Women of Early Christianity

by Alfred Brittain; Mitchell Carroll

It was customary for the empress to accompany her imperial husband in his military expeditions about the Empire. Apart from other considerations, this was necessary to her safety and that of her offspring. Conspirators are apt to perpetrate their designs in the absence of the ruler against whom they are plotting; and in that case, the legitimate successor, with his protectors--if within reach--is the first victim of the ambition or precaution of his father's enemies. Consequently, it was usual for the emperors to take their families with them even in the most distant journeys. The advantage of this was illustrated in the death of Valentinian. He had marched against the Quadi who were vexing the frontier on the bank of the Danube. In his customary cruel manner, he put to death all who fell into his power, murdering even the women and children. The desperate people sent envoys begging for peace and forgiveness, but Valentinian broke out upon them in one of those paroxysms of rage to which he was subject, and, in the midst of his terrible invectives, ruptured a blood vessel in his lungs, which caused his death upon the spot.

At the moment, Justina was occupying a palace at a short distance from Bregetio, where the death of her husband occurred. Gratian, the son of Severa, had already been invested by his father with the imperial purple; but the court ministers, inspired probably with the thought of those advantages which such men enjoy during the reign of an infant, immediately planned to exalt to the throne of Valentinian the latter's four-year-old son, who bore the same name. Justina was sent for and placed by the ministers on a regal platform facing the troops. She held her young son in her arms; and the picture of a beautiful woman, endowed both with the fruit and the graces of motherhood, had its never failing effect of stirring the soldiers to an outburst of chivalric enthusiasm. The infant was there and then invested with the purple and the insignia of empire, which, it may be added, he never wore with greater effect than in the hour when his puny infant form was first arrayed in them. Whatever real influence his name had in the government was wielded by Justina. But Gratian was emperor. He it was who commanded the army and ruled the Empire, while Justina held court and engaged in petty domestic politics at Milan and Sirmium. One thing is certain and is remarkable enough to be mentioned--the two empress-mothers, Severa and Justina, lived as co-widows in that mutual harmony which Socrates would have us believe characterized them as co-wives.

Perhaps the principal event of the life of Justina was her controversy with Saint Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, who was one of the noblest men of the ancient Church, and who, by his courage and integrity, set an example for all succeeding bishops. Contemning the pomps and vanities of the world, he did not disdain to use the powers of his office for the political advantage of either the Church or the state; so, when Maximus usurped the imperial privilege in the Gallic provinces, Ambrose was sent as an ambassador by Justina to beg the clemency of the new emperor for herself and her son. Maximus reigned in the far West, while at his sufferance Valentinian II. was emperor in Italy.

While this young emperor--who died at the age of twenty-one--reigned, his mother ruled. Justina, however, appears to have been an easy-going woman. She does not seem to have been possessed of much ambition, and there is no indication that she interfered very strenuously in the affairs of the Empire. She found herself in the position which she occupied, and endeavored to preserve herself and her son in safety. Tolerance was marked in all that she did, and there was a very evident willingness to leave others unmolested, provided she and her son were allowed to maintain their position in security. Of course, while they retained the names of empress-mother and emperor, their real power was but slight. Valentinian II. was never more than a boy, and Justina possessed no military command. Nevertheless, it does seem as if she were endowed with some real ability, or she could not have maintained herself in comparative security during seventeen years of such troublous and changeful times.

Justina's controversy with Saint Ambrose seems to have been the one point on which she had serious difficulty with her subjects, and this appears to have affected only the people of Milan. Gibbon, in his inimitable manner, thus describes the incident: "The government of Italy and of the young emperor naturally devolved to his mother Justina, a woman of beauty and spirit, but who, in the midst of an orthodox people, had the misfortune of professing the Arian heresy, which she endeavored to instil into the mind of her son. Justina was persuaded that a Roman emperor might claim, in his own dominions, the public exercise of his religion; and she proposed to the archbishop, as a moderate and reasonable concession, that he should resign the use of a single church, either in the city or suburbs of Milan. But the conduct of Ambrose was governed by very different principles. The palaces of earth might indeed belong to Cæsar, but the churches were the houses of God; and, within the limits of his diocese, he himself, as the lawful successor of the apostles, was the only minister of God. The privileges of Christianity, temporal as well as spiritual, were confined to the true believers; and the mind of Ambrose was satisfied that his own theological opinions were the standard of truth and orthodoxy. The archbishop, who refused to hold any conference or negotiation with the instruments of Satan, declared with modest firmness his resolution to die a martyr rather than to yield to the impious sacrilege; and Justina, who resented the refusal as an act of insolence and rebellion, hastily determined to exert the imperial prerogative of her son."

Under ordinary circumstances, in a like situation, it is very probable that the bishop's reiterated desire for martyrdom would have been gratified. But Ambrose was secure, owing to the intense orthodoxy of all Justina's subjects. In an attack on religion, there was no one to carry out her commands. "As she desired to perform her public devotions on the approaching festival of Easter, Ambrose was ordered to appear before the council. He obeyed the summons with the respect of a faithful subject, but he was followed, without his consent, by an innumerable people: they pressed, with impetuous zeal, against the gates of the palace; and the affrighted ministers of Valentinian, instead of pronouncing a sentence of exile on the archbishop of Milan, humbly requested that he would interpose his authority, to protect the person of the emperor, and to restore the tranquillity of the capital."

In the end the bishop prevailed. There are extant certain letters written by the saint to his sister, Marcellina, in which he describes the circumstances of this dispute with Justina. He recounts how soldiers were sent to occupy the church which the empress desired for her own heretical use, and how they fraternized with the Catholic people who refused to give up the sacred building. The bishop asserts that in the midst of all this tumult and public inharmony, he gave utterance only to "freer groans." But there is evidence in bis own letters that Ambrose took a more active and also a more effective course than mere pious groaning; indeed, he showed a remarkable boldness of decision, as well as astuteness, in his political methods. He met the occasion with a sermon on the trials of Job, which could hardly have aroused pleasant reflections in the mind of Justina. "But Job was tried by accumulated tidings of evils, he was also tried by his wife, who said, 'Speak a word against God and die.' You see what terrible things are of a sudden stirred up, the Goths, armed men, the heathen.... You observe what was commanded when the order was given: 'Surrender the Basilica!' that is, speak a word against God and die.... So, then, we are prepared by the imperial commands, but are strengthened by the words of Scripture, which replies: 'Thou hast spoken as one of the foolish.' That temptation then is no light one, for we know that those temptations are more severe which arise through women. For even Adam was overthrown by Eve, whereby it came to pass that he erred from the divine commandments.... Why should I relate that Jezebel, also, persecuted Elijah after a bloodthirsty fashion? Or that Herodias caused John the Baptist to be slain?... Of women change follows on change, their hatreds alternate, their falsehoods vary, elders assemble together, wrong done to the emperor is made a pretence."

This homiletic punishment of the empress by the intrepid saint was opportunely followed by the discovery of certain holy and potent relics. By means of these, the sick were healed and the blind restored, and thus the people were convinced that God was on their side. The empress derided these marvels with an incredulity which would do credit to the present time; but she was compelled to take the wise counsel of Theodosius and surrender her purpose. She took her revenge, however, by publishing a decree that the Arian worship should be lawful throughout the dominions of her son, Valentinian II.

During this time, Maximus, the usurper of Gaul, had acted toward the empress and her feeble son with apparent friendliness; but he had not in reality set bounds to the range of his ambition. In 377, his first hostile operations commenced. Justina was not prepared for warfare. She fled with the emperor and her daughter, Galla, to Theodosius, the great ruler of the East, who first married Galla, and then took up successfully the cause of her mother and her brother. Of this marriage was born Placidia whose strange adventures we shall shortly relate. It is probable that Justina died during the war waged by Theodosius against Maximus. Of her character nothing derogatory is recorded with the exception of her heresy. It is hardly remarkable that, in an ecclesiastical dispute, she should be unable to cope with the man who, later, had the strength and the courage to close the door of the cathedral in the face of the great Theodosius, after his crime at Thessalonica.

Events so moved that, by the year 394, Theodosius had become the sole ruler of the Empire; but four months later he died at Milan, leaving the dominion of the East and the West to his sons Arcadius and Honorius respectively. Honorius was of a weakly constitution, and too young to take part in public matters. Flavius Stilicho, a Vandal, and the ablest man both in court and in camp that those times produced, defended the Empire in the attacks of the barbarians who poured over the Danube and over the Rhine.