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sentence of excommunication passed upon him. was, however, only the ostensible cause of his condemnation; the true motive was connected with a court intrigue. The chief eunuch, who was his godson, was occupied in a double movement to elevate Eutyches to the see of Constantinople, and to destroy the authority of Pulcheria, the emperor's sister, by Eudocia, the emperor's wife. On his condemnation, Eutyches appealed to the emperor, who summoned, at the instigation of the eunuch, a council to meet at Ephesus. This was the celebrated "Robber Synod," as it was called. It pronounced in favour of the orthodoxy of Eutyches, and ordered his restoration, deposing the Bishop of Constantinople, Flavianus, who was his rival, and at the synod had been his judge and also Eusebius, who had been his accuser. A riot ensued, in which the Bishop of Constantinople was murdered by the Bishop of Alexandria and one Barsumas, who beat him with their fists amid cries of "Kill him! kill him!" The Italian legates made their escape from the uproar with difficulty.

The success of these movements was mainly due to Dioscorus, the Bishop of Alexandria, who thus accomplished the overthrow of his rivals of Antioch and Constantinople. An imperial edict gave force to the determination of the council. At this point the Bishop of Rome intervened, refusing to acknowledge the proceedings. It was well that Alexandria and Constantinople should be perpetually struggling, but it was not well that either should become paramount. Dioscorus thereupon broke off communion with him. Rome and Alexandria were at issue.

In a fortunate moment the emperor died; his sister, the orthodox Pulcheria, the friend of Leo, married Marcian, and made him emperor. A council was summoned at Chalcedon. Leo wished it to be in Italy, where no one could have disputed his presidency. As it was, he fell back on the ancient policy, and appeared by Another representatives. Dioscorus was overthrown, and advance of sentence pronounced against him, in behalf of the council, by one of the representatives of Leo. Eutychianism. It set forth that "Leo, therefore, by their voice, and with the authority of the council, in the name of the Apostle

Rome to

power through

Peter, the Rock and foundation of the Church, deposes Dioscorus from his episcopal dignity, and excludes him from all Christian rites and privileges."

The rivalry

nople.

But, perhaps that no permanent advantage might accrue to Rome from the eminent position she was attaining in these transactions, when most of the prelates had left the council, a few, who were chiefly of the diocese of of Constanti Constantinople, passed, among other canons, one to the effect that the supremacy of the Roman see was not in right of its descent from St. Peter, but because it was the bishopric of an imperial city. It assigned, therefore, to the Bishop of Constantinople equal civil dignity and ecclesiastical authority. Rome ever refused to recognize the validity of this canon.

Rivalries of the three

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In these contests of Rome, Constantinople, and Alexandria for supremacy-for, after all, they were nothing more than the rivalries of ambitious placemen for power -the Roman bishop uniformly came forth the gainer. And it is to be remarked that he great bishops. deserved to be so; his course was always dignified, often noble; theirs exhibited a reckless scramble for influence, an unscrupulous resort to bribery, court intrigue, murder.

Nature of ec

Thus the want of a criterion of truth, and a determination to arrest a spirit of inquiry that had become troublesome, led to the introduction of councils, by which, in an authoritative manner, theological questions might be settled. But it is to be observed that these councils did not accredit themselves by the coincidence of their decisions on successive occasions, since they often contradicted one another; nor did they sustain clesiastical those decisions only with a moral influence arising from the understanding of man, enlightened by their investigations and conclusions. Their human character is clearly shown by the necessity under which they laboured of enforcing their arbitrary conclusions by the support of the civil power. The same necessity which, in the monarchical East, led thus to the republican form of a council, led in the democratic West to the development of the autocratic papal power: but in both it was found that the final authority thu

councils.

appealed to had no innate or divinely derived energy. It was altogether helpless except by the aid of military or civil compulsion against any one disposed to resist it.

No other opinion could be entertained of the character of these assemblages by men of practical ability who had been concerned in their transactions. Gregory of Nazianzen, one of the most pious and able men of his age, and one who, during a part of its sittings, was president of the Council of Constantinople, A.D. 381, refused subsequently to attend any more, saying that he had never known an assembly of bishops terminate well; that, instead of removing evils, they only increased them, and that their strifes and lust of power were not to be described. A thousand years later, Æneas Sylvius, Pope Pius II., speaking of another council, observes that it was not so much directed by the Holy Ghost as by the passions of men.

human

Notwithstanding the contradictions and opposition they so frequently exhibit, there may be disProgressive cerned in the decisions of these bodies the variation of traces of an affiliation indicating the con- thought tinuous progression of thought. Thus, of the manifested by four œcumenical councils that were concerned these councils. with the facts spoken of in the preceding pages, that of Nicea determined the Son to be of the same substance with the Father; that of Constantinople, that the Son and Holy Spirit are equal to the Father; that of Ephesus, that the two natures of Christ make but one person; and that of Chalcedon, that these natures remain two, notwithstanding their personal union. But that they failed of their object in constituting a criterion of truth is plainly demonstrated by such simple facts as that, in the fourth century alone, there were thirteen councils adverse to Arius, fifteen in his favour, and seventeen for the semi-Arians-in all, forty-five. From such a confusion, it was necessary that the councils themselves must be subordinate to a higher authority-a higher criterion, able to give to them or refuse to them authenticity. That the source of power, both for the council in the East and the papacy in the West, was altogether political, is proved by almost every transaction in which they were concerned. In the case of the papacy, this was well seen in the

Pontifical

contest between Hilary the Bishop of Arles, and Leo, on which occasion an edict was issued by the Emperor Valentinian denouncing the contumacy of Hilary, and setting forth that "though the sentence of so great a pontiff as the Lishop of Rome did not need imperial confirmation, yet that it must now be understood by all bishops that the decrees of the apostolic see should henceforth be law, and that whoever refused to obey the citation of the Roman pontiff should be compelled to do so by the Moderator of the province." Herein we see the intrinsic nature of Papal power distinctly. It is allied with physical force.

power sustained by

physical force.

In the midst of these theological disputes occurred that The fall of great event which I have designated as marking the close of the age of Inquiry. It was

Rome.

the fall of Rome.

In the Eastern empire the Goths had become permanently settled, having laws of their own, a magistracy of their own, paying no taxes, but contributing 40,000 men to the army. The Visigoths were spreading through Spread of the Greece, Spain, Italy. In their devastations of barbarians. the former country, they had spared Athens for the sake of her souvenirs. The Eleusinian mysteries had ceased. From that day Greece never saw prosperity again. Alaric entered Italy. Stilicho, the imperial general, forced him to retreat. Rhadogast made his invasion. Stilicho compelled him to surrender at discretion. The Burgundians and Vandals overflowed Gaul; the Suevi, Vandals, and Alans overflowed Spain. Stilicho, a man worthy of the old days of the republic, though a Goth, was murdered by the emperor his master. Alaric appeared before Rome. It was 619 years since she had felt the presence of a foreign enemy, and that was Hannibal. She still contained 1780 senatorial palaces, the annual income of some of the owners of which was 160,000l. The city was eighteen miles in circumference, and contained above a million of people-of people, as in old times clamorous for distributions of bread, and wine, and oil. In its conscious despair, the apostate city, it is said, with the

Capture and sack of Rome

by Alaric.

was

consent of the pope, offered sacrifice to Jupiter, its repudiated, and, as it now believed, its offended god. 200,000l., together with many costly goods, were paid as a ransom. The barbarian general retired. He insulted by the emperor from his fastness at Ravenna. Altercations and new marches ensued; and at last, for the third time, Alaric appeared before Rome. At midnight on the 24th of April, A.D. 410, eleven hundred and sixtythree years from the foundation of the city, the Salarian gate was opened to him by the treachery of slaves; there was no god to defend her in her dire extremity, and Rome was sacked by the Goths.

Christians.

Has the Eternal City really fallen! was the universal exclamation throughout the empire when it became known that Alaric had taken Rome. Though paganism had been ruined in a national sense, the true Roman ethnical element had never given it up, but was dying out with it, a relic of the population of the city still adher- Accusations ing to the ancient faith. Among this were not of the Pagans wanting many of the aristocratic families and against the philosophers, who imputed the disaster to the public apostasy, and in their shame and suffering loudly proclaimed that the nation was justly punished for its abandonment of the gods of its forefathers, the gods who had given victory and empire. It became necessary for the Church to meet this accusation, which, while it was openly urged by thousands, was doubtless believed to be true by silent, and timid, and panic-stricken millions. With the intention of defending Christianity, St. Augustine, one of the ablest of the fathers, solemnly devoted thirteen years of his life to the composition of his great work entitled "The City of God." It is interesting for us to remark the tone of some of these replies of the Christians to their pagan adversaries.

66

For the manifest deterioration of Roman manners, and for the impending dissolution of the state, paganism itself is responsible. Our political power is only of yesterday: it is in no manner concerned with the gradual The Christian development of luxury and wickedness, which reply. has been going on for the last thousand years. Your ancestors made war a trade; they laid under tribute and

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