Sermons Part 2

The death of Christ was the orphanhood of the disciples. I am not inventing a figure of my own when I say this. It is the language which our Lord Himself uses to describe their dest.i.tute condition. In our English Bible He is made to speak of leaving them comfortless. The words in the original are: "Leave you orphans"--"Leave you desolate,"

as it is translated in the Revised Version. They would be fatherless, motherless, homeless, friendless--at least, so it seemed to them--when He was gone.

No condition of life excites so keenly the compa.s.sion of the compa.s.sionate as the helplessness of the orphan. It is not only that a child is deprived, by its parents' death, of the means of subsistence; its natural guardian, teacher, friend is gone. Henceforth it is a waif on the ocean of the world. In no respect different was that void which threatened the disciples when the Master's presence had been withdrawn. They had left all--authority, home. They had forsaken parents and friends, and He had become Father and Mother, and Sister and Brother to them. They had given up houses and land, and He was henceforth their home. Their dependence on Him was absolute. Whatever of joy they had in the present, and what of hope they had for the future, were alike centred in Him. They thought His thoughts and lived His life. And now this communion of soul with soul, and of life with life, must be ruthlessly severed.

This was the terrible shock for which Christ would prepare the minds of His disciples. It was not only the void of earthly hopes scattered by His death; but their Teacher, their Guide, Spirit, Friend, Christ, their Father was withdrawn. The voice which soothed must be silent, and the eye which gladdened must be glazed, and the hand which blessed must be stiffened in death. Christ lay buried--lost for ever, as it would seem to them. What joy, what strength, what comfort could they have henceforth in life? They would stake their whole on Christ, and Christ has failed them. Surely, never was orphanhood more helpless, more hopeless, than the orphanhood of these poor Galileans.

It was to prepare them for this terrible trial that the promise in the text was given. He must go; but another shall come. They should not be without a teacher, a guide; one Advocate, one Comforter would be withdrawn, but another would take His place. There would be a friend still, an adviser ever near to take them by the hand, to whisper into their ears, to prepare, to instruct, to protect, to fortify, to guide them into all truth. Another comforter. Yes; and yet not another.

There would not be less of Christ, but more of Christ, when Christ was gone. This is the spiritual paradox which is a.s.sured to the disciples by the promise in the text--"He shall take of Mine, and show it unto you. All things that the Father hath are Mine; therefore, said I, He shall take of Mine and shall show it unto you." Another, and yet not another. It was not Christ supplanted, not Christ superseded, not Christ eclipsed and quenched, but a larger, higher, purer, more abundant Christ with whom henceforth they should live. It was not now a Christ who might be speaking at one moment and the next moment might be hushed, but a Christ whose tongue was ever articulate and ever audible--Christ vocal even in His very silence. It was not now a Christ who was seen at one moment, and the next was concealed from view by some infinite obstacle, but a Christ whose visit no darkness could hide and whose touch no distance could detain. It was not a Christ of now and then, not a Christ of here and there, but a Christ of every moment and every place--a Christ as permeating as the Spirit is permeating. "He shall take of Mine, and shall show it unto you."

"Lo, I am with you alway! I am with you even to the end of the world."

He is not lost, then. This is the promise which Christ gives to His disciples on the eve of His departure to console them for their loss.

His departure was more than necessary. It was even expedient, it was even advantageous for them that He should go. Did not the Saviour say this? Nothing would have seemed more improbable in the antic.i.p.ation than that the death of Christ should have produced the effect it did produce on His disciples. We should have predicted weakness, depression, misery, scepticism, apostacy, despair; and yet what was the actual result? Why, all at once they appear before us as changed men. All at once they shake off meaner hopes; all at once their nerves are fortified, are lifted into a higher region. On the eve of the catastrophe they are hesitating, fearful, sense-bound, narrow in their ideas. They are, we might almost say, "of the earth earthy." And on the morrow they are strong, steadfast, courageous, endowed with a new spiritual faculty which bears unto the very salvation of salvation.

Hitherto they have known Christ after the flesh. Henceforth they will know Him so no more.

To know Christ after the fles.h.!.+ What would we not have given to have known Him after the flesh? What a source of strength it would have been to us, we imagine, just to have listened to one of those parables spoken by His own lips; just to have witnessed one of those miracles of healing wrought by His own hand; just to have looked one moment on Him as He stood silent in the judgment-hall, or bleeding on the cross!

But no! It was expedient for us, as it was expedient for the first disciples, that He should go away. It was expedient for us; otherwise the Spirit could not come.

To know Christ after the fles.h.!.+ Did not the disciples know Him after the flesh, and did they not forsake Him? Did not Thomas who doubted and Peter who denied know Him after the flesh? Did not the Jewish mob which hooted and reviled, and the Roman soldiers who scourged, know Him after the flesh? What security was this knowledge after the flesh against scepticism, against blasphemy, against apostacy, against rebellion? Seeing, it is said, is believing. Yes, and hearing, too.

But it is the seeing of the spiritual eye and the hearing of the spiritual ear--the eye that beheld the heavens open and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of G.o.d: the hearing of the glory when He was called into Paradise, "unspeakable words which it is not lawful for a man to utter."

To know Christ after the flesh. Why should we desire to know Him after the flesh? It was just to unteach the disciples themselves, whose knowledge was only after the flesh, that Christ went away, because so long as they were possessed of this knowledge, the Paraclete could not come, could not take up His abode in their faith. Thus, this is the work of the Spirit, as described by our Lord, in the text to us, as to the disciples of old. The Spirit offers not less of Christ, but more of Christ; for in the place of the Christ who walked on the sh.o.r.es of the Galilean lake, who sat on the brink of the Samaritan well, and shed tears over the doomed city--instead of such a Christ we have a Christ who is ever present to us; a Christ of all times and all places; a Christ who traverses the universe--an Omnipotent Christ.

Look at the explanation which our Lord Himself gave to the prophets: "He shall take of Mine, and shall show it unto you." How so? Why of Christ, and Christ only? Has the Spirit nothing else to teach us? Hear what follows: "All things--_all things_--that the Father hath are Mine; therefore, said I unto you, He shall take of mine and shall show it unto you."

All things! Yes; all history, all science, all aggregation of truth in whatever domain, and whatever kind it may be. "Think you," He seems to say--"think you that My working is confined to a few paltry miracles wrought in Galilee? The universe itself is My miracle. Think you My words are restricted to a few short precepts uttered to the Jews?" We make foolish distinctions. We imagine we erect a barrier within which we would confine the Christ of our own imagination; but the Christ of Christ's own teaching overleaps all such barriers of ours. We are careful to distinguish between knowledge and revealed religion. We separate Christ from the former and we relegate Him to the latter; but the Christ of Christ's own teaching is the Eternal Word, through whom the Father speaks. We draw the rigid lines of demarcation between science and theology, between religion and language, but the Christ of the people is the hand of the Father not less in science and language than in religion and theology. We have our distinctions between the secular and the spiritual, as if the two were antagonistic. We must not use a saying of Christ, as if it taught that our duty to Caesar was something quite apart from our duty to G.o.d; as if, forsooth, it were possible for us to have any moral obligation to any man, or body of men, to any child, which was not also an obligation to G.o.d in Christ.

But the Christ of the Gospel claims sovereignty over all alike--over that which we call secular not less than that which we call spiritual.

"All things--_all things_--that the Father hath are Mine; therefore, I say, He shall take of Mine, and show it unto you."

We speak sometimes of the revelations. Yes; revelations, indeed, not merely of inanimate processes, not merely of blind laws, but revelations of the eternal world, of the Eternal Son through whom the Father works. Therefore, as Christians, we are bound to look upon these as Christ. Therefore, if we are true to our heavenly schooling, the Spirit will take up these and show them unto us. "He shall take of Mine, and shall shew it unto you."

Are we diligent students of the lessons of history? Do we delight to trace the progress of the human race from the first dawn of civilisation to its noonday blaze? To disclose the obscure past of the great nations of the earth? to mark the development of the arts of government? to follow the ever-widening range of intellect? to discern the stream of human life broadening slowly down with the force of ages?

Then let us see the kingdom of Christ not less in the progress of history than in the laws of science. He was in the world, and the world knew Him not. He was the true Light that lighteth every man--the Light ever brighter and clearer till it attained its full glory at length in the Incarnation. Therefore the school of history is also the school of the Holy Spirit, for it is the setting forth of Christ. "He that hath eyes to see, let him see." "He shall take of Mine."

If you have traced Christ's footprints in the processes of Nature; if you have heard Christ's voice in the teachings of history--then, surely, you will not fail to see and hear Him in your own domestic and social relations. That pure affection which has been to you a fountain of benediction; that friends.h.i.+p which has been the crowning glory of your life--can you think of it apart from Christ? If you do not find Christ here, a.s.suredly you will seek Him in vain elsewhere. What was that truthfulness, that purity, that unselfishness, that devotion which attracted you to the broken light of the Great Light, a reflected ray from the Central Sun Himself? Yes, the Spirit took of Christ and showed it to you when, through that affection, through that friends.h.i.+p, He held up to you the n.o.bler, because a more G.o.d-like, idea of life. "He shall take of Mine." He shall bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said to you.

Last and chiefest, for the crown of all these--these rays through forest and mountain--of all other lessons, He shall set before you the full Sun. He shall teach you the lesson of Incarnation. He shall show unto your soul the tremendous importance of that statement which comes from your lips as time after time you repeat your creed: "He was made man." He shall teach you the lesson of the Pa.s.sion. He shall remind you day and night of the paramount obligation which it lays upon you.

Think--yes, think and think, and think--of that word till the love of Christ shall constrain your whole being, shall bind you hand and foot, and lead you captive to the will of G.o.d. He shall teach you the lesson of the resurrection, emanc.i.p.ating, purifying, strengthening, exalting, till he makes you conformable thereunto. Then you will rise from the sepulchre in which you have lain many days, will breathe the pure air of G.o.d's presence once more, will sit at meat when you are risen; while, though in the world, you will be no longer of the world; notwithstanding all disabilities and weaknesses you will live--live even now as faithful citizens of the kingdom of heaven, which is righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.

NOTE.--These Sermons are printed from reports.

CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.[8]

I.

In the lectures which I addressed to you this last year, I took as my subject the early history of Christianity while it was still unrecognised by Roman law, and, therefore, treated as an enemy of the State. On this occasion I purpose to trace the stream a little further from its source, when Christianity has forced itself into recognition and become the predominant religion of the empire. The struggle between Christianity and Paganism has entirely changed its outward character. The only weapons which the Church could wield at a former epoch were moral and spiritual. She is now furnished with all the appliances of political and social prestige; yet these, however imposing, and to some extent serviceable, are not her really effective arms. She can afford to be deprived of them for a time, and her career of victory is unchecked. Her substantial triumphs must still be won by the old weapons. The source of her superiority over Paganism is still the same as before--a more enlightened faith in the will of the unseen, a heartier devotion to the cause of humanity, a more reverential awe for the majesty of purity, a greater readiness to do and to suffer. The change has been as startling and as sudden as it was momentous. All at once the Church had pa.s.sed from hopeless, helpless oppression to supremacy and power. For several years after the opening of the fourth century the last and fiercest persecution still raged, Christians were hunted down, tortured, put to death with impunity and without mercy. The only limit to their sufferings was the weariness or the caprice of their persecutors. Yet before the first quarter of this century has drawn to a close the greatest sovereign who had worn the imperial diadem for three hundred years is found presiding at a council of Christian bishops discussing the most important questions of Christian doctrine as though the fate of the empire depended upon the result. In the short period of fifteen years which elapsed between the death of Galerius and the Council of Nicaea, the most stupendous revolution which the pages of history record had been brought about. We cannot wonder that the contemporary heathen failed altogether to recognise its completeness and its permanence.

Even to ourselves, who look back at the struggle between Christianity and Paganism from the vantage ground of history, it is difficult to realise the suddenness of the transition. To those who lived in the heat of the conflict, and whose estimate of relative proportions was necessarily confused by the nearness of this position, it was altogether unintelligible. The one thing which most astonishes us in heathen writers at this period is their blindness to the real significance of the change. They ignore it, or they make light of it; they speak of Christian sects, of Christian offices and Christian rites, in a tone of cold indifference where they think fit to mention them at all. Obviously they look at Christianity as a phenomenon which it may be curious to contemplate, but which has no great practical moment for them; they do not realise it as destined to mingle permanently with the main stream of human life. Christianity to them is still a mere Syrian superst.i.tion which has become the fas.h.i.+on of the day, as so many other superst.i.tions have been before it, and, like its predecessors, will pa.s.s away when it has had its fling. The truth is, that the revolution was not really sudden, though it seemed so. In its social and political aspects, its victory was almost instantaneous, but essentially it was a moral revolution; and such revolutions are ever gradual: they provoke no notice because they are noiseless; they advance patiently and silently, step by step; and then only when the work is done do indifferent spectators discover that any work has been going on. Their true type is that temple of G.o.d in whose building neither hammer, nor axe, nor tool of iron was heard, because the stones had been brought thither ready hewn for the building.

In this course of lectures it is my design to discuss the fall of Paganism and the triumph of Christianity in the Roman empire; but obviously this subject is too large for adequate treatment within the s.p.a.ce of three short lectures. I am obliged, therefore, to limit it in some way or other; and it seemed to me that I could not do better than take the reign of Julian the Apostate as the central feature in the picture, and group around it such other facts as may be required to explain its significance. There are many advantages in this mode of treatment. This Paganism was never exhibited to more advantage than in the person of this, its greatest and most energetic champion. High personal character, no common intellectual gift, great military renown, supreme political power, perfect knowledge of his adversary, absolute and unflinching devotion to his own cause--all these united to make Julian the most formidable antagonist which the Church ever had, or might be expected to have. His career showed what Paganism could do, and what it could not do. The ability of the champion only exposed the helplessness of the cause. And again, a full blaze of light is poured upon this one man and this one reign such as rarely falls to any period of ancient history. Julian himself, devoted friends, impartial critics, sworn foes, heathen and Christian, orthodox and Arian--all have contributed to the completeness of the portraiture. This strange character, half philosopher, half fanatic, the most wary of dissemblers, and the most Quixotic of adventurers, stands before us with a distinctness of feature which leaves nothing to be desired.

In order to understand the man and the epoch it is necessary to take up the course of history more than half a century before he ascended the throne. The starting-point in our review of events is the most remote province of the empire--the island of Britain. On the 25th of July, 306, Constantine was proclaimed Emperor by the Roman Legionaries at York. "Oh, happy Britain," says a heathen panegyrist, not then foreseeing the stupendous results, "Oh, happy Britain! that it has first seen Constantine as Caesar." This was the commencement of a long reign, extending over more than thirty years--the longest in the annals of Imperial Rome since Augustus. In the interval of three centuries which separated these two remarkable men, no emperor had reigned who deserved to be considered great as they were. And their lives are linked together in another way. The one reign saw Christianity cradled in the manger; the other witnessed it seated on the throne. On October 27th, 312, some two miles from the walls of Rome, where the Great North Road crosses the Tiber, was fought the decisive battle of the Milvian Bridge. The routed army with its captain and rival Emperor, the heathen champion Maxentius, perished in the waters of the Tiber, and Constantine entered the Imperial city--the stronghold of Paganism--in triumph. On June 15th, 313, was signed the great charter of religious toleration--the Edict of Milan, issued in the joint names of the Emperors Constantine and Licinius. By this edict Christianity was recognised as a lawful religion. The sacred places, and the property which had been taken from the Christians during the great persecution were restored to them once more. Every man was allowed henceforth to adopt any form of wors.h.i.+p which he might choose. On the 25th of July, 325, the anniversary of his accession and the inauguration of the twentieth year of his reign, Constantine, then sole Emperor, brought the Council of Nicaea to a close. He had been present at several of its sittings, and throughout had exerted himself to the utmost to secure unanimity. By a higher inspiration, yet not without his instrumentality, the deliberations of the a.s.sembled Bishops resulted in the Creed which was to be henceforth and for ever the basis of unity in the Church.

But, meanwhile, what was Constantine himself? It is strange that, notwithstanding the prominent part taken by this Emperor in the establishment and consolidation of the Church, historians have been found to doubt the genuineness of his conversion, I do not think that the facts justify any such hesitation. For the sincerity of his Christian profession we have two guarantees, which, combined, must, I think, be regarded as conclusive. It was gradual, and it was disinterested. It was gradual. I shall say nothing here of his miraculous conversion, of the fiery cross in the heavens, with the inscribed words, "Hereby conquer," which is said to have appeared to him shortly before the battle of the Milvian Bridge. What truth underlies this story we shall never know; but, judging by his public actions, we trace a gradual advance towards a more distinct reception of Christianity. His father Constantine had been a believer in one G.o.d. He had extended his protection to the Christians when they were persecuted by his Imperial colleagues. This Monotheism and this toleration descended to Constantine, as it were, by inheritance. For some years after his accession he appears not to have advanced much beyond this point. On the triumphal arch erected in Rome to commemorate his victory over Maxentius, and which still spans one of the approaches of the Forum, his success is ascribed to the suggestions of "the Divinity." Such language is exactly what his father, who was not a Christian, might have used, what heathen philosophers did use again and again. This vague expression, "The Divinity," is repeated several times afterwards in Imperial edicts.

There is as yet no personal profession of Christianity. The Edict of Milan puts the Christians on the same political level as the Pagan. It gives them no advantage; but, by degrees, his language becomes more explicit, and his legislation more directly favours the Christians.

The Council of Nicaea is the climax of aggressive ascent. Again it was disinterested. As a mere question of worldly policy, I think it can hardly be doubted that Constantine acted very unwisely in embracing Christianity. His Christian subjects were still a comparatively small minority--an aggressive minority it is true, but not a dangerous minority if properly handled. They would have been won over to a man by frank toleration as they had been won over to his predecessor, Alexander Severus, and to his father, Constantius Chlorus. They asked nothing more than this. But by the further step of declaring himself a Christian he had nothing to gain and very much to lose. He alienated the heathen subjects, while his Christian subjects were devoted to him already. Indeed, as a matter of fact, it is quite plain that his conversion did lead to much disaffection, and that he was greatly hampered by it. Take an instance of this. The secular games, the great festival of thanksgiving for the prosperity of Rome, recurred, according to Roman usage, at long intervals of about one hundred and ten years. They were celebrated with great pomp and magnificence, and accompanied by elaborate propitiatory sacrifices to the tutelary deities of Rome. They had been kept last under Severus, and the time had come for another celebration. But year after year of the long reign of Constantine pa.s.sed, and no notice was taken of them. No omission would have wounded more deeply the sensibilities of the Romans than this. The heathen historian Zosimus, writing a whole century after, ascribed all the woes that had befallen the empire to this one fatal neglect. Again, during his second and last visit to Rome, the Capitoline games were celebrated. A main feature in the ceremonial was a procession along the sacred way to the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitol, in which the Emperor himself was expected to take a part. He flatly refused. Looking down from his residence on the Palatine Hill as the magnificent train wound round its foot, he broke out into expressions of ridicule and contempt. The senate and people were mortally offended. On one occasion, probably during this very visit, his statues were pelted with stones. This insult was reported to Constantine by some indignant courtier. The Emperor pa.s.sed his hand across his brow. He had a strong sense of humour. "Strange," said he, "that I did not feel hurt." But he did feel hurt, nevertheless; hurt in dignity by this insolence of the Romans, and a new capital arose on the sh.o.r.es of the Bosphorus in protest against the outrage. Christian Constantinople was his revenge on heathen Rome. "He made himself a Greek," said Dante, "to leave Rome to the Pope." Doubtless the Papal power grew more freely when the shadow of the Imperial presence was removed; but the Pope was not in Constantine's mind, and the immediate effect was a deadly side-thrust at heathendom. Rome, the stronghold of heathen sentiment and wors.h.i.+p, languished rapidly from this time.

Paganism had been stabbed in the heart.

But while the sincerity of Constantine cannot reasonably be doubted, his inconsistency is quite beyond question. The fact is that he was half a Pagan to the end, and, as Niebuhr has truly said, we do him a grievous wrong if we judge his actions by a purely Christian standard.

In this respect he was only like many of his contemporaries. In that age of transition the best heathens were half Christians, and not the best Christians were half heathens. The semi-Paganism of Constantine is matched by the semi-Christianity of Julian. I am not concerned with the moral inconsistencies of this Emperor. The sins of Constantine will not condemn the truth of Christianity, any more than the virtues of Julian will re-instate the errors of Paganism. Constantine is allowed on all hands to have been temperate in his habits and chaste in his life; but the domestic history of this great Sovereign was darkened by one horrible tragedy. About twelve months after the Council of Nicaea, in which he had borne so conspicuous a part, the Roman world was horrified by the report of three murders in the Imperial household. The Emperor's eldest and favourite son, Crispus--a young man of highest promise--an idol of the public; his little nephew--a bright, engaging boy of twelve; his own wife, Fausta, the mother of his three younger sons, were ruthlessly put to death. What was the secret of this tragedy we shall never know. It seems most probable that the son was implicated in some dangerous conspiracy, that the nephew was an unconscious tool of the conspirators, and that the wife, having goaded the husband in the first flush of his anger to extreme measures against her stepson, herself fell a victim to the violence of his remorse when the revulsion came. There were, we may safely say, circ.u.mstances which might extenuate these horrible crimes; there could be none which could justify them. A dark, indelible stain rests on the memory of Constantine.

But if the moral inconsistency of Constantine is the more shocking, his religious inconsistency is the more bewildering. In his recently built capital he erected a statue of himself, which exhibited a strange medley of the old and the new, and which may well serve for a type of his career as a sovereign. The Emperor was represented as a follower of the Deity, whom he himself had adopted as his patron in the old days of his Paganism--the Deity whom his apostate nephew ever regarded with special reverence; but in the aureole which encircled the head the rays took the form of the nails, the instruments of Christ's pa.s.sion. It was believed that at the base of this statue Constantine had placed a fragment of the true cross. It is also stated that in this same place was deposited the palladium--the cherished relic of Pagan Rome, which aeneas was said to have rescued from the flames of Troy, and which Constantine himself stealthily removed to his new capital. It is just the same with his legislation. Thus we find almost side by side, promulgated within two months of each other, two Imperial decrees--the one enjoining that Sunday shall be set apart as a day of rest; the other providing that when the palace or any public building is struck by lightning, the soothsayers shall be consulted as to the meaning of the prodigy, according to ancient custom, and the answer reported to the Emperor himself. When, indeed, we see this juxtaposition of Christianity and Paganism, we are forcibly reminded that Constantine was one and at the same time the summoner of the Nicene Council and the chief Pontiff of heathenism.

Thus, at one moment, he was preaching sermons to his courtiers and discussing dogmas with his bishops; and, at the next, he was issuing orders for the regulation of some Pagan ritual. The same fountain _did_ send forth sweet waters and bitter. And this incongruity held him captive to the last, even beyond the gates of death. In his newly built eastern capital--Christian Constantinople--he was buried by his own directions in a church amidst the memorials of the apostles, and "the equal of the apostles" was the t.i.tle accorded to him by common consent. In his forsaken western capital--heathen Rome--he was, as a matter of course, deified, as his Imperial predecessors had been deified, as he himself had deified his own father Constantius; and by virtue of this apotheosis he took his rank, not only with an Augustus or a Trajan, but with a Commodus and a Caracalla among the G.o.ds of Olympus. A strange blending of incongruous elements. And yet, whatever may have been felt of Constantine's life, however much of Paganism may have alloyed his Christianity hitherto, when the end came there was no more halting between two opinions.

Failing health to one who was endowed with a singularly robust const.i.tution came as an unmistakable sign of the approaching change.

The warning was not lost upon him. The increased fervour of his devotions was noticed by all. On one occasion he spent a whole night in the church praying. Strange to say, this zealous theological disputant, this foremost champion of the truth, had not hitherto been baptised. He was not even a catechumen. But now, when he felt himself sinking, he eagerly pressed that baptism might not be delayed. This wish was granted, and the rite was administered. This done, he devoutly expressed his thanksgivings for the mercy vouchsafed to him, and his readiness to go at once on his last heavenward journey. He refused again to a.s.sume the Imperial purple, and, so arrayed still in the white robe of his baptism, he was laid on his couch to await the end.

On the 22nd of May, 337--it was Whit Sunday, the appropriate festival of the newly baptised--about noon, the great Emperor breathed his last. He was succeeded by his three sons--Constantine, Constantius, and Constans. The three princes were scarcely seated on the throne, when the Imperial family became again the scene of a horrible tragedy as shocking as that which had left so dark a stain on their father's life. The soldiers rose up and ma.s.sacred not less than nine princes of the blood--the brothers and nephews of the deceased Emperor. Nearly a century later an untrustworthy historian gives currency to a story that Constantine himself had directed these ma.s.sacres, having discovered that he had been poisoned by his brothers. For this shameful libel on them and on him there is absolutely no foundation.

All the circ.u.mstances are against it, and it may safely be dismissed as a foul calumny. More specious is the view that the new Emperor Constantius, then a young man of twenty-one, was implicated in the ma.s.sacre; but it was done, if not by his direct orders, at least with his tacit connivance. But, however this may be, the incident has a very direct bearing on the subject of these lectures. In this carnage, besides the three Emperors themselves, two children alone escaped. The other members of the Imperial family perished to a man. The survivors were the two sons of one of Constantine's brothers, Julius Constantius; Gallus, a boy of twelve or thirteen; and Julian, a child of six or seven, of whom we shall hear much hereafter. Their father and their eldest brother were amongst the slain.

Of the three brothers who divided the empire of Constantine we are concerned only with one--the eldest, Constantine, and the youngest, Constans, perished in two successive revolutions. The middle and surviving brother, Constantius, united again all the dominions of his father under his sceptre. He alone left his mark on the history of the Church. He alone shaped the destinies and swayed the feelings of his relative, Julian. It is worth our while to form a closer acquaintance with this man, who was the evil genius of his cousin and ward.

Constantius had not inherited the towering strength and commanding mien of his father. He was under the average height, with a long body and short, bowed legs. His complexion was very dark, his hair smooth and glossy. He had prominent and keen eyes, recalling the piercing glance which his father Constantine had cast around on the a.s.sembled Bishops in the Council-hall of Nicaea, and which never failed to strike awe into the beholders. The crimes of Constantine were those of a strong, impulsive, half-barbarous nature. The crimes of Constantius were due to cold calculation and to indifference to the commonest claims of humanity. He was cautious to excess, sparing of his rewards, and backward in his confidences. He was mean, selfish, suspicious almost to fanaticism, shrinking from no cruelty when his fears were alarmed. It is noticed as characteristic of the man that when borne through the streets of Rome on a triumphal chariot he was seen, notwithstanding his short stature, to bend his head as he pa.s.sed under each archway. Yet he was not a man without redeeming virtues and some real ability. Like his father, he was temperate and just, so that, notwithstanding his many enemies, scandal itself was forced into silence. He could be sparing of rest and prodigal of labour when the interests of the State demanded it. He was gracious, too, in his demeanour, and with many--as even his cousin Julian is obliged to confess--bore a reputation for clemency. He sustained the honours of his Imperial rank with a dignity which never forgot itself, while he showed a contempt of mere vulgar popularity which even unfriendly critics described as magnanimous. Of his disastrous influence on the religious sentiments of Julian I shall have to speak hereafter. For the present I confine myself to the part which he took in determining the relative positions of Christianity and Paganism in the empire.

Unlike his father Constantius, he had been brought up a Christian from his infancy. His doctrinal views were very distorted, his moral conduct was often a gross libel on the Gospel; but where it was a question between Paganism and Christianity the sympathies of the Emperor were exerted wholly and undisguisedly on the side of the latter. On the whole, therefore, there is less of heathenism in the public memorials and the official acts of this reign than in the preceding. The Pagan emblems diminish; the Pagan enactments in the Statute Book are fewer. But still Constantius, like Constantine, continues to hold the office of supreme pontiff, and this necessarily leads to an official complicity in the rites and inst.i.tutions of Paganism. In this capacity he issues edicts for the service of heathen sepulture, for the repairing of heathen temples, for the support of heathen priests. When, a quarter of a century later, the heathen orator Symmachus pleaded the cause of expiring Paganism before the Emperor of his day, he appealed to the example of Constantius, who, though himself possessing a different faith, respected the ancient rites, and provided for their due maintenance out of the public treasury. But avarice often over-leaped the bounds which the Imperial laws prescribed. The sacred name of the Gospel was again and again profaned during this reign by spoliation and violence, just as under our own Tudor Kings the cause of reformation was sullied by the selfish rapacity of the n.o.bles. The Court of Constantius was beset with greedy and unscrupulous adventurers; and knowing the private sympathies of the Emperor, they would not be slow to seize the opportunities where any real or reported scandal of Paganism gave a handle for interference. Such opportunities would not be rare. Thus Paganism held on, still maintained and protected by law, but exposed to occasional outrages from individual violence, when, by a sudden catastrophe, it found itself seated once more on the throne.

On the 3rd of November, 361, in the twenty-fifth year of his reign, Constantius died. The event was altogether unexpected; he was still in the prime of life, only forty-five years of age. Temperate habits and vigorous outdoor exercises had kept him in perfect and unbroken health; but he was seized with a fever, and sank rapidly. There was only time to send to Antioch for the Bishop to administer that sacrament, which is ordained as the inauguration, but which, with him, as with his father, was the consummating act of his Christian profession. Immediately after his baptism he expired. His cousin Julian, the only surviving Prince of the house of Constantine, was his unquestioned successor. Thus Christianity, having wielded the Imperial sceptre for more than half a century, was again deposed. Of the education and the apostasy, of the reign and work of the new Emperor, I hope to speak to you in my two concluding lectures.

II.[9]

In my lecture last Tuesday I pa.s.sed under review the two long reigns of Constantine and Constantius, comprising altogether a period of fifty-five years. We were thus brought to the accession of Julian.

What, then, was the change wrought in the relations of Christianity and Paganism during this period? Most persons, I imagine, would answer without misgiving that Christianity had been established on the ruins of heathenism. This answer, however, would be wholly inaccurate.

Paganism was in no sense disestablished, and Christianity was only in a very limited sense established. Paganism was still the official religion of the empire. Whatever might be the individual faith of the sovereign, yet, as the head of the State, he was still the chief representative of heathenism, both in life and in death. In life he was the supreme pontiff, the fountain head of authority over all the priests, temples, rituals, throughout the empire; in death the representation was transformed from earth to heaven. By his apotheosis he became a patron divinity of Rome. A pagan calendar is still extant in which all the festivals of the deified Constantine are duly recorded. Now there was not and there could not be any such alliance with the State on the part of Christianity. However strong might be the Emperor's personal sympathies; however much he might mix himself up in the internal affairs of the Church; whatever privileges or immunities he might extend to the clergy,--yet officially he had no recognised position, officially he was a Pagan still. When, therefore, it is said that Paganism was disestablished and Christianity established in its stead, the position of affairs is entirely misconceived. The personal religion of the sovereign had nothing whatever to do with the official religion of the State. In modern countries, for the most part, the two coincide, and it is well that this should be so; but there are some exceptions. England under James II., and Saxony at the present moment, are cases in point.

But while Paganism was in no sense disestablished, Christianity might be said to a certain extent, though only to a very limited extent, to have been established side by side with it. The principle which in our own day has been called "levelling up," had been partially adopted.

Christianity was not only tolerated as a lawful religion, but some political privileges had been extended to it. Thus, for instance, one enactment of Constantine exempts the Christian clergy from certain onerous duties, while another secures to the Pagan priests this same privilege. In this respect the two religions are put on exactly the same footing. Here is a case, if not of concurrent endowment, at least of concurrent immunity, which comes to the same thing.

The fact is, that both Christian and heathen writers were interested in representing the change effected by the early Christian emperors as more complete than it was. To the Christian writer it was a point of honour to clear them from any stain of complicity with Paganism. To the heathen writer, wise after the event, the memory of those princes was naturally odious, and to exaggerate their hostility to the G.o.ds was to deepen the stain on their characters. But we have fortunately other witnesses quite free from suspicion. The coins, and the inscriptions, and the decrees, tell a very different tale. They show that in all essential respects Paganism, at least in the West, was as free to develop itself as before. They reveal to us temples built, priesthoods established, sacrifices offered, as. .h.i.therto; they exhibit the name of the Emperor connected with the wors.h.i.+p of Jupiter the Preserver, of Mars the Champion, of Hercules the Conqueror, of Sol the Invincible. Hercules is still the preserver of Caesar, and Sol is still the companion of Augustus. They show that the wors.h.i.+p of the Lydian Cybele still flourished on the hill Vatican, and the wors.h.i.+p of the Persian Mithras was still maintained in the vaults of the Capitol. All this it is necessary to bear in mind if we would understand the true position of Julian. It is quite a mistake to suppose that he had to begin _de novo_, and to re-establish Paganism. It still held the political vantage ground, however much it had lost in social prestige; and if it had had any inherent vitality at all, its work of restoration could have been as successful as in fact it proved futile.

What, then, was the real nature of the injury which this half-century of Christian supremacy in the person of the sovereign had inflicted on Paganism? First of all, the Imperial legislation, while it protected and even fostered the central inst.i.tutions of Paganism, zealously a.s.sailed some outlying works. On two points especially it was uncompromising. It rigorously proscribed divination, and sternly repressed certain special rites accompanied by licentious orgies. In neither respect, however, did it go beyond what during the Republic and under the early emperors had again and again been held necessary to secure the safety of the city and the morals of the people. But however justifiable, according to heathen precedents, this legislation of the early Christian emperors had proved a fatal blow to heathendom, for it was just here that the ardour of popular religion had consecrated itself. The patient energy, the suggestive mysticism, even the immoral orgies of the Oriental religions, had been found to have an irresistible attraction, and the ancient rites of Greece and Rome, which seemed cold and pa.s.sionless by their side, were deserted for these new favourites. They were, it was true, only the b.u.t.tresses of the old polytheism. The original structure of Roman and h.e.l.lenic wors.h.i.+p was untouched; but when the main building was crumbling with age the removal of these ancient supports which had sh.o.r.ed it up was fatal, and it fell by its own weight.