the wants of the poor. Every Christian community thus formed a little brotherhood of earnest men and women, united by common beliefs and common hopes.

79. THE PERSECUTIONS

HOSTILITY TOWARD THE CHRISTIANS

The new religion from the start met popular disapproval. The early Christians, who tried to keep themselves free from idolatry, were regarded as very unsociable persons. They never appeared at public feasts and entertainments. They would not join in the amusements of the circus or the amphitheater. They refused to send their children to the schools. The ordinary citizen could not understand such people. It is not surprising, therefore, that they gained the evil name of "haters of mankind."

SUPERSTITIOUS FEAR OF THE CHRISTIANS

If the multitude despised the Christians, they sometimes feared them as well. Strange stories circulated about the secret meetings of the Christians, who at their sacrificial meal were declared to feast on children. The Christians, too, were often looked upon as magicians who caused all sorts of disasters. It was not difficult to excite the vicious crowds of the larger cities to riots and disorders, in which many followers of the new religion lost their lives.

ANTAGONISM OF THE ROMAN GOVERNMENT

Such outbursts of mob hatred were only occasional. There would have been no organized, persistent attack, if the imperial government had not taken a hand. Rome, which had treated so many other foreign faiths with careless indifference or even with favor, which had tolerated the Jews and granted to them special privileges of worship, made a deliberate effort to crush Christianity.

ATTITUDE OF THE CHRISTIANS TOWARD PAGANISM

Rome entered on the persecutions because it saw in Christianity that which threatened its own existence. The Christians declined to support the state religion; they even condemned it unsparingly as sinful and idolatrous. The Christians, moreover, would not worship the _genius_, or guardian spirit of the emperor, and would not burn incense before his statue, which stood in every town. Such a refusal to take what was really an oath of allegiance was regarded as an act of rebellion. These feelings of hostility to the Christians were strengthened by their unwillingness to serve in the army and to swear by the pagan gods in courts of law. In short, the members of this new sect must have appeared very unruly subjects who, if allowed to become numerous enough, would endanger the security of the government.

DIOCLETIAN'S PERSECUTION, 303-311 A.D.

As early as the beginning of the second century Roman officials began to search out and punish Christians, wherever they were found. During the third century the entire power of the imperial government was directed against this outlawed sect. The persecution which began under Diocletian was the last and most severe. With some interruptions it continued for eight years. Only Gaul and Britain seem to have escaped its ravages. The government began by burning the holy books of the Christians, by destroying their churches, and by taking away their property. Members of the hated faith lost their privileges as full Roman citizens. Then sterner measures followed. The prisons were crowded with Christians. Those who refused to recant and sacrifice to the emperor were thrown to wild animals in the arena, stretched on the rack, or burned over a slow fire. Every refinement of torture was practiced. Paganism, fighting for its existence, left no means untried to root out a sect both despised and feared.

THE MARTYRS

The Christians joyfully suffered for their religion. They welcomed the torture and death which would gain for them a heavenly crown. Those who perished were called martyrs, that is, "witnesses." Even now the festal day of a martyr is the day of his death.

80. TRIUMPH OF CHRISTIANITY

CHRISTIANITY BECOMES A TOLERATED RELIGION

Diocletian's persecution, which continued for several years after his abdication, came to an end in 311 A.D. In that year Galerius, the ruler in the East, published an edict which permitted the Christians to rebuild their churches and worship undisturbed. It remained for the emperor Constantine to take the next significant step. In 313 A.D. Constantine and his colleague, Licinius, issued the Edict of Milan, which proclaimed for the first time in history the noble principle of religious toleration. It gave absolute freedom to every man to choose and follow the religion which he deemed best suited to his needs. This edict placed the Christian faith on an equality with paganism.

CONSTANTINE'S CONVERSION

The conversion of Constantine is one of the most important events in ancient history. A Roman emperor, himself a god to the subjects of Rome, became the worshiper of a crucified provincial of his empire. Constantine favored the Christians throughput his reign. He surrounded himself with Christian bishops, freed the clergy from taxation, and spent large sums in building churches. One of his laws abolished the use of the cross as an instrument of punishment. Another enactment required that magistrates, city people, and artisans were to rest on Sunday. This was the first "Sunday law." [23]

CHURCH COUNCIL AT NICAEA, 325 A.D.

Significant of the emperor's attitude toward Christianity was his action in summoning all the bishops in the different provinces to a gathering at Nicaea in Asia Minor. It was the first general council of the Church. The principal work of the Council of Nicaea was the settlement of a great dispute which had arisen over the nature of Christ. Some theologians headed by Arius, a priest of Alexandria, maintained that Christ the Son, having been created by God the Father, was necessarily inferior to him Athanasius, another Alexandrian priest, opposed this view and held that Christ was not a created being, but was in all ways equal to God. The Council accepted the arguments of Athanasius, condemned Arius as a heretic, and framed the Nicene Creed, which is still the accepted summary of Christian doctrine. Though thrust out of the Church, Arianism lived to flourish anew among the Germanic tribes, of which the majority were converted to Christianity by Arian missionaries.

CHRISTIANITY BECOMES THE STATE RELIGION UNDER THEODOSIUS, 379-395 A.D.

The recognition given to Christianity by Constantine helped immensely to spread the new faith. The emperor Theodosius, whose services to the church won him the title of "the Great," made Christianity the state religion. Sacrifices to the pagan gods were forbidden, the temples were closed, and their property was taken away. Those strongholds of the old paganism, the Delphic oracle, the Olympian games, and the Eleusinian mysteries, were abolished. Even the private worship of the household Lares and Penates [24] was prohibited. Though paganism lingered for a century or more in the country districts, it became extinct as a state religion by the end of the fourth century.

81. CHRISTIAN INFLUENCE ON SOCIETY

MORAL TEACHINGS OF CHRISTIANITY

The new religion certainly helped to soften and refine manners by the stress which it laid upon such "Christian" virtues as humility, tenderness, and gentleness. By dwelling on the sanctity of human life, Christianity did its best to repress the very common practice of suicide as well as the frightful evil of infanticide. [25] It set its face sternly against the obscenities of the theater and the cruelties of the gladiatorial shows. [26] In these and other respects Christianity had much to do with the improvement of ancient morals.

SOCIAL TEACHINGS OF CHRISTIANITY

Perhaps even more original contributions of Christianity to civilization lay in its social teachings. The belief in the fatherhood of God implied a corresponding belief in the brotherhood of man. This doctrine of the equality of men had been expressed before by ancient philosophers, but Christianity translated the precept into practice. In this way it helped to improve the condition of slaves and, by favoring emancipation, even tended to decrease slavery. [27] Christianity also laid much emphasis on the virtue of charity and the duty of supporting all institutions which aimed to relieve the lot of the poor, the sick, and the downtrodden.

CHRISTIANITY AND THE GERMANS

At the close of the fourth century the Germanic tribes living nearest the frontiers had been visited by missionaries and had become converts to Christianity. The fact that both Romans and Germans were Christians tended to lessen the terrors of the invasions and to bring about a peaceful fusion of the conquerors and the conquered.

STUDIES

1. On an outline map indicate the territories of the Roman Empire and their division, 395 A D.

2. What is the date of the accession of the emperor Commodus? of the accession of Diocletian? of the death of Theodosius? of the Edict of Milan? of the Council of Nicaea?

3. What elements of weakness in the imperial system had been disclosed during the century 180-284 A.D.?

4. Explain Diocletian's plan of "partnership emperors."

5. Define the terms _absolutism_ and _centralization_. Give an example of a European country under a centralized administration; of a European country under an absolute government.

6. What are the advantages of local self-government over a centralized government?

7. "The emperor of the first century was a _Prince_, that is, 'first citizen'; the emperor of the fourth century was a _Sultan_." Comment on this statement.

8. What arguments might have been made for and against the removal of the capital to Constantinople?

9. Enumerate the causes of the decline of population in imperial times.

10. Show how an unwise system of taxation may work great economic injury.

11. Give reasons for the decline of Greek and Roman paganism.

12. Why should Mithraism have proved "the most formidable foe which Christianity had to overcome"?

13. Were any of the ancient religions missionary faiths?

14. When and where was Jesus born? Who was king of Judea at the time? Were the Jews independent of Rome during the lifetime of Jesus?

15. Locate on the map, facing page 230, the three divisions of Palestine at the time of Christ.

16. To what cities of Asia Minor did Paul write his epistles, or letters? To what other cities in the Roman Empire?

17. What was the original meaning of the words "presbyter," "bishop," and "deacon"?

18. What is meant by calling the Church an episcopal organization?

19. How can you explain the persecution of the Christians by an emperor so great and good as Marcus Aurelius?

20. What is the meaning of the word "martyr"?

21. "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church." Explain.

22. Describe the _Labarum_ (illustration, page 235).

23. What reasons suggest themselves as helping to explain the conversion of the civilized world to Christianity?

FOOTNOTES

[1] See page 200.

[2] See pages 184, 194.

[3] Vopiscus, _Saturninus_, 10.

[4] The number and arrangement of these divisions varied somewhat during the fourth century. See the map, between pages 222-223, for the system as it existed about 395 A.D.

[5] See page 186.

[6] See page 88.

[7] See the map, page 340.

[8] Until the capture of the city by the Ottoman Turks in 1453 A.D.

[9] See pages 200, 219.

[10] See page 77.

[11] See page 196.

[12] See page 201.

[13] See the map, page 107.

[14] Isocrates, _Panegyricus_, 29.

[15] See page 54.

[16] _Soli Invicto Mithrae._ An interesting survival of Mithra worship is the date of our festival of Christmas. The 25th of December was the day of the great annual celebration in memory of the Persian deity. In 274 A.D. the emperor Aurelian raised a gorgeous temple to the sun god in the Campus Martius, dedicating it on the 25th of December, "the birthday of the Unconquerable Sun." After the triumph of Christianity the day was still honored, but henceforth as the anniversary of the birth of Christ.

[17] The exact date of the crucifixion is unknown. It took place during the reign of Tiberius, when Pontius Pilatus was procurator of Judea.

[18] Tertullian, _Apology_, 37.

[19] See page 199, note 1.

[20] The meeting was called _ecclesia_ from the Greek word for "popular assembly." Hence comes our word "ecclesiastical."

[21] Whence the word "priest."

[22] The word "bishop" comes from the Greek _episkopos_ and means, literally, an "overseer."

[23] It is highly doubtful, however, whether this legislation had any reference to Christianity. More probably, Constantine was only adding the day of the Sun, the worship of which was then firmly established in the empire (see page 229, note 1) to the other holy days of the Roman calendar.

[24] See page 146.

[25] See page 253.

[26] See page 267.

[27] See page 270.