§ 1, INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL VIEW. 9
Graeco-Homan Catliolicisin into the Germano-Roinaii Catholicism of the tniddle age.
Our attention will now for the first time be turned in earnest, not only to Christianity in the Roman empire, but also to Christianity among the Germanic barbarians, who from East and ISTorth threaten the empire and the entire civilization of classic antiquity. The church prolonged, indeed, the existence of the Roman empire, gave it a new splendor and elevation, new strength and unity, as well as comfort in misfortune ; but could not prevent its final dissolution, first in the West (a.d. 476), afterwards (1453) in the East. But she herself survived the storms of the great migration, brought the pagar. invaders under the influence of Christianity, taught the barbarians the arts of peace, planted a higher civilization upon the ruins of the ancient world, and thus gave new proof of the indestructible, all-subduing energy of her life.
In a minute liistory of the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries we should mark the following subdivisions:
1. The Constantinian and Athanasian, or the Nicene and Trinitarian age, from 311 to the second general council in 381, distinguished by the conversion of Constantino, the alliance of the empire with the church, and the great Arian and semi- Arian controversy concerning the Divinity of Christ and the Holy Spirit.
2. The post-Nicene, or Christological and Augustinian age, extending to the fourth general council in 451, and including the Nestorian and Eutychian disputes on the person of Christ, and the Pelagian controversy on sin and grace.
3. The age of Leo the Great (440-461), or the rise of the papal supremacy in the "West, amidst the barbarian devastations which made an end to the western Roman empire in 4Y6.
4. The Justinian age (527-565), which exhibits the Byzantine state-church despotism at the height of its power, and at the beginning of its decline.
5. The Gregorian age (590-604) forms the transition from the ancient Graeco-Roman to the mediaeval Romano-Germanic Christianity, and will be more properly included in the church history of the middle ages.
CHAPTER I.
nOWNFALL OF HEATHENISM AND VICTORY OF CHEISTIAJnTT IB THE ROMAN EMPERE.
GEKERAL LITERATURE.
J. G. Hoffmann : Riiina superstitionis paganae. Vitemb. 1738. Tzsonm- NER : Der Fall des Heidenthums. Leipz. 1829. A. Beugnot : Ilistoira de la destruction du paganisme en Occident. Par. 1835. 2 vols. Ex. OuASTEi, (of Geneva): Histoire do la destruction du paganisme dans I'empire d'orient. Par. 1850. E. v. Lasatilx: Der Untergang dea Ilellenismus u. die Einziehung seiner Tempelgiiter durch die christl. Kaiser. Munch. 1854. F. Lubkeb: Der Fall des Ileidenthums. Schwerin, 1856. Cn. Merivale: Conversion of the Roman Empire. New York, 1865.
§ 2. Constantine the Great, a. d. 306-337.
1. Contemporary sources: Lactantius (t330) : Do mortibus persecutorum, cap. 18 sqq. Ecsebius: Hist. eccl. 1. ix. ct x. ; also his panegyric and very partial Yita Constantini, in 4 books (Ety rhv ^lov mv fioKapiov Koi^crraiTiVou Toii iSaaiXfoii), and liis Paucgyricus or De laudibus Constantini; in the editions of the hist, works of Euseb. by Valesins, Par. 1Q59-1673, Amstel. 1695, Cantabr. 1720; Zimraermann, Frcf. 1822; Heinichen, Lips. 1827-30 ; Burton, Oxon. 1838. Oomp. the imperial documents in the Oodex Theodos. 1. xvi. also the Letters and Treatises of Athakasius (t373), and on the heathen side the Panegyric of Nazarius at Rome (321) and the Caesars of Julian (1363).
?. Later sources: Soorates: Hist. eccl. 1. i. Sozomenus: H. E. 1. i et ii. ZosiMUS fa heathen historian and court-officer, comes et adrocatus Jisci, under Theodosius II.) : 'laropla via, 1. ii. ed. Bekker, Bonn. 1837. Eusebius and Zosimus present the extremes of partiality foi and against Constantine. A just estimate of his character must bfl formed from tlie facts admitted by both, and from the effect of his secular and ecclesiastical policy.
§ 2. CONSTANTmE THE GREAT. 11
3. Modern authorities. Mosiieim : De reb. Christ, ante Const. M. etc., last section (p. 958 sqq. In Murdock's Engl, transl., vol. ii. p. 454-481). Kath. Laedner, in the second part of his great work on the Credibility of the Gospel History, see Works ed. by Kippis, Lond. 1838, vol iv. p. 3-55. Abbe de Voisin : Dissertation critique sur la vision de Constantin. Par. 1774. Gibbox : 1. c. chs. xiv. and xvii.-xxi. Fe. GusTA : Vita di Constantino il Grande. Foligno, 1786. Manso: Daa Leben Constantins des Gr. Bresl. 1817. Htjg (R. C.) : Denkschrift zur Ehrenrettung Constant. Freib. 1829. Heinichen : Excurs. in Eus. Vitara Const. 1830. Arendt (R, C.) : Const, u. sein Verb, zum Christenthum. Tiib. (Quartalschrift) 1834. Milman : Hist, of Christianity, etc., 1840, book iii. ch. 1-4. Jacob Burckhaedt : Die Zeit Const, des Gr. Bas. 1853. Albert de Broglie: L'eglise et Tenipira romain au IV'"' sitJcle. Par, 1856 (vols. i. and ii.). A. P. Stanley; Lectures on the Hist, of the Eastern Church, 1862, Lect. vi. p. 281 sqq. (Am. ed.). Theod. Keim: Der Hebertritt Constantins des Gr. znin Christenthum. Zurich, 1862 (an apology for Constantine's character against Burckhardt's view).
The last great imperial persecution of the Christians under Diocletian and Galerius, which was aimed at the entire uprooting of the new religion, ended with the edict of toleration of 311 and the tragical ruin of the persecutors.' The edict of toleration was an involuntary and iiTesistible concession of the incurable impotence of heathenism and the indestructible power of Christianity, It left but a step to the downfall of the one and the supremacy of the other in the empire of the Csesars.
' Comp. vol. ii. § 25. Galerius died soon after of a disgusting and terrible disease (morbus pedicularis), described with great minuteness by Eusebius, H. E. viii. 16, and Lactantius, De mort. persec. c. 33. " His body," says Gibbon, ch. xiv. " swelled by an intemperate course of life to an unwieldy corpulence, was covered with ulcers and devoured by innumerable swarms of those insects which have given their name to a most loathsome disease." Diocletian had withdrawn from tlic throne in 305, and in 313 put an end to his embittered life by suicide. In his retirement he found more pleasure in raising cabbage than he had found in ruling the empire ; a confession we may readily believe. (President Lincoln of the United States, during the dark days of the civil war in Dec. 1862, declared that he would gladly exchange his position with any common soldier in the tented field.) Maximin, who kept up the persec\ition in the East, even after the toleration edict, as long as he could, died likewise a violent death by poison, in 313. In this tragical end of their lost threa imperial persecutors the Christians saw a palpable judgment' af God.