Women of Early Christianity

by Alfred Brittain; Mitchell Carroll

As regards the relation of the sexes, the greatest contrast lay in the Christian conception of a purified spiritual love, as compared with the carnal and sensual love of the pagan peoples. This is illustrated by the popularity of the celebrated legend of Cyprian and Justina, which was later versified by the Empress Eudoxia.

Justina was a young and beautiful maiden of Corinth, who was passionately loved by a handsome pagan youth, Aglaides. Every effort to win the maiden's affections, which were given to Christ, proving of no avail, Aglaides determined to enlist in his cause the powers of darkness. To this end he engaged the services of a powerful magician, Cyprian by name, who was versed in all the magic lore of the Chaldeans and the Egyptians. The wizard's art devised every form of temptation, but the demons who were called up to accomplish the maiden's ruin fled at the sign of the Cross which she made; and Justina emerged from the ordeal pure and spotless, untainted by all the arts of the Evil One. Cyprian, overcome by the beauty and innocence and unbounded faith of the maiden, was himself inspired with the purest and most intense love for Justina, and, renouncing all his arts, was converted to Christianity. The devoted pair suffered martyrdom in the persecutions of Diocletian.

Such Christian ideals, opposing all that was basest in paganism, naturally developed a new and an exceedingly high type of womanhood. Of the women of the provinces we know almost nothing, for the records of the Eastern Empire centre about the capital city. We may be sure, however, that throughout the Orient Christian womanhood exhibited its characteristic traits of piety and unselfishness. In Constantinople, though an intensely religious city, paganism for centuries continued to exert a marked influence, and the type of woman there varied in accordance with the proportions of the two ingredients--Christianity and paganism--in the mental and spiritual aggregate of the individual woman. Some, to avoid the vanities and temptations of the world, lived lives of retirement in secluded monasteries; others, often of prominent social position, partook not of the gay life of the city, but gave themselves up to good works, ministering to the sick, providing for the poor, uplifting the fallen; while others, chiefly in the court circles, knew how to combine with their devotion to all the vanities and frivolities of high life a strict attention to the external duties of Christianity. The religious sisters of the day were an important factor in the society of Constantinople, and the exercise of their spiritual duties often brought them before the public in a manner inconsistent with the prevailing ideas of female retirement. A popular priest or bishop became the target of admiration on the part of enthusiastic women, who would gather about him and espouse his cause in a way that was often more embarrassing than helpful. As Jerome in Old Rome, so Chrysostom in New Rome was the centre of such a spiritual circle.

These various types of Christian womanhood present themselves in the reign of Arcadius, the first independent emperor of the Eastern Empire so called, and we are indebted to the sermons of the patriarch Chrysostom for many glimpses into their lives. Far more than in Old Rome the influence of women made itself felt in the government at Constantinople, and under almost every dynasty and throughout the centuries of its existence we find remarkable ladies of the imperial house playing a prominent part in politics as well as in religion.

The keynote of this new departure was struck by Eudoxia, empress of Arcadius, and the influence of her personality and her example upon her successors was marked. Hence, her career and that of the women of her time constitute the initial stage in the prominence of Christian women of the East.

Owing to the intellectual weakness of Arcadius, who inherited the eastern half of the Empire upon the death of Theodosius the Great in 395, the administration really fell into the hands of his minister, Rufinus, a vicious and avaricious man. Having the entire control of the army and an unbounded influence over the emperor, Rufinus cherished the hope that he might himself become a wearer of the purple as the colleague of Arcadius. To facilitate this end he fostered the scheme of uniting Arcadius in marriage to his only daughter; once the emperor's father-in-law, it would be but a step further to become a sharer of the purple.

While Rufinus, in secret with his confidants, nurtured this idea, the wily head of the opposite party of the court, getting an inkling of it, set everything in motion to turn the eyes of the inexperienced youth toward another maiden. The eunuch Eutropius, the grand chamberlain of the palace, a bold old man with Oriental craftiness, determined that to himself, and not to Rufinus, should the emperor be bound. Hence, while the old warrior was on a journey to Corinth avenging a private injury, Eutropius fixed the attention of the emperor upon Eudoxia, a maiden of singular beauty, the daughter of Bauto, a distinguished Frankish general, and reared since her father's death by the family of the sons of Promotus, an ancient Roman patrician. Eudoxia was at that time at the dawn of perfect womanhood. Her education had been received under the auspices of her rich and noble patrons, and in native gifts, as well as in beauty, she seemed destined by the Fates to be the consort of an emperor. Eutropius, by showing him her portrait and by glowing descriptions of her charms, inflamed the heart of the young ruler with his first passion, and he entered eagerly into the plans of Eutropius to make Eudoxia his wife.

Rufinus meanwhile returned, and prepared the ceremonies of the royal nuptials, as he fancied, of his daughter. "A splendid train of eunuchs and officers issued, in hymeneal pomp, from the gates of the palace, bearing aloft the diadem, the robes and the inestimable ornaments of the future empress. The solemn procession passed through the streets of the city, which were adorned with garlands and filled with spectators; but when it reached the house of the sons of Promotus, the principal eunuch (Eutropius) respectfully entered the mansion, invested the fair Eudoxia with the imperial robes and conducted her in triumph to the palace and bed of Arcadius." The particulars of the ceremony show that the hymeneal rites of the ancient Greeks, in which the bride was, as it were, forcibly conducted to the house of her husband, were still practised, though without idolatry, by the early Christians.

The secrecy and success of the conspiracy brought great chagrin to the overconfident Rufinus. He felt keenly the insult to himself and his daughter, and he feared the growing power of Eutropius and the new empress. Yet he merely tightened his grip upon the government and continued to be a formidable factor in the intrigues of the palace.

The Empress Eudoxia rapidly adapted herself to her new life and displayed a superiority of sense and spirit which enabled her to maintain over her fond and youthful husband the ascendancy that her beauty had at first created. She soon made it evident that she would be under the control of no intriguing courtier, but that she herself would be a dominant factor in the life of the court. Rufinus continued his plots against the throne of Arcadius, but was constantly thwarted by the empress, assisted by Eutropius, and their counterplays finally brought about the minister's assassination.