The History of Christianity by John S. C. Abbott (free children's ebooks pdf .TXT) 📖

Adolphus, brother-in-law of Alaric, succeeded, by the vote of the Gothic army, to the supreme command. He was also a remarkable man. His intelligence and moral worth may be inferred from the following remarks which he made to a citizen of Narbonne. The conversation was related by this citizen to St. Jerome, in the presence of the historian Orosius.

“In the full confidence of valor and victory,” said Adolphus, “I once aspired to change the face of the universe; to obliterate the name of Rome; to erect on its ruins the dominion of the Goths; and to acquire, like Augustus, the immortal fame of the founder of a new empire. By repeated experiments, I was gradually convinced that laws are essentially necessary to maintain and regulate a well-constituted State, and that the fierce, intractable humor of the Goths was incapable of bearing the salutary yoke of laws and civil government. From that moment I proposed to myself a different object of glory and ambition; and it is now my sincere wish that the gratitude of future ages should acknowledge the merit of a stranger who employed the sword of the Goth, not to subvert, but to restore and maintain, the prosperity of the Roman empire.”

In accordance with these views, Adolphus opened negotiations with Honorius, the Roman emperor, who was besieged at Ravenna. He entered into an alliance with him to assist in driving out the barbarians who were on the other side of the Alps. He even sought and obtained in marriage Placidia, a Christian lady, the daughter of Theodosius, and sister of Honorius. This illustrious woman, whose adventurous life we cannot here record, had been highly educated at Constantinople. The bride was young and lovely: the bridegroom was also remarkable for dignity of bearing and manly beauty. Thus the daughter of the decaying house of Rome was wedded to the chieftain of a new dynasty just emerging into fame and power.

The nuptials were conducted with great splendor at Narbonne, in Gaul. Fifty beautiful boys in silken robes presented the bride each two vases,—one filled with golden coin, and the other with precious gems. Even these treasures formed but a very inconsiderable portion of the gifts which were lavished upon Placidia. Adolphus, assuming the character of a Roman general, marched from Italy into Gaul. Driving out the barbarians there, he took possession of the whole country, from the ocean to the Mediterranean. Here Adolphus ere long died, and Placidia returned to her brother Honorius at Ravenna. After an inglorious reign of twenty-eight years, the timid and imbecile Honorius died at Ravenna. His secretary, John, seized the falling sceptre. Another party advocated the claims of the son of the emperor’s widowed sister Placidia, a child of but six years. John was beheaded. The boy, as Valentinian III., was declared emperor. Placidia was appointed regent.

Attila the Hun, whose devastations have procured for him the designation of “the Scourge of God,” now appears prominent upon the scene. At the head of half a million of men, he swept over Gaul and Italy, creating misery which no tongue can adequately tell: it would seem that humanity could scarcely have survived such billows of unutterable woe. All Venetia was ravaged with unsparing slaughter. A portion of the wretched inhabitants, flying in terror before Attila, escaped to a number of marshy islands, but a few feet above the water, at the extremity of the Adriatic Sea. Here they laid the foundations of Venice, the “Queen of the Adriatic,”—that city of the sea, which subsequently almost outvied Rome in opulence, power, and splendor, and whose magnificence, even in decay, attracts tourists from all parts of the world. “The grass never grows,” said this demoniac warrior, “where my horse has once placed his hoof.”

Valentinian III., having attained early manhood, developed an exceedingly profligate character. The Eastern and Western empires were now permanently divided, never again to be united. Arcadius was emperor at Constantinople. Kings generally contrive to live in splendor, whatever may be the poverty of their subjects. St. Chrysostom, in one of his sermons, speaks reproachfully of the splendor in which Arcadius indulged.

“The emperor,” says he, “wears on his head either a diadem or a crown of gold, decorated with precious stones of inestimable value. These ornaments and his purple garments are reserved for his sacred person alone. His robes of silk are embroidered with the figures of golden dragons. His throne is of massive gold. Whenever he appears in public, he is surrounded by his courtiers, his guards, and his attendants. Their spears, their shields, their cuirasses, the bridles and trappings of their horses, have either the substance or the appearance of gold.

“The two mules that draw the chariot of the monarch are perfectly white, and shining all over with gold. The chariot, itself of pure and solid gold, attracts the admiration of the spectators, who contemplate the purple curtains, the snowy carpet, the size of the precious stones, and the resplendent plates of gold, which glitter as they are agitated by the motion of the carriage.”

St. Chrysostom, from whose works the above extracts are taken, was one of the most distinguished ecclesiastics and preachers of that day. He had been pastor of the church in Antioch, where, in substitution of his true name of John, he had by his eloquence acquired the epithet of Chrysostom, or “the Golden Mouth.” His renown secured for him the unanimous call of the court, the clergy, and the people, to the archbishopric of Constantinople.

Chrysostom was of noble birth, of ardent piety, highly educated, and was one of the most attractive and powerful of pulpit orators. He had been educated for the law. Becoming a Christian, he devoted himself to the gospel ministry. He lived humbly, devoting the revenues of the bishopric to objects of benevolence. His eloquent discourses, couched in copious and elegant language, and enlivened by an inexhaustible fund of illustrations, drew crowds even from the theatre and the circus. Nearly a thousand of his sermons are preserved. They witness to his “happy art of engaging the passions in the service of virtue, and of exposing the folly as well as the turpitude of vice almost with the truth and spirit of dramatic representation.”191

From the pulpit of St. Sophia in Constantinople, Chrysostom, with the boldness of one of the ancient prophets, thundered forth his anathemas against the corruptions of the times. He spared neither the court nor the people. A conspiracy was formed against him, in which some of the unworthy clergy, irritated by his denunciations, united. Theophilus, Archbishop of Alexandria, led the clerical party. Eudoxia, the dissolute wife of the Emperor Arcadius, exasperated by the rumor that the audacious preacher had reviled her under the name of Jezebel, arrayed the court influence against him. He was finally banished to the extreme border of the Euxine or Black Sea. The infuriate queen doomed the Christian bishop to exile to Cucusus, a dreary and far-distant town among the defiles of the Caucasian Mountains.

“A secret hope was entertained,” writes Gibbon, “that the archbishop might perish in a difficult and dangerous march of seventy days, in the heat of summer, through the provinces of Asia Minor, where he was continually threatened by the hostile attacks of the Isaurians. Yet Chrysostom arrived in safety at the place of his confinement; and the three years which he spent at Cucusus were the last and most glorious of his life.

“His character was consecrated by absence and persecution. The faults of his administration were no longer remembered: every tongue repeated the praises of his genius and virtue; and the respectful attention of the Christian world was fixed on a desert spot among the mountains of Taurus.

“From that solitude, the archbishop, whose active mind was invigorated by misfortunes, maintained a strict and frequent correspondence with the most distant provinces; exhorted the separate congregation of his faithful adherents to persevere in their allegiance; extended his pastoral care to the missions of Persia and Scythia; negotiated, by his ambassadors, with the Roman pontiff and the Emperor Honorius; and boldly appealed from a partial synod to the supreme tribunal of a free and general council. The mind of the illustrious exile was still independent; but his captive body was exposed to all the revenge of his oppressors, who continued to abuse the name and authority of Arcadius.

“An order was despatched for the instant removal of Chrysostom to the extreme Desert of Pityus. His guard so faithfully obeyed their cruel instructions, that, before he reached the sea-coast of the Euxine, he expired at Comana, in Pontus, in the sixty-third year of his age.”192

Exhausted by the long journey on foot, with his head uncovered in the burning heat of the sun, he joyfully welcomed the approach of death. Clothing himself in white robes, as in a bridal garment, he partook of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper; offered a fervent prayer, which he closed with the customary words, “Praise be to God for all things!” and sweetly fell asleep in Jesus. His remains were first entombed in the chapel of the martyr St. Basil. After slumbering there thirty years, they were transported, with every demonstration of respect, to Constantinople. The Emperor Theodosius, then upon the throne, advanced as far as Chalcedon to meet them. Falling prostrate upon the coffin, he implored, in the name of his guilty parents Arcadius and Eudoxia, the forgiveness of the wrongs which the Christian bishop had received at their hands. At a later period, the remains of Chrysostom were removed to the Vatican, at Rome, where they now repose.

Over two hundred of the letters which Chrysostom wrote during his exile are still extant. They all breathe a remarkable spirit of cheerful trust in the promise that “all things work together for good to them that love God.”193

The terrible persecutions to which the Christians had been exposed had driven many into the wilderness, where they sought refuge amidst rocks and caves. The fearful social corruptions of the times also led some to flee from temptations too strong for flesh and blood to bear. The hut of the hermit and the cell of the monk gradually expanded into the massive and battlemented monastery, where considerable communities took refuge. Though these institutions gradually degenerated, as almost every thing human does, they were in their origin a necessity. Chrysostom, in the earlier periods of his Christian life, had resided for some time with the anchorites who had sought a retreat in the mountains near Antioch.

One can scarcely conceive of a more melancholy spectacle of national wretchedness than Italy now exhibited. Attila the Hun had trampled beneath the feet of his impetuous legions nearly all opposition. This extraordinary man is described by his contemporaries as possessing the coarse features of a modern Calmuck. His head was large and bushy, with an abundance of hair; his complexion was swarthy; with deep-seated eyes, a flat nose, and a few straggling hairs for a beard. Broad shoulders, and a short, stout body, gave indication of immense muscular strength. His bearing was excessively haughty; and he had the habit of wildly rolling his eyes, as if he wished to enjoy the terror which he could thus inspire.