THIRD MILLENNIUM LIBRARY
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THIRD MILLENNIUM LIBRARY |
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ST. HILARY OF POITIERS CHAPTER I.
THE COUNTRY AND THE AGE OF HILARY.
It was permitted by God’s providence that at the time
when His Son, for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven, heathen
Rome should be the mistress of the world. But to reach this pinnacle of earthly
greatness had been a long and arduous task—a task achieved by hard-won triumphs
against able and often formidable enemies.
Among the opponents of the pre-eminence of Rome, the
Gauls were for many centuries the most uncompromising. Their opposition, it is
true, was of a wayward and fitful character. The different tribes of the race
did not often act in concert; and, even when they did so, their harmony was soon
broken. No Gallic general can be said to have attained the high position won by
Pyrrhus of Epirus, far less that achieved by Hannibal, in a career of
anti-Roman warfare. Even Brennus, the chieftain of the Gauls, who in BC 390 captured and burnt Rome, did not
remain in central Italy long enough to consolidate his conquest.
But while the rivalry of other enemies, as of the Epirote and the Carthaginian, was comprised within a
comparatively limited period of time, that of the Gauls was enduring and
persistent. The Celtic tribes in that part of northern Italy which the Romans
called Cisalpine Gaul, as well as those who occupied so large a portion of the
country now known to us as France, continued for more than three centuries to
be the watchful and unsleeping foes of Rome. They looked out for opportunities,
and when they saw them were not very scrupulous about breach of treaties. The
sudden and irregular character of the Celtic attacks was of that kind which the
Romans specified by the name of a tumult; and, as a Gallic tumult was an event
which might happen at any moment, a special fund of money was kept in the
Temple of Saturn in order to meet such an emergency.
A day, however, was to come when the long duel between
these powers was doomed to cease. Cisalpine Gaul was humbled and reduced to a
Roman province about BC 200, soon
after the defeat of Hannibal. About 150 years later that remarkable man, who
has been justly called the greatest and most versatile of all Romans, Caius
Julius Caesar, in a series of campaigns, which lasted for nine years,
completely subdued the whole of the Further Gaul. We must not pause to
consider the character and the motives of the conqueror. But it seems only fair
to remark, that when it is asserted, and perhaps truly, that a million of Gauls
may have perished in fighting against Caesar, it is a mere assumption to imply,
as is often done, that these warriors would have died a natural death if they
had escaped the sword of Rome. With the exception of those who had been
civilized by the influence of the Roman province in the southeast (the
district subsequently known as Provence), the inhabitants of Gaul were a nation
of fighters, and the men struck down by Caesar would have perished in domestic
feuds or in some of their almost daily battles with the Germans. That this
great feat did subserve the further plans of the
ambitious conqueror is, of course, quite undeniable. No part of Caesar’s
career seems to have produced a deeper impression on the imagination of the
Roman people. The treasure preserved in the Saturnian temple was appropriated by Caesar on the occasion of his triumphant entry into
Rome, in BC 49, after he had crossed the Rubicon. To the protest of the
tribune, Metellus, that it was a deed of sacrilege to
touch this fund for any purpose except to repel a Gallic invasion, Caesar was
able to make the swift and proud retort, “the fear of a Gallic invasion is for ever at an end; I
have subdued the Gauls”
From that date Gaul not merely accepted the yoke of
Rome, but enlisted her sons in Roman armies, and eagerly studied Roman
literature and Roman law. Caesar, with that wondrous power of fascination which
he exerted alike over friends and foes, raised a legion composed of his former
adversaries, which bore a lark upon its helmets and was known, from the Celtic
name for that bird, as the Legio Alauda.
Under the rule of Augustus, the quickness of the native Gallic intellect
displayed itself in an eager adaptation of the language and the arts of their
conquerors. Six or seven cities became famous for military manufactures, such
as the red cloth worn by Roman soldiers. Medicine and philosophy were likewise
sedulously cultivated, but of all studies rhetoric was among the most popular.
The contests of the bar especially delighted the litigious and loquacious
spirit of the Gauls. Arles, Toulouse, and Vienne were conspicuous as seats of
classic literature; Lyons was celebrated, as a Roman biographer and satirist
inform us, for its rhetorical contests; and the Latinity of Gaul, though
somewhat deficient in that severity of taste which marked the style of the best
models in Rome, yet often undoubtedly displayed a character of really rich and
copious eloquence.
The contest at Lyons embraced both Greek and Latin
composition. Marseilles, believed to have been founded by Greeks, was esteemed
to be the headquarters of Grecian culture in Gaul; and traces of some
knowledge of Greek remained for four or five centuries in the southeastern
part of the country.
The above facts will be found to bear upon the next
great event in the history of the country; an event of far more importance than
even its conquest by Caesar; although, humanly speaking, that conquest was its
necessary prelude. We refer to the introduction of the Christian religion into
the land. The Christian faith must have penetrated Gaul at least as early as ad
170; for by ad 177 we find a religious colony from Asia Minor or Phrygia
settled on the banks of the river Rhone, and keeping up in the Greek language a
correspondence with the mother Church in the Eastern clime from which it
sprang.
The occasion of this correspondence was a terrible but
a very glorious one. The philosophic Stoic, the last of that school, the
virtuous Marcus Aurelius, was then seated on the imperial throne. But this
emperor, though he may not have originated the fearful persecution of the
Christians which broke out at Lyons and at Vienne, virtually encouraged it by
the rescript which he addressed to the local authorities. The fearful details
of the cruelties exercised upon the sufferers, and the constancy with which
they were borne, have been powerfully narrated by many modern historians. But
it is not easy to surpass the simple pathos of the original letter preserved
for us in the pages of Eusebius. Here it must suffice to remind the reader, as
a proof of the way in which all ranks were blended by their common faith, that
while the aged Bishop of Lyons, Potheinus, who
perished in that persecution, was a man of station and culture, yet its
heroine, the greatest sufferer of all, was the lowly Christian slave, Blandina.
Gaul had already proved a fruitful soil for the spread
of the new creed. This violent persecution, so nobly met, greatly intensified
its power, and afforded a new illustration of the often-quoted maxim of
Tertullian, “The blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church”. During the
succeeding century the Christians of Gaul, though always liable to outbursts of
popular fury, appear to have enjoyed comparative tranquility.
But the latest and fiercest of the persecutions (which
broke out in AD 303 and lasted for
nearly ten years), the one commanded by the Emperor Diocletian, at the
instigation of his colleague Galerius, embraced in its wide range alike the
most eastern provinces of the empire and the western province of Gaul. Happily
the governor, Constantius Chlorus, was not only of a
mild and tolerant disposition, but also cherished in his inmost heart a very
great respect for Christians. He was compelled, indeed, for the sake of
appearances, to do something. The overthrow of a few churches, which had
already been much damaged, and the forcible closing of some others marked the
extent of his interference. Not only did he refrain from any cruelties towards
persons, but he acted in a way which showed the value which he placed upon
consistency. Summoning to his presence those among his officers who made a
profession of Christianity, he inquired of them what would be their conduct, if
he should find himself obliged to enforce the imperial decrees, and to call
upon those around him to offer sacrifice, or at least incense to the heathen
gods. Some of them announced that, though such a proceeding would be most
painful to their feelings, they would not like to disobey the emperor, and were
prepared to yield the point. Others declared, however much they might regret
finding themselves placed in such a dilemma, nothing should induce them to
render homage to the pagan deities. The governor dismissed them without any
remark. But, somewhat to the surprise of both sets, it was soon found that
promotion and places of trust were bestowed, not upon those who had expressed
their willingness to yield, but upon those who had avowed their inability so to
act. Constantius explained to private friends, that he could not confide in the
loyalty professed towards an earthly master by men so ready to betray Him whom
they professed to regard as a heavenly one.
Constantius Chlorus, who for
two years (AD 305-6) ruled as emperor
conjointly with Galerius, died at York, in the imperial palace of that city, in AD 306. We are not surprised to learn
that under his tolerant rule Christianity had made considerable progress in
Gaul, and that by the close of the fourth century there were not less than
twenty bishoprics in this important province. The Gaul of that date, it may be
observed in passing, was rather more extensive than the France of our own days,
and constituted as much as one-twelfth part of the mighty Roman empire.
Constantius was succeeded by his son, Constantine, the first emperor who made a
public profession of Christianity and mounted the cross upon the imperial
diadem. That the symbol of agony and shame should be thus exalted in the sight
of men was the outward mark of a vast revolution—a revolution alike in the
world of thought and of action—a revolution social and political as well as
spiritual.
The motives and the character of Constantine were
mixed. He remained, both as a politician and in his domestic affairs, cold, and
too often cruel. He put to death his rival, Licinius, in AD 322, not wholly perhaps without excuse, but still in such wise
as to lay himself open to the charge of bad faith. A few years later he also
executed his own son, Crispus, whom he believed to have conspired against him.
But the subsequent conviction that Crispus was either innocent, or at least
less guilty than had been supposed, led Constantine into furious indignation
against his second wife, Fausta, who had been the chief accuser of her stepson.
Accordingly, Fausta also was put to death, as, what heathens would have called,
a sacrifice to the manes of Crispus.
If deeds of this nature had been committed by a heathen emperor, they would have excited comparatively little attention; but that one who professed himself a Christian should thus act has, not unnaturally, drawn down upon Constantine's memory far severer comments, most especially from the heathen annalists of his reign, Zosimus and Aurelius Victor. For our part, we gladly adopt on this subject the observations of an historian of our day:— "We must frankly admit that Constantine, who yet warred with the faith of a Christian, and often conducted his government in accordance with the light shed by the Gospel, nevertheless, avenged his private wrongs with the rigor, and often with the cunning, of a Roman emperor of the old creed. History has a right to notify, in his case, with astonishment and severity, vices which were familiar to his predecessors. It is one additional mark of homage which she renders to his character and his faith".
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