without difficulty so many ancient laws, and sanctioning new forms of worship? This point was represented with great vigour and confidence to the magistrates of the Roman empire, and to the senate itself, by Tertullian, in the celebrated "Apology" which he addressed to them about the close of the second century.1 When," he says, you have no answer to give to the truths which we oppose to you, you never fail to urge against us the authority of your laws. But if your law is wrong, it is because it is the work of men. Where is the wonder that a man should fall into error in making a law, or that he should acknowledge that error by repealing it? Have not the Lacedæmonians modified the laws of Lycurgus? and do not you yourselves, every day, by the light of experience, reform your ancient laws by new edicts and decrees? I would ask those religious supporters of the laws of their ancestors, whether they have always the same respect for those ancient enactments? Whether they have never departed from them? Whether they have not even effaced from their memory those very laws which were most useful, and most indispensable for the preservation of morality? What has become of those laws which prohibited superfluous expenditure, ambition, luxury in dress, licentiousness in the theatre, sumptuous entertainments, divorce, and many vain and impure superstitions? And with regard to this very matter, the worship of the gods, have you not frequently abolished the wise laws made by your fathers? The consuls, with the consent of the senate, banished from Rome and from Italy Bacchus and his mysteries; they excluded Isis and Serapis, and Harpocrates and Anubis, from the Capitol, that is, from the temple of the gods; they threw down their altars, to prevent the disorders occasioned by vain and scandalous superstitions. You have, nevertheless, restored all those gods, and you have invested them once more with sovereign majesty. Where now is your religion?

1 Fleury, Hist. Eccles. vol. ii. book v. note 4, &c.

2 Tertullian, Apolog. § 4.

Where is this respect which you owe to your ancestors? You have abandoned their language, their simplicity, their modesty, their temperance: your are always praising old times, and always adopting new maxims; and while you are rejecting the noblest institutions of your fathers, those to which you ought to be most strongly attached, you retain those which you should be most anxious to abrogate.1 Every province, every city, has a god of its own; the Christians alone are deprived of that right; they are not allowed to call themselves Romans, because they adore a God not acknowledged by the Romans: you grant full liberty to adore everything except the true God; as if the God to whom all men belong, was not more than any other the God of all." 2

20. That Injustice often acknowledged by the Pagans.

In support of these reflections, Tertullian cites the authority of everal pagan emperors, some of them renowned for wisdom, who, so far from thinking themselves bound by the ancient laws to persecute the Christians, publicly undertook their defence, and even threatened to punish their persecutors. "Tiberius, under whose reign the Christian name first appeared in the world, having been informed of the wonders which Jesus Christ had worked in proof of his divinity, made them known to the senate, and expressed a wish to have him admitted among the number of the gods the senate rejected the proposal, but the emperor persisted in his resolution, and threatened to punish the accusers of the Christians. Consult your public registers; you will find that Nero was the first that persecuted the Christian religion, when it began to spread in Rome; but we deem it an honour that a prince of his character was the first of our persecutors; for whoever knows him, must admit that he never persecuted anything which was not a great good. Domitian, the worthy rival of Nero in cruelty, at first wished to follow his example; but he soon changed his mind, and recalled from exile those 2 Ibid. § 24.

Tertullian, Apolog. § 6.

whom he had banished.

Such were our persecutors, unjust,

impious, infamous men, whom you yourselves condemn, and whose injustices you endeavour to repair. Name, if you can, one really humane or religious prince who has persecuted the Christians. We can name one such character who declared himself their protector. Read the letters of Marcus Aurelius; you will there find that the prayers of the Christian soldiers obtained abundant rain which quenched the thirst of his army; and though he did not openly relieve the Christians from the penalties to which they were liable, he did it in another way, by condemning their accusers to still more severe punishments. What kind of laws, then, must those be which are enforced against us only by the impious, the unjust, the infamous, by savages, by fools, and by madmen; laws, which Trajan partly evaded, by prohibiting any search to be made for Christians; which were never enforced against us, neither by Adrian, the friend of literature; nor by Vespasian, the exterminator of the Jews; nor by Antoninus Pius, nor by Marcus Aurelius? Assuredly, if we be the monsters we are said to be, it is not men guilty of similar crimes, but all good men, that should have been our persecutors." 1

21. Obvious inference from all these facts.-Strict union of Religion and the State under the Christian Emperors.

These details on the customs and maxims of antiquity relative to the strict union of church and state, have led us much farther than we intended. It is hoped, however, that they will not appear too tedious, when considered in connection with the design. of this Introduction, which is to make known the honours and temporal prerogatives conferred on religion and its ministers after the conversion of Constantine. It is certain that the usage and maxims of pagan antiquity would of themselves explain the conduct of the Christian emperors on this point. On the fall of paganism, it would appear most natural to transfer to the

Tertullian, Apolog. § 5.

Christian religion the favours which the national religion had hitherto enjoyed among the Romans, as well as amongst all other nations of the earth. That strict union of religion and of the state, which all ancient lawgivers had deemed so essential to the good of society, was held to be equally so after the establishment of Christianity; we shall see that it became even more necessary, in consequence of the deplorable condition of the empire. Far from meriting any reproach for adopting that principle, the Christian emperors would have evinced very little zeal or respect for the true religion, had they deprived it of the honours and privileges which a usage so ancient and so universal conferred on the religion of the state.

ARTICLE II.

HONOURS AND TEMPORAL PRIVILEGES CONFERRED ON RELIGION AND ITS MINISTERS UNDER THE FIRST CHRISTIAN EMPERORS.

22. Origin of the Favours conferred on the Christian Religion by Constantine and his successors.

THE wonderful conversion of Constantine to Christianity, and the general disrepute of the old religion, could not fail, as we have seen, to attract in a short time to the Church, not only the favour of the Christian emperor, but also the honours and temporal privileges which paganism had constantly enjoyed among the Romans as well as all other ancient nations. Still the origin and true cause of the temporal power with which the clergy were invested after the conversion of Constantine, would be but very imperfectly known, if we did not reflect on. the deplorable state of the empire at the time, and on the powerful resources which religion and its ministers furnished against the innumerable perils which threatened to overwhelm it. A rapid glance at the state of Roman society, in this twofold view, will account very naturally for the numerous privileges which the emperors pressed on the acceptance of the Church,

and which shall be detailed at length in the course of this introduction.

SECTION I.

Deplorable State of the Empire under the first Christian Emperors.-Powerful Resources of Religion and its Ministers.

23. Seeds of Dissolution in the Empire long before Constantine.

Long before the conversion of Constantine, the Roman empire carried within itself those seeds of dissolution, which were gradually weakening, and at last completely destroyed it.' The number of different nations which it contained, the infinite variety of their customs and characters, the relaxation of military discipline, the universal depravity of morals, all conspired to shake the constitution of the empire; while the ceaseless irruptions of barbarian hordes aggravated the dangers resulting from the combination of so many different causes.

24. Powerful Resources presented to it by Religion and its Ministers.

In this wretched state of affairs, the Christian religion presented to the government one of the surest means of strengthening its authority and of securing the obedience of the people. The strong constitution of the Church, the beauty of its moral doctrine, the sublime virtues which it taught its children, the reformation which it everywhere produced in public morals, naturally pointed it out as the agent for the regeneration of the social system; it alone could breathe a new life into that exhausted frame, by restoring morality, subordination, and all the other bonds of harmony between the different members of the state. The Christians were at once the most fervent servants of the Deity, and the most loyal subjects of the emperors. Submission to the powers of the earth, was one of their principal

Essai Historique et Critique sur la Suprématie Temporelle de l'Église et du Pape, by M. Affre, ch. xiii. Montesquieu, Considérations sur les Causes de la Grandeur des Romains et de leur Décadence, ch. ix., x. &c. Bossuet, Histoire Universelle, part iii. ch. vii. Histoire de l'Église Gallicane, vol. i. années 407-409. Annales du Moyen Age, vol. i. book ii. p. 215, etc.