A third stage is reached when the bishops become haughty and imperious and begin to meddle with politics. The clergy have strengthened themselves by organization and training. The latent antagonism between Church and State becomes prominent, and the State sometimes comes off worse. And when the political framework goes under, the power of the Church grows and prospers.[878]
Now it is this growth of Church influence in the fifth century and its effect upon ideas and ideals that is important for our purpose. On the material side this growth is indicated by an increase of civil power. The Edict of Milan restored the confiscated buildings of the churches, and Constantine in 321[879] allowed the clergy to receive bequests. A vast amount of property was bequeathed to the Church in the fifth century, the administration of which was settled by the canons of the various synods. These canons gave rise to an ecclesiastical law which was later augmented by the decisions of the Popes, and played a great part in the Middle Ages. Civil jurisdiction largely passed into the hands of the bishops, and against their sentence, which was carried out by the civil authorities, there was no appeal. The entire administration of the widespread Church property and affairs was in the hands of the bishop. The State reserved criminal law for itself. Like the pagan ‘flamen’, the bishop sat on the ‘Curia’ of his city, where he exercised great authority.
More and more the State came to recognize the ecclesiastical society as a separate polity. Manumissions within the Church were sanctioned by the emperors.[880] The clergy are repeatedly excused from all public burdens whatsoever.[881] This cleavage between Church and State, which had been momentarily accentuated by Julian’s law of 362 forbidding Christians to teach, is further emphasized by the establishment of separate courts for ecclesiastical offenders. ‘The clergy’ (so ran the law of Honorius and Theodosius in 412) ‘may be tried only before an episcopal court.’[882]
More and more, therefore, the bishop came to be appealed to as a civil power,[883] and when the crisis came bishops like Sidonius defended the towns against the invaders.[884] A sense of the failing Empire made men turn to the Church for help against the oppression of imperial officials, and the ruin of invading barbarians.[885] Above all they turned to her for education.
For this position the Church had strengthened herself by increased organization during the fourth and fifth centuries. She assimilated the principles of imperial government and law, applied them in creating her bishoprics, and modelled on them her methods of administration. Thus law, the great contribution of the Roman Empire, passed into the Church, and so down the ages.
On the spiritual side this development of Christianity is marked by a greater kindliness (due also to the teaching of the pagan philosophers[886]) in the hard Roman world. Hints of a new attitude to slaves are to be found in the Theodosian Code. There are lengthy laws providing protection from enslavement—‘non erit impunita labefactatio atque oppugnatio libertatis’[887]—and steps are taken to enable people to rise out of slavery by placing legal means within their reach and making the assertion of liberty easier.[888] Moreover, the breaking up of slave families is forbidden, and the objection is stated from the moral point of view. ‘Quis enim ferat liberos a parentibus, a fratribus sorores ... segregari? Igitur qui dissociata in ius diversum mancipia traxerunt, in unum redigere eadem cogantur: ac si cui propter redintegrationem necessitudinum servi cesserint, vicaria per eum qui eosdem susceperit mancipia reddantur.’[889] But while we must grant to the philosophers and to Christianity an important share in the gradual disappearance of slavery, it must be remembered that the process was largely due to economic causes. It was found that it paid better to give a man some measure of personal freedom, and the economists tell us that the colonate which appeared at the beginning of the third century was a natural economic development of slavery. The absence of wars of conquest also contributed to this result.[890]
Moreover, liberation of body and spirit was aimed at by the attitude of the Church to the stage and the arena. Attendance was forbidden to Christians, and actors were not allowed to be baptized. The discredit thus cast upon these professions was emphasized by the emperors. A great many restrictions were introduced,[891] and games were forbidden on certain Christian feast-days.[892] It was enacted that actresses who had become Christians—‘quas melior vivendi usus vinculo naturalis condicionis evolvit’—should not be forced back into the profession.[893] Similarly, actors and actresses who had received the sacrament when thought to be dying must not be allowed to act again.[894]
Against the arena, too, a blow was struck. Constantine enacted in 325 that all those criminals who had previously been condemned to the arena should now be assigned to the mines. This did not mean the total abolition of gladiatorial contests, but it certainly meant a decrease in the victims of the ‘ludi gladiatorii’, and the moral lead it gave was valuable. ‘Cruenta spectacula’, he said, ‘in otio civili et domestica quiete non placent.’[895]