From The Dublin University Magazine.
MEDIAEVAL BOOKS AND HYMNS.
[Footnote 212]
[Footnote 212: The reader will bear in mind that the author of the following paper is a Protestant minister.-ED. CATH. WORLD.]
The fall of Rome was the annihilation of a great dominant power, a power which had been supreme; and when the barbarians marched into her streets and devastated her homes, the world sunk back into a tenebrous night of social, intellectual, and moral darkness. Her mighty empire, held together like one country by her genius, was broken up and divided amongst the different tribes who had poured down from the north and overrun Europe, divided just as the fortune of war or the caprice of choice indicated. It was the approach of a moral chaos; but the hand whose guidance is to be felt in the life of individuals, and may be traced in the history of nations, did not abandon the world to the utter confusion of its own impulses. As the imperial power of Rome fell away and died out like an effete thing, wasted by its own' corruption, a new power was springing up in vigorous youth by the side of that which was declining. Christianity was advancing toward the west with rapid strides, victorious through the persecution of tyranny and the jealousy of philosophy; it was then taking its stand in the world as an influence; but if at this moment amid the vast changes and subversion of things which took place after the fall of Rome, Christianity had been merely a reformed philosophy, and had been left to the mercy of pagan barbarians, it would have been extinguished in its infancy. That was avoided by a remarkable concatenation of circumstances. For centuries there had been an apprehension in the Roman empire of an advance of the barbarous nations in the north of Europe, symptoms of which had manifested themselves in the earliest period of the Christian era. Toward the latter end of the second century the most powerful of these tribes, the Goths, impelled by some influx of other barbarians, advanced from their position near the mouth of the Vistula, invaded the Roman frontier, and took Dacia, where they were found by the Emperor Caracalla at the opening of the third century, in the middle of which they were allowed by Aurelian to settle along the banks of the Euxine, when they were divided into two parts—the "Ostro" or Eastern, and the "Visi" or Western Goths. In the next century a terrible alarm was raised amongst them, which even penetrated into the Roman empire, and up to its capital, where it was related that an awful race of beings—savage, ugly, inhuman, begotten of the devil—were pouring in thousands out of the deserts and plains of Asia into Europe. Such were the Huns. Already they had reached the territory of the Ostrogoths, whom they compelled to supply them with guides to lead them on toward the Visigoths. These latter at their approach fled in the extremity of terror toward the Danube, and implored the protection of Valens the emperor, who allowed them to settle in Moesia, upon the condition that they should defend the imperial frontier. In less than forty years afterward from defending the Roman frontier they sacked Rome. But during this interval an incident took place which had a great influence upon the destinies of Christianity. After the settlement with Valens, an intercourse of a somewhat friendly character sprung up between the Romans and [{805}] these barbarian defenders of the frontier. The church was suffering from her great Arian apostasy—a form of scepticism exactly parallel to that new light of modern times called Rationalism. Valens was an Arian, and, wishing to convert these pagan barbarians, sent a missionary amongst them in the person of the renowned Ulphilas, whom he made bishop of the Moeso-Goths. This great bishop labored assiduously for the conversion of the barbarians, invented an alphabet, and translated the Scriptures with his own hand into their strange idiom. His labors were blessed with success; the Goths embraced Christianity, though in the Arian form; and fifty years afterward, when Alaric led them into Rome, amid the tumult of the unfettered license of the soldiers, an order was issued to respect the churches of the apostles and the sacred places. In the midst of the devastation of the city and through the very thick of the riot, a band of priests and devotees were seen marching under the protection of Gothic soldiery, carrying on their heads the sacred vessels of St. Peter, and mingling with the shoutings of the ravagers the chant of solemn psalms. Under Gothic protection, and by the express order of the Gothic king, the sacred vessels were deposited in safety at the Vatican; numbers of Christians joined the procession and received shelter, whilst many who were not Christians also availed themselves of the opportunity to join the band of believers and escape in the general confusion. [Footnote 213]
[Footnote 213: Oroslus Hist., lib. vii. c. 39.]
This was the first indication of the new life which was to dawn upon the world under the influence of Christianity. Gradually all the tribes of barbarians yielded to its influence—the Burgundians in Gaul, the Vandals in Africa, the Suevi in Spain, the Ostrogoths, the Franks, and then the Saxons in England; but the early conversions of these barbarians were to the Arian form of Christianity then in the ascendant. Its principal tenet was the denial of the equality of the Son to the Father; and the heresy spread until the error, after being vigorously combated, was suppressed, and the new nations won back to the orthodox faith. Thus was this compensation for the overturn of civilization effected; the world was not abandoned to utter destruction, it was indeed given up to the hands of rude barbarians, but they in turn were subjected to a new influence which accompanied them to the various kingdoms founded upon the ruins of' the extinct empire, and formed the basis in each of those kingdoms of a new and higher civilization. With the fall of Rome the gods of the pagans were overturned, their temples destroyed; and in the midst of the devastation, the ruin, and, the despair into which the world was sinking, the Church of Christ arose as the guiding spirit, the pioneer of the new life. Another incident in connection with the establishment of Christianity, which saved the lore of ancient times from destruction, was the adoption of the Latin language by the church; for although that language had made a settlement in many of the countries subject to the Roman arms, yet a tendency soon sprung up, from the mixture with barbarian invaders, to the degeneracy of the Latin tongue and the rise of new and separate idioms. But it was preserved in comparative purity in the church, which naturally led to the preservation of its most noble monuments; and it ultimately became, when the modern languages were in their infancy, the tongue especially devoted to the transmission of learning. History, poetry, science, and what little there was of literature, found a medium of communication and a means of preservation in the Latin language. Had it not been adopted by the church then for some centuries, whilst the new tongues were gradually developing and settling into a form, the world would have been dark indeed, not a book, not a page, not a [{806}] syllable would have reached us of the thought, the life, or the events of that period.
From the fourth to the seventh century there would have been an impenetrable gap in the annals of humanity—the voice of history would have been hushed into a dead silence, and the light of the past which beacons the future would have been extinguished in the darkness of a universal chaos. In England, however, the case was somewhat different. From the earliest period of the Saxon domination there was a struggle for a literature in the vulgar tongue. The Saxons had brought with them a vast store of traditional poetry out of which one specimen has been preserved, consisting of an epic poem in forty-three cantos, and about 6,000 lines—the oldest epic of modern times. It is called, "The Gleeman's Song," and was composed by Beowulf in their native wilds and brought over with them in the fifth century. It is a strange poem, impregnated with the vigorous air of the North; strength and simplicity being its chief characteristics. The principal personage is Hrothgar the king, and the poem is full of incidental descriptions of manners and customs which afterward became native to England, and linger about among us even now: there are great halls, ale-carousals, fighting with giants, the elements of a rude chivalry, and an invincible prowess which dares both dragons and ghosts. But the first native writer in Anglo-Saxon after the conversion to Christianity is Caedmon, who lived in the latter part of the seventh century (680); The story of his miraculous inspiration is recorded by Bede. [Footnote 214]
[Footnote 214: Eccl. llist., lib. iv., c. 24.]