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

The wives and children of the Goths, their aged parents and most precious effects, were carefully transported; and some idea may be formed of the heavy baggage that followed the camp, by the loss of two thousand wagons, which had been sustained in a single action in the war of Epirus. For their subsistence the Goths depended on the magazines of corn, which was ground in portable mills by the hands of their women; on the milk and flesh of their flocks and herds; on the casual produce of the chase; and upon the contributions which they might impose on all who should presume to dispute their passage or to refuse their friendly assistance. Notwithstanding these precautions, they were exposed to the danger and almost to the distress of famine in a march of seven hundred miles, which had been undertaken in the depth of a rigorous winter.”195

Their march was through provinces devastated by war and famine. Still Theodoric had many fierce battles to wage ere he descended the southern declivities of the Julian Alps, and displayed his banners on the confines of Italy. Odoacer met him on the eastern frontiers of Venetia. Conquered in a bloody battle, he retreated to the walls of Verona; and all Venetia fell into the hands of the Ostrogoths. Odoacer made another stand upon the banks of the Adige: a still more sanguinary battle was fought, and the broken bands of Odoacer fled to Ravenna, on the Adriatic. Theodoric marched triumphantly to Milan, where the ever-fickle multitude received the conqueror with every demonstration of joy. Still, for three years, wretched Italy was desolated by war: misery reigned from the Alps to the extremity of the Peninsula, as man’s inhumanity to man caused countless millions to mourn.

At length, Theodoric was victorious: having annihilated the armies of the Goths, and plunged his sword into the bosom of Odoacer, he entered upon the undisputed sovereignty of the whole of Italy. Theodoric governed this most beautiful of realms with energy, wisdom, and humanity. A third of the lands of Italy were divided among his own people. For thirty-three years he reigned with sagacity, which has given him the designation of “the Great.” He was nominally a Christian, as were very many of his followers. The days of paganism had passed, never to return. Christianity had in a remarkable degree pervaded the barbaric nations outside the limits of the Roman empire.

Christianity, which had gained such signal victories over the learned and luxurious Romans, was equally triumphant over the warlike barbarians of Scythia and Germany. These fierce hordes, in their military incursions, carried back into their savage wilds thousands of captives. Many of these were Christians, and some were clergymen. They were dispersed as slaves throughout the wide realms of their conquerors. They, like the early disciples who were scattered from Jerusalem, proclaimed, in the huts of their barbaric masters, the gospel of Jesus, and won many triumphs to the cross of Christ.

John Chrysostom, whom we have mentioned as one of the most illustrious men of these days, upon becoming a Christian when but little over twenty years of age, abandoned all the ambition of life, and retired to the cells of the anchorites who were dwelling on the mountains in the vicinity of Antioch. Chrysostom gives us the following account of the mode of life then adopted by the anchorites:—

“They rise with the first crowing of the cock, or at midnight. After having read psalms and hymns in common, each, in his separate cell, is occupied in reading the Holy Scriptures, or in copying books. Then they proceed to church, and, after mass, return quietly to their habitations. They never speak to each other. Their nourishment is bread and salt: some add oil to it, and the invalids vegetables. After meals they rest a few moments, and then return to their usual occupations. They till the ground, fell wood, make baskets and clothes, and wash the feet of travellers. Their bed is a mat spread upon the ground; their dress consists of skins or cloths made of the hair of goats or camels. They go barefooted, have no property, and never pronounce the words mine and thine. Undisturbed peace dwells in their habitations, and a cheerfulness scarcely known in the world.”

There can be no question as to the sincerity of these cloistered monks, misguided as they were. Chrysostom dwelt in a cavern for two years, without lying down. His penance was so severe, that he was thrown into a fit of sickness, which compelled his return to Antioch. After a life of tireless activity, many persecutions, and efficient devotion to the interests of the Church, he died, as we have mentioned, in exile, in the sixty-third year of his age.

“The name of Chrysostom, ‘Golden-mouthed,’ was assigned to him after his death to express the eloquence which he possessed in so much greater a degree than the other fathers of the Church. He never repeats himself, and is always original. The vivacity and power of his imagination, the force of his logic, his power of arousing the passions, the beauty and accuracy of his comparisons, the neatness and purity of his style, his clearness and sublimity, place him on a level with the most celebrated Greek authors. The Greek Church has not a more accomplished orator.”196

The inclination for monastic seclusion very rapidly increased. Some sought the silence of the desert because they felt unable to resist the temptations of busy life; some, to escape from persecution; some, as a refuge from remorse; some, from the conviction that sin might be atoned for by self-inflicted suffering; some, from disgust at life, or a natural fondness for solitude and contemplation. In the middle of the fourth century, there was a colony of these anchorets upon the Island of Tabenna, in the Nile, numbering fifty thousand persons. They lived in the extreme of abstinence, occupying cheerless cells in very humble huts.

Men only at first entered upon this hermit life. About the middle of the fourth century, female monasteries, or convents of nuns, were instituted.

This retirement from the world to the cloister in those troublous times proved by no means an unmixed evil. Gradually very solemn monastic vows and extremely rigid rules of discipline were introduced.

“These houses now became the dwellings of piety, industry, and temperance, and the refuge of learning driven to them for shelter from the troubles of the times. Missionaries were sent out from them: deserts and solitudes were made habitable by industrious monks. And in promoting the progress of agriculture, and civilizing the German and Sclavonian nations, they certainly rendered great services to the world from the sixth century to the ninth. But it must be admitted that these institutions, so useful in the dark ages of barbarism, changed their character to a great degree as their wealth and influence increased. Idleness and luxury crept within their walls, together with all the vices of the world; and their decay became inevitable.”197

In the early part of this century Augustine died, a man whose renown has been fresh in the Church for fourteen hundred years. He was born in Tagasta, a small city in Africa, on the 13th of November, 354. His father was a pagan, though he became a disciple of Jesus just before his death. His mother was an earnest Christian, by whose pious teachings Augustine in his early childhood was deeply impressed. While a mere boy, upon a sudden attack of dangerous sickness, he entreated that he might be baptized, and received into the fold of Christ. The sudden disappearance of alarming symptoms led his mother to hesitate, fearing that he might again fall into sin, and that then his baptism would only add to his condemnation. Augustine afterwards expressed the opinion that this was a great mistake. He thought, that, had he then made a profession of his faith in Christ, it would have operated as an incentive to a holy life, and would have saved him from much subsequent sin and suffering.

With returning health, temptation came, and the boy of ardent passions was swept away by the flood. “My weak age,” he writes, “was hurried along through the whirlpool of flagitiousness. The displeasure of God was all the time imbittering my soul. Where was I, in that sixteenth year of my age, when the madness of lust seized me altogether? My God, thou spakest to me by my mother, and through her warned me strongly against the ways of vice. But my mother’s voice I despised, and thought it to be only the voice of a woman. So blinded was I, that I was ashamed to be thought less guilty than my companions. I even invented false stories of my sinful exploits, that I might win their commendation.

“I committed theft from the wantonness of iniquity: it was not the effect of the theft, but the sin itself, which I wished to enjoy. There was a pear-tree in the neighborhood loaded with fruit. At dead of night, in company with some profligate youths, I plundered the tree. The spoil was thrown away; for I had abundance of better fruit at home. What did I mean that I should be gratuitously wicked?”

The father of Augustine, though not wealthy, had sufficient means and the disposition to afford his son all existing facilities for the acquisition of a thorough education. The young man devoted himself sedulously to the cultivation of eloquence. In the pursuit of his studies, he repaired to Carthage, then the abode of intellect, wealth, and splendor. Here he plunged quite recklessly into fashionable dissipation. When seventeen years of age, his father died; but his fond mother maintained him at Carthage. It is manifest that he was still the subject of deep religious impressions. Upon reading the “Hortensius” of Cicero, he was charmed with its philosophy; but he writes,—

“The only thing which damped my zeal was, that the name of Christ was not there,—that precious name, which from my mother’s milk I had learned to reverence; and whatever was without this name, however just and learned and polite, could not wholly carry away my heart.”

He commenced studying the Scriptures, but with that proud, self-sufficient spirit which debarred him from all spiritual enlightenment. His haughty frame, he afterwards confessed, “justly exposed him to believe in the most ridiculous absurdities.”

“For nine years,” he writes, “while I was rolling in the slime of sin, often attempting to rise, and still sinking deeper, did my mother in vigorous hope persist in incessant prayer for me. She entreated a certain bishop to reason me out of my errors. He replied, ‘Your son is too much elated at present with the pleasing novelty of his error to regard any arguments, as appears by the pleasure he takes in puzzling many ignorant persons with his captious questions. Let him alone: only continue to pray to the Lord for him. It is not possible that a child of such tears should perish.’”

“My mother,” writes Augustine, “has often told me since, that this answer impressed her mind like a voice from heaven.”

For nine years, from the nineteenth to the twenty-eighth of his age, this very brilliant young man lived in the indulgence of practices which he knew to be sinful. His pride of character and his high intellectual attainments precluded his entrance upon scenes of low and vulgar vice. He was genteelly and fashionably wicked. He had attained distinction as a teacher of rhetoric, and supported himself in that way. There was a young man in Carthage who had been a nominal Christian, the child of Christian parents, and a companion and friend of Augustine from childhood. A very strong friendship sprang up between them; and Augustine succeeded in drawing this young man away from the Christian faith, and in luring him into his own paths of error and of sin.

This young man was taken dangerously sick. When unconscious, and apparently near his end, he was, by the wish