The character of Gallienus was a strange combination of brilliance and incompetence; rarely accomplished, he was utterly neglectful of all the higher functions of a great ruler. The awful woes of the vast Empire over which he bore sway touched him but lightly. Lazy, and utterly indifferent to all duties, civil and military, he contented himself with a life of dissolute pleasure in his splendid capital. The period of his reign was, perhaps, the most disastrous yet chronicled in the many-colored pages of the eventful story of Rome. We have already briefly noticed the terrible inroads of the barbarians, notably of the Goths and Allemanni in the Western Provinces, and of the Persians in the East, in the latter years of Valerian. During the dreary period of the reign of his son the vast dominions of Rome seemed to be rapidly crumbling to pieces. Nor were affairs at home more promising. The "Augustan History" tells us that in this gloomy reign a group of pretenders to the throne, mostly soldiers of fortune, rose and fell in the various provinces of the Empire. In the pages of that useful and interesting.
and generally reliable, chronicle these rebel claimants to what in every instance proved to be "a bloody purple"— for they all fell in turn victims to their ill-placed ambition—are termed the "Thirty Tyrants." The number is as misleading as the appellation. At most these short-lived pretenders only numbered nineteen. But their revolts were fatal to all settled government, and the sufferings of the hapless provincials, harried by the formidable barbarian raiders, were enormously increased by the state of perpetual unrest and internal warfare resulting from these continued and partly successful revolts. To add to the general misery and desolation, between the years 250 and 265 a furious and fatal plague raged almost continuously in every province and every city throughout the Empire. We have dwelt already, it will be remembered, on its terrible ravages in Alexandria and Carthage. The historian of the Decline and Fall, commenting on the misery of these sad years, goes so far as to suggest that barbarian invasions, internal revolt and war, and the unchecked pestilence, had consumed in these fatal years of the human species.
In A. D. 268 the Emperor Gallienus, alarmed, at length, by the presence in the home province of Italy of a formidable pretender, Aureolus, general of the legions of the Upper Danube, roused himself from his strange indifference and apathy, and placing himself at the head of the army of Rome advanced into north Italy to meet the rebel. He besieged the pretender in Milan, but received a mortal wound in a night attack. Dying, he nominated as his successor Claudius, one of his generals, or, at least, Claudius claimed to have been so nominated. This successor of Gallienus was unmistakably an officer of rare merit and of conspicuous ability.
The fortunes of the Empire now brightened. Under Claudius and his immediate successors, men of high genius, of resolute courage and determination, equally able in civil matters and in military command, the pressing dangers from foreign and home enemies were warded off, a succession of splendid victories drove back the swarming hordes of barbarians, a wise restoration of something of the ancient discipline was also introduced into the legions. Claudius, Aurelian, Probus, and Diocletian, who in the next thirty years wore the Imperial purple, have deservedly been styled the restorers of the Roman world. But during most of this period of renovation the story of the Christians is a most gloomy one, and the pages of the Christian chronicles are filled with the recitals of terrible sufferings which the followers of Jesus were called upon to endure, especially in Rome and the home provinces. It was their last trial—the last effort of Paganism.
Claudius II. reigned from A. D. 268-70. This Emperor is famous in history for the reforms he inaugurated in the waning discipline of his Roman armies, and for a crushing defeat which he inflicted on the Goths in Northern Greece, thereby freeing the Empire for a long season from perhaps the most formidable of the barbarian invaders. Owing to this conspicuous success he has been generally known as Claudius Gothicus. It is a disputed point among ecclesiastical historians whether or no Christians were persecuted in this short "military" reign. On the one hand, there is no mention of any persecution in the pages of Eusebius or of the less known writers, Orosius and Sulpicius Severus. On the other, a long, sad catalogue of sufferings appear in martyrologies and in a few Acts of martyrs purporting to speak of this reign. These "pieces" are undoubtedly late, but it is difficult to conclude that the traditions upon which they are based would have specified the reign of Claudius as the date of these sufferings if it had been a time of general quietness for the Church. It seems most probable that the persecution referred to was largely confined to Rome and Italy, and that it was owing to popular discontent rather than to any special edict of the Emperor. Among the victims whom the martyrologies mention are the wife and daughter of the son of the Emperor Decius, who had been associated with his father.
Claudius died, very shortly after his great victory, of the plague at Sirmium; recommending Aurelian, one of his most famous generals, as a fitting successor. Aurelian was a great soldier. The son of a small peasant proprietor in the neighborhood of Sirmium and of one of the inferior priestesses of the Sirmium temple of Mithras, he had passed through all the grades of the military service, and was distinguished equally for his dauntless valor and for his consummate military skill. He rose rapidly in his career. Valerian made him Consul A senator of the first rank adopted him and gave him his daughter in marriage, and the choice of the dying Emperor Claudius nominating him his successor was with rare unanimity generally ratified. He reigned scarcely five years, from A. D. 270-5; but they were years of almost unbroken triumph. In his successive campaigns the power of the marauding Goths, shattered by the great victory of Claudius, was completely broken. The Marcomanni and other Teuton tribes who threatened Italy were routed, and the two formidable competitors who had assumed sovereign power—Tetricus in the West, over Gaul, Spain, and Britain, and Zenobia, the all-accomplished Palmyrene Queen, in the East, over Syria and the adjacent provinces—were completely crushed; and in Aurelian's splendid triumph at Rome, in A. D. 274, Tetricus and Queen Zenobia were the most conspicuous figures in the stately procession of the victorious Emperor. Nor was Aurelian merely a most successful general; he was also a great military reformer. His fame and the deep respect in which he was held enabled him to complete his predecessor Claudius' work of restoring discipline in the great armies which Rome had to maintain for her defense. The stern though just regulations which he published as to the discipline and conduct of his legions have deservedly won for this great soldier the admiration of posterity.
But the Christian subjects of the Empire found in Aurelian a deadly foe. In the long drawn-out combat between Paganism and Christianity, too often the Christian found his most determined enemy in the person of a really great Emperor, such as Aurelian, rather than in a weak and vacillating prince given up to luxury and self-indulgence, as was Gallienus. Nor is it difficult to explain this apparently contradictory experience. We have already dwelt upon the strength and power of Paganism. The more distinguished men who wore the purple loved Rome, and were intensely persuaded that the existence of the mighty Empire and the continuance of her sovereign power depended upon the unity of the religion professed by the many peoples who made up the Roman world; these many peoples were largely welded together by the acknowledgment of the common religion professed by the Emperor, the Senate, and the Imperial Magistrates. This apparent unity, as we have seen, was only broken by the Christian sect, which, as generation succeeded generation, ever growing in numbers and increasing in influence, absolutely refused to share in the state cult.
The policy of the State never varied in its view that the presence of these Christians was a grave and a constant and increasing danger; and when a great and patriotic Emperor, like Marcus in the second century, and Aurelian in the third, was at the helm of public affairs, the head of the State gave effect to the Roman policy, which, however wrongly, regarded Christianity as the sleepless enemy of the Empire, and essayed by means of a persecution, more or less severe, to crush the ever-present, and as it seemed to the Roman rulers, dangerous Christian sect.
Relying, perhaps, too much on the contemptuous indifference of some well-known classic writers for the popular idol-worship of Rome; dwelling too deeply on the presentment of this cult in the often shameful but still graceful pictures painted by some of the best-known classic poets of the lives and pursuits of the "Immortals," whose magnificent temples adorned the historic Forum of the metropolis, and proudly towered over the great thoroughfares of Rome and of the powerful centers of population in the provinces; posterity after the long combat between Paganism and Christianity was over, has not estimated aright the vast power which Roman Paganism exercised over the hearts of men. We must be allowed to reiterate this point, which, though of the utmost importance in the great struggle of Christianity with Paganism, is too often overlooked or neglected. It appears and reappears, be it remembered, with startling force at different periods of the struggle. We dwelt on it at some length when the persecuting policy of the noble Emperor Marcus was under consideration. With Marcus and his advisers the persecution of Christians was evidently a matter of conscience. So also was it with Aurelia.
Aurelian was something more than a great soldier. His mother, as we have said, was a priestess of Mithras; and from her, and from his early training and associations, the Emperor probably derived those views of religion which so powerfully influenced his life during his brief but brilliant reign over the Roman world. To him, as to Marcus, the religion of Rome was something more than the official cult, the pledge of Roman unity; it possessed evidently a living reality. To such a sovereign, at once an earnest, even a fanatical Pagan, and a stern military disciplinarian, the Christian, who not only refused to share in the popular religion but positively loathed the objects of the popular cult, was at once a rebel to constituted authority and a standing menace to the State. Early in his reign his estimate of the followers of Jesus, with whose existence and influence he was evidently well acquainted, appeared in his words to the Senate on the occasion of a grave alarm occasioned by a success in the field of a formidable Teuton host of Marcomanni. Aurelian urged that the Senate should at once consult the dread Sibylline books—a step rarely taken—when they hesitated. He wrote to them thus: "Why, Conscript Fathers, do you hesitate? One would suppose you assembled in a Christian church, and not in the temple of all the gods. Take courage, I adjure you by the holiness of the Pontiffs, by the sacredness of the Rulers help your Prince in his hour of need! Let the Sibylline books be searched, and whatever they suggest, let it be done. Are captive victims from all nations required for offerings, or merely strange wild animals? All these I will undertake to produce, for there is surely no shame in being conquerors with the Immortals fighting on our side. This is the way in which our fathers went to war."
The special object of his devotions, whom he hoped to see the center of the Roman cult, was Mithras, around whose sacred shrine his earliest memories were grouped The extraordinary popularity of the Mithras worship in Rome and in other great centers, from the earlier years of the second century onwards, has been already noticed. Originally a Persian deity, Mithras, a word which signifies "the friend," was adored as the god of the bright heaven and of the day. This worship was formally introduced by Trajan, circa A. D. 100, and developed under Commodus, circa A. D. 190, and, though not at first, was subsequently identified before the time of Aurelian with that of the sun. As practised in Rome and the West, this worship was accompanied with an elaborate and attractive popular ritual; Mithras was regarded as at once sun-god and fire-god, the life-giver and the source of purification. Some scholars consider the worship of Mithras at Rome as an accommodation of the primitive worship of Nature, so admired by Augustus and Virgil, to the growing voices of conscience, which, unacknowledged and perhaps unsuspected, were due to the influences of Christianity.
Among the rites and teachings of the cult were many strange customs and doctrines, seemingly borrowed from Christian worship and teaching, such as baptism, redemption by blood, the oblation of bread and wine, the sacred common repast.
But here in these outward symbolic ordinances and ritual observances, the resemblance to Christianity ceased. Upon the votaries of the Persian deity no precepts bearing on the higher, purer life seem to have been inculcated. There was no self-denial, no austere virtue, no need for purity pressed home to the worshippers at the fashionable and favorite shrines.
This was the deity especially adored by Aurelian. To Mithras, among the crowd of Italian and foreign deities adored in Rome, he specially addressed his prayers. When, for instance, Talerian told him he had put him forward for the high dignity of Consul, Aurelian, already a famous general, replied: "May the gods, and particularly the Sun, influence the Senate to think thus favorably of me."
After the great triumph which celebrated his victories over Zenobia in the East, and Tetricus in the West, Aurelian, as an enduring memorial of his conquests and of the restoration of the Empire to something of its ancient grandeur, erected on the Quirinal hill a temple of Mithras, or the Sun, which he proposed should surpass in its costly magnificence all the stately shrines of Rome. It was adorned with the spoils of his Eastern campaign, and its treasury was filled, it is said, with gold and gems of an incalculable value. In the "cella," or inmost shrine, arose two statues of the Sun-god, the one bearing the Western form of Apollo, the other the Eastern image of Baal On some of the coins of Aurelian runs the inscription, "The Sun, Lord of the Roman Empire" ("Sol Dominus Imperi Romani").
To the favor of the gods of Rome, and especially to the protection of Mithras, the sun-god, whom the Romans had long admitted into the circle of the immortals they adored, Aurelian attributed the successful issue of his striking campaigns. To such an Emperor, the stern exclusiveness of his Christian subjects, who coldly stood aloof from all the gorgeous pageantry with which he honored the gods who, he behooved, protected with their all-powerful aid his successful efforts for the restoration of the Empire, was simple disloyalty. Such impious men, in the eyes of Aurelian, were a veritable danger to the unity of the State. Under such a ruler, great in peace as in war, the popular dislike of the Christians grew in intensity. But the active persecution of the Christians which marked this reign only seems to have been carried on in real earnest in the closing months of his life. It is clear that in the early portions of his reign the edict of Gallienus restoring the ecclesiastical buildings and cemeteries, which had been confiscated by Valerian, to the Church, was still considered to be in force; for we have an account of a curious petition made to Aurelian against Paul of Samosata, some-while Bishop of Antioch, who had been condemned as a heretic by a formal council. Paul of Samosata, in spite of the decision of the council, persisted in retaining possession of the Antioch church buildings; and the Emperor, as representing the civil authorities, was appealed to by the Catholic Bishop of Antioch to compel the recalcitrant to give up these possessions.
It was a singular step, based, of course, upon the edict of Gallienus which formally restored to the Church all her possessions, and it is a striking proof of the recognized position of the Church at this time. Aurelian declined to give judgment himself, but referred the case to the Bishops of Italy, and especially to the Bishop of Rome, who were to decide it.
The policy, however, of Aurelian towards the Christians in the latter portion of his reign, as might have been expected from his known zeal for the worship of the gods, gradually changed. That he always disliked and mistrusted them is clear, as is shown in his words above quoted to the Senate, when the question of consulting the Sibylline books came before them. And that this dislike and mistrust eventually passed into open persecution is evident. Eusebius, thus in a few words describes the change which passed over Aurelian’s policy towards the Church. "In the progress of his reign he began to entertain different views concerning us, and at length, under the influences of certain advisers, he went on to arrange a persecution against us. And the rumor of this was now everywhere abroad." The formal edict, the text of which is lost, but which Lactantius characterizes as "bloody," ordering a general persecution, was not issued till the latter months of A. D. 274. But probably harsh and severe measures were taken against the worshippers of Jesus some time before the general edict was promulgated. For tradition speaks especially of many martyrs having perished in the well-known cities of Gaul in the course of the reign of Aurelian; notably in Lyons, Auxerre, Autun, and Sens. The "passions" of these saints unfortunately are of comparatively later date; evidently written, or more accurately re-written and redacted, long after the events which they purport to chronicle had taken place; and therefore they cannot be used in any sense as authentic pieces of history. That some of them certainly were based on earlier and probably contemporary memoranda is at all events probable But we can only speak of their evidence as "traditional." Similar "passions," or "acts," of martyrs in Aurelian's reign in different parts of Italy which have come down to us are equally untrustworthy, and can only be referred to by the serious historian as tradition.
The "bloody" edict, however, ordering a general persecution, which was issued towards the close of A. D. 274, had but a short time to run, for the great Pagan Emperor was assassinated in the spring of the following year, A. D. 275. There were, however, some seven months of interregnum before the election of Aurelian's successor, Tacitus, during which the edict of the late Emperor was, no doubt, generally in force.
After the death of Aurelian, A. D. 275, the Church historian only needs to touch with a light hand the story of the next nine or ten years. Then after A. D. 285, his task will become heavier as he chronicles the last terrible struggle of Paganism with Christianity. Aurelian was assassinated by a favorite general, one Mucapor, in a military conspiracy, and for seven months the Empire was without a master. It says much for the wise policy of Aurelian that no rebellion or disturbances in Rome or the provinces seem to have ruffled the peace of the State. The legions under the new discipline inaugurated by the two last Emperors dutifully left the choice of a new master of the Roman world to the Senate, who after some delay nominated an aged and illustrious member of their body. Tacitus, the object of their choice, reluctantly accepted the purple, but only survived his elevation some six or seven months, dying in one of the frontier camps. The immediate cause of his death is unknown.
A famous and successful soldier, Probus, was saluted Emperor by the legions of Asia as successor to Tacitus, and save for the claim to the throne by a brother of the late sovereign, a claim soon set aside, Probus was generally accepted by the Roman world as its master.
His reign, A. D. 276-282, a period of nearly six years, ia famous in the annals of the Empire for the vigorous and successful campaigns against the barbarian hordes which were threatening again most of its fairest provinces.
By far the most conspicuous of his great military successes. was the clearing of Gaul, with its many wealthy cities, of the invaders who were once more sweeping through and desolating the land and its prosperous towns. These savage hordes were driven back by Probus into their native wilds, and Gaul was for a time—but only for a time—completely cleared of them. By the year 281, thanks to the unresting energy and military skill of this great soldier Emperor, the Empire of Rome found itself at peace within and without; and a triumph, notable among the many triumphs of Rome for its splendor, celebrated the return to Italy of the successful commander. In the year following this triumph, strange to say in the very midst of his legions, who for the most part idolized their brilliant general, he was murdered by some discontented soldiers. His Praetorian Prefect Carus was chosen by the victorious soldiers as his successor. Tillemont strikingly writes of the condition of the Roman world in this year, A. D. 282, as follows: "After the unhappy reigns of Valerian and Gallienus, the Empire, which had been gradually raised once more under the rule of Claudius II., Aurelian, and Tacitus, under Probus had reached a position of grandeur so lofty that its decadence became almost certain." Carus, though a capable soldier and a man of acknowledged ability, seems as an Emperor to have disappointed the public expectation. The writer of his biography in the "Augustan History" (Vopiscus) is doubtful whether to classify him among the good or the evil sovereigns of Rome. He certainly left behind him a reputation for cruel austerity.
Once more the Empire was threatened on various sides with barbarians, who were emboldened by the news of the sudden death of the conqueror Probus. After obtaining some marked successes on the western frontier, Carus, at the head of a powerful force, marched into Asia and signally defeated the Persians, driving them even from distant Mesopotamia. But in the midst of his triumphant Eastern campaign he perished—as some say struck by lightning in a terrific storm, as others, perhaps with greater probability, suspect, assassinated like so many of his predecessors in a military conspiracy.
The Roman army at once retreated from the scenes of its victorious progress in Persia. Carus had previously associated in the Empire his two sons, Carinus and Numerian. The brothers, on the death of their father, were universally acknowledged as Emperors. Carinus had been left in Rome. Numerian had accompanied Carus in his Eastern expedition. The brothers were very different in character. Numerian was an accomplished prince, a poet, and an orator of no mean capacity; in quieter times he would at least have been a respectable if not a distinguished ruler; but his genial, amiable virtues were insufficient for the occupancy of a throne where marked military qualities were preeminently necessary. He never returned with the army, which, after the death of Carus, abandoning its victorious campaign in distant Persia, retraced its steps westwards. A dark mystery attended the close of his short reign. His father-in-law, Aper, the Praetorian Prefect, was charged with being his murderer, and was put to death by the hands of Diocletian, captain of the Imperial bodyguard, who was saluted as Emperor. Carinus, who had been left in Rome, during his brief reign displayed all the worst characteristics of the vilest Emperors who had worn the purple—a heartless profligate and a selfish pleasure-lover, he utterly failed as a ruler. His favorites and Ministers he selected from the lowest and most degraded of the people, whose passions he flattered and amused by the most gorgeous and extravagant theatrical displays.
These popular games, already in the reigns of the great military Emperors who preceded him, had been celebrated with an extravagance unknown even in the days of Nero. The magnificence of Carinus here surpassed all that Rome had ever seen.
This infamous Emperor, in the midst of his guilty pleasure-filled life at Rome, was aroused by the news of the approach of Diocletian, the choice of the legions of the East, at the head of the powerful army which had fought in the late Persian campaign. Carinus, under the circumstances of personal pressing danger, developed somewhat unexpected courage and capacity. The opposing forces met in Moesia in the Danube country. At first it seemed probable that Carinus would succeed in establishing his power, and that Diocletian would be driven back; but the civil war was unexpectedly brought to an end by the assassination of Carinus by one of his own officers whom he had foully wronged Without any further bloodshed, the rival Emperor Diocletian was acknowledged by both the armies; widespread consciousness of his ability and tactfullness secured a general acquiescence in his assumption of the throne of the Empire. The date of Carinus death and the accession of Diocletian was the late spring of the year 285.
During the nine years which elapsed between the death of Aurelian and the accession of Diocletian we possess but scanty materials for any accurate picture of the condition of Christians in the Empire. The edict of persecution issued towards the end of Aurelian's reign was certainly unrenewed, but it is probable that the state of unrest, so largely augmented by the strong anti-Christian policy of the great Aurelian, continued.
The brief barbarian-harassed reigns of Tacitus, of Cams and his two sons, the longer but completely war-filled period of Probus, gave little opportunity to the enemies of the Christians for developing any organized attacks on their religion. The "acts" of martyrdom which have come down to us of this period are few, and in their present form are certainly not contemporary records. The "acts" of SS. Trophimus and Sabbazius purport to speak of events which took place in a. d. 281, the last year of the reign of Probus, in the Phrygian Antioch, and relates the arrest of certain Christians, and the tortures and martyrdoms which followed in consequence of the resolute refusal of the confessors to sacrifice; but these are reported to have been brought about, not in the course of any general persecution, not even on the report of an informer, but solely on account of some imprudent exclamation of disgust uttered by the Christians in question at the sight of some of the wild and noisy rites carried on publicly in honor of some probably local deity. As these "acts" seem probably to have been based on contemporary memoranda of the scene, we can fairly infer that under Probus, at least in Asia Minor, there was no general persecution, no special encouragement even held out to informers, but that if the profession of Christianity were brought home to any citizen, the magistrate, if hostile to the sect, could punish the offender with torture and death. Probably this was the general condition of Christians in most parts of the Empire at this period.
The "acts and passion" of the famous soldier-martyr Sebastian treat of the period covered by the short reign of Carinus. The story is an interesting one, and has enjoyed considerable popularity from very early times, but the recital, as we have it, is evidently not a contemporary record, though a wide-spread tradition points clearly to an historical basis for the story.
Far more reliable as a contemporary piece are the "Acts" of the disputation between Archelaus, Bishop of Mesopotamia, and the heresiarch Manes " in the reign of the Emperor Probus. The chief city of the see of Archelaus was Carrhae, a city of Osrhoene, a district in the northwest of Mesopotamia. In this, ancient "piece" we read of the cruel and brutal treatment of a large company of Christian pilgrims by the legionnaires of the Roman garrison of Carrhae. In an apparently unprovoked onslaught many Christians were killed, more were wounded and severely injured, and the rest would probably have been sold for slaves but for the charity of a generous Christian named Marcellus, who relieved and ransomed them at his own charges. Such an incidental notice, occurring as it does in a "piece" of literary importance, a position undoubtedly occupied by the "disputation" in question, tells us how slightingly and cheaply the lives of Christians were estimated at times by the great Roman armies of the days of Probus (A. D. 276-282).
In the same interesting record is contained the earliest trustworthy account of Manes the heresiarch, the first teacher of that wide-spread and enduring heresy known as Manichaeism. Manes, the founder of the sect which subsequently bore his name, appears to have been originally a slave, carefully educated by his Persian mistress in all kinds of oriental lore. His theological system was a curious mixture of some of the Gnostic errors, e.g. the two co-equal conflicting principles of good and evil, the eternity of matter, which was regarded as essentially evil, all colored with a certain amount of Christian teaching. One of the marked tenets of the sect was a strong aversion to the Old Testament as the work of a wicked spirit. Another was the unreality of the suffering Christ. Circa A. D. 277, when Probus was reigning, Manes, who had some time before incurred the displeasure of Sapor, King of Persia, probably owing to his success in assembling round him a considerable body of disciples, escaped from the prison where he had been confined for several years. A public disputation was arranged between Manes and Archelaus, the Mesopotamian Bishop. Archelaus was pronounced by the arbitrators of the disputation victorious, and the heresiarch, we read, with difficulty escaped with his life from the indignant bystanders. Shortly afterwards Manes fell again into the hands of the Persians, who put him to death. His skin, stuffed with straw, was exposed for a long period on the walls of Ctesiphon.
But his wild, half poetic, half rationalistic theory of Christianity, with its mythic machinery, largely derived from the old Gnostic speculations, and Gnostic asceticism, long survived its ill-fated author. It seems to have possessed a strange fascination of its own. Manichaeism was heard of soon after Manes' death in North Africa. A little more than a century and a quarter later, Augustine tells us the sect was numerous in Italy and in Africa, and that its poison had affected secretly even some of the clergy. It appeared and reappeared at different times all through the Christian ages. Time, which spread usually a mantle of forgetfulness over most ancient errors and fancies of the human brain, seems to have had no effect here; for as late as the twelfth century, in parts of Europe, Manichaeism was taught openly and undisguised. The chief seat of these opinions was the south of France; a long drawn out and terrible religious war scarcely stamped out the enduring results of the teaching of the half-crazed Persian enthusiast.