Woodward 1916

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    Presented to theUBKARYofthe

    UNIVERSITY OF TORONTOby

    WALTER GOFFART

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    CHRISTIANITY AND NATIONALISM IN THELATER ROMAN EMPIRE

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    Digitized by the Internet Archivein 2007

    http://archive.org/details/christianitynatiOOwooduoft

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    CHEISTIANITY AND NATIONALISMIN THE

    LATER ROMAN EMPIRE

    BYE. L. WOODWAKD, M.A.

    SOMBTIMB SCHOLAR OF CORPUS CHRISTI COLLKGE, OXFORDSENIOR SCHOLAR OF S. JOHN'S COLLEQE, OXFORD

    /

    LONGMANS, GEEEN; AND CO.39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDONBOUKTH AVBNTJB & SOlH BTEBBT, NBW YOBK

    BOllBAX, OALOUTTA, AND MAr>H A31916

    All right t reterted

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    PREFACEIn these days, some personal explanation is neededto justify the publishing of an historical essay.

    On going down from Oxford in 1913, I wasablethrough the kindness of the President andFellows of S. John's College and the Trustees ofthe Aubrey Moore Studentship^to plan out formyself a long period of research work in certainforeign Universities. It was my intention to spendthe first year of the time in Paris ; the second yearin Freiburg, Wiirzburg, and Munich ; and, possibly,a third year in KiefE, Moscow, and Petrograd.

    This essay isin its present statepart of theresult of the year spent in Paris. I chose Parisbecause I thought that^in spite of the Englishtradition to the contrary French scholarship waswider, deeper, and more balanced than German. Acloser acquaintance with the work of French scholarsmore than justified this choice. I foundin thesphere of late Eoman historylittle or nothing of thepolitical bias that has distorted nearly every wordwritten by Germans about the first six centuries ofthe Christian era.

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    vi PEEFACEThese preferences have been overwhelmingly re-

    inforced by the events which have happened sincethe close of the academical year 1913-14. Andwhile I had expected to spend these last two yearsin the pursuit of further knowledge, I have foundmyself once again on French territory, fulfilling theobligations of English citizenship.

    I am now taking advantage of a period of sickleave in England to publish this essay, in the hopethat it will suggest lines of thought valuable forthe present day.

    4: 4: 4: 4: * *The problem under discussion is : How far was the

    struggle between Orthodoxy and Heresy, in the laterRoman Empire, really a political struggle betweenthe central authorities of the Empire and the differentnations of which the Empire was composed ?

    In a short essay, it is impossible to do much morethan state the main facts of the case; I hopeat some future timeto be able to deal with thesubject more deeply, and to cover a much widerperiod.

    E. L. WOODWAED.London : April 1916.

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    CONTENTSOHAPTEB FAOaPrepack v

    I. The Growth of the Christian Empire . . 1II. Heresy and Nationalism in Africa . . 28

    III. Heresy and Nationalism in Egypt and Syria 41IV. Attempt at Central Control : Justinian and

    Theodora 50V. Heresy and Nationalism in the West : The

    Barbarians .67VI. Conclusions 94

    Index 106

    u

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    CHRISTIANITY AND NATIONALISMIN THE LATER ROMAN EMPIRE

    CHAPTER ITHE GROWTH OF THE CHRISTIAN EMPIRE

    It is one of the difficulties continually to be met within studying a civiHsation remote in time or characterfrom our own that we must use a terminology thatdoes not really apply : the spirit of an age as a wholecolours every particular idea, and an imaginativereconstruction of the whole is necessary for a rightunderstanding of the relations of the parts.

    Thus the contrast between 'secular' and 're-Hgious' is very difierent in a Christian and a non-Christian age. In a non-Christian age, such as ourown, this contrast is sharp, and is growing sharperthe State, becoming secularised, regards it as its dutyto ignore what it calls the ' religious ' element insociety ; and, although in practice Christians may bethe best citizens, yet the ideal of Christian orthodoxymay be in actual conflict with the ideals of the State. ^

    * As, for instance, in questions of divorce and re-marriage.B

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    2 A CHRISTIAN AGEPersecution by the State for heterodoxy in reUgion isregarded as immoral,^ and this unmoraHty is oftenmade retrospective to cover instances in past history.Religious minds, on the other hand, regard ahnostas blasphemous, and certainly as inexpedient, theintroduction of Christianity into all the details,incidents, and partisanships of life that characterisesa ' Christian ' agean age in which an earthquake-stricken city rewards its official benefactor by makinghim a bishop : ^ in which two circus factions, dis-puting with the authorities, at once appeal to theirown orthodoxy and call their enemies heretics : *when a man who does not beheve in the Resurrectionis consecrated bishop, not out of cynicism, but ingenuine faith that * God would add beHef to theman's other excellences, since divine grace is nevercontent to leave its work unfinished ' : * when * partiesare pohtical only because they are rehgious * : ^

    * It is significant, however, that in some of the Latin countriesthere is, practically, persecution not only of the Church but of reUgiousopinions in themselves.

    * The people of Antioch chose as their bishop Euphraemius, Countof the East, because of his soUcitude for their welfare after the greatearthquake v. Evag. H.E. 4. 6 ; cf. the election of Ambrose in 374to the see of Milan, of Eusebius to that of Caesarea in Cappadocia,and of Nectarius to Constantinople in 381. None of these three wereeven baptisedct Greg. Naz. Orai. 43. 25.

    ' Theophanes, i. 279-82, in the Corpus Hist. Byz.* The man was Synesius: the faith was justified by resultsV. Evag. H.E. 1. 15.

    * The quotation is from M. Souvestre's book on Brittany. Thisstudy of Brittany^made in the first half of the nineteenth centuryis very interesting as showing the almost fatalistic attitude of a modem* Christian people ' in the face of a great calamitythe cholera out-break. This same attitude of faithone cannot call it lessis seen

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    A CHRISTIAN AGE 3when missionaries ^ are ready to baptise thousandsof converts at a time, and whole tribes undergo akind of secular conversion.^

    To the post-Constantinian Church there wasnothing incongruous in this blending of secular andrehgious : there was scarcely a contrast, still less anantinomy, between them, the emperor combined ina pre-eminent degree both attributes in his * sacredmajesty ' ; government officials had recourse to re-nowned rehgious men, such as S. Simeon Stylites, forcounsel ; Justinian spent a great part of his time inlegislating on the minutiae of Church government,'and gave up long hours to the study of Christianmetaphysics.* The monastic life was looked uponfrom the point of view not so much of the individualas of the community : it provided an example of truechastity and common life, and by a continual inter-cession drew from heaven blessings upon the moretangible (but no more practical) things of lifethearmies and the cornfields ; and its influence tendedto peace and union.^

    Thus the whole content of men's thoughts tookin the ecclesiastical writers, e.g. Evagrius, 4. 29 ad fin. ; Greg. Tur.5. 35 ; S. Ephrem, The Plague in Syriacf. Evag. 4. 6. A com-parison with very different treatment of the plague in Thucydides(Book II) brings out the difference between what one might callChristian and pagan reahsm.

    ^ E.g. John of Ephesus.' E.g. the Abasgi v. Procopius, Gothic Wars, iv. 3.^ V. Justinian, Novellae, passim.* Procopius, Gothic Wars, 3. 35 ; v. also the charges in the Eistoria

    Arcana.* Justinian, Nov. 100.

    b2

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    4 A CHRISTIAN AGEon a Christian colouring. Intensity on one side ledto similar intensity on the other ; indifference becamepaganismdisbelief became devil worship. Theologywas talked in the market-place ; different solutionsof the Christological problems were adopted bydifferent provinces and peoples and advocated witha national zeal.

    In part this may be ascribed to the Greek and theLevantine temperament ; the Athenians had talked totheir dogs about the One and the Many, just as theAlexandrians made popular songs out of the doctrinesof Arius ; it was from Asia Minor that the mysteryrehgions had come into the Roman Empire. Thedriving of enthusiasm into theological channels hasalso been attributed to the absence of poKticalinterest in the later Empire. But the first explana-tion merely repeats the problem : the second is un-convincing : it is to be doubted whether in the minoraffairs of local government or in bickerings with theimperial ojB&cials, or in civic and commercial rivalrywith their neighbours, the congeries of cities, districts,and provinces which went to form the Roman Empiredid not find a great deal of poUtical interest.

    Other explanations are possible ; the psychologistmight say that a period of long drawn-out catas-trophes is generally an age of reUgion ; it might besuggested that philosophy was popular because ittalked the language of the people. A Christian wouldrightly add that a vivid interest in theologicalquestions is quite normal, and that the abnormality

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    A CHRISTIAN AGE 5lies in the age to which such an interest seemsstrange. The truth is that no explanation suffices toaccount for a complex historical situation ; all thesecauses played their part.

    But there is one other factor that became moreimportant as the empire began to decay ; it is thepart played in theological controversy by non-intel-lectual, nationaKstic motives : the constituent partsof the empire had, as we have seen, great poHticalinterests, but Httle means of expressing in a concreteform the emotions of national or even urban patriot-ism, and the community of race or language. Aslocal influences', therefore, developed different types ^and schools of thought, drawing different conclusionsfrom the common data of Christianity, it became apoint of national or racial honour to uphold thesedifferent conclusions irrespective, to a large extent,of their philosophic value ; the word ' honour ' mayperhaps be noticed. One does not wish to holda brief for the interference of nationalism in thesphere of reUgion, but it is due to the memory of theChristian patriarchs of the fifth and sixth centuriesto remember that, in the assiduity of their efforts toaggrandise their sees or to support doctrines adoptedor propounded in their country, they were not movedonly by selfish and personal motives.

    * The different characteristics, for instance, of the schools of Antiochand Alexandria are too well known to need mention here. Greg. Naz.{Or. 43. 9) speaks of the students at Athens as organised undernationalities.

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    6 THE CHURCHIn order to analyse the consequences of this factor

    and its manner of working in the period from Con-stantino to Justinian, we must first review thereligious and poHtical situation as a whole, and thendeal with particular provinces and the causes andeffects of the imperial poHcyalways rememberingthat the distinction between kolvo, koI hruMxna andleph irpdyfjuiTa is not absolute.

    Looking first at the ecclesiastical situation, onesees the framework of the Church as a hierarchy ofbishops, metropolitans, exarchs, and patriarchs.There had grown up in the West, by the middle ofthe third century, a cursus honorum beginning withthe reader and leading up through the presbyterand archdeacon to the bishop.^ The fourth and fifthcenturies saw a great growth in the parochial system.Arius was parish priest of BaucaHs, a district ofAlexandria ; and eight parishes are mentioned by

    * Not strictly adhered to in the West in the case of persons ofpeculiar excellence ; stiU less in the East, where the exception wasmore general than the rule. The existence of this ' cursus honorum 'must not be misinterpreted to mean that the Church had become astiff hierarchy, in which rank was everything and the piety of theindividual counted for nothing. Such a view would overlook thefact that persons in quite minor orders often received very great con-sideration ; this was especially the case with ascetics : e.g. S. SimeonStyUtes was consulted by clergy and laity ahke and a monastery grewup around his retreat. Popes themselves took counsel of S. Jerome.The Bishop of Caesarea sent for S. Basilthen only in minor ordersthat he, the bishop, might not die out of communion with him.It must be remembered that the conception of personal sanctitywasin these ages of canonisationmuch more vigorous than it isnow. Cf. the frequent election to bishoprics of civiUans who neededto be baptised before they could be consecrated to their sees.

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    THE CHURCH 7name in Alexandria fifty years after the death ofS. Athanasius ; the development at Rome seemslater, but the * Liber Pontificalis ' in the life of PopeHilary mentions twenty-five parishes. The monasticmovement, both in the form of S. Pachomius*reUgious colonies and in the more eremitical rule ofS. Antony, spread from Egypt all over the East;from the East it was propagated in the West,first, it would appear, by S. Athanasius during his* honourable exile ' in Gaul. From the fourth cen-tury hospitals, orphanages, almshouses, and the likeabounded.

    The foundations of S. Basil at Caesarea were amodel. The recognition of the Church's rights of in-heritance, in 321, gave the opportunity for charitywhile after 435 grants from pagan endowments in-creased the means.

    When the existence of the ' Catholic Churchhad been recognised by the State, it was naturalthat the prestige of the Church's officials shouldincrease ; in addition to the respect that had alwaysbeen paid by the faithful to them as the recipients ^in direct descent of the power bestowed upon theapostles, they now received, from the vague believerswho flocked into the Church, and from the govern-ment itself, the prestige that the later Roman

    ^ M. Batifiol in UEglise naissante ei le Catholicisme seems to haveestablished this point as against (A.) Sabatier, Sohm, and Harnack,In any case, these latter would find no fault with the view that GathoUcism ' existed after the reign of Constantine.

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    8 THE CLEKGYEmpire invariably attached to an official class. Butany advantage which this might have was coimter-balanced by the fact that when the governmentallowed the Church's priesthood to receive theprestige of officials, it naturally expected the priest-hood to recognise the corollary^the right of thegovernment to exercise a more or less strict centralcontrol. This strengthened the bishops at theexpense of the lower clergy ; but in proportion tothis increase of their power the higher Church author-ities were more and more at the mercy of the State.From this point of view one can see the immeasurableimportance of the withdrawal of Constantine fromRome and the preference of his successors for Milanand Ravenna.^

    The greater ecclesiastical divisions of the empirefollowed more or less the lines of the civil divisionsestabUshed by Diocletian and Constantine .^ The

    * The importance of this preference is, incidentally, not alwaysrealised ; it impUed a subjective state of mind on the part of theEmperor which separated him from the rest of the empire. He foundthe Roman aristocracy tiresomeprobably, also, not sufficiently politeand the people a very great nuisance. Hence the emperors werethe first to lose the idea of Rome as the centre of the universe.Honorius, the other object of the secular adoration of the WesternEmpire, could have no illusions as to the divinity of the ' divine city.'

    Not entirely ; there was no exact parallel to the civil diocesethe development of metropoUtans was late in Africa, and never tookplace at all in Egypt. (This however is a resemblance in a differentBense, because the civil organisation of Egypt was different from thatof other provinces.) The analogy between the early Church Councilsand the Koivov 'Ao-i'ay is very tempting, but it has httle actual founda-tion V. Batiffol, LSglise naissante, -p. 270, and Chapot (also quotedby Batiffol), L'Asie Romaine, pp. 528-33 and also p. 466.

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    THE PATRIARCHATES 9exact seniority and even the number of thepatriarchates was long a matter of disputepar-ticularly between Rome and Constantinople.^ Thecouncil of Nicaea (325) acknowledged the ' ancientcustom ' which gave predominance to the threesees of Rome, Antioch, and Alexandria ; it alsoassigned an honorary rank to Jerusalem. Thecouncil of Constantinople (381) wanted to give asecond rank to the patriarch of Constantinople onthe ground that Constantinople is * New Rome/ butthe canon was not accepted by the Pope. The councilof Ephesus (431) made Cyprus autocephalous, thusweakening Antioch. At the council of Chalcedon(451) the position of Jerusalem was changed fromthat of an honorary to that of a real patriarchate.This still further weakened Antioch. The powerof Constantinople was enormously extended, butthe canon that contained the principle of theextension was again rejected by Rome. Justinianin his ' Codex ' gave the ' Archbishop of New Rome 'the second place in the seniority of the patriarchates,and this at last was confirmed by Gregory the Great,though the latter opposed the assumption by thepatriarch of Constantinople of the title of OEcumenicalPatriarch, and in his private letters favoured the oldNicene idea of three patriarchates.

    ^ V. for a short summary of the question, Adrian Fortescue'sOrthodox Eastern Church, and for an admirable discussion of the motives,and of the rights and wrongs of the case between Eome and Con-stantinople, Turner, Cambridge Mediaeval History, vol. i.

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    10 IDEALISTIC PAGANISMPaganism had been practically left to itself until

    382 ; before this Symmachus speaks of the delibera-tions and decrees of the pontiffs, and the offering ofexpiatory sacrifices, the feast of Magna Moraliaand even the punishment of a Vestal's incest.^ Themore far-sighted Christians realised that paganismhad Httle vitality ; they saw that it could onlyrival Christianity by using the methods and eventhe doctrines of the Church, and that these newelements could never really attach themselves tothe old pagan foundations. It was with this idea inhis mind that Gregory of Nazianzus contemptuouslytermed the reforms of Julian TriOij/cav inixrjfiaTa.Athanasius, with more gentleness and equal foresight,encouraged Christians who were despondent at thepagan reaction : Oappelre, ve

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    ITS LONGEVITY 11his short reign ' Christianissimus ' ; he refused theinsignia and title of pontifex maximus ; he re-moved the altar of victory from the senate houseand confiscated pagan endowments. The laws ofTheodosius and Valentinian absolutely forbadeeven the visiting of temples ; the pagan reactionunder Eugenius was short-lived ; and in 395Honorius and Arcadius repeated the prohibitionsof Theodosius.

    The fact that paganism survived for so long andto such a degree that Justinian, for example, shouldfind it necessary actually to depute missionaries forthe conversion of the heathen in Lydia, and thatthese missionaries could make converts by thethousand, is due partly to the natural backwardnessof country districtsSynesius tells how the countryfolk behind the PentapoHs imagined that the Emperorwas called Agamemnon, and that he had a friendUlysses ; partly to the number of immigrantsTeutons and othersinto the empire ; but aboveall to the unwillingness of the governing class tocarry out the anti-pagan laws.^ For it was amongstthe governing class, particularly in the west, thatthe old Koman traditions survived ; ^ Christianitywas simply ignored.

    The essence of the neo-paganism adopted by the* V. Boissier, La Fin du paganisme : also Dill, Roman Society in

    the Last Century of the Western Empire, and especially the chapter on* The Tenacity of Paganism.'

    For the rise of this tradition amongst the literary class, v. BoissierTacite.

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    12 ITS VIEW OF CHRISTIANITYcultured from the time of the Antonines onward is ^admirably stated by Harnack : ^ ' The cultured . . .had no longer a religion in the sense of a nationalrehgion, but a philosophy of rehgion. They were,however, in search of a religion, that is, a firmbasis for the results of their speculations, andthey hoped to obtain it by turning themselvestowards the very old oriental cults and by seekingto fill them with the reHgious and moral knowledgewhich had been gained by the schools of Plato andZeno.' One can see how Christianity would notsatisfy themhow it would, from the first, not evenbe considered. For its social status was lower eventhan that of Judaism ; it was anti-imperial ; itmeant a break with pagan art and culture ; it requiredthe absolute acceptanceupon an authority thatseemed merely a petitio frincifiiof definite factsand dogmas ; and the early rejection of gnosticismand the persistent hostihty to * theosophies ' showedthat the cultured convert would not be allowed toread into Christianity, as he could read into Mithra-ism, whatsoever philosophy he desired. In the post-Constantinian Church these objections were no longervahd, but the tradition once formed could notamongst the naturally conservative class of a con-servative agebe broken.^

    It would be more true, perhaps, to say from two or three genera-tions before the Antonines.

    Hist, of Dogma (Eng. trans.), i. 229. The diflBculty of breaking such a tradition can be illustrated by

    a modem parallel The Oxford Greats School* on both its philosophical

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    ITS END 13The oriental cults afforded, in their ceremonial,

    the ordered and modulated excitement which thecultured classes demanded, and appealed to thetaste for archaeology which much reading of Virgilhad made almost into a passion. Mithraism, atleast, was a masculine religion and preached a lofty-morality ; the worship of Isis and her child (in spiteof the grave disorders with which it was, on occasions,accompanied) introduced an element of personalemotion and a gentleness that must have had aninfluence for good. But these religions graduallygave place before Christianity, and the philosophywith which, in the minds of the educated, theywere combined, disappeared before the novel andmore absorbing problems of Christian theology.Neo-platonism by the time of Justinian waspractically dead, and its place taken, in the mindsof men like Procopius, by a curious amalgam ofsuperstition, orthodoxy, and aloofness. The lastneo-platonic philosophers were driven from Athensby Justinian. They sought refuge in what theytook to be the court of a philosopher-kingChosroesof Persia. They were soon disillusioned and gladlyand its historical sides, adopts almost exactly the attitude of the lateRoman pagans. It remains dominated by the peculiar circumstancesof its Renaissance origin. All these circumstances have passed away,and the School is now, from the logical point of view, a meaninglessanomaly. For in considering what may be called the problems ofexistenceso far as the School does seriously consider themtheChristian solution is tacitly set aside. It is not disproved : it neverhas the opportunity of stating its case ; and this not for philosophicalbut largely for literary and ' accidental * reasons.

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    U CONTROVERSIES IN THE CHURCHavailed themselves of the Emperor's permission toreturn within the confines of the Empire.

    Long before her recognition by the State, theChurch had devoted much energy to the expressingof her behef in terms of the best philosophic thoughtof the time ; of the three most prominent thinkers ofthe third century, the greatest had been the ChristianOrigen. Throughout the fourth and fifth centuries,and on into the reign af Justinian, doctrinal con-troversies were concerned chiefly with two mainquestions : first. What is the real relation betweenHim whom we call the Father and Him whom wecall the Son ? secondly. In what sense did the Sontake upon Himself our humanity ? There were otherimportant questionsfor example, What strangenecessity was the cause of that Work and Act ofRestoration which has been performed by theIncarnate Son ? This involved the problem of freewill, and of evil ; for the latter the Manichaeansoffered a solution which cannot remotely be calledChristian.^ The Church had still to develope herdoctrine of the Holy Spirit ; there were numeroussmall points, such as the question whether ourLord's body was corruptible or incorruptible. Some-what distinct from the theological controversiesproper was the problem which led to the Donatist ^

    ^ Hamack rightly says {Hist, of Dogma, iii. 329, Eng. trans.) thatManichaeanism ' did not rise in the soil of Christianity. We wouldeven be better justified if we called Mohammedanism a Christian sect.*

    ' Donatism, at first only a schism, was declared a heresy by anedict of Honorius issued in 405 at the request of the Church, v. infra.Chapter II.

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    HERESY 15and Priscillianist heresies : Was the Church to keepto the old conception of herself as a small bodystanding entirely apart from the world, having httleto do with earthly institutions, or was she herselfto become an institution ^ both akin to and differentfrom the Statedifferent in that the benefits sheconferred were the consolations of the sacramentsand a spiritual salvation; akin to it in that thesebenefits were conferred by recognised officials, invirtue of their official capacity, not of their personalcharacter ? The Church accepted the larger respon-sibiHty, trusting to her inherent virtue to absorb,hke the sea, the impurities and unworthiness thatshe would be bound to contain ; and the relationshipof the Church and the civil government after Con-stantino is perhaps well s3niiboHsed in the door ofthe basihca of S. Sabina, where a prince, with anangel at his side, and before a temple, receives thehomage of the aristocracy and people. ^

    Resistance to this decision of the Church had,as we shall see, important results, particularly inAfrica and Spain, but the heretical answers to thedoctrinal questions had far more lasting and wide-spread consequences. Alius had distorted the faith

    * V. esp. Harnack's Essay on Monasticism.' V. Hauptmann Grisar, Histoire de Rome ei des Popes, i. 269

    (French trans, from the German), and Wiegard, Das altchrisiiicheHauptportal an der Kirche der h. Sabina (Trier, 1900). The old ex-planation of the prince as Zacharias seems to fall to the ground, becausethe clothing is not the lacerna used in depicting the vestmentsof Jewish priests, but the chlamys worn by Constantine on his arch,and by Justinian in the Ravenna mosaics.

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    16 HERESYof the CliuTch and ofiered a compromise which wouldbe especially attractive to minds steeped in neo-platonism by denying that the Son was of the sameessencewas God in the same senseas the Father.The second great question Nestorianism claimedto answer by maintaining that there were twodistinct Natures after the Incarnation, and that itwas blasphemous to call the Blessed Virgin OeoroKo^.The Monophysites went to the other extreme, andheld that there was only one Nature after the unionof human and divine in the Incarnate Son.^

    Arianism was anathematised at the council ofNicaea in 325. Nestorius was deposed by the councilof Ephesus in 431. Twenty years later Monophysitismwas condemned at Chalcedon. Donatism was de-clared a heresy in 405 by an edict of Honorius,issued at the request of a council at Carthage.PriscilHan was put to death by the usurper Maximusin 385 after his cause had been officially disavowedby the papacy.

    It is with the political side of these five heresiesthat we have to deal.

    * * * ** It should be remembered that no suggested solution to any of

    these doctrinal problems was ijpao facto heretical, any more than itwas ipso facto orthodox. Such answers only became orthodox orheretical after the Church had passed judgement on them by a provincialor general synod. The fault of the heresiarchs and their followerslay not in the region of speculation, where freedom and boldness werevalued, but in their refusal to submit their individual judgements tothe judgement of the Church as a whole in matters that concernedthe Church as a whole.

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    THE EMPIRE : EAST AND WEST 17The simplest and most satisfactory method ^ of

    studying the Roman Empire is that of the EmperorHadrianone must see it province by provincefor the diverse civiUsations of ancient Hellas,Hellenistic Asia, Ptolemaic Egj^t, Punic Africa, andromanised Gaul, Spain, and Britain, althoughlinked together and governed by an internationalbureaucracy, never formed a homogeneous whole. ^The two fociRome and Constantinopleof theellipse roughly formed by the area of Mediterraneancivilisation gradually became centres of separatecirclesa Latin (from the sixth century we mightalmost say a Teutonic) federation in the Westa Greek federation (from the sixth century, again,we might almost say a Levantine federation underGreek hegemony) in the East.

    One can see in little matters how great was thedivergence of interest and association between Eastand West. S. Basil, for example, who drew metaphorsand examples for his sermons from every conceivablesource, scarcely ever refers to the events of Romanhistory ; his congregation would have found themunfamiliar and uninteresting. The cleavage betweenthe Latin and Hellenic elements showed itself in adifference of attitude towards their common religion :

    ^ It is a method followed almost instinctively by those who haveread Mommsen's Roman Provinces.

    * It would be an interesting task to collect the correspondencebetween members of the civil service in the Eastern and Westernbranches of the Empire and to compare it with the correspondenceof bishops in the Eastern and Western branches of the Church.

    o

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    18 EAST AND WESTthe East concerned itself principally with the problemsof Christian metaphysics, and employed a philo-sophic terminology which was often unintelligibleto the Latin-spealdng West ; Gregory of Nazianzusin his panegyric of Athanasius remarks roundly thatthe Latin language had no words to distinguishbetween ovala and vtroa-rdo-i^?- The West wasoccupied rather with the problems of the Christianlife, and treated of sin, and the freedom of the will,in language very largely juristic.

    The distinction may be pressed too far.^ Thearistocracy of learning, like all aristocracies, waslargely cosmopolitan.^ The West produced meta-

    * This is not strictly true. Socrates {H.E. iii. 7) says that Hosius ofCordova had ah-eady distinguished between the two before the Councilof Nicaea. The Roman tenns would be substantia and persona. ButGregory is right in so far that the words would not have the same conno-tation, and, what is more important, the same associations for Latin-speaking Christians as the Greek words had for the Greeks. Hamack,(Hist. Dog. iii. 310) sayssomewhat exaggerating the truth* Father,Son, and Spirit were held to be " personae " who possessed a commonproperty" substantia," not " natura." ' Our Lord as a * persona *inherited a twofold property : divinity, from God ; humanity, fromthe Blessed Virgin. The ignorance of Greek in the West in the seventhcentury is remarkable. Vigihus lived in Byzantium for eight or nineyears without learning Greek ; S. Gregory the Great did the same,though he was actually papal apocrisarius.

    * It seems exaggerated, for instance, in the Rev. W. Temple's essayon the ' Divinity of Christ ' in Foundations, and it is an exaggera-tion which can lead to very serious historical, philosophical, anddogmatic misunderstandings.

    ' There was also more travelling among all classes of society thanthere is to-day, imder the rigime of nation states. (Note, for anevidence of this near home, the size of the Roman inn at Silchester.JThis travelling was, to a certain extent, only between certain groupsof provinces ; but Rome, and, to a lesser degree, the Holy Places,attracted am enormous number of pilgrims.

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    EAST AND WEST 19physiciansS. Hilary, S. Leo, and, above all,S. Augustine ; the patriarchate of Alexandria was,until after Chalcedon, in close and almost unbrokencommunion and intercourse with Rome ; ^ theascetic and monastic movements, which were farmore ethical than metaphysical in character, hadtheir origin in the East. The great legal codes ofTheodosius II and of Justinian came from theEastern Empire. There was a famous law schoolat Berytus ; the leading families of Cappadocia,from whose ranks were drawn the Cappadociandivines, were all connected with the bar, and theirsons received legal training. Many eminent SyriansProcopius,^ for exampledespised metaphysicalcontroversy, and studiously practised what theyconsidered to be the old Roman ideals.

    Further, it should be remembered that the imperialbureaucracy was all-powerful in the East and in theWest, and that the underlying ideas of the imperialsystem were dominant in the intellectual life of thewhole Empire ; it was from these ideas, in the absenceof any great extension of the biological or psycho-logical sciences, that theology and philosophy drew

    * On the other hand, from the coming of Constantine in 323 tothe death of Justinian in 565, Rome and Constantinople were atschism (neglecting little ruptures) for a period of 101 years : (a) Con-cerning S. Athanasius: from the council of Sardica in 343 to thecoming of S. John Chrysostom to the see of Constantinople in 398(fifty-five years) ; (j3) concerning the condemnation of S. JohnChrysostom, 404-415 (eleven years) ; (y) concerning the schism ofAcacius and the Henotikon 484-519 (thirty-five years) v. Duchesne,' L'figlise grecque et le schisme grec,' in j^glises Siparies,

    * V. F. Dahn, Procopius of Caesarea. 02

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    20 EAST AND WESTtheir metaphors ; or ratherfor the influence wasdeeper, and therefore, at the first glance, less per-ceptible^it was upon the analogy of these ideas ofa firmly closed hierarchy, a balanced gradation andtransmission of power, that men, learned and simple,formed their very conceptions of God and His wayswith man ; there was thus at the bottom of all specu-lation a common and uniform element, such as isnow afEorded to the intellectual outlook of WesternEurope by the spread of the natural sciences irre-spective of national boundaries.^

    Even in regard to the barbarians who madeultimate the distinction between East and Westby almost destroying (or rather transforming) thesecular power in the West, there is some similarity.The East did not escape from the Teutons : itonly avoided being overwhelmed by them by opposing

    * Theology might perhaps gain in the understanding of this periodif it took into account the dominance of the idea of this administrativehierarchy. Those who agree with Hamack as to the ' Hellenisingand " depotentiation " of Christianity ' often forget that Hellenismitself was affected by the general notion of Imperium. Theology,Christian and neo-pagan alike, was not so much anthropomorphicDO more anthropomorphic than it must necessarily benor so muchjuristic as administrative in its modes of thought. Plotinus, in hisattempt to avoid an anthropomorphic conception of the Absolute, hasworked out his cosmological scheme on the lines of an official hierarchyor a state department. From this point of view the difference betweenPlotinus and Bei^son would appear only as the difference between theexpression of the same ' unexpressible ' idea in terms of biologicaland psychological metaphors and in terms of a rigid bureaucracy. Itis possible that an Indian who had come into contact with the EnglishCivil Service of India might, naively, attempt to explain his thoughtsby the same method as Plotinus.

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    EAST AND WEST 21Eastern to Western barbarians ; and though, underAnastasius, Roman names regain prominence inthe Eastern Empire, many of these namesandthe number increased as time went onwere borneby Isaurians, Armenians, or Slavs. The prominenceof Armenians in the armies employed by Justinianto expel the Teutons is noteworthy.^Further, by taking the Empire province byprovince, it is possible to see that this over-emphasisof the distinction between East and West slurs overother and equally important distinctions. Therewas not only one antithesis, and there were notonly two conflicting civiHsations. The very outlinesof ecclesiastical history show the importance ofthe Semitic element, whether diffused throughoutthe Empire, or located in North Africa or Syria.Alexandria, again, often had more in common withRome than with Antioch ; the rigid separatism of theJudaeo-Christians in the early days of Christianityhas its closest parallel in the Donatism of Africa ;the orthodox Christians of Asia Minor resistedGnosticism and Montanism by an appeal to theirancient customs ; the Church in Syria adopted a

    ^ V. Bussell, Const. Hist, of Later Roman Empire, vol. ii.The account in Procopius {B. V. ii. 27) of the assassination ofGuntharis by Artabanes shows the dislike felt by the Armeniansto the Teutons. Gregory incites Artabanes to action by remindinghim of his high birth and the traditions of bis ancestry : Guntharis isonly a ' drunken dog.' BeUsarius indeed was a German, but Narses,the greater general of the two (if we can judge from Procopius),was a Persarmenian.

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    22 NORMAL CHUECH LIFEmore mystical and oriental defence of the episcopate ;

    ^

    Byzantine art is more Syrian than Greek, andByzantine society approximated more, as time wenton, to that of the CaHphate of Haroun-al-Raschidthan to the society of the Attalids, or of the Ptolemies,or of neoplatonic Athens.

    Behind the contrasts, therefore, upon whichhistorians and philosophers have based their neatand formal generahsations there lies an inchoatemass of conflicting instincts (the air of the RomanEmpire always seems clouded with dust rising fromthe debris of the fallen past,) the force of whichmust be inferred from results where it cannot bemeasured by documents.

    We are to come into contact with these factsfirst in connection with Donatism. But it is essentialto counterbalance a study of the pathological sideof Church history by keeping in the mind a pictureof what was the normal Church Hfe. The too candidfriends of Christianity often wrong their faith bysighing over the discreditable outbursts of violence,such as that which resulted in the murder of Hjrpatia,as though those unpardonable acts, and the * crowd-madness * of which they are in part the outcome,were the main feature of post-Constantinian Christianhistory. But the moral prestige of the Christianepiscopate, and its general reputation for mercy andjustice, can only be accounted for by supposing the

    ^ V. S. Ignatius, Epp., passim.

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    THE CHURCH IN GEEECE 23existence in its ranks of numbers of quiet men wholed their flocks in ways of gentleness.Occasionally a record of the influence of these menfinds its way into written history. Theodoret ^ tellshow the people of Samosata, after their well-belovedbishop Eusebius (the friend of S. Basil) had beenmurdered by an Arian fanatic, besought the magis-trates to have pity upon the assassin : to such anextent had the flock imbibed the spirit of their pastor.Procopius ^ describes an otherwise obscure bishop ofthe sixth century as ' dvr}p 8iKai6

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    24 ROMAN GEEECEThe history of Greece from Constantine to the

    coining of Alaric, and again from Theodosius IIto Justinian, is one of considerable prosperity.The Gothic invasions of the third centm:y and thefinancial reforms of Constantine had swept awaythe great oligarchs, such as the notorious HerodesAtticus. The damage done by the Goths is oftenexaggerated.^ Greece, as Finlay points out,^ musthave gained economically from the number of fugi-tives from the more afflicted districts to whom shegave shelter during the Gothic troubles suppressedby Theodosius. The wars in general were, fromone point of view, a stimulus to vigorous, united,and public-spirited action ; even the wealthiest hadto exert themselves in the protection of their pro-perty, while the desertion and capture of thousandsof slaves must have benefited the freemen.

    The invasion of Alaric caused more grievousdistress, but even the damage done by him has beenexaggerated. It was due partly to the unwalled char-acter of many of the cities, a condition brought about,as Zosimus roundly says, Bia rrjv rasv 'PtofutLcovirkeove^iav. But Theodosius II exempted the citiesof lUjrria from taxation in order that they mightrecover from the damages they had received, andunder the careful emperors from Theodosius II

    * E.g. G. Hertzberg, OriecherUand unter der Herrschaft der Romer,vol. m. Every successive wave of invasion bears singly the blamefor the whole storm, and for the ruins brought about by earthquakeand decay and the 'epredation of subsequent builders.

    * Quoting Zosimus, iv. 20.

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    THE GLAMOUR OF ATHENS 25to Anastasius and Justin, Greece recovered not alittle of her prosperity.^

    Athens, which throughout the laterRoman Empirereaped the aftermath of the artistic and philosophicactivity of her ages of greatness, suffered, it is true,from the foundation by Theodosius II of the StateUniversity of Constantinople. Synesius described heras famous only for her honey, but Synesius himselffelt the mystic glamour (Hellenism seen in a neo-platonic light) clinging about her.

    This romantic atmosphere passed into Chris-tianity ; Helios the rider in the chariot of the heavensonly gave place to Enas,^ and Hercules and Theseusto another slayer of dragons : men slept in a ChristianChurch, just as they had slept, to win miraculouscures, in the temple of Asclepius. The adoption ofChristianity had meant the revival of oratory, theraising of the general intellectual level which hadfallen sadly from the old standard, an improvementin morahty, and particularly in the condition ofwomen : Hypatia and Eudocia show the opportuni-ties which were present for the higher education ofwomen. ^ The persecutions had united clergy and

    ^ Even those emperors who had not a sentimental passion forGreecelike Juliantook care that she should have good governors.These governors included Praetextatus and Rufus Festus.

    ^ V. Hertzberg, iii. 446-53.^ This fact is noteworthy as explaining the prominence of women

    in the fifth and sixth centuries, particularly in Byzantium. Thisprominence does not seem to be merely a fanciful invention of theromanticist historians and sentimental novehsts of Byzantium. Diehlin his Figures Byzantines has shown that this predominance can be

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    26 GREEK ORTHODOXYpeople ; Finlay says rightly that * Christianity con-nected itself with the social organisation of the people,without meddhng with their political condition' ; andthe rise of heresies had resulted in the assembling ofprovincial synods to defend the orthodox position.^

    From the first the Greek bishops had supportedthe creed of Nicaea, and Greece was little troubledby the Arian quarrels. The JuHan reaction was lessnoticeable, though it meant the loss of the privilegesof the clergy and of any grants that had been madeout of pagan endowments, because the orthodoxhad not found the regime of the Arian Constantiusany too favourable, and, perhaps we may add,because the Christians could see from the lethargicresponse to Julian's enthusiasm in the very strong-holds of ancient Hellenic paganism that the emperor'sattempts were not destined to any permanence. Inthe short reign of Jovian the Christian Church wasagain restored to favour : a Christian church wasbuilt at Corcyra ^ out of the ruins of a temple. Greecewas fortunate enough to escape the rule of theArian Valens ; she was included in the dominion ofValentinian, and Valentinian was, in fact, tolerantof everything except black magic practised forseen in the etiquette of the Byzantine court, which is as valuablefor constitutional history as the household details of the NonnansiAngevins, and Plantagenets are for the constitutional history ofEngland.

    ^ It is interesting to see how Christianity in a great measure pro-vided that unifying influence which the most far-sighted men of classicalGreece had sought from Delphi.

    V. Hertzberg, iii. 304 and note 37.

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    GEEEK OETHODOXY 27political ends.^ The restoration of the ChristianChurch to her previous position was secured by thewithdrawal of Julian's embargo against the Christianprofessors at Athens. ^ In the two great heresiessubsequent to Arianism Greece showed herself againorthodox. Only one important bishop, Basil ofLarissa, ever favoured Nestorianism ; the Greekswere continually hostile to the Monophysites ; thedislike felt to Anastasius was almost entirely due tohis heterodoxy ; forty bishops in Illyria and Greecebroke off from communion with the archbishop ofThessalonica when the latter declared his adherenceto the poHcy of Constantinople.

    The history of this Church, supporting thattheology which itself owed so much to the ' collectiveculture ' of Hellenism,^ naturally comes to an endwith the death of Justinian. The closing of theschools of Athens by Justinian marked more thanthe fall of neo-platonic philosophy ; for, as Hertzbergnotices in his concluding words, the subsequent his-tory of Greece is that of ' the Slavonic invasions, theByzantine middle ages, and the Anatolian Church.*

    * V. supra, p. 10,* Among those who returned was the great Prohaeresius.^ One must beware of over-exaggerating the importance of technical

    philosophy at the expense of Greek culture in the development ofChristianity. As Harnack rightly says : ' It must no doubt be ad-mitted that Christianity itself was already profoundly affected bythe influence of Hellenism when it began to outline a philosophybut this influence must be traced back less to philosophy than to thecollective culture and to all the conditions tmder which the spirituallife was enacted ' (Harnack, Hist, ofDogma, i. 359).

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    CHAPTEB nHEEESY AND NATIONALISM IN AFRICA

    In strong contrast to this healthier state is thehistory of the Church in Africa. The district knownas Koman Africa had been thoroughly romanisedin the plains of the East, though in the hinterland,which was continually being devastated by Moorishtribes, and among the coloni in the western hills *the Punic and the Berber elements had not beenabsorbed by Home. The golden age in the historyof Africa was, as in many other parts of the Empire,the period of the Antonines. Throughout the thirdcentury the country never really recovered from theterrible disturbances that followed the defeat ofGordian I by the legate of Numidia. Between 238and the coming of Diocletian only two great publicbuildings were erected, and the number of statuesset up was much smaller.^ The reforms of the greatlUyrian emperors did not have any very great effect,

    ^ From the earliest days of the Empire the Imperial estates wereof enormous extent. There was a special office at Carthage dealingwith their management.

    * V. Toutain, Les Citis romaines de la Tunisie, p. 159.28

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    CULT OF THE MARTYES 29since they were counterbalanced by the rapacity ofthe officials and the inabiUty of the government todefend the frontiers. The facts of the rise and fallof Donatism ^ in this increasingly morbid state ofsociety may be briefly told.

    The African Church was throughout its historynoted for its devoted cult of the martjn'S.^ Thecorollary of this enthusiasm was a very strong feeHngagainst the lapsithose who had * bowed their headsin the evil days' of persecution, and the traditoresthose who, upon the command of the secularauthority, had given up the sacred books andpossessions of their churches. This feeling was,when it concerned the clergy, intensified by the idea,largely prevalent in the African Church, that thevaHdity of a sacrament depended upon the characterof the officiating priest. At a council of bishops heldat Cirta ^ in 305 the president, Secundus of Tigisis,invited all the assembled bishops to clear themselvesof the charge of surrendering their sacred books.The assembly was indignant, and a party threatenedto leave the Church unless the question were with-drawn. Previous to this the Church of Carthagehad been disturbed by the exclusion of a wealthylady, Lucilla, for her refusal to abandon the use of

    ^ So called from the successive leaders of the party^Donatus,Bishop of Casae Nigrae, and Donatus, sumamed the Great.

    * For the uneasiness which the best ecclesiastical opinion feltconcerning the growth of these cults, v. the resolutions of the councils{Mansi, 3. 382-3, 971. 14; 4. 494-50).

    ' V. infra, p. 35, for the poUtical import of this council.

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    30 THE DONATISTSa spurious relic. After the death of Mensurius,bishop of Carthage, and the election of a new bishop,Caecihanus, a party grew at Carthage consisting ofLucilla, certain elders who had seized for themselvessome of the holy vessels, the disappointed candidatesfor the see, and the band of zealots who would intheory have no communion with the lapsi in generaland the traditores in particular. They were joinedby the Church of Numidia, which was indignant thatit had not been asked to take part in the electionof the new bishop.

    Two appeals were made to the Emperor, the firstagainst Caecihanus in person, the second against thevahdity of his consecration (the appellants claimedthat the bishop who performed the office of conse-cration was himself a traditor). A third appealresulted in the assembhng of a great council of theWestern Church at Aries, where every means wastaken by the State to facihtate the attendance ofthe African bishops. The Council decided in favourof Caecihanus, and his opponents were themselvesproscribed.

    But Constantine could not close the schismeven by force, and finally left the African Church tofight the question out alone, interfering only whenthe Donatists seized a church built for the Catholics.

    An enormous quantity of polemical Hteratureshows the intensity of the fight that was wagedin the fourth century ; the efiect upon AfricanChristianity was very great. Curiously, amongst the

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    THE DONATISTS 31amazing wealth of ruins at Timgad it is noticeablethat the period of the best architecture correspondsexactly with that of the strife between the twoChurches.

    The fall of the Donatist party was hastenedby its internal disunion ; towards the end of thefourth century the less violent members of thesect began to seek about for a reconciliation. Thevictory of the Catholics was due in part to theirmoderation at the council of Carthage in 411, wherethe particular question of the validity of Caecilianus'ordination, and the general question of the all-inclusiveness of the Catholic Church were debatedbefore an Imperial Commissioner. This moderationat the time of the Council must be taken into accountas no small justification for the subsequent acqui-escence of the Church in the persecution of theDonatists by the State ; for after the ImperialCommissioner had decided in favour of the CathoUcsthe Donatists were vigorously suppressed.

    But the Vandal invasions and the persecutionof non-Arians gave Catholics and Donatists littleopportunity for internal polemics ; this accounts forthe poverty of documents relating to Donatism inthe fifth century.^ In the Byzantine period thequestion of the Three Chapters occupied attentionimtil the death of Justinian ; it was not until the timeof Gregory the Great that Donatism re-appeared inany force. But inscriptions show the persistence

    ^ Viotor Vitensis, e.g., scarcely mentions Donatism.

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    32 THE DONATISTSof the heresy.^ Justinian includes Donatists in thesame category as Arians, Jews, and pagans.The renewal of the activity of the party can betraced in the correspondence of S. Gregory. The j&rsttwo notices that we possess deal with an inquiry intothe action of certain Catholic bishops accused of deal-ings with Donatism.2 goon the circumstances hadaltered. The Donatists had attacked a Numidianbishop, and won the support of the exarch of Africa.The case dragged on, but was finally decided infavour of the Catholic bishop, after an appeal tothe Emperor.

    Next we go one step further. The governmentitself had become afraid of the Donatists, and takenaction against them. Imperial edicts had been issuedabout 594 against Donatism, and Gregory the Greatasked the praetorian prefect of Africa to apply them.^But the imperial officials seem to have been too muchafraid to carry out their orders, and in 596 Gregorywrote to the Emperor himself.* This is the lastofficial document we possess ; but we might conjecturethat the sect lingered in Numidia, and the bordersof the desert, until the fall of Africa before Islam.

    4c 4c 4c 4c 4c

    The problem of the lapsi, the cases of Caecilian1 C.LL. viii. 21570-4 ; cf. S. Leo, Epp. i. 12. 6, and 167. 18. S. Greg. Magn. Epp. I 82 ; ii. 46.^ S. Greg. Magn. Ep. iv. 32. For Gregory's tact, and his desire

    to get a uniform method of treating the heretics throughout Africa,V. Monceaux, HisL Lit. de VAfrique Chretienne, iv. 433-4 Gregoryfound the treatment too severe in Proconsularis and too lenient inNumidia. * S. Greg. Magn. Ep. vi. 61.

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    PERSISTENCE OF DONATISM 33and Felix of Aptunga, the personal quarrels andintrigues of unprincipled or foolish people, the simpleinertia whereby schisms live on, amid the debris ofpast enthusiasm, when the circumstances that gavethem a meaning have all passed away/ are notsufficient to explain the duration and the intensityof Donatism. The literature of the fourth centuryshows that practically all African thought wasoccupied with the strife, and with little else. Therewere no Christological questions involved. Therewas no missionary activity outside Africa in spiteof the Donatists' claim to be the true Church ; theyhad, it is true, churches in Gaul, Spain, and Rome,^but these were purely for African Donatists who hadsettled outside their country.

    Monceaux^ suggests as among the causes forthe longevity of Donatism on the one hand theabnormal organisation of Ecclesiastical Africa, re-sulting in a perpetual jealousy between the Churchof Numidia and that of Carthage, and, on the otherhand, the social unrest in the province, resultingin persistent outbreaks of Jacquerie ; the insur-gents naturally, and with the encouragement, moreor less official, of the Donatist leaders, attachedthemselves to the Donatist party.

    ^ As Monceaux points out {Timgad Chritien, p. 59), logically, afterthe condemnation in 320 of Silvanus, one of the consecrators ofMajorinus, the Donatist Church had, on its own criterion, no realexistence.

    * Optatus (ii. 4) gives as the reason for the presence of a Donatistbishop inRome ' quia quibusdam Afris urbica placuerat commemoratio.'

    ^ Hist. Lit. de VAfrique Chretienne, iv. 163 et seq., and also p. 8 ei aeq.p

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    34 KEASONS FOR THISThese causes are worth investigating. To give

    weight to them we must add that it is possible toidentify, in the general, the official headquartersof Donatism with those parts of the country wherenon-Roman blood and civihsation predominated.^Until quite late in the history of African Christianitythere were no distinct ecclesiastical provinces ; thereHgious organisation was independent of the poh-tical ; ^ for although the communities of Numidia andMauretania, Byzacene, and Tripolitana were consti-tuted into new ecclesiastical provinces (Numidiahaving led the way in 309) they had no real metro-pohtans ; the primacy devolved upon the seniorbishop ; the bishops and the primates all went to thecouncils of Carthage, and Carthage thus exercised akind of patriarchal authority which had grown upfrom historical causes, but which, after the divisioninto provinces, had no real justification or title.*

    The dislike felt against this authority by theChurch of Numidia can be seen in the origins of

    * V. W. Thummel, Zur Beurtheilung des Donatismus (Halle, 1893).The book is somewhat unsatisfactory owing to the difficulty of seeingthe wood from the trees, and to the author's habit of putting questionswhich it is impossible to answer, and then, after disciissing them, con-cluding with a ' wir wissen nichts davon ' that might well have comeearher.

    * This is not entirely true of the ecclesiastical subdivisions : e.g.,certain cities had, pohticaUy, a double organisation : (a) for the cityitself, (/S) for the surrounding territory. Cities of this kind often hadtwo bishops whose spheres of jurisdiction were similarly divided.

    * Cf. S. Aug. Brev. CoUat. iii. 13. 25 : Qui tunc habebat primatumNumidiae ; and Contra Cresc. iii. 27, 30 : Episcopus Tigisitanus primaecathedrae.

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    DONATISTS ANTI-IMPERIAL 35Donatism : the Numidians objected in the firstinstance to the estabHshment of CaeciUanus beforethey had been consulted ; it was in Numidia, as wehave abeady noticed, that Donatism reappeared inthe pontificate of S. Gregory, and it was fromNumidia that the majority of the Donatist writersand pamphleteers were drawn.^

    In their desire for independence the Donatistsdid not scruple to use language and to employtheories which were anti-imperial.^ ' The oppositionto Mensurius and Caecilianus was begun by theprovincial council of Cirta under the leadershipof Secundus, bishop of Tigisis ; and the summonsof the leaders of the Church of Carthage before thisassembly was practically, if not deliberately, anattempt to expose the ecclesiastics of the rulingrace to the censure of the provincials/ The Dona-tists supported the rebelHons of the Moorish Firmusand Gildo. The support given to Gildo can beclearly and dramatically seen in that it centredround the person of Optatus, bishop of Timgad.Optatus made an alKance with Count Gildo, andactively supported his revolt against the authorities.He was openly regarded as Gildo's main ally, andreceived the title of Gildonianus or Gildonis satellesa witty Donatist colleague said of him the ambiguousphrase ' Deus illi comes ' ; the alliance lasted from

    ,j^ V. S. Aug. Ep. 129. 6.n * The fact that the Donatists appealed to the Emperor is no evidence^ for their loyalty. Any weapon was good enough to beat the Catholics

    with.D 2

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    36 DONATISTS ANTI-IMPERIAL388 to 398, and during these ten years Optatus be-came in Augustine's phrase a ' tribunus/ persecutingthe CathoHcs and also those Donatists with whomhe disagreed.

    Their anti-imperiaUsm was practical rather thantheoretical, but they had certainly evolved a theorythat went beyond mere ecclesiastical independencein the management of ecclesiastical affairs. TheState had no right of interference with the Church.Donatus had saidafter the Donatist appeal tothe Emperor had failedquid est imperatori cumEcclesia ? ^ His followers regarded themselves asin all things followers of their fathers and ofS. Cyprian.^ They went further and claimed to bethe only true Church. Their cry, says S. Augustine,"is, * magna est sola ecclesiae Numidia ' ; they wentfurther still and justified their claim from theScriptures, quoting Canticles i. 6 to prove that inAfrica alone was the Cathohc Church.* |In order to propagate their theories, and tosecure support against the Catholics, the Donatists

    The answer, in Optatus, of the Catholics to this question is verystriking, and throws the Donatist attitude into greater relief. Optatus(de Schism, iii. 3) first mentions 1 Tim. ii. 2, and then says ' non enimest respublica in ecclesia, sed ecclesia in repubUca est, id est, in ImperioRomano ) quod Libanum appellat Christus in Canticis Canticorum cumdicit Veni sponsa mea, inventa de Libano (iv. 8), id est de ImperioRomano, ubi et sacerdotia sancta sunt et pudicitia et virginitas.'

    S. Aug. Contra Creac. ii. 31. 39 and iii. 2.' S. Aug. Enarr. ii. in Ps. xxi. 26. S. Augustine {Ey. ad Cath. 19. 51) rebuts their arguments by the

    words ' praedicabitur hoc evangelium in universo orbe in testimoniumomnibus gentibus et tunc veniet finis.'

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    DONATISM AND EEVOLUTION 37enlisted in their cause the movements arising fromthe social discontent of the province. The bandsof wandering peasants who did so much harm inGaul during the fourth century, and whom Salvianmentions as existing in Spain in the fifth century,had their counterpart in Africa in the Circumcelliones.

    These Circumcelliones contained two main classesof people. First those ' enthusiastic ' Christianswho would naturally adopt Donatism after Chris-tianity seemedby accepting the recognition ofthe Stateto have acquiesced in the existing orderof society. In the words of M. Martroye,^ ' a partyin the Christian community saw in Christianity thepromise of a new social order and considered as atreason the fact that itChristianityhad accom-modated itself to the social order represented bythe Emperor. The orthodox priests would appearas traditores, not only because certain of themhad surrendered sacred objects, but because theyall seemed to have betrayed religion itself, such asthese Christians understood it.' These were thecircumstances that moved not only the fanatics,but the lower classes generally. ' The lower classesthrew themselves into the schism, which had nota single doctrine as its motive, because the CatholicChurch seemed to them to betray their cause inaccommodating itself to the established order ofthings, and in not giving satisfaction to their hopes.'

    * Martroye, 'Une Tentative de revolution sociale en Afrique,'Bevtte des questions historigues, Ixxvi. 399.

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    38 THE DISCONTENTEDInextricably intermingled with the fanatics and

    the genuinely discontented, there was, as in allrevolutions, a whole body of undesirables, runawayslaves, insolvent debtors, and the like. Amongboth elements there were numbers who, though noteducated enough to have any separatist politicaltheories, were comparative strangers to Romanideas and civilisation : it was necessary to speakto them * per Punicum interpretem.' ^

    The Donatists, while they might appeal againstthe violence of the Circumcelliones in particularcasesas when in 340 certain schismatical bishopsasked the help of Count Taurinus and the imperialforcesfound in these disturbers of the Romanpeace allies too valuable to be disowned. Theyactually encouraged them. Optatus ^ tells how*Donatus praecones per vicina loca et per onmesnundinas misit, circumcelliones agonisticos nun-cupans ; ad praedictum locum ut concurrerentinvitavit.'

    The result was * nulli licuit securum esse in pos-sessionibus suis ; debitorum chirographa amiseruntvires ; nullus creditor . illo tempore exigendi habuitlibertatem. Terrebantur onmes litteris eorum quise sanctorum duces fuisse jactabant . . . etiamitinera non poterant esse tutissima, quod dominide vehiculis suis excussi ante municipia sua, domin-orum locis sedentia, serviliter cucurrerunt. lUorum

    * V. S. Aug. Ep. 108 ; u. 14.* Optatus, De Schism. Donai. iii. 4.

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    CONCLUSIONS 39judicio et imperio inter dominos et servos conditiomutabatur.' S. Augustine gives a similar picture.' Tabulae frangebantur ; extorta debitoribus chiro-grapha reddebantur ^ . . . (ut) contra possessoressuos rusticana erigatur audacia et fugitivi servicontra apostolicam disciplinam.' ^ The Circumcel-liones were particularly violent in the country-districts (maxime in agris territans) ^ and againstCatholic priests (nocturnis adgressionibus clericoruminvasas domos nudas atque inanes relinquunt,ipsos etiam raptos et fustibus tunsos ferroque concisossemivivos abjiciunt) ; * their bands included numbersof Donatist clergy (cum cotidie vestrorum incredibiliapatimur facta clericorum et circumcellionum) .^

    Beyond creating local havoc and rendering areconciliation of Donatist and Catholic exceedinglydifficult, this persistent ' Bagaudage ' had no per-manent results : the Vandal invasions made allclasses forget their particular social and politicalgrievances in the general distress. But the disturb-ances are of great interest to the historian in thatthey present the spectacle of political discontentexpressing itself through religious channels, anddiverting against the Catholic Church passionsthat would otherwise have vented themselvesdirectly against the imperial government and itsofficials. The policy of Constantine here justified

    1 S. Aug. Ep. 108, iv. 15. * Ibid. vi. 18.^ S. Aug. Contra Gaudentium, i. 28, 32.* S. Aug. Contra Cresconium, iii. 42, 46. Ibid.

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    40 CONCLUSIONSitself : tlie Cliurch was a kind of buffer state againstthe discontent of the masses, just as Persia was abuffer state between Rome and the barbarians ofthe East. When the imperial government tried tosuppress all independence in the Church, it onlybrought attacks against itselfsuch as the directanti-Melchite schism in Egypt,^ just as,. in destroyingthe power of Persia, it had to meet directly theinroads of the barbarians from the East.

    ^ V. pp. 45 ei seq.

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    CHAPTEK IIIHERESY AND NATIONALISM IN EGYPT AND SYRIA

    East of the province of Africa lay the patriarchateof Alexandria. The western borders of the Alexan-drian patriarchate^the Pentapoliscan be passedover ; its geographical isolation, the trade rivalry ofAlexandria, and the unrest of the desert hinterlandhad been the downfall of Gyrene. Synesius describesthe people as stay-at-home and inert, and as lookingto the bureaucracy for protection against the Church.

    The dominant factor in the see of Alexandriawas Egypt, and the dominant factor in Egypt wasAlexandria. The Empire had in Egypt taken overintact the civil service and whole governmentalsystem of the Ptolemies.^ Egjrpt influenced Eomemore than Eome influenced Egypt : the deep appealof an ancient ritual, of magnificent processions andliturgic dramas, had popularised through the Empirethe worship of Isis and Serapis : the doctrine ofimmortality helped to transform pagan theology

    ^ V. Milne, Egypt under the Romans, for an account of this organisa-tion.

    41

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    42 ALEXANDRIAthe idea of the consoling Mother-goddess and heryoung child illustrates the line of developementtaken by popular Christian religion. Alexandriaherself, with enormous quays, a lighthouse anda library that were the wonder of the world, withher school of philosophy and mathematics, herincurably turbulent and cosmopolitan inhabitants,^claimed to stand above Antioch and on an equalitywith Eome.^ Her mathematical fame gave her theprivilege of settling the time for Easter : her philo-sophy found a new outlet in the school of theologywhich possessed such famous names as Origen andClement, though its often far-fetched allegoricalinterpretations and its bold speculations were fromthe first tinged with heresy.

    The patriarch of Alexandria ruled over a diocesecompact and strong in national feeling, and, onthe whole, obedient ; he was often called Pope.^S. Leo speaks of him as a second Pharaoh. Justinianconferred the office of prefect and patriarch uponthe same person. Beneath the patriarch's charge,a valuable if impetuous support, were the monksof the desert, while his authority extended toAethiopia and Nubia.

    The patriarchs of Alexandria deposed three^ Cf. Dio Cassius, iv. 24, dpaa-Ovaa-dai fiev irpocTirtTetrraToi, avhpi-

    a-aa-Ocu 8e aadevforaroithough the latter is rather unfair on the Alex-andrians, whose deeds were certainly aa violent as their words

    * S. Mark was claimed as the first bishop of the see, and latertradition made him the representative of S. Peter.

    ^ Epiphanius, e.g., speaks of Athanasius as the ' blessed Pope.'

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    THE PATRIARCHS 43patriarchs of ConstantinopleChrysostom, Nestoriiis,and Flavian. They seized every opportunitysuchas the ambition of the bishops of Jerusalem totransform their see into an autonomous patriarchateto depress the see of Antioch. Alexandria wasvery jealous of the upstart power of Constantinople.Doctrinally, Theophilus (patriarch of Alexandriafrom 385-412), who supported Epiphanius withvigour in his anti-Origenist campaign, seems to havebeen himself an Origenist, and to have used theanti-Origenist zeal largely as a means of humiliat-ing Constantinople and S. John Chrysostom. Onthe other hand, the condemnation of Eutyches in448 was not only a victory of the true faith oveierror, but, incidentally, a vindication and nota very successful vindicationof the authority ofConstantinople against the domineering attitude ofAlexandria.

    But it is only after Alexandria had definitelytaken up the wrong side in the Monophysite con-troversy 1 that the feud became of general politicalimportance.

    It must, however, in justice to the bishops ofAlexandria in the century from 350-450, be pointedout that we cannot understand the history of thatcentury unless we read into it those factors theworking of which can clearly be discerned afterChalcedon. The ambitions of particular people,

    ^ It can, without begging the question, be called the wrong sideafter the Council of Chalcedon in 451;

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    44 MONOPHYSITISM IN EGYPTwhen isolated from their environment, and theenvironment itself when studied against the whitebackground of the categorical imperative, lookvery drab ; but those who apply harsh epithets tothe aims, as well as to certain particular actions,of S. Cyril or of Dioscuros, often use a very differentstandard of criticism when judging the separatistmovements of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

    Further a chronicler of mass movements is boundto point out the deleterious influence of a crowd uponits leaders. Croiset,^ after speaking of the strikingvitality of Christian literature in the fourth century,speaks of the mischievous effect exercised upon it bythe very intensity and popularity of the subjects dis-cussed. ' Les esprits actifs, les caracteres ambitieuxet energiques se jettent dans cette melee et s'yperdent. Au milieu de ces clameurs et de ces disputessubtUes, le sens du beau s'oblitere, le gout desinteressedu vrai disparait.'

    Monophysitism was adopted by Alexandria andEgypt as a national creed ; it was held to be theteaching of the national hero S. Cyril, whose honourhad, so Alexandria thought, been insulted at Chalce-don in 451. The Emperor Marcian made the faithof Chalcedon the law of the Empire. This onlystrengthened the allegiance of Egypt to S. Cyril, andthe deposition of Dioscuros aroused a fierce opposi-tion to Constantinople. The orthodox party wereregarded as anti-national, and their nominee to

    (Maurice) Croiset, History of Oreek Literature, Period V.

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    ITS ANTI-IMPERIALISM 45the vacant patriarchate, Proterius, found nearlythe whole peopleespecially the lower classes and themonksagainst him ; two thousand soldiers fromConstantinople could scarcely suppress the riots inAlexandria.

    On Dioscuros' death in 454 his party electeda successorTimothy AT\vpo

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    46 SYRIAthe nationaKsts, and compromise seemed mere weak-ness. The Monophysites would feel, like the Cathohcswhen they received toleration from Gunthamund ofBurgundy, ' poterit forsitan haereticus quicumqueregnare/ Therefore the Henotikon of Zeno was ofno more avail than the toleration of Anastasius.But the Monophysite sympathies of Anastasius hadtwo results : they caused a schism with the "West,and they encouraged the spread of Monophysitismby Alexandrian missionaries in the districts outsidethe patriarchate. Justin was naturally anti-Mono-physite, as opposed to Anastasius. Justinian, desir-ing the friendship of the Western Church, was boundto concihate orthodoxy by taking measures againstheretics. It was in his reign that the pohtical andreligious conflict became crucial, but before studyingit, it is necessary to consider Antioch and Syria.

    Seeck ^ points out in an interesting way that thestream of progress, which slowly froze throughout theEmpire, kept its warmth longest in the regions wherethe Semitic element predominated. If Syria is con-sidered, the theory does not even express the wholetruth, for the prosperity and culture of the periodincreased as time went on. The sixth century marksfrom Alexandria to Constantinople to renounce Monophysitism. Theauthorities were afraid to proceed to open violence as the capitaldepended upon Alexandria for its supply of wheat (John of Ephesus,Hist. Ecd. i. 36). The same fear may have influenced Theodosius 11when he allowed the robber Council of Ephesus to depose Flavian andreverse the decision of 448.

    * Seeck, Oeschichte des Unterganga der anWcen Wdi, in the chapteron * Die Ausrottung der Besten.'

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    ANTIOCH 47the apogee, in M. Diehl's phrase, of the Syrianprovinces and also of Armenia.^We have already noticed the prominence ofArmenians in the imperial forces, and seen howtheir feudal gentry formed a useful counterpoise tothe Goths. Syria proper gave birth to capablesoldiers : the great Solomon came from Daras.^ Inthe sphere of hterature and the arts Syria pro-duced historians like Procopius, John of Ephesus,Evagrius, and Malalas ; the law school of Berytushad a cosmopohtan reputation, and it seems tohave learnt how to produce in the minds of menlike Procopius much of the old Roman spirit.Northern Syria is full of Christian Churches of areally original type of architecture ; Antioch, thecapital, was a city of 300,000 inhabitants.

    The rehgious situation in Sjrria bore some relationto that in Egypt. Both countries had strong ChristiantraditionsAntioch even more than Alexandriathe peoples of both countries were nationahst, andtherefore anti-imperial in character ; both patriarchshad churches outside the empire under their super-intendence ; Antioch had a school of theology,prone, Hke the Alexandrian school, to heresy ; therewas a small pagan opposition in Syria as in Egypt.

    ^ From a political point of view Chapot {La fronti^re de VEuphraie,Pi 388) rightly calls Armenia another Poland.

    ' Procopius, B. F. i. !!^ John of Ephesus {H.E. 3, 27) gives an extraordinary tale of a

    pagan plot with enormous ramifications, set on foot in 579 by theworshippers of Satan at Heliopolis:

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    48 CONTRAST WITH ALEXANDRIABoth sees included a large number of monks, manyof whom, in their ' singular habitude,' Hke S. SimonStylites abandoning ' the beaten path which theSaints had trodden," ^ must have been a difficultyto the bishop.

    But the Alexandrian diocese was more com-pact than the Antiochene ; the latter includedmany different races and languages, and it lostCyprus and Jerusalem. After the Council of Ephesusnearly all the eastern part of the patriarchate re-mained Nestorian ; persecution only drove thechurch and school of Edessa to Nisibis, where theKing of Persia gladly welcomed a Christianity thatwas not imperial. Monophysitism also, as anti-imperial, gained a great hold, many in WesternSyria refusing allegiance to the decree of Chalcedon.The Armenian Church, which was under a KaBo\iKo

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    THE PLAN OF JUSTINIAN 49physite ^ would gradually bring about a quiet settle-ment. But toleration had the opposite effect.Individual bishops could do as they chose ; theresult was that the Eastern Churches were dividedinto factions,^ and finally had no friendly intercoursewith Africa and the West. Anastasius was there-fore compelled to abandon his policy of non-inter-vention, and to remove the extremists on either side.^This again led to continuous intrigues in Sjrria inwhich the monks were very vehement. On oneoccasion they rushed in a body into Antioch, and awild street conflict ensued.*

    In the East, as in Egypt, the rise to power andsubsequent accession of Justinian marked a reaction ;the revolt of Vitalian in 514 had shown that sucha reaction would find support.

    ^ Gf : Liber Pontificalis, liv. ' In quo libello (sent by Hormisdas)noluit sentire Anastasius Augustus, quia et ipse in herese Eutychianacommunis erat.' Cf. ibid, for Anastasius' attitude towards Rome.He wrote to the pope, saying, ' Nos jubere volumus, non nobis juberi.'

    * Evag. iii. 30. /^Yi. iii. 30. * Ibid. iii. 33.

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    CHAPTER IVATTEMPT AT CENTRAL CONTROL: JUSTINIANAND THEODORA

    Justinian attempted to succeed where Anastasiushad failed, and to work out a conception which thecareful mind of Anastasius ^ had always rejected asimpracticable. His attempt is so very importantthat it must be studied at some length. As the lawbooks of Justinian both summed up the past and laiddown a great foundation for builders in the future,so the rehgious events of his reign sum up previoustendencies in a great crux ; and most of the old linesstill discernible on the palimpsest which the map ofthe Christian East has become since the invasions ofIslam are duefor good and illto the handiworkof Justinian.

    For Justinian, whom John Lydus ^ rightly calledTov TrdvTfOv ^aaCKeaiv aypvirvorarov, had a vast planof a united church of East and West in a unitedEmpire. The carrying out of this plan meant,

    ^ Procopius, B.P. i. 10, sums up the character of Anastasius whenhe says hpav yap dveirKmiTTTas ovtep ovre rjTrioTaTo ovre etcode.

    * J; LyduB, iii. 55.

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    THE PLA^ OF JUSTINIAN 51on its political side, the reconquest of Italy,Africa, Gaul, and Spain ; on its religious side,the estabhshment of a universal orthodoxy ; thisreligious unity was to a Christian Emperor an indis-pensable condition, "... ovTrep leparcKov'] iv elprjvyv\aTT0fl6V0V Kol TO XoLTTOV rj[UV GvOvvrjCTeL TToXCrevfjUi.' '*Hence the Codex of Justinian begins with thetitle * De Sununa Trinitate et de fide cathoUca et utnemo de ea pubHce contendere audeat.' Hence inhis panegyric on the buildings of Justinian Procopius *says that Justinian closed all the roads that ledto error. The ultimate authority, the touchstoneof orthodoxy, was the Emperor himself. He hadinherited a Caesaro-papism, and was unwilling torelax his control of doctrine or of church govern-ment ; he agreed with the saying of Constantius ^' OTrep iya> ^ovKofiai, tovto kuvcov.^

    The deep-rooted character of the heresies in theEast, the apparently firm hold of the Goths in the West,the turbulent independence of Syria and Egypt, thehostility of Italy to Byzantine Caesaro-papism, theambitions of Persia, the chaotic state of the finances,the need for a reform of the existing civil service, mighthave given the Emperor to pause before undertakingthis gigantic scheme of subduing utterly to himself theminds and bodies of almost the whole civilised world.Are the charges of Procopius right, and was Justiniana narrow-minded oflBicial, imable from his exaltedstation to see the problems of his empire, deluded by

    * Nov. 42. *" * Procopius, De Aed. i. proem.a2

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    52 CHARACTER OF JUSTINIANa subservient court into believing that the worldwould obey his word ? Was he in all his life thetheological fanatic whom Procopius describes asneglecting practical afiairs to sit through long nightsof controversy with old priests ? ^ Or did that fierceascetic nature fret itself away until only imaginationwas left^the gigantic imagination of an age whichbuilt the Church of the Divine Wisdom and lookedinto the very eyes of the angels of famine and earth-quake, fire and pestilence ?

    Justinian was imaginative, fanatical, bureau-cratic, accustomed to obedience ; but he was aByzantine, and to a Byzantine cunning also wasamong the virtues.^ Hence one would expect to findJustinian trying to secure his ends by secret as wellas open methods, by plans often contradictory.The Emperor's real policy, therefore, may have beenless chimerical, if less magnificent, than it appeared.For while nominally dictating a rigid orthodoxy to

    * Cf. Procopius, Ooth. Wars, iii. 16, and Hist. Arc. 18. C5f. theencouragement given to the Western policy by a (Christian bishop(Proc. B.V. i. 12).

    ' V. Procopius, Ooth. Wars, i. 2, where Procopius praises Amala-Buntha's treacherous murder of her opponents ; in Proc. B. F. i. 3, Aetiusand Boniface are highly praised, and called the last of the Romansyet Aetius practises double dealing upon Boniface, and Boniface doesnot scruplein Procopiusto turn traitor to the Empire, by callingin the Vandals. Cf. also the curious characterisation of Honorius inProc. B.V. i. 2, as one of the oure ay^ivois ovre Ti oiKodev firjxavaa-daioiaiv, whom, fjv fjLT) TTovqpoi eUv, Grod loTBs to help. Cf. also the im-patient anger of S. Gregory the Great at the underhand methodsof the exarchate of Ravenna. Cf. also the idea of writing a secrethistory. Ananias of Shirak, e.g., had a library of secret books as wellas open (v. Byz. Zeii. 1897)

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    CHARACTER OF THEODORA 53the East, he may have secretly assented to a com-promise, just as, while issuing high-sounding mani-festoes and regulations for purifying the government,he acquiesced in the exactions of his officials,and then atoned for his connivance by ultimatelyconfiscating for imperial purposes their ill-gottengains.

    The ideal means for a double religious policy, de-manding orthodoxy and permitting heresy, Justinianfound ready to hand in his Empress Theodora.

    Justinian refers to Theodora in his edict of 535as sent to him by God ; magistrates and bishopsand generals swore fidelity to her as well as to theEmperor. Fifteen years after her death Paul theSilentiarius celebrated her as the active collaboratorwith Justinian in the work of government. To thisday the mosaics of Ravenna show how important apart Theodora played in the visible life of the court.In spite of general expectation, Justinian remainedfaithful to her policy after her death. Theodorawas a Monophysite ; she had evidently travelledover Egypt and Syria, and knew what one can onlycall the ' politico-religious ' conditions of the country.She saw that the strength of the Empire lay in theEast.^ She was religious by nature; she humbled

    ^ The general witness of other historians points to the Hisioria Arcanabeing wrong and untrustworthy where it speaks of Theodora's past.Even the Hist. Arc. ( 10) says that ' no senator thought of objectingto the marriage ; no priest was grievously affected.' Liberatus {Brev.,in Migne, Ixviii. 1040 et seq.) can only say of Theodora that she was animpious enemy of the Church. Victor Tonnennensis expatiates on the

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    54 CHARACTER OF THEODORAherself before the ascetic Maras, believed in theefficacy of relics, provided a refuge for monks, re-built churches, endowed pious houses. There is noevidence that she disapproved of the Emperor'sWestern policy : she was extraordinarily ambitiousone to whom any scheme of aggrandisement wouldappeal in itself ; she interfered actively at Romein attempting to secure for the Monophysites thesupport of the papacy.

    Justinian's Eastern policy, on the other hand, hasone great inconsistency. How is it that a monarchwho was trying to enforce unity and orthodoxy in theChurch should permit so much diplomatic and religiouswork to be carried on beyond the frontiers of the empire

    heresy of the Empress, but not on her past wickedness. John Lydus,who, as a disappointed man, was as hostile as Liberatus and Victor,says nothing. Neither does Agathias, who wrote after Justinianand so had nothing to fear. Malalas and Theophanes record Httle ofTheodora, except actions of goodness and piety ; and yet Theophanesgives the conversation of Justinian with the circus party of the ' Greens,*to whom Theodora was particularly odious. Evagrius is very hostileto Justinian's government and to the morals of Byzantine society,but he finds nothing to say against Theodora or Justinian. Zonaras,who also attacks the immorality of bad emperors, only accusesTheodora of avarice, and of over-influencing her husband.

    One cannot here enter into a discussion as to the date and genuine-ness of the Historia Arcana. In spite of von Ranke, the reeearcheaof Dahn, and more recently of Haury, seem to leave no doubt on thesubject. As to its date, the general views of Haury, in his two brochureson Procopius, as to Procopian chronology seem less convincing thanthose of Dahn [Procopius 0/ Caesarea). Dahn maintains that the H.A.was written between 588 and 589. With regard to the trustworthinessof the H.A., surely one may be allowed to regard a great deal of it,such as the continually repeated story of the prison from whosedepths people so unaccountably managed to escape, as a kind ofByzantine ' Zuleika Dobson.*

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    THE IMPEEIAL POLICY 55by Monophysite missionaries?^ How was it thatin the West Justinian, the autocrat of autocrats,acquiesced in Theodora's treatment of the papacy,and in the East allowed her to outwithim in an almostludicrous way by sending Monophysites to forestall theimperial embassy of conversion to the Nobatae ?

    Surely the conjecture of Evagrius ^ is right,that Justinian and Theodora adopted different sidesin the Monophysite controversy out of arrangement.Procopius actually regards a secret co-operationcombined with apparent opposition as the verykeynote of the imperial pohcy, and he quotes thedifferent sides adopted by the Emperor and Theodorain the religious disputes as the chief example.^ Hisstatement is all the more valuable because he givesthe wrong reason for it'he attributes it to the

    ^ E.g. John of Ephesus was employed even within the Empireto convert 70,000 heathen in Asia Minor : the converts being baptisedat State expense v, Diehl, Justinien, especially the chapter on theforeign poUcy of Justinian for the missions of conversion sent to theSabinian Huns, the Arabians of Syria, the Homeritae, Axumites,Blemmyes and Nobatae. The employment of the orthodox S. Basilby the Arian Valens to restore order in the Church of Armenia maybe quoted as a precedent for this ; but the circumstances weredifferent. Basil had personally impressed the Emperor and was theoutstanding figure of his time in the Church of Asia Minor.

    * Evagrius, iv. 10.' Procopius, H.A. 10. eVet ovbe tl aXXi7Xoiv ;(wpif is ttjv hiairav

    eTrpa^drqv. x^povov fikv yap ttoXvv eBo^av airaai Tols yvwfiais aei kqi toisiiTLTr)bfvp.a(n KaravTiKpv dXXjjXotv levat, va-repov fievToi e^erriTrjdes avroiv^vpirfir'Ka.a-dai rj SonTjacs av-n] iyvma-dr] tov pr] ^vpcftpovrja-avTas Toiis Karq-Koovs (r(f)i(nv firavacrrfjvat,, aX\a Biaardvai ras yvapas avrovs airaai, irpioTapev ovv Toiis xpiOTiai'ous' biava

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    56 THE IM