The Church's servility toward the orthodox rulers is fairly expressed, and yet with comparative moderation, by Sozomen. He is an apologist for Constantine, and reflects, as do all the historians, and especially Evagrius in his criticism of Zosimus, the adulations and subterfuges of Eusebius. The religious fluctuation of that emperor is masked; his crimes are suppressed; he is made to appear orthodox, even when at his worst Eusebian stage. No wonder that Philostorgius charged the Homoöusians with worshiping Constantine as a god in the ceremonies connected with his image! Constantius, a vacillating, cruel, incompetent, is also apologized for, but to the damage of his intelligence. Julian, for his years in some respects, one of the most promising and earnest rulers of ancient times, is loaded with obloquy, his highest motives and ideals ridiculed, his victories belittled, his death savagely exulted in. Jovian's and Valentinian's toleration are not understood, but their personal orthodoxy is in so far praised. Valens is looked at through the eyes of his two fierce Cappadocian assailants. His excellences are entirely ignored; the most inconsequent views are imputed to him while attempting to glorify Basil; in the sad story of the emperor's dying son, that bishop appears as a brute in his treatment of the agonized father. The stories of heroism attributed to the orthodox are only examples of insufferable insolence; one must marvel at the patience of Valens, if there be any truth in them. Gratian, that beau-ideal of Western orthodoxy, was really a nose of wax in the hands of Ambrose; he was esteemed more moderately by the East, and that rather for having called Theodosius to a share in the throne, than for any quality in himself; but his utter moral collapse, after the magnificent promise of his youth, is wholly veiled from sight. Theodosius the Great is glorified, not for his superior statecraft and generalship, but for his efforts to suppress paganism and heresy. The charges against his private life such as Eunapius and Zosimus suggest, are not hinted at. He is a man of prayer and visions, a relic-worshiper, and a persecutor of pagans and Arians. Great as he certainly was, his distinguishing and conspicuous qualities are passed by. His pitiful children, Arcadius and Honorius, the sorriest quidnuncs of those stormy times, are heroes of piety. Pulcheria, excellent as she was, was not worthy of the excessive flattery poured out upon her; while Anthemius, Troïlus, Valerianus, and other noble figures of the day are passed by. The younger Theodosius, with his good training and generally fair endeavor, is delineated in the dedication as the consummate man of all time, while he is a very third-rate soul at best. The eulogies by Socrates (vii. 22 and 42) are just as fulsome. This was the grave sin of the State Church; the Arian State Church did the same for Constantius and Valens; more and more as history reveals the truth concerning many of those idols, does the revulsion increase against a union of two functions which could so degrade both.
The relation of Church and State involves the question of persecution. It is not the history of the endeavor to enforce uniformity, with which we shall concern ourselves, but rather the views Sozomen sets forth, as to the policy of repression. The laws of Constantine suppressing heretics did not affect the Novatians (ii. 32), concerning which justice, he remarks: "The emperor, I believe, willingly relaxed the rigor of the enactment in their favor, for he only desired to strike terror into the minds of his subjects, and had no intention of persecuting them." The punishments inflicted in Constantius' time on the orthodox in Constantinople, both by Macedonius (iv. 23) and Eudoxius (iv. 26), call forth this reflection: "For, if the persecution did not occasion such tortures to the body as preceding ones, it appeared more grievous to all who reflected aright, on account of its disgraceful nature, for both the persecutors and the persecuted belonged to the Church; and the one was all the more disgraceful in that men of the same religion treated their fellows with a degree of cruelty which the ecclesiastical laws prohibit to be manifested towards enemies and strangers." He spares himself the pain of registering all who were ejected from their sees (iv. 27), for no province was without its list of sufferers. The cruelties inflicted by George on pagan and orthodox, furnish a mournful narrative (iv. 30). On the elevation of Julian, a great dread fell upon the Christian world, intensified by the portents which befell him. The series of edicts soon wrought mutual dissension in the Christian ranks, as well as suffering from without. But while Sozomen attributes the refinements of cruelty to Julian, and lays the miseries of the saints at his door as parts of a subtle plan, he nevertheless cannot conceal from himself the absence of direct interference on the part of the State; these calamities were the results of a restoration of the old religion to its ancient union with the State; it was an imperial act; and he is compelled to confess the seeming magnanimity of Julian in certain cases, but even then maligns his motives. The imperial clemency did not arise from any feeling of compassion, but because persecution would only increase the number of Galilean adherents; because he was envious of their glory, did he resort to argument instead of cruelty, and manifest an unexpected benevolence instead of proceeding to rigorous measures (v. 4, 5). "It may be concluded from what has been said, that if Julian shed less blood than preceding persecutors of the Church, and that if he devised fewer punishments for the torture of the body, yet that he was severer in other respects." Nevertheless, this statement is followed by a record of suffering in all quarters of the empire and the impression of purposed directness is given, as if the State had inflicted them, especially when we read that the emperor would not listen to the cautions of Sallust (v. 20). He does not comment on Jovian's toleration, but only rejoices in the return of the Church to ascendancy. Unsparing is his picture of the dastardly measures of Valens against the professors of the faith; he regards that persecutor as the special victim of Divine wrath; while, on the other hand, he does not hesitate to call the Arian Goths, who fell under the anger of Athanaric, martyrs (vi. 37). He does not express an opinion as to the partial toleration of Gratian's edict (vii. 1); but in explanation of Theodosius' law forbidding heretics, i.e. all anti-Nicenists, from holding churches and from exercising any clerical function, he says: "Great as were the punishments adjudged by the laws against heretics, they were not always carried into execution; for the emperor had no desire to persecute his subjects; he only desired to enforce uniformity of view about God' through the medium of intimidation. Those who voluntarily renounced heretical opinions, received commendation from him." And it is true that the court practice of persecuting emperors, orthodox or Arian, was utterly in the teeth of their own edicts, and their most intimate counselors were elected without regard to religion. When Justina sought to revive the Arian standard in the West, her treatment of Ambrose is called persecution (vii. 13); but Ambrose's intolerant procedures against the Arians are not even noticed. No quizzical wrinkle disturbs the flow of his narrative in vii. 15, when Theodosius I. gives a heathen temple to the Christians, and the pagans resolve to defend their rights, and do so effectually; but the Christians who perish in that hateful conflict are crowned as martyrs by an imperial edict! For the religious tyranny of Theodosius the Great he is a warm apologist, and disguises the perversion of that principle of freedom for which he pleads most earnestly, when the Arians hold the reins of power, and abuse their opportunity. The contradictions are perfectly apparent and irreconcilable, because uniformity by force has always been impossible. Yet logical men will state the most contradictory reasons, which no quidnunc can refrain from laughing at. Themistius' plea for toleration (vi. 36) in matters of intellectual belief, on the ground of secular diversities in philosophy and from the incomprehensible nature of God, shows the existence of a party who believed in this principle. While Sozomen gives it place, and hailed the Gothic Arians who compelled Valens to cease his oppressions, he has no word of approbation for the proposition or the argument.
5. Another design of his history is stated in i. 1: "I have had to deliberate whether I ought to confine myself to the recital of events connected with the Church under the Roman government; but it seemed more advisable to include, as far as possible, the record of transactions relative to religion among the Persians and barbarians." He regards Christianity as the universal and sole religion, and would trace its extension in all directions. Hence he is the first historian to give us a larger account of religion in Syria and Palestine, introducing us especially to some aspects of Christian life and suffering in Edessa; we are all the more surprised to have no mention of the Church in Africa, and so very little of the Church in the West, except when it comes into close relations with the East, as in the larger controversies, and especially after Arianism threatened to keep its hold upon the Byzantine section of the empire; and the Orient had to cry to the cold and unsympathetic Occident for help, and often in vain. He is also careful to give us some, if not a very original, account of the work of missions. He repeats the story of the Iberians, Armenians, Indians, Saracens, and Goths. He gives us a larger insight into Persia; the errors with which he is charged as swarming, are no more numerous than those of his cotemporaries. Of the large work of Theophilus of Dhu, or the extension of Arianism among the Germanic tribes, he says nothing. Chrysostom's real missionary enterprises are passed by, excepting his expenditure of the funds furnished by Olympias for the redemption and restoration of Isaurian captives (viii. 27). His reflections on the methods of Church extension are more interesting and numerous. Thus, in ii. 5, of the attempt of Constantine to abolish idolatry and introduce the faith, Sozomen says, "Soldiers were not necessary; the courtiers effected it"; he does not consider it advisable to give all the details as to all the lands then won to the state religion. The barbarians he notices as converted through the instrumentality of Christian captives (ii. 6, 7). Armenian influence carried Christianity into Persia (ii. 8). Prodigies, too, are helpful agents (vi. 5, v. 22). The hieroglyphs and crux-symbols discovered in the Egyptian temples led to the repentance of pagans (vii. 15). Sometimes a kingdom will solicit the instruction of an orthodox monk, as in the case of the Saracens (vi. 38). The legal suppressions of paganism facilitate a change of sentiment on the part of many (vii. 15). The very ambitions of their clergy led numbers of the Arians to embrace Nicene views (vii. 17); and the doctrinal discussions among heretics constrain others to embrace a more uniform system of belief (viii. 1). The efficiency of the monks as evangelists is found in nearly all the biographies of them. On the other hand, he makes confession to the baleful effects of incessant indulgence in polemics. "These varying dogmas are the sources of innumerable troubles to religion; and many are deterred from embracing Christianity by the diversity of opinion which prevails in matters of doctrine" (vi. 26). This thought of universality, then, is a feature of his history.
6. Another design is to dignify monasticism as the true ethical ideal and goal of Christianity,--as the philosophy which is to supplant all the ancient intellectual strivings of reason,--and he announces this purpose as follows: "Nor is it foreign to ecclesiastical history to introduce in this work an account of those who were the fathers and originators of what is denominated monachism, and of their immediate successors, whose celebrity is well known to us either by observation or report. For I would neither be considered ungracious towards them, nor willing to consign their virtue to oblivion, nor yet be thought ignorant of their history; but would wish to leave behind me such a record of their manner of life that others, led by their example, might attain to a blessed and happy end" (i. 1). He is here quietly resisting a school of Christians and politicians who were opposed to the absorbing and destructive qualities of this manner of life; Athanasius, Basil the Great, Jerome, Chrysostom, had to write in its defense for the same reason, and he sided with these supporters of its virtues, very naturally. He is a full believer in the Divine philosophy which nurtured him; monasticism with its practical strivings after conformity to the Divine-human Pattern, and its attempt to enthrone the spiritual over the material has a zealous defender in him, of all its rapt and grotesque forms. He determined therefore to make it a unique portion of his history. The discussion of its aims in i. 12 will give us a clue to his own desire to represent it as almost the resultant force in the progress of the Divine kingdom; one reads the historian's responsive feeling between the lines. This philosophy was the most useful thing received by man from God; it was superior to all other knowledge, and warranted the neglect of all worldly science; it strove to eliminate the adiaphora from ethics, and to make everything have a moral complexion; one must be doing good, or else he is doing evil. Its great duties are the discipline of self, the worship of the Creator, and the cultivation of a spirit of other-worldness. These canons and goals are the life of the system. It is the philosophy which is to take the place of the old theoretical schemes; and it is the great school to fill up the gap made by the decay of the Hellenic universities. The Christian university founded by Theodosius in Sozomen's day, was indeed a blow to this educational ideal. While we may have no accord with his view of this ethical phenomenon, we must concede him the merit of discerning its significance and intent, and allow that he was wise to give us so full an account of its elaboration, and so much detail and scrap of biography; for it was a dominant element in the history of this time. It formed men and measures. The reproach of Sozomen on this score is wholly a mistake; he has done us capital service in not neglecting this element, otherwise we could have but little conception of its historical setting, of its patience, its tireless devotion, and we would have to resort to Palladius or Rufinus and the individual biographies. Moreover, it is an uncritical spirit which recoils from dissecting the awful and often repulsive details of legalistic self-denial. After discoursing on the local origin of monasticism and the forms it assumed, we have chapters containing brief sketches of hermits, laurists, and coenobites (i. 12, 13, 14, iii. 14). The people looked to the monks for the color of their theology (iv. 10). Arianism felt its weakness without them and ineffectually sought their suppression (vi. 20). The Nicene faith uniformly received the support of these communities (vi. 27), to which they remained devoted under all persecutions. Another series of biographies follows in vi. 28-34: Theophilus (viii. 12) has a preliminary struggle with them to carry forward his plots against John. The royal court itself under Pulcheria's leadership reflected its severe discipline (ix. 13). Sozomen seems also to have studied the rules of various bodies, some of whose details he gives, and indulges in a sort of comparative study of their regulations (vi. 30). Yet with all his implied admiration of the heroes of this system, who went to the almost extreme of abstinence, he remarks in reviewing the discipline of Theotimus (vii. 26): "I consider it to be the part of the philosopher to yield to the demand of these appetites from necessity, and not from the love of sensual gratification." It is to be noted that he omits for the most part the immoral forms of monasticism, such as Evagrius gives us a highly rhetorical account of.