[408] See back, [p. 161], and Pal. Expl. Fund Quarterly, Oct. 1904, p. 296, Jan. 1905, p. 74.
[409] Cypr., “Epist.,” 75; Euseb., “Hist. Eccl.,” vi. 11.
CHAPTER X
THE BYZANTINES
The Romans policed the western world for the benefit of Italy alone. We have made them our model, but the progress of higher thought in the past was due to the Hebrew, the Greek, the Norman, and the Frank, rather than to the Roman, whose only culture was Greek, or to his Saxon disciples. Before Marcus Aurelius died, in 180 A. D., the empire had become cosmopolitan. Signs of decay then appeared under Commodus, and the heart of Italy withered. Constantine substituted the hereditary principle for the elective method dear to the old free republic, but he only delayed the doom to which Roman supremacy and centralisation now hastened. An ignorant plutocracy, corrupted by luxury, destroyed the ancient yeomanry by absorbing the small holdings of the “coloni,” and ruined agriculture by laying the land under grass. They sapped the sources of their own power, and substituted foreign slaves for native freedmen. The plebeian settled as a legionary in distant lands, forming colonies, military and civil, of crossbred descendants, and the colonial emperors had little regard to the selfish prejudices of Rome.
The Church was also changing, like the empire. Under the philosophic Aurelius, Christians were becoming numerous, and before the end of the second century Tertullian wrote as follows[410]: “The cry is that the State is full of Christians; that they are in the field, in the citadels, in the islands; men lament, as if for some calamity, that both sexes, every age and condition, even high rank, are passing over to the profession of the Christian faith; and yet, for all this, their minds are not awakened to the thought of some good that they have failed to notice in it.” “We are but of yesterday, but we have filled every place among you—cities, islands, fortresses, towns, market-places, the very camp, tribes, companies, palace, senate, forum: we have left nothing to you but the temples of your gods.” Yet Truth cannot keep her robe spotless when she walks the market with the crowd. The Church was becoming Romanised, the “sacerdos” began to be distinguished in his “ordo” from the laity or “people.” Men of high rank, like Cyprian (or like the later Ambrose), were being elected as bishops in the third century, and their influence was very different from that of the humble “overseers” of earlier days. After the Decian persecution the federated Churches were strong enough to demand toleration, and received it from the dying Galerius after 300 A. D. Sacerdotal organisation was more welcome to Roman rulers than the teaching of the Master, but it also rendered the leaders of the Church more willing to regard worldly expedience.
CONSTANTINE
The adoption of Christianity as the imperial cultus by Constantine revolutionised Church and Empire. Eusebius is enthusiastic in praising (or flattering) the newly converted master of the West, but his hero’s memory is stained by cruel deeds of tyranny; and, though his heart may have been touched by the Gospel, it is more probable that his policy was due to considerations of worldly state-craft. Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus was the son of Constantius Chlorus, the emperor who died at York. Constantine was born in Mœsia, served in Persia, and became sole emperor in 323 A. D. at about fifty years of age. He was a shrewd statesman, with experiences gained in many lands, and perceived the trend of his time, which permitted him to convert the Italian republic into a European monarchy. The change of capital, which Italy had dreaded even in the days of Julius Cæsar, recognised the Asiatic conquests as being the richest and most valuable provinces of the empire, and broke down the Roman supremacy. Constantine also cast his eyes on the Christian Churches, and perceived in them a power which might become a mighty engine in his hands—a cultus better organised and more popular than any other, and a society which he might sway by securing the nomination of its bishops.
But to the Christian faith this recognition was a misfortune lamented by all the great men of the fourth century—by Jerome and Chrysostom, Gregory and Basil, if not so by the courtly Eusebius. The Council of Nicæa, called in 325 A. D., produced the great Arian schism; but the cultus of the “divine emperor” was eagerly adopted by the masses, and the Catholic Church was suddenly swamped by the conversion of innumerable ignorant and superstitious pagans, while, as State officials, the bishops lost their freedom, and were selected rather on account of their loyalty to the emperor than because of the purity of their faith. Palestine became a holy land, and was filled with wonder-loving pilgrims. Cyril of Jerusalem was obliged to exhort his neophytes against “things done to honour lifeless idols, the lighting of lamps, or burning incense by fountains or rivers, watching of birds, divination, omens, amulets, charms on leaves, and sorceries.”[411]
THE HOLY SEPULCHRE
It was under such circumstances that Constantine took steps to show his zeal for the Catholic party, and—as usual with former emperors—to found a shrine at the most appropriate place in honour of his own peculiar cultus. According to Eusebius, after the Council, the new “bishop of bishops,” who had then presided, “desired to perform a glorious work in Palestine by adorning and consecrating the place of our Lord’s resurrection, not without God, but moved by the spirit of the Saviour Himself.”[412] Crowds of pilgrims were then visiting Olivet,[413] and among them was the emperor’s mother, Helena. It would seem from the letter which Constantine wrote to Macarius,[414] who became bishop of Jerusalem in the year of the edict of Milan (313 A. D.), that the establishment of the Church had at once been signalised (perhaps with imperial permission) by the destruction of the Aphrodite temple in the Holy City, which was hateful to Jews and Christians alike. It was entirely removed, and even the earth was carried away and the rock laid bare. During these operations an ancient sepulchre—which (as before suggested) was probably that of the family of David—was found, and was no doubt recognised at once as being Jewish. Moreover, a rock grave was discovered 15 yards farther west, and it was this that Macarius declared to be the true tomb of Christ. We are not told why he made this announcement. Eusebius does not speak of any tradition, nor does it seem possible that the tomb of Joseph of Arimathæa should have been known to the Christians who returned to Jerusalem seventy or a hundred years after the fall of the city, buried as it was under the foundations of a heathen temple. We learn nothing except that Constantine was inspired to seek the site, and that the bishop of Jerusalem informed him of its discovery.