From The Dublin Review;
The Church and the Roman Empire. [Footnote 112]
[Footnote 112: L'Eglise et l'Empire romain au l Ve Siécle. Par M. Albert de Brogile, de l'Academie Francaise. Troisième partie—Valentinien et Théodose. Paris: Didier.]
When we opened the two last volumes of this noble work, we fancied that, after devoting a considerable degree of attention and study to the fruitful events of the decline and fall of the Roman empire, we had little to learn about its government, its institutions, manners, customs, and modes of thought. We had felt, indeed, a strange interest in watching the slow but sure development of Christianity, as it tumbled down, one by one, every landmark of ancient heathenism; here forcing back the ugly iceberg into its olden limits, there bringing forth a new and verdant vegetation to conceal the blackening ruins of the past; now enchasing, within its virgin gold, some relic of primitive wisdom, or again planting its wooden cross among the wastes and forests of Germania, as a beacon for a future world. And yet, after all, in these last volumes of Prince de Broglie we have found much to admire and much to remember.
Are there many books of which we could say the same? Or, in other words, are there many that would so amply repay the trouble of perusing them?
Whoever undertakes to read any work of serious importance, whatever its nature and subject, will do well to ask himself, when he comes to the conclusion, How has the author fulfilled his promises? How far has he carried out his plan, how far justified his pretensions to impartiality, if we have to do with a historian? The reader will not therefore be astonished that we should apply the same rule to the work now before us. When Prince Albert de Broglie started upon his now completed undertaking, what was his main view and object he himself shall answer in the words he penned in 1852:
"The mild and intelligent influence of the church was never more striking than when she came forth for the first time on the stage of the world. ... In the days when Jesus Christ was born in an obscure town of Judaea, the empire was pacified, the Roman laws established on a sound basis, the Roman manners polished and refined unto corruption; the Roman empire had acquired its utmost development beyond the pale of Christianity, under the shadow of a false worship and of false gods. Everything bore the stamp of idolatry. The civil and political laws, founded first of all by those patricians who were alike priests and lawyers, and then by those Caesars whose supreme pontificate was deemed their prime dignity, were in every direction pervaded by polytheism. Arts, letters, private manners, all was heathen. Not a temple but acknowledged the protection of a divinity—not a poem but embalmed its memory—not a banquet but began with a libation—not a home but kindled a fire sacred to the Lares. Being thus totally independent of Christianity, this civilization was foredoomed to become its enemy—fate, indeed, to which it had not been found wanting. Roman society, giving up for once its usual habits of political toleration, had heaped upon Christianity contempt and insults and persecutions without end. For three long centuries, Christianity had grown up through ignominy and bloodshed. Wise men had scoffed at it, politicians chastised it, the mob hooted it fiercely and savagely. The blood of the martyrs had defiled the basis of the finest edifices in Rome, whilst the smoke of the burning stake had blackened their crowning frontispieces.
"So, when the progress of truth, supported by the revolutions of politics, had at last made the church triumphant with Constantine, what a favorable opportunity and how many excellent reasons had she for overthrowing all this profane and sacrilegious civilization! If, on the very morrow of her triumph, the church had declared open war to Roman society, if she had fired its monuments, broken to pieces its statues, burnt its libraries, overthrown its laws—all this would have been but a lawful deed of reprisal. ... Both means and motives were equally plentiful for this summary justice. Without any appeal to the ardor of new converts, the forests of Germany held within their wastes a reserve of wild auxiliaries, ever ready to undertake the task on their own account. The empire had already received its death-blow, through its own internal anarchy, and through the barbarian invasions. The church stood in no need of dealing the fatal blow—she had but to let it fall. ... This, however, the prudent and tender mother of the human race did by no means do. She looked upon Roman civilization not as the cursed gift of an evil spirit, but as the motley product of human labor. As is the case with every creation of a fallen being, there must needs be found hidden behind the mists of error certain rays of light which were not to be extinguished, but, on the contrary, brought back within the ever-burning focus of eternal truth. Peacefully settling down in the midst of the imperial society, taking up her abode in Rome itself, whilst Constantine flew from the city, as if afraid of the old genius of the republic, the church, far from destroying anything, adopted all, correcting and reforming all by her own insensible influence, raising the victorious sign of the cross above every monument, and breathing the healthy warmth of Christian inspiration into every law. The fourth century of the Christian era is not only remarkable for the men of genius by whom it was illustrated. What is a constant subject of admiration, and what I should not be astonished to see some future historian investigate hereafter more deeply, is that slow labor of purification and absorption to which the Christian religion subjected heathen civilization. It is this transformation of a whole society, not by any material conquest, but through the influence of a moral doctrine, which I shall attempt to bring forth in the following picture." [Footnote 113]
[Footnote 113: V. i., Avertissement, pp. i-v.]
Most certainly the whole work is but the grand demonstration of the above outline, but nowhere does it come forth in such glowing characters as in the two last volumes. There is hardly a page in which you do not meet with this silent yet ever-rising tide of Christian ascendency, which ends in mastery over every relic of Roman civilization. In vain does the temporal power struggle to maintain its own ground; it is itself hurried on with the stream, and forced to give up the contest in sheer despair. At the distance of sixteen centuries, we are often reminded of what took place at the dawn of our own age; and, could we but change names, we might almost imagine we have before us certain modern figures familiar to every reader. Let us take, for instance, Valentinian I., who ascended the imperial throne in 364 A.C., and chose for associate his brother Valens, as the ruler of the East. Valentinian was a sturdy soldier, an austere Christian, of no original genius, but yet endowed with such qualities as were not unequal to his difficult task.