charm and the contamination of the old pagan poetry it is possible for us to understand; contempt for pagan literature and science had less excuse, and savored more of ignorance and bigotry.1

540. A Few Illustrations of this feeling may be given. The Apostolical Constitutions (350 A.D.) contain the injunction : 2—

"Refrain from all the writings of the heathens; for what hast thou to do with strange discourses, laws, or false prophets, which in truth turn aside from the faith those who are weak in understanding? For if thou wilt explore history, thou hast the Books of the Kings; or seekest thou for words of wisdom and eloquence, thou hast the Prophets, Job, and the Book of Proverbs, wherein thou shalt find a more perfect knowledge of all eloquence and wisdom, for they are the voice of the Lord, the only wise God. Or dost thou long for tuneful strains, thou hast the Psalms; or to explore the origin of things, thou hast the Book of Genesis; or for customs and observances, thou hast the excellent law of the Lord God. Wherefore abstain scrupulously from all strange and devilish books." - Quoted by Mullinger, Schools of Charles the Great, 8.

The Fourth Council of Carthage (398 A.D.) cautiously restricted the reading of secular books by bishops; and even St. Jerome, an ardent scholar during most of his life, came for a time to rejoice in the growing neglect of Plato, and to warn Christians against pagan writers. Many of the early Fathers were themselves learned before they became Christians, and could afford this tone better than the rising generation to whom they spoke. Eusebius exclaims, "It is not through ignorance of the things admired by philosophy, but through contempt of them, that we think so little of these matters, turning our souls to the exercise of better things." Some unfortunate results appeared very early. The spherical form of the earth, for instance, was a well-known fact in Greek

1 The attitude was somewhat like that of the Puritans of the seventeenth century toward the plays of Shakspere and his fellow-dramatists; but in the third and fourth centuries the result was more disastrous, because then all literature and science were pagan, and so banned.

2 These "Constitutions were never sanctioned by Church councils, but this particular passage undoubtedly represents a very prevalent feeling.

science (§ 259); but the early Fathers demolished the idea. for the Christian world by theological arguments. "It is impossible," said St. Augustine, "there should be inhabitants on the other side of the earth, since no such race is recorded in Scripture among the descendants of Adam." Many argued in like tone that Scripture gave no warrant for the sphericity of the earth, and that therefore it could not be; "besides," some of them added, "if the earth were round, how could all men see Christ at his coming?" Lactantius, the "Christian Cicero" (§ 514), speaks of the doctrine in these words:

"Is it possible men can believe that the crops and trees on the other side of the earth hang downward, and that men have their feet higher than their heads? If you ask them how they defend these monstrosities, how things do not fall away from the earth on that side, they reply that the nature of things is such that heavy bodies tend toward the center, while light bodies, as clouds, fire, and smoke, tend from the center to the heavens on all sides. Now I am really at a loss what to say of those who, when they have once gone wrong, steadily persist in their folly, and defend one absurd position by another."

541. Persecution of Learning.-Unhappily, to enjoin ignorance upon the faithful did not content the more active spirits. They turned to active persecution. At Alexandria, after desperate strife between pagans and Christians, the Emperor Theodosius ordered the destruction of the temple of Serapis, in which at this time were the great library and the delicate astronomical instruments that had been used by the Alexandrian astronomers.1 Soon after (414 A.D.) came the horrible murder of Hypatia (§ 530, note), and the final suppression of Alexandrian science.2

1 This is the library which the Mohammedans have been accused of burning, some three centuries later, on the excuse that if the books contained only what was in the Koran they were unnecessary, and if they contained anything else they were false. Unfortunately, this story seems to represent not so unfairly the attitude of early Christians toward science and the Bible. (Bury, however, holds that the burning of the books at the time of the destruction of the Serapion is not proven; Bury's Gibbon's Decline and Fall, III. 199-201 and 495.) 2 Political rivalry had a part in these outbursts in Alexandria, but they were connected with a wide-spread movement against the old philosophy.

542. The Result.-The complete extinction of the old schools was not to come until the general cataclysm that followed the barbarian invasions in the next century; but it is undoubtedly true that those institutions were already being destroyed, or replaced by schools of infinitely lower character, for theological training only.

There is some consolation, perhaps, in the fact that the schools and Greek learning had already begun to decline in the third century (before the triumph of Christianity) along with the general decay in the Roman world; and it is possible to look upon their complete overthrow as a necessary step in the erection, centuries later, of a higher and nobler educational system. We shall have occasion, too, to notice that for centuries after the barbarian invasions the monasteries were the sole refuge of learning in the West. None the less it is shirking the facts not to recognize this hostile and bigoted attitude of the early Christians as one of the leading factors in the decline of Romano-Greek science and letters.

FOR FURTHER READING.-Laurie, Rise of Universities, 19-27; Mullinger, Schools of Charles the Great (early pages); Draper, I. 314–325 and 357 Compayré, History of Pedagogy, 62-64; West, Alcuin, 9-21.

VI. SOCIETY IN THE FOURTH CENTURY.

A. INTRODUCTORY SURVEY.

543. Growing Exhaustion of the Empire. The three quarters of a century after the reunion of the Empire under Constantine were marked by a fair degree of outward prosperity, despite several brief wars for the throne. But the secret forces that were sapping the strength of society continued to work ceaselessly, and early in the coming century the Empire was to crumble under barbarian attacks. These inroads themselves will be treated farther on. We may notice now that they were at least no more formidable than those the Empire had so often rebuffed. Apparently, indeed, they were weaker. The barbarians, then, are not to be considered as the chief cause of the

"Fall." Those causes were internal. But when an empire is overthrown from internal causes, it is usually either by national revolt or by the personal rebellion of satraps. Not so the Roman Empire. The subject peoples had no desire to rebel, and the reforms of Diocletian guarded against rebellion by governors. The Roman Empire was overthrown from without by an ordinary attack, because it had grown weak within and had become a mere shell. This was not due, in any marked degree at least, to decline in discipline or bravery. The Roman army kept its superb organization, and to the last was so strong in its moral superiority that it was ready to face any odds unflinchingly.' But more and more it became impossible to find men to fill the legions, or money to pay them. Dearth of men and of money was the cause of the fall of the state.

544. The Causes Political and Social rather than Moral. — The older writers explained the decay on moral grounds. Recent scholars are at one in recognizing, first, that the moral decay of society has been greatly exaggerated, and, secondly, that such decay operates only indirectly anyway upon a political society. The immediate causes seem to have been political and economic, especially the latter."

B. CLASSES.

545. General View.-To understand ever so faintly the causes of the decay of population and wealth, we must see more clearly the make-up of Roman society. At the top of the social system was the emperor, to direct the machinery of government. At the bottom were the peasantry and artisans, the producers of food and of wherewithal to pay taxes. Between these two

1 Read Dill, 288-291, for examples, and see a quotation from the stout soldier Ammianus, in Sheppard, 139–141.

2 On the exaggeration of the moral decline, read Dill, bks. ii. and iii. (especially pp. 115-131 and 227-228); Seeley, especially 54-64; and Adams, 79–81. Kingsley, Roman and Teuton, Lecture II., gives graphic statement of the older but rather unhistorical view. If read, it should be corrected by Dill's treatment of the same authorities.

extremes were two aristocracies, the senatorial nobility and the curials, or civic nobility.

546. The Senatorial Nobility now included large numbers who never sat in the senate either at Rome or Constantinople. All high officials and the higher clergy belonged to this class. It had swallowed up the old senatorial class of Rome, and most of the knights. It was a nobility of office, hereditary for two or three generations; but if a family kept its rank it must furnish new imperial officials from time to time. Its privileges consisted: (1) in its dignity; (2) in the fact that a member was a citizen of the whole Empire, not of one municipality only; and (3) in exemption from municipal taxes. Its burdens lay in heavy forms of imperial taxes, both direct and indirect. A noble might at any moment be called upon for ruinous expenses at the capital, or to assume some costly office at a distant frontier. But of course only a few were actually so burdened, and the lot of the majority was enviable.

547. The Curials. Below the imperial nobility was a local nobility. Each city had its senate, or curia. The curials were exempted from conscription and corporal punishment, and they had the management of the local finances; but they were liable for deficits and for many burdensome duties in connection with the corn supply and poor-relief. Those who rose to the higher magistracies had also to bear extravagant municipal expenses in providing festivals and shows. More crushing, however, were the imperial burdens. The curials became the collectors of the imperial land tax in their respective municipalities, and were made personally responsible for any deficit. The needs of the Empire caused the amount to be increased steadily, while the ability to pay, and the number of curials, as steadily decreased.

1 The principle seems to have been not unlike that of the modern Russian nobility. Advanced students may refer to Leroy-Beaulieu's Tsars and the Russians, I. bk. vi. 2 Dill, 249; Bury's Later Empire, 37–42.

3 Dill, 250-262 (excellent); Hodgkin, II. 585 ff.; Bury.