358 THIKD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
execution of the penitential discipline. The (jccasion of this act was furnished by a scandalous occurrence : the violation of a lady of rank in the church by a worthless deacon, when she came to submit herself to public penance. The example of Nectarius was soon followed by the other oriental bishops.'
Socrates and Sozonien, who inclined to the severity of the Novatians, date the decline of discipline and of the former purit}'^ of morals from this act. Bat the real cause lay further Ivack, in the connection of the church with the temporal power Had the state been pervaded with the religious earnestness and zeal of Christianity, like the Genevan republic, for example, under the reformation of Calvin, the discipline of the church would have rather gained than lost by the alliance. But the vast Roman state could not so easily and quickly lay aside its heathen traditions and customs ; it perpetuated them under Christian names. The great mass of the people received, at best, only John's baptism of repentance, not Christ's baptism of the Holy Ghost and of fire.
Yet even under these new conditions the original moral earnestness of the church continued, from time to time, to make itself known. Bishops were not wanting to confront even the emperors, as Nathan stood before David after his fall, in fearless rebuke. Chrysostom rigidly insisted, that the deacon should exclude all unworthy persons from the holy communion, though by his vehement reproof of the immoralities of the imperial court, he brought upon himself at last deposition and exile. " Though a captain," says he to those who administer the communion, " or a governor, nay, even one adorned with the imperial crown, approach [the table of the Lord] unworthily, prevent him ; you have greater authority than he. . . . Beware lest you excite the Lord to wrath, and give a sword instead of food- And if a new Judas should approach the communion, prevent him. Fear God, not
* Sozomen, vii. 16 ; Socratea v. 19. This fact haa been employed by the Ron an church against the Protestant, in the controversy on the sacrament of penance. Neetariu3 certainly did abolish the institution of penitential priest, and the public church penance. But for or against private penances no inference can be drawn from th« Rtatcment of these historians.
g GS. DECLINE OF DISCIPLINE, 35£
man. If you fear man, lie will treat you with scovn ; if you feai God, you will appear venerable even to men." ' Sj' uesius excom municated the worthless governor of Pentapolis, Andronicus, for his cruel oppression of the poor and contempt of tlie exhortations of tlie bishop, and the discipline attained the desired eifect. The most noted example of church discipline is the encounter between Ambrose and Theodosius I. in Milan about the year 390. The bishop refused the powerful and orthodox emperoi' the communion, and thrust him back from the threshold of the church, because in a tempest of rage he had caused seven thousand persons in Thessalonica, regardless of rank, sex, or guilt, to be hewn down by his soldiers in horrible cruelty on account of a riot. Eight months afterward Ambrose gave him absolution at his request, after he had submitted to the public penance of the church and promised in future not to execute a death penalty until thirty days after the pronouncing of it, that he might have time to revoke it if nee essary, and to exercise mercy.' Here Ambrose certainly vindicated — though perhaps not without admixture of hierarchical loftiness — the dignity and rights of the church against the state, and the claims of Christian temperance and mercy against gross military power. " Thus," says a modern historian, " did the church prove, in a time of unlimited arbitrary power, the refuge of popular freedom, and saints assume the part of tribunes of the people." '
' Horn. 82 (al. 83) in Matt., toward the close (ia Montfaucon's edition of Chrys,, torn, vii, p. 789 sq.). Comp. his exposition of 1 Cor. xi. 27, 28, in Horn. 21 and 28, in 1 Corinth. (English translation in the Oxford Library of the Fathers, etc., p. 379 sqq., and 383 sqq.).
^ This occurrence is related by Ambrose himself, in 395, in his funeral disconrsa n Theodosius (de obitu Theod. c. 34, in the Bened. ed. of his works, tom. ii. p. 207), in these words : " Deflevit in ecclesia pubHce peccatum suum, quod ei aliorum fraude obrepserat ; gemitu et lacrymis oravit veniam. Quod privati erubescunt, non erubuit imperator, publice agere pcenitentiam ; neque uUus postea dies fuit quo Don LUum doleret errorem. Quid, quod prfficlaram adeptus victoriam ; tamen quia hostes in acie prostrati sunt abstinuit a consortio sacramentorum, donee Domini circa Be gratiam filiorum experiretur adventu." Also by his biographer Paulinus (de vita Ambros. c. 24), by Augustine (De civit, Dei, v. 26), by the historians Theodore^ ^v. 17), Sozomen (vii. 2.5)_, and Rufinus (xi. 18).
* Ease, Church History, § 117 (p. 161, 7th ed.)