The brutal spectacles in which Pagan Rome delighted—the fights of gladiators, and the combats of men with beasts—roused the indignation of the Christians. Not merely did women crowd the amphitheatre during these fierce and almost naked encounters, but it was the especial privilege of the Vestal virgins to give the signal for the mortal blow, and to watch the sword driven into the quivering entrails of the victim. St. Augustine describes the frenzy and fascination of the spectators for these brutal shows. A Christian student of the law was once compelled by the importunity of his friends to enter the amphitheatre. He sat with his eyes closed and his mind totally abstracted from the scene. He was suddenly startled from his trance by a tremendous shout from the whole audience. He opened his eyes. He could not choose but gaze on the spectacle. Directly he beheld the blood, his heart caught the common frenzy; he could not choose to turn away; his eyes were riveted on the arena. The interest, the excitement, the pleasure grew into complete intoxication. He looked on, he shouted, he was inflamed; he carried away from the amphitheatre an irresistible propensity to return to its cruel enjoyments. Emperor after emperor gradually prohibited first one part then another part of these disgusting spectacles, being influenced by the persistent remonstrances of Christians. The progress was not, however, very rapid. At last an Eastern monk, named Telemachus, travelled all the way to Rome, in order to protest against the disgraceful barbarities. In his noble enthusiasm he leaped into the arena to separate the combatants; but whether with or without the sanction of the prefect or that of the infuriated assembly, he was torn to pieces—a martyr to Christian humanity. The impression of this awful scene of a Christian and a monk thus murdered in the arena was so profound, that Honorius (who died 423) issued an edict, putting an end to such bloody spectacles. This edict, however, only suppressed the mortal combats of men; the conflict of wild beasts continued till the supply was cut off by the narrowing of the limits of the empire. The distant provinces no longer rendered their accustomed contributions of lions from Libya, leopards from the East, dogs of remarkable ferocity from Scotland, crocodiles and bears and other wild animals from remote regions. Towards the end the improving humanity of the people allowed artificial methods to be substituted, so as to excite the fury of the beasts without endangering the lives of the combatants. In the West these games sank with the Western Empire; in the East they disappeared at the close of the seventh century under the prohibition of the Council of Trullo.
EMPEROR CONSTANTIUS TESTING THE FIDELITY OF CHRISTIANS.
Sozomen says that the Emperor Constantius (who died at York in 306) wished to test the fidelity of certain Christians as excellent and good men who were attached to his palace. He called them all together, and told them that if they would sacrifice to idols as well as serve God they should remain in his service and retain their appointments; but that if they refused compliance with his wishes, they should be sent from the palace, and should scarcely escape his vengeance. When difference of judgment had divided them into two parties, separating those who consented to abandon their religion from those who preferred the honour of God to their present welfare, the Emperor determined upon retaining those who had adhered to their faith as his friends and counsellors; but he turned away from the others, whom he regarded as unmanly impostors, and sent them from his presence, judging that those who had so readily betrayed their God could not be faithful to their king. Hence, as Christians were deservedly retained in the service of Constantius, he was not willing that Christianity should be accounted unlawful in the countries beyond the confines of Italy—that is to say, in Gaul, in Britain, or in the region of the Pyrenean mountains as far as the Western Ocean.
CONSTANTINE THE GREAT FIRST FAVOURS THE CHRISTIANS.
Constantine the Great, son of the Emperor Constantius, deserved the appellation of the first emperor who publicly professed and established the Christian religion, and in whose epoch, accordingly, all Christendom is interested. While the Pagans represented him as a disgraceful tyrant, the Christians treat him as a hero, or even as a saint, and equal to the Apostles. His stature was lofty, his countenance majestic, and his deportment graceful. He delighted in society, and had a turn for raillery; and, though rather illiterate, he was indefatigable in business, and a consummate general in the field. He accepted the purple at York, where his father, Constantius, died in 306, and in his career gained signal victories over the foreign and domestic policy of the republic. In the last fourteen years of his life (323-337) he was said to have degenerated, being corrupted by fortune, and growing rapacious and prodigal. He affected an effeminate and luxurious dress. He is represented with false hair of various colours, laboriously arranged by the skilful artists of the times; a diadem of expensive fashion; a profusion of gems and pearls, of collars and bracelets; and a variegated and flowing robe of silk, most curiously embroidered with flowers of gold. He was twice married, and had an only son, Crispus, by the first wife, and by the second wife, Fausta, three daughters and three sons. Crispus was amiable and popular, and had been a pupil of the eloquent Christian Lactantius, but he soon incurred the suspicion and jealousy of his father, and was, owing to the intrigues and jealousies of the second family, put to death. Constantine, it was said, then discovered the falsehood of the charges against his son, erected a golden statue to his memory, and the cruel stepmother, in turn, was said to have suffered death or imprisonment. In his latter days Constantine had to chastise the pride of the Goths, then led by Alaric, and spreading terror and desolation. In 337 Constantine, the only emperor since Augustus who had reigned so long as thirty years, died at the age of sixty-four at Nicomedia. His body, adorned with purple and diadem, was transported to Constantinople, and deposited on a golden bed, at which the great officials, with bended knees, offered their respectful homage as seriously as if he had been alive, so that his flatterers remarked that by the peculiar indulgence of Heaven he reigned after his death.
CONSTANTINE’S STANDARD OF THE CROSS.
When Constantine, in 324, was invested with the sole dominion of the Roman world, he exhorted, by circular letters, all his subjects to imitate without delay his example and embrace the Divine truths of Christianity. The Christians, knowing that the Emperor’s father, Constantius, was on their side, had looked to the elevation of Constantine as intimately connected with the designs of Providence, and they confidently expected some Divine and miraculous aid to attest the great revolution in the world’s affairs then at hand. History accordingly has preserved full particulars of the standard, the dream, and the celestial sign which sealed their hopes. The Emperor took measures to have the standard of the cross affixed to his own statue, and on the helmets, shields, and banners of his army. The principal standard was styled the labarum, which was a long pike intersected by a transverse beam, from which hung down a silken veil, which was curiously inwrought with the images of the reigning monarch and his children. The summit of the pike supported a crown of gold, which enclosed the mysterious monogram at once expressive of the figure of the cross and the initial letters of the name of Christ. The safety of the labarum was entrusted to fifty guards of approved valour and fidelity. The opinion soon grew that so long as the guards of the labarum were in the execution of their office, they were secure and invulnerable amidst the darts of the enemy. The sight of the standard gave the troops an invincible enthusiasm, and scattered terror and dismay among the enemies. There is still extant a medal of the Emperor Constantine, where the standard of the labarum is accompanied with these memorable words, “By this sign thou shalt conquer!”
THE DREAM OF CONSTANTINE.
In the age of Constantine the sign of the cross had come to be used by the primitive Christians in all their ecclesiastical rites, in all the daily occurrences of life, as an infallible preservative against every species of spiritual and temporal evil. A contemporary writer affirms with perfect confidence that in the night which preceded the last battle against Maxentius Constantine was admonished in a dream to inscribe the shields of his soldiers with the celestial sign of God, the sacred monogram of the name of Christ; that he executed the commands of Heaven; and that his valour and obedience were rewarded by the decisive victory of the Milvian Bridge. The senate and people, exulting in the success of Constantine, acknowledged that his victory surpassed the power of man. The triumphal arch which was erected about three years after the event recognised that by an instinct or impulse of the Divinity Constantine had saved and avenged the Roman Republic. Twenty-six years after the event the historian Eusebius narrates that in one of his marches Constantine saw a luminous cross in the sky inscribed with the words, “By this conquer,” and this sign astonished the whole army; and that in a vision of the ensuing night Christ appeared to the Emperor, displaying the same celestial sign of the cross, and directing him to march with an assurance of victory. These incidents were universally adopted, as undoubted truths, by the Catholic Church both of the East and the West; but it is noted by the sceptics that, though the Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries often celebrated the triumphs of Constantine, they do not allude to these signs and wonders as accompanying the event.
THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE PREACHING (A.D. 314).