Theodosius was sole emperor, even in name. real union of the whole empire under one ruler.

This was the last

Theodosius prohibited pagan worship, on pain of death. This ardent support of Christianity makes more striking a remarkable penance to which a bishop of the church subjected him. The Goths had been admitted into the army, especially in the East. Many quarrels took place between them and the inhabitants of the great cities, and at last a number of Gothic officers were massacred by the citizens of Thessalonica. In rage Theodosius gave orders for a terrible punishment. By his command the Gothic army in the guilty city surrounded the theater where the great body of inhabitants were assembled for the games, and killed men, women, and children without mercy. At the time Theodosius was at the western capital, Milan. When next he attended church, the bishop Ambrose sternly forbade him to enter, stained as he was with innocent blood. The emperor obeyed the priest. He withdrew humbly and accepted the penance which Ambrose imposed, and then, some months later, was received again to the services.

564. Final Division of the Empire. — On the death of Theodosius, the empire was again divided between his two sons, Arcadius and Honorius. More truly than any previous division, this was a real separation. After 395 there was "The Empire in the East" and "The Empire in the West." The two were still one in theory, but in practice they grew apart and even became hostile powers.

FOR FURTHER READING. Pelham, 551-571; Gardner's Julian; Hodgkin's Dynasty of Theodosius; Robinson's Readings in European History, I, 21-33.

CHAPTER V.

THE EMPIRE OF THE FOURTH CENTURY.

(A Topical Study.)

I. THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.

565. Organization: One "Catholic" Church. - As the church extended its sway, it adopted in its government the territorial divisions of the empire. Its chief officers, too, in a measure corresponded to the grades of the civil state.

The early Christian missionaries to a province naturally went first to the chief city there. Thus the capital of a province became the seat of the first church in the district. From this church, as a mother society, churches spread to the other cities of the province, and from each city there sprouted outlying parishes. The head of the church in each city was a bishop (overseer), with supervision over the lower clergy and the rural churches of the neighborhood.' Gradually the bishop of the mother church in the capital city came to exercise great authority over the other bishops of the province. He became known as archbishop or metropolitan; and it became customary for him to summon the other bishops to a central council.

The next step was to exalt one of these metropolitans in a civil diocese above the others. This lot fell usually to the metropolitan of the chief city of the diocese. Thus, over much of the empire, the diocese, also, became an ecclesiastical unit, and its chief metropolitan was known as patriarch.

1 At the head of each parish was a priest. Below the priests were officers known as deacons and subdeacons, with special care of the poor. Then there were also the "minor" orders - acolyte, exorcist, reader, doorkeeper. Special report: the life and work of a bishop in the early Christian Empire.

By degrees, this process toward a monarchic, centralized government was carried still further. The patriarchs of a few great centers were exalted above the others. Finally all the East became divided between the four patriarchates of Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Constantinople, while all the West came under the authority of the bishop of Rome.1

This unity of organization, with its tendency toward a single head, helped to develop the idea of a single " Catholic" (all-embracing) church, which should rule the whole world. After 300, this idea is never lost sight of.

566. Growth of a Body of Doctrine; the Nicene Creed and the Arian Heresy.· The first Christians did not concern themselves with fine distinctions in doctrine. By degrees, however, the church came to contain the educated classes and men trained in the philosophical schools. These scholars brought with them into the church their philosophical thought; and the simple teachings of Christ were expanded and modified by them into an elaborate system of theology.

Thus, as Christianity borrowed the admirable organization of its government from Rome, so it drew the refinement of its doctrine from Greece. Before this Semitic faith could become the faith of Europe, as Freeman says, "its dogmas had to be defined by the subtlety of the Greek intellect, and its political organization had to be wrought into form by the undying genius of Roman rule."

But when the leaders of the church tried to state just what they believed about difficult points, they found that they could not all agree, and some violent disputes arose. In such cases the views of the majority finally prevailed as the orthodox doctrine, and the views of the minority became heresy. Most of the early heresies arose from different opinions about the exact nature of Christ.

1 These eastern cities were nearly enough equal in importance to be rivals; but there was no city in the West that could rival Rome. This fact accounts in large measure for the authority of the bishop of Rome over so large an area. In the West the term diocese never had an ecclesiastical meaning corresponding to its civil use, but was applied to smaller units.

2 See Robinson's Readings, I, 19-21, for a third century statement.

This was the case with the great Arian heresy. Arius, a priest of Alexandria, taught that, while Christ was the divine Son of God, He was not equal to the Father. Athanasius, of the same city, asserted that Christ was not only divine and the Son of God, but that He and the Father were absolutely equal in all respects, "of the same substance" and "co-eternal." The struggle waxed fierce and divided Christendom into opposing camps. But the Emperor Constantine desired union in the church. If it split into hostile fragments, his reasons for favoring it would be gone. Accordingly, in 325, he summoned all the principal clergy of the empire to a great council at Nicaea,1 in Asia Minor, and ordered them to come to agreement.

Arius and Athanasius in person led the fierce debate. In the end the majority sided with Athanasius; and his opinion, summed up in the Nicene Creed, became the orthodox creed of Christendom. Arianism was condemned, and Arius and his followers were excluded from the church and persecuted. This heresy was to play an important part, however, in later history. Its disciples converted some of the barbarian peoples, who brought back the faith with them into the empire when they conquered it (§§ 590-595, 606).2

567. Persecution by the Church. Diocletian's persecution was the last which the church had to endure. In 312, as we saw, Christianity secured perfect toleration for its worship, and, soon after, it was given an especially favored place among the religions of the empire. Almost at once it began itself to use violence to stamp out other religions. The Emperor Gratian (§ 563) permitted orthodox Christians to prevent the worship of those Christian sects which church councils

1 This was the first council representing the whole church.

2 Special reports: the careers of Arius and Athanasius after the Council of Nicaea; other early heresies, especially that of the Gnostics and that of the Manichaeans, and the church councils that dealt with them. (The sect of Manichaeans arose in the East and was influenced by the Persian religion with its two powers of good and evil; § 61. According to this heresy, God was not all-powerful, but the devil existed and worked as an independent power.)

declared heretical; and the great Theodosius forbade all pagan worship (§ 563).1 Paganism did survive for a century more, in out-of-the-way places, but Christianity had now become the sole legal religion. Heathen temples and idols were destroyed; the philosophical schools were broken up; and adherents of

the old faiths were put to death. This deplorable policy was opposed in vain by some of the greatest of the Fathers, as by Augustine and Chrysostom (§ 579).

In centuries to come this persecution by the church dwarfed into insignificance even the terrible persecutions it had suffered. The motive, too,

1 See various decrees in Robinson's Readings, I, 23, 26-27.

2 Hence the name pagans, from a Latin word meaning rustics. From a like fact the Christian Germans at a later time came to describe the remaining adherents of the old worship as heathens (heath-dwellers).

3 Special report: the story of the pure and noble Hypatia, of Alexandria. Read Kingsley's novel, Hypatia. See a terrible five-page summary of early persecutions by the Christians in Lecky, European Morals, II, 194-198.