notwithstanding the fond attachment of the greater part of Constantinople, and the manifest interposition, as it was supposed, of heaven, which on his banishment had shaken the guilty city with an earthquake, and compelled his triumphant recall, he was again driven from his see, degraded by the precipitate decree of an illegal and partial council, and exposed to the most merciless persecution. The one crime, which could have blinded into hatred the love and admiration of the Christian world, heterodoxy of opinion, was not charged against him by his most malicious enemies. His only ostensible delinquency was the uncompromising rebuke of vice in high places, and disrespect to the Imperial Majesty, which, even if true to the utmost, however it might astonish the timidity, or shock the servility of the East; in the West, to which the dominion of Arcadius and Eudoxia did not extend, would be deemed only a bold and salutary assertion of episcopal dignity and Christian courage. The letter addressed by Chrysostom, according to the copies in the Greek writers, to the three great prelates of the West, the Bishops of Rome, Milan, and Aquileia, in the Roman copies to Innocent alone, was written with all his glowing fervour and brilliant perspicuity. After describing the scenes of outrage and confusion in the church at Easter, the violation of the sanctuary, and the insults inflicted on the sacred persons of priests and dedicated virgins and bishops, the Bishop of Constantinople entreats the friendly interposition of the Western prelates to obtain a general and legitimate council empowered to examine the whole affair. The answer of Innocent is calm, moderate, dignified, perhaps artful. He expresses his awful horror at these impious scenes of k There is great variation in different parts of the Roman copy: it is sometimes addressed to persons in the plural number, sometimes to an individual in the singular. This appears to me no very important argument, though adduced by the most candid Protestant writers, e. g. Shroeck. This cry of distress would not be carefully or suspiciously worded, so as to provide against any incautious admission of superiority, of which Chrysostom, under such circumstances, thought little, even if any such claims had been already made. But the strongest proof (if I must enter into the controversy) that Chrysostom and his followers addressed the nselves to the bishops of Italy, as well as to that of Rome, seems to me the very passage in the Epistle of the Emperor Honorius, which is adduced, even by Pagi, to prove the contrary. Missi ad sacerdotes urbis æternæ atque Italiæ utrâque ex parte legati; expectabatur ex omnium auctoritate sententia Namque hi, quorum expectabatur auctoritas. .... violence, deep interest in the fate of Chrysostom; he does not however prejudge the question, he does not even refuse to communicate with Theophilus, till after the solemn decree of a council. Yet the sympathies of Innocent, as of all the better part of Christendom, were with the eloquent, oppressed, and patient exile. The sentiments as well as the influence of the Roman prelate were ere long proclaimed to the world, by an Imperial letter in favour of Chrysostom, which no persuasion but that of Innocent could have obtained from the Emperor of the West. Honorius openly espoused the cause of the exile: and though, throughout the A.D. 406. whole of the transaction, the East, with something of the irritable consciousness of wrong and injustice, resented the interference of the West, and treated the messengers of the Italian prelates with studied neglect and contumely, the defenders of Chrysostom were so clearly on the side of justice, humanity, generous compassion for the oppressed, as well as of ecclesiastical order, that the Bishop of Rome, the Head at least of the Italian prelates, could not but rise in the general estimation of Christendom. The fidelity of Innocent to the cause of Chrysostom did not cease with the death of the persecuted prelate: he refused to communicate with Atticus, his successor, or the usurper, according to the conflicting parties, of the See of Constantinople, unless Atticus would acknowledge Chrysostom to have been the rightful bishop until his death." Common reverence for Chrysostom, and common hostility to Atticus brought Innocent into close alliance with Alexander, Bishop of Antioch. During his correspondence with Alex- A.D. 416. ander, Innocent is disposed to attribute a subordinate primacy to Antioch, as the temporary See of St. Peter. There is a regular act of excommunication, in some of the Latin writers (it was brought to light by Baronius) in which Innocent boldly excludes the Emperor Arcadius from the communion of the faithful. It is expressed with all the proud humility, the unctuous imperiousness of a later period. It is given up, by all the more sensible writers of the Roman Catholic church, principally on account of a fatal blunder. It includes the Dalila, the Empress Eudoxia, under the anathema. Eudoxia had been dead several years. (See Pagi, sub ann. 407.) I am in a constant perplexity; fearing, on one hand, to omit all notice of, on the other feeling something like contempt for, these forgeries, which are always so injurious to the cause they wish to serve. As an impartial historical inquirer, I continually rise from them with my suspicion, even of better attested documents, so much sharpened, that I have to struggle vigorously against a general scepticism. Siege and Rome now chose to rest her title to supremacy on the succession from the great Apostle. Peter could hardly have passed through any see, without leaving behind him some inheritance of peculiar dignity; while Rome, as the scene of his permanent residence and martyrdom, claimed the undoubted succession to almost monarchical supremacy. That which might have appeared the most fatal blow to Roman greatness, as dissolving the spell of Roman empire, the capture, the conflagration, the plunder, the depopulation of Rome by the barbarian Goths, tended directly to establish and strengthen the spiritual supremacy of Rome. It was pagan Rome, the Babylon of sensuality, pride, and idolatry which fell before the triumphant Alaric; the Goths were the instruments of divine vengeance against paganism, which lingered in this its last stronghold. Christianity hastened to disclaim all interest, all sympathy in the fate of the "harlot that sat on the seven hills." Paganism might seem rashly to accept this desperate issue, girding itself for one final effort, and proclaiming, that as Rome had brought ruin on her own head by abandoning her gods, so her gods had for ever abandoned the unfaithful capital. The eternal city was manifestly approaching one of the epochs in her eternity. Three times during the first ten years of the fifth century and of the pontificate of Innocent, the first time under Alaric, the second under Rhadagaisus, the third again under Alaric, the barbarians crossed the Alps with overwhelming forces. Twice the valour and military abilities of one man, Stilicho, diverted the storm from the walls of Rome. In his first expedition Alaric, 400 to 403. after his defeat at Pollentia," endeavoured to throw himself upon the capital. He was recalled by the skilful movements of Stilicho, to suffer a final discomfiture under the walls of Verona. The poet commemorates the victories of Stilicho, the triumph of Honorius in Rome for these victories. In the splendid verses on the ovation of Honorius, it is no wonder that Pope Innocent finds no place. Claudian maintains his invariable and total silence as to the existence of Christianity. From his royal mansion Battle of Pollentia. "Gibbon, c. xxx. on the Palatine Honorius looks down on no more glorious sight than the temples of his ancestors, which crowd the Forum in their yet inviolable majesty; the eye is dazzled and confounded with the blaze of their bronzed columns and their roofs of gold; and with their statues which studded the skies: they are the household gods of the emperor. That the emperor worshipped other gods, or was ruled by other priests, appears from no one word. The Jove of the Capitol might seem still the tutelar god of Rome. Claudian had wound up his poem on the Gothic war, in which he equals the victory of Pollentia with that of Marius over the Cimbrians; he ends with that solemn admonition, "Let the frantic barbarians learn hence respect for Rome." But three years after, the terrible Rhadagaisus, at the head of an enormous force of mingled barbarians, swept over the whole North of Italy, and encamped before the walls of Florence. Rhadagaisus was a pagan; he sacrificed daily to some deity, whom the Latin writers call by the name of Jove. The party at Rome, attached to their ancient worship, are accused of having contemplated with more than secret joy the approach of, it might seem, the irresistible barbarian. They did this, notwithstanding his terrible threats that he would sacrifice the senate of Rome on the altars of the gods which delight in human blood. The common enmity to Christianity, according to St. Augustine, quenched the love of their country, their proud attachment to Rome. But God himself, by the unexpected discomfiture of Rhadagaisus, crushed their guilty hopes, and rescued Rome from the public restoration of A.D. 405. paganism. The consummate generalship of Stilicho, by which he gradually enclosed the vast forces of Rhadagaisus among the mountains in the neighbourhood of Florence, himself on the ridge of Fæsulæ, till they died off by famine and disease, was utterly incomprehensible to his age. Christianity took to itself the whole glory of Stilicho, the relief of Florence, the dispersion and reduction to captivity of the barbaric forces, and the death of Rhadagaisus, who was ordered to summary execution. A vision of St. Ambrose had predicted the relief of Florence, and nothing less than the immediate succour of God, or of his Apostles, could account for the unexpected victory and this strong religious feeling no doubt mingled with the common infatuation which seized all parties. Rome, it was thought, with a feeble emperor at a distance, with few troops, and those mostly barbarians, was safe in the majesty of her name and the prescriptive awe of mankind. Christ, or her tutelar Apostles, who had revealed the discomfiture of Rhadagaisus, had protected, and would to the end protect, Christian Rome against all pagan invaders, baffle the treasonable sympathy, and disperse the sacrilegious prayers, of those who, true to the ancient religion, were false to the real greatness of Rome. So often as heathen forces should menace the temples, not of the Capitoline Jove, or those yet uncleansed from the pollutions of their idolatries, but those, if less splendid, more holy fanes protected by the relics of Apostles and Martyrs, Rome would witness, as she had already witnessed, the triumph of her Christian emperor, the consecration of the spoils of the defeated barbarians on the altars of St. Paul, St. Peter, and of Christ. and death The sacrifice of Stilicho' to the dark intrigues of the Disgrace court of Ravenna was the last fatal sign of this of Stilicho. pride and security. Both Christian and pagan writers combine to load the memory of Stilicho with charges manifestly intended to exculpate the court of Honorius from the guilt and folly of his disgrace, his surrender by a Christian bishop after he had sought, himself a Christian, sanctuary at the altar of the church Paulinus in vit. Ambrosii, c. 50. Augustin. de Civ. Dei, v. 23. Orosius, vii. 37. Stilicho was married to Serena, the sister of Honorius. Honorius had married in succession Maria and Thermantia, the daughters of Stilicho. |