The story of the close of the brilliant reign of the great Emperor Diocletian is a pathetic one. All through the closing months of the year 304 he lay sick almost unto death in his palace at Nicomedia. In the spring A. D. 305, he had partly recovered, but when he appeared again in public he was changed almost beyond recognition. His younger colleague, Galerius, came to Nicomedia ostensibly to congratulate him on his recovery; but the real object of his visit was to insist upon Diocletian at once carrying out his long-meditated project of abdication.
With some reluctance the ailing Emperor seems to have consented to retire; a step he had evidently long been meditating, but such resolves are easier to meditate upon than to carry out. When, however, the nomination of the new Caesars, who were to take the place of the abdicating Emperors, was discussed, Diocletian remonstrated vehemently against the objects of Galerius' choice. These were Daia, his nephew, a young man without culture and half a barbarian, and Severus, whom the Emperor characterized as a drunkard, and utterly unworthy of the great dignity. Galerius, however, who evidently looked upon them as his creatures, upon whom he could depend to carry out his will, insisted upon their appointment. Using Diocletian's name, he had already secured the reluctant acquiescence of Maximian. The strange transaction was carried out. The sick and weary Emperor left the scene with apparent willingness; and Galerius and his creatures Daia (henceforth known as Maximin Daia) and Severus, assumed the government of Italy, Africa, and the East, Diocletian retiring to his sumptuous villa at Salona on the Dalmatian coast, and Maximian Herculius to a luxurious home in Lucania. All seemed to promise well for Galerius' project of becoming Master of the Roman world.
Only one obstacle remained. Over the vast Western provinces of Gaul and Britain still presided the quiet, unassuming, and apparently unambitious Constantius Chlorus, the friend of the Christians. Constantius, too, was in failing health, and Galerius poked forward to obtaining at no distant period, without a struggle, the important and far-reaching provinces over which he ruled. It was verily a dark outlook for the Christian cause. But events turned out strangely. The quiet influence of Constantius was far greater in the West than Galerius conceived; and Severus, when he assumed the reins of government in Italy—acting under the directions of Constantius, who, when Maximian, the old Emperor, retired, was really supreme in the West—at once, contrary to the wishes of Galerius, gave up persecuting the Christians in Italy and North Africa. A period of quietness for the long harassed sect commenced throughout the West of the Empire.
At the Court of Galerius in Nicomedia resided a comparatively young and unknown man of high lineage, the eldest son of Constantius Chlorus, afterwards known as Constantino the Great. He seems to have been with Diocletian for some time, treated by him with distinction, and placed in his own army as the best training school. Probably Diocletian looked upon him as the eventual successor of his father, Constantius Chlorus.
CONSTANTINE THE GREAT.
He was a young officer of the highest promise, and rapidly obtained promotion. Galerius evidently feared him, and when the appointment of the new Caesars, Severus and Maximin Daia, was made, was well aware that men's eyes had been directed to the son of Constantius as the natural and proper person on whom the nomination as Caesar of the West should have fallen. Constantino from this time was carefully watched and guarded. Some months after Galerius' accession to supreme power an urgent message arrived from Constantius Chlorus,who was rapidly failing, requiring the immediate presence of his son in Britain. Curious reports were current of the jealous hatred entertained by Galerius of the brilliant young son of his colleague; of repetitions of the Old Testament story of King Saul's behavior towards David, of repeated snares laid for the life of the young man; and how he escaped them all, adding continually to his reputation for courage and ability.
Permission was at length reluctantly given him to leave the Court of Nicomedia in order to visit his father in Gaul. This permission was quickly revoked, but Constantino was already out of Galerius' reach. In Britain the dying Emperor commended his son to the legionnaires, who, when Constantius Chlorus passed away at York, at once saluted him as Emperor.
When Galerius received the official intelligence of the death of the noble Western Emperor and the accession of the young Constantino to the vacant Throne, his first impulse was to insult the new Emperor of the West; but wiser councils prevailing he reluctantly acknowledged Constantino as Caesar, reserving, however, the higher rank of Augustus for his own nominee, Severus, who was ruling in Italy. Constantino made no protest here, being content with the absolute sovereignty which he possessed over Gaul, Spain, and Britain, and paying little heed to the exact title recognized by the elder Emperor in far away Nicomedia. He at once published an edict, so favorable to the Christians of his provinces that the very semblance of all persecution at once ceased even in those districts which had been the sphere of influence of the abdicated Maximian, notably in Spain.
Very different, however, is the story of the fortunes of the Church in the Eastern Provinces of the Empire during the years which immediately followed the abdication of Diocletian. In the provinces under the rule of Galerius the harrying of the worshippers of Jesus went on with unabated fury, while in the dominions especially placed under the charge of his nephew, the Caesar Maximin Daia, the pages of the chronicler relating the fortunes of the Christians are even more stained with blood. Indeed, between the years 306 and 312-13 this peasant-born tyrant, so suddenly raised from a position of obscurity to a throne, stands out in ghastly prominence as the most cruel and determined of the persecutors. The roll of his victims was longer even than the death-roll of the infamous Galerius, to whom belongs the sad credit of being the original inspirer of the last and most awful of the persecutions; and the atrocities perpetrated in his name and with his sanction were more terrible than any recorded in the stories of grievous suffering to which the Christians had been previously subjected.
Maximin Daia, the relentless persecutor, was apparently a man of no culture. He was a superstitious and bigoted Pagan. He would do nothing until he had consulted an oracle; his extraordinary superstition manifested itself in his daily life. Lactantius tells us how "his custom was daily to sacrifice in his palace, and that it was an invention of his to cause all animals used for food to be slaughtered not by cooks but by priests at the altars, so that nothing was ever served up unless consecrated and sprinkled with wine in accordance with the rites of Paganism."
Before the year 306 had run its course another revolution in Rome gave a finishing blow to the supremacy of Galerius in the West, a supremacy already severely shaken a few months earlier by the elevation of Constantine to the throne of his father in Gaul, Britain, and Spain.
The exciting cause of the Roman revolt seems to have been certain fiscal measures devised by Galerius and Severus by which a long-cherished immunity from taxation was taken from the citizens of Rome. This was another blow aimed at the privileges of the immemorial capital. The Roman citizens rose, and, driving out Severus, tumultuously proclaimed Maxentius, the son of the abdicated Maximian Herculius, Emperor. Maxentius, desirous to consolidate his usurped authority, summoned from his Lucanian retirement his father Maximian, who was too ready to resume his old sovereignty. Severus made but a feeble resistance, and soon fell into the hands of the usurpers; he was allowed as an act of mercy to put an end to his life and reign by opening his veins. Thus the early months of A. D. 307 witnessed the complete disruption of the tetrarchy arranged by Galerius. In the West Constantine, Maximian and Maxentius reigned over Gaul, Spain, Britain, Italy, and North Africa. In the East Galerius and Maximin Daia were Sovereigns over Egypt, Syria, and Asia Minor, Greece, and the Danubian frontier provinces. But there was no longer any semblance of unity between these live lords of the vast Roman Empire. The policy, however, which Severus had pursued in Italy and North Africa, which left the Christians at peace, was maintained by Maxentius.
Maximian, on the resumption of his ancient position, at once sought the alliance and support of Constantine, whose weight and ever-increasing influence in the West was generally felt and acknowledged throughout the Roman world. He visited him in Gaul, bestowed upon him in marriage his daughter, Fausta, and, once more assuming the prerogatives of the senior Emperor, created him " Augustus.
Galerius felt deeply the affront to his dignity as the senior Augustus, and was keenly sensible of the fatal blow to his power occasioned by this new development. He could not quietly acquiesce in the deposition of his nominee Severus and the assumption of the Imperial dignity by the old Emperor Maximian and his son Maxentius; and he determined by force of arms to assert his authority and to reduce Rome once more to allegiance. He consequently, with a powerful army, invaded Italy. But the expedition was disastrous, and ended in an ignominious retreat. Still he refused to acknowledge his defeat. Claiming the right to nominate to the throne left vacant by the death of Severus, he associated Licinius, an old friend and former brother-in-arms, in the Imperial dignity with the supreme title of Augustus; assigning to him, as his sphere of influence, Illyricum and the Danubian frontier, which still acknowledged his (Galerius') sovereignty. The position of the Roman Empire at the close of the year 307 was as follows. In the West Constantine, Maximian, and Maxentius were supreme and were more or less united by common ties of interest, since Constantine had married the daughter of Maximian. In the East, and in the Danubian Provinces including Illyricum and Greece, Galerius was still nominally supreme, and was acknowledged as senior Emperor by Licinius and Maximin Daia, the former being his devoted friend, the latter his nephew, who owed him everything. Thus a complete cleavage existed between the West and East. The cleavage was accentuated by the position of the Christian sect, now a numerous and powerful division of the populace. In the West, mainly owing to the kindly feeling towards the Church felt and showed by Constantine, whose influence was paramount, the Christians, if not positively favored, were certainly left unmolested. In the East, owing to the bitter hatred of Galerius, shared emphatically by Maximin Daia, the Christians were, all through these years of danger and revolts, cruelly maltreated and ruthlessly persecuted.
An interesting side-light has been of late years cast on the position of the Church in Rome, circa A. D. 307-8, by the discovery of some of the inscriptions of Pope Damasus, originally placed in the Catacombs between A. D. 366 and A. D. 384. These inscriptions, when compared with statements contained in the Liber Pontificalis, tell us how sorely the Christian community in Rome was rent by internal dissensions at the time. But what is perhaps more important, Ave learn incidentally how many Roman Pagans at that time were being enrolled in the Christian communities. No general restitution of the cemeteries and church property had as yet been made, but that they had access to some certainly of the cemeteries is clear, and that the Church in Rome generally was in a position which made possible a considerable measure of re-organization is also evident.
The internal troubles to which we refer were owing to the disputes which so often arose after a period of bitter persecution. Some Christians, under the terrible pressure of the Diocletian persecution of A. D. 303-4-5, had submitted to sacrifice; in various ways had conformed to the requirements of Pagan ritual; and when the storm was passed were desirous of being re-admitted to the Church. The question of the treatment of these "Lapsi" in time of persecution had been frequently agitated, notably after the Decian persecution some half a century before, when the authorities of the Church had wisely decided to re-admit penitents after a longer or shorter period of penance, as the offense committed by the "Lapsi" seemed to require. The general principle laid down was that whilst real penitence must be shown by those who had, in the hour of extreme peril, fallen away, the door of mercy and pity was not to be closed upon them. On the other hand, it will be remembered, that in former times a strong party of rigorists existed in the Church, who absolutely refused re-admittance to these poor renegades.
In the Roman troubles of 307-8 the Church authorities were confronted not with the party of rigorists, but with a section of the Church who would at once and without penance receive back again into the community all such "Lapsi." The dissensions assumed grave proportions, and even blood was shed in the regrettable tumults which ensued. The reigning Pope, or Bishop of Rome, was Marcellus, who—after an interregnum of some three or four years, roughly the time of the persecution of Diocletian—had been elected as the successor of the Confessor Marcellinus. Marcellus was banished by Maxentius, son of Maximian, the ruling Emperor, in consequence of these disturbances, and died in exile, probably owing to harsh treatment.
He was succeeded by Eusebius, who, after a short pontificate, likewise died in exile. The remains of both these prelates were brought back to Rome, and were buried with all honor in the Catacombs. Portions of the sarcophagus of Eusebius have been lately discovered, and inscriptions of Pope Damasus relating to both these prelates have been also found. Pope Eusebius was succeeded by Miltiades, of whom we shall have occasion to speak later.
We return to our brief sketch of the confused and disturbed political history of the period reaching from A. D. 305 to 313, the dates respectively of the abdication of Diocletian and of the promulgation of Constantino's Edict of Milan. The alliance between Maximian and Maxentius, the old Emperor who had abdicated, and his ambitious, profligate son, was only of brief duration. The father claimed the supreme power over Italy and Africa, maintaining that Maxentius owed his throne and position to his own old prestige and military abilities. Maxentius, on the other hand, asserted that he had been legally elected by the Roman Senate and people independently of any paternal assistance. Maximian was driven by his son from Rome, and, failing to obtain any assistance from Galerius, took refuge in Gaul, where he was kindly received by his son-in-law, Constantino, and his daughter, the Empress Fausta; there he again went through the form of a fresh abdication. But the restless old man, taking advantage of the absence of Constantino on a military expedition against a Frankish raid, endeavored to stir up a revolt against him. The rising was soon put down, and Maximian was condemned to die. He perished by his own hands. This second period of Maximian's active life had lasted a little over three years. He died, unpitied, early in the year 310, generally regarded as an ambitious and self-seeking intriguer.
In the year 310 Galerius sickened of a grave and incurable malady. It seems to have been of the nature of a malignant ulcer, which gradually spread; the loathsome details of the painful sickness are given by Eusebius, and at yet greater length by Lactantius.
The many physicians who were summoned to the bedside of the suffering Emperor were unable to afford any relief, and we read how some of these were even put to death in consequence of their failure.
The oracles of Apollo and Esculapius were consulted in vain. Rufinus tells us how one of the physicians had the boldness to tell the dying tyrant that his sufferings were beyond the reach of human aid, and that his only hope lay in the God of those Christians whom he had so cruelly persecuted.
This may, or may not, be true; it is, however, certain that Galerius, in his mortal agony, endeavored to make a tardy amends for the awful suffering for which he was responsible; and in the year 311 a remarkable Edict of Toleration was published in the joint names of Galerius, Licinius, and Constantino.
It was a disingenuous document, and on the face of it appeared no trace of the hideous cruelties perpetrated in the course of the long drawn-out persecution. It recounted how many of the Christians, after the publication of the edict, had submitted to the observance of the ancient institutions; but it allowed that great numbers still persisted in their opinions; and, because it had been seen that at present they neither paid reverence and due adoration to the gods, nor yet worshipped their own God, therefore "We, from our wonted clemency in bestowing pardon on all, have judged it right to extend our indulgence to these men, and to permit them again to be Christians, and to establish the places of their religious assemblies." The Imperial document closed with a request for their prayers in the following words: "Wherefore it will be the duty of the Christians, in consequence of this our toleration, to pray to their God for our welfare, and for that of the public, and for their own, that the republic may continue safe in every quarter, and that they may live securely in their dwellings."
The Edict of Toleration was published in the Asiatic and western dominions of Galerius, in the realm of Licinius and even in the Western provinces of Constantine. The name of Maxentius, who was not recognized by Galerius, does not appear in the preamble; but in Italy and Africa the Church had long enjoyed a doubtful and somewhat precarious toleration; the name of Maximin Daia, Galerius' nephew, the most cruel of the persecuting princes, was not appended to the Imperial edict, but he did not venture to oppose it, and for a time persecution ceased even in his Eastern provinces. Galerius expired very shortly afterwards.
Eusebius graphically paints the joy of the Christians in the dominions of Galerius and Maximin, and tells us how the prisons were opened and the mines cleared of captives, how like a flash of light blazing out of thick darkness in every city one could see congregations collected, assemblies crowded, and the accustomed meetings once more held. "The very roads," he tells us, "were thronged by the noble soldiers of religion, journeying to their own homes, singing the praises of God in hymns and psalms, with bright joyous countenances."
The dominions of the dead Galerius were divided by his two nominees, his Asian provinces falling to the lot of Maximin Daia, while those situated in Europe were added to the realm of Licinius.
The rejoicings of the long-harassed Eastern Christians were soon hushed. Maximin Daia was a bigoted Pagan. He hated Christianity with an intense hate, and although he yielded for the moment to the general impulse of toleration which proceeded from the sick bed of the dying Galerius the Emperor of the East never swerved from his long-cherished determination to exterminate the Christians from his widespread dominions. In less than six months after the promulgation of Galerius' Edict of Toleration, his measures were again in full operation, and once more the Christian of the East found himself an outlaw and proscribed. The measures adopted were well and skillfully planned. The Pagan party arranged that petitions and addresses from great cities, such as Antioch, should be presented to the Emperor against the Christians, deprecating the late measures of toleration, and urging all the old pleas; such as the anger of the gods against the hated sect, and the consequent danger to the well-being of the Empire owing to their wrath. Maximin Daia gladly listened to their "manufactured" requests, professing to see in them the irresistible voice of public opinion. Once more the churches and the cemeteries of the followers of Jesus were peremptorily closed, and all Christian meetings sternly forbidden; efforts were made to arouse a real anti-Christian feeling among the people. Writings, such as the spurious "Acts of Pilate," a composition, dating only from the early years of the fourth century, which in the form circulated by the Imperial emissaries set forth the events of the Passion of the Lord in a blasphemous parody, were scattered broadcast through the cities and villages of Maximin Daia's provinces. They were published openly; they were given to the schoolmasters as subjects of study for their pupils. "The very boys," says Eusebius, "had the names of Jesus and Pilate and the forged 'Acts' in derision in their mouths all day." The vilest accusations were formally made against the Christians. Nothing, indeed, was left undone to stir up public opinion against the detested sect.
The great historian gives us a transcript of an Epistle of the Emperor, a kind of State paper, which was engraved on a brass tablet and publicly set up at Tyre, as a specimen of the Emperor's edicts and pronouncements in favor of Paganism published at this time. The Epistle of the Emperor, in which he decreed the banishment of the worshippers of Jesus from the city, was in reply to one of those anti-Christian petitions addressed to him by the citizens of which we have spoken above. It has been happily termed, a Pagan sermon or "Pastoral," a kind of "Te Beum" of Paganism sung on the eve of its final defeat." After a wordy preamble, dwelling on the happy victory of the human mind over the clouds of delusion, a victory which had led to the universal recognition of the providence of the immortal gods, the Emperor expressed his delight and pleasure at the regard and reverence manifested by the citizens (of Tyre) towards the gods. He noticed that their pious petition to him contained no ordinary request for any local privilege or advantage, but dealt only with the question of the votaries of an execrable vanity (the Christians), long disregarded, rising up, like a funeral pyre which had been smothered, once more in mighty flames (alluding here to the results of the late Edict of Toleration). Maximin Daia then proceeded to congratulate the citizens, who had been evidently inspired by the supreme and mighty Jupiter to make their petition to him to free them from the sect they so wisely detested. Then he dwelt on the gracious kindness of the gods towards them, refraining as these immortals had done from inflicting upon them the awful calamities which had often been the result of Christian folly, and which they might reasonably have expected would have been their fate too. In their case, however, their piety, their sacrifices had propitiated the divinity of the all-powerful and mighty Mars (the Avenger). Those Christians who had abandoned these blind delusions were to enjoy quietness and peace. But those who still clung to their execrable folly were to be driven out and banished far from the city. Similar letters and edicts were sent by Maximin Daia to all the provinces in his dominion.
At the same time a great effort was made by the determined Pagan Emperor to strengthen the cult of the old gods by the revival of a magnificent and striking ritual, not only in the stately fanes of great cities, such as Antioch and Tyre, but as far as possible even in the more humble rural sanctuaries.
At first Maximin Daia seems to have refrained from open bloodshed in the case of the harassed Christians, contenting himself with banishing, mutilating, and otherwise maltreating the worshippers of Jesus; but soon severer measures were adopted, and persecution was decreed equalling in its cruel severity that which had prevailed before the Edict of Toleration had been put out from the death chamber of Galerius. Once more the provinces of the East, where Maximin Daia was paramount, were the scenes of a terrible Christian persecution. But the end of all this was nigh at hand.
We turn again to the Western Empire, where grave political events were occurring which completely changed the whole aspect of affairs throughout the Roman world.
The peace of the provinces of the Western Empire seemed secured by the close connection through marriage ties of the three Sovereigns who reigned respectively over Gaul, Spain, and Britain, Italy and North Africa, Illyricum and the Danubian provinces. Constantine, the most powerful of the three Lords of the West, as we have seen, was married to Fausta, the daughter of Maximian, while a marriage was arranged between Licinius, the Sovereign of Eastern Europe, and Constantia, the half-sister of Constantine.
In the vast territories ruled by these three Emperors the quiet long enjoyed by the Christians was completely ratified by the Edict of Toleration, lately put out by the dying Galerius. In Rome Maxentius, for reasons unknown to us, but not improbably connected with the idea of attaching the powerful sect more closely to his Government, promulgated an edict which restored the long-confiscated possessions of the Church, including the subterranean cemeteries especially dear to the community of Rome from the hallowed traditions of a glorious past.
Miltiades, the pope or bishop of the ancient metropolis, who had succeeded Eusebius, who died in his banishment, was formally recognized by the Imperial Government as the head of the Christian community of Rome. His first act was, as we noticed above, to inter the remains of his predecessor Eusebius with reverent care in one of the sacred chambers which once more had become the property of the Church.
The peace of the Roman world, however, was broken by the ambitious views of the evil Maxentius. Jealous of the prestige and power of Constantino, the pretext he alleged for the declaration of war against his brother-in-law was the treatment of the old Maximian, who had been condemned to die, after the failure of his infamous conspiracy. Maxentius had previously quarrelled with his father and driven him from his dominions, but he chose to regard Constantino's conduct towards the restless old conspirator as a deadly offense.
Maxentius, conscious of possessing an army considerably larger than his adversary's, and confident of success, proceeded to insult the great Western Emperor by publicly throwing down the statues erected in his honor in Italy and Africa. In view of the coming war, Constantino, who had determined, even with his smaller force," to invade Italy, had secured the neutrality of Licinius, to whom he had betrothed his sister Constantia. But it was a perilous and dangerous adventure, and only the consummate general-ship of Constantino and the wonderful celerity of his movements prevented the disaster to his arms to which Maxentius confidently looked forward.
Without delay the Gallic Emperor, leading his troops over the inhospitable passes of the Mont Cenis Alps, won a series of brilliant victories over the armies of his adversary successively at Susa, Turin, and Verona, and reached the neighborhood of Rome, with a small army of picked veterans, flushed with victory, and inspired with confidence in their brave and skilful commander.
In the neighborhood of the immemorial capital of the Roman world the last stand was made by the still numerous armies of Maxentius; the same good fortune which had accompanied the daring army of invaders all through the successful campaign again befriended them. The disposition of the forces of Maxentius was incompetent, and every error in strategy was turned to account by the consummate general-ship of the Western Emperor. The result was a triumphant victory; the Milvian Bridge over the Tiber, the scene of the final rout of the Italian Emperor's forces, gave its name to one of the decisive battles of the world. In the headlong flight which ensued Maxentius perished in the waters of the Tiber, and the victorious Constantine immediately took possession of Rome, where he was received with enthusiasm as a deliverer. Indeed, there is little doubt but that the shameful excesses of Maxentius had largely affected the loyalty of his subjects, and had contributed in no small degree to the wonderful and rapid success of the Emperor Constantine, in his victorious march from the passes of the Mont Cenis to the gates of Rome.
The crowning victory of the Milvian Bridge and the entry of Constantine into Rome took place in the October of the year 312.