353 357 359 whole church is filled with confusion and A. D. trouble: the constancy of pope Liberius gives way to the tediousness of exile: torments overcome old Osius, formerly the main pillar of the church: the council of Rimini, so steady at first, yields at last through surprise and violence: nothing is done according to the proper forms; the emperor's authority is the only law: but the Arians, who have thereby the whole management, cannot agree among themselves, and change their creed ever day: the Nicene faith stands firm: St. Athanasius, and St. Hilary, bishop of Poitiers, its principal champions, make themselves renowned over all the earth. Whilst the emperor Constantius, taken up with the affairs of Arianism, neglected those of the empire, the Persians gained great advantages. The Germans and Francs attempted on all hands an entrance among the Gauls. Julian, the emperor's cousin, stopped their career, and beat them. The emperor himself defeated the Sarmatians, and marched against the Persians. Then appear Julian's revolt against the emperor, his apostacy, the death of Constantius, the reign of Julian, his equitable government, and the new kind of persecution he made the church undergo. He fomented her divisions; he excluded the Christians not only from honours, but from studies: and by imitating the holy discipline of the church, he thought to turn her own arms against her. Punishments were contrived, and appointed, under other pretexts, than that of religion. The Christians con 357 358 359 360 361 363 364 366 367 368 370 371 &c. A. D. tinued faithful to their emperor; but the glory he too eagerly sought, proved his destruction: he was slain in Persia, where he had rashly engaged himself. Jovian his successor, a zealous Christian, found things desperate, and lived only to conclude a shameful peace. After him Valentinian made war like a great captain: he led his son Gratian to it from his earliest youth, he maintained military discipline, beat the Barbarians, fortified the frontiers of the empire, and protected the Nicene faith in the West. Valens his brother, whom he made his colleague, persecuted it in the East; and neither being able to gain over nor to crush St. Basil and St. Gregory of Nazianzen, he gave over all hopes of conquering it. Some Arians added new errors to the former tenets of the sect. Aerius, an Arian priest, is branded in the writings of the holy fathers as the author of a new heresy, for having put the priesthood on a level with the Episcopate, and for having judged useless the prayers and oblations, which the whole church made for the dead. A third error of that Heresiarch was, his reckoning among the servitudes of the law, the observance of certain stated fasts, and pretending that fasting should always be free. He was still alive, when St. Epiphanius wrote his celebrated history of heresies, in which he is refuted with the rest. St. Martin was made bishop of Tours, and filled the whole world with the noise of his 375 * Epiph. hær. 75. Aug. hær. 53. 375 sanctity and miracles, both during his life, A. D. and after his death. Valentinian died after a violent speech he made to the enemies of the empire: his impetuous passion, which made him dreaded by others, proved fatal to himself. Gratian his successor beheld without envy the promotion of his younger brother Valentinian II. who was made emperor, though but nine years old. His mother Justina, a protectress of the Arians, governed during his minority. We see here in a few years some wonderful events: the revolt of the Goths against Valens; that Prince leaving the Persians to suppress the rebels; Gratian hastening to join him, after getting a signal victory over the Germans: Valens, resolving to conquer alone, precipitates the fight, in which he is slain near Adrianople. The Goths, victorious, burn him in a village, to which he had retired. Gratian, overburdened with affairs, associates in the empire the great Theodosius, and gives up to him the East. The Goths are vanquished: all the Barbarians are kept in awe, and, what Theodosius thought of no less moment, the Macedonian heretics, who denied the divinity of the Holy Ghost, are condemned in the council of Constantinople. There was none but the Greek church there: the consent of all the West, and of the pope St. Damasus, conferred on it the appellation of the second general council. While Theodosius governed with so much fortitude and success, Gratian, who was no less valiant or pious, being deserted by his troops wholly made 377 378 379 381 383 386 387 A. D. up of foreigners, fell a sacrifice to the tyrant Maximus. The church and empire lamented this good prince. The tyrant reigned in the Gauls, and seemed to content himself with that district. The empress Justina published edicts, under the name of her son, in favour of Arianism. St. Ambrose, bishop of Milan, opposed to her nothing but sound doctrine, prayers and patience, and was able by these arms, not only to preserve to the church the cathedrals, which the heretics wanted to possess, but also to gain over the young emperor. In the mean time Maximus is stirring again, and Justina finds none more faithful than the holy bishop, whom she was treating as a rebel. She sends him to the tyrant, who proves inflexible to all he can say. The young Valentinian is forced to take flight with his mother. Maximus makes himself master at Rome, where he revives the sacrifices of the false gods, in complaisance to the senate, still almost entirely pagan. After he had got possession of all the West, and at the time he thought himself most secure, Theodosius, assisted by the Francs, defeated him in Pannonia, besieged him in Aquileia, and suffered him to be slain by his soldiers. Now absolute master of both empires, he restored that of the West to Valentinian, who did not keep it long. This young prince promoted and too much degraded Arbogastus, a captain of the Francs, valiant, disinterested, but capable of maintaining, by all sorts of crimes, the power he had ac 388 392 392 394 quired over the troops. He raised the ty- A. D. rant Eugenius, who could do nothing but talk, and killed Valentinian, who would no longer have the proud Franc for his master. This detestable deed was done hard by Vienne, in the country of the Gauls. St. Ambrose, whom the young emperor had sent for, in order to receive baptism from him, deplored his loss, and had good hope of his salvation. His death did not remain unpunished. A visible miracle gave Theodosius victory over Eugenius, and over the false gods, whose worship that tyrant had re-established. Eugenius was taken: it was necessary to make him a sacrifice to the public vengeance, and to quash the rebellion by his death. The haughty Arbogastus killed himself, rather than have recourse to the clemency of the conqueror, which all the rest of the rebels had experienced. Theodosius alone was the delight, and wonder of the world. He supported religion; he put heretics to silence; he abolished the impure sacrifices of the Heathens; he corrected effeminacy, and restrained superfluous expences. He humbly confessed his faults, and did penance for them. He listened to St. Ambrose, a celebrated doctor of the church, who reproved him for his anger, the only vice of this great prince. Though always victorious, he never made war but through necessity. He rendered the nations happy, and died in peace, more illustrious by his faith than his victories. In his time St. Jerome, a priest, having retired to the sacred grotto of 390 395 386 387 |