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The ROMAN EMPIRE DECLINES and DISINTEGRATES
By now, Christians saw Judaism and Christianity as absolutely separate, and Christians viewed Judaism as the work of the devil as much as it did paganism. Moreover, they saw Judaism as a special competitor. The Jews were burdened by an odium that pagans were spared: the Jews had rejected Jesus, and Christians saw them as responsible for killing Jesus. With Jews uninfluenced by the asceticism and asexuality of Jesus, and not seeing sexuality as tainted by lust and filth as Christians did, Christians were beginning to describe Jews as carnal. At Christian torchlight meetings, among the angry slogans shouted were those against Jews and Jew lovers.
As Roman citizens, Jews were protected from attack by law, and when Christians burned a synagogue, Theodosius ordered it rebuilt, the cost to be paid by the Church. Then Bishop Ambrose intervened. Outraged, he told Theodosius that he, Theodosius, was threatening the Church's prestige, and he convinced Theodosius to withdraw his move and let the destruction of the synagogue stand. Here and there across the Roman Empire, the burning of synagogues continued. In Judea, entire villages of Jews were set ablaze. Jews living in the empire had their privileges withdrawn. They were excluded from holding any state office, from the army, and they were not to proselytize Christians or intermarry with them.
In the city of Salonika (Salonica), in northern Greece, a local military commander of German descent imprisoned a popular chariot driver for homosexuality. A crowd of outraged fans, anti-German in sentiment, lynched the military commander. Theodosius retaliated by ordering a massacre of seven thousand or so of the city's inhabitants, and the influential bishop Ambrose refused sacraments to Theodosius until he accepted penance for this deed.
Theodosius did his penance, and in gratitude for his reconciliation with Ambrose he acted on Ambrose's views as to what should be done about paganism. Theodosius banned the Olympic games -- which were considered pagan. He prohibited visits to pagan temples and forbade all pagan worship. Ordinary Christians were delighted at this move, and mobs of Christians joined the anti-pagan program by robbing pagan temples of their treasures and looting temple libraries, causing the disappearance of many writings. In the repression some of the most splendid buildings of Grecian architecture- were destroyed.
Pagans in the east tried to defend their freedom to worship, and in the west some pagans rallied in an attempt to overthrow Valentinian II. Valentinian II was assassinated. A military commander in the west, being a German and not eligible to be emperor, created an anti-Christian puppet named Eugenius, who announced that the hour of deliverance from Christianity was at hand.
In response, Theodosius cracked down harder on pagans in the eastern half of the empire. He made pagan worship punishable by death. In 394, he led an army of Visigoth cavalry and others against the reign of Eugenius, defeating Eugenius' forces at the Frigidus River, in the extreme northeast of Italy, a victory the Church was later to interpret as the work of God triumphing over paganism.
With his victory against Eugenius, Theodosius moved against paganism in the western half of the empire as he had in the east, wiping out freedom of worship across the whole of the empire. Then in 395, perhaps because of the strain of his recent military campaign against Eugenius, Theodosius died, at the age of fifty, believing that the empire had been unified by his wisdom and had become secure under the guidance of God.
The guidance of God included rule by Theodosius' two sons: an eleven year-old, Honorius, who inherited the position of emperor in the west, and Arcadius, eighteen, who inherited rule in the eastern half of the empire. Honorius was moronic and would eventually spend much of his time raising chickens. Arcadius was pious and gentle, but he was also incompetent and ill-tempered. Theodosius left as regent for Honorius his talented and energetic aide and military commander-in-chief, Stilicho, who was half-Roman and half-Vandal and married to Theodosius' favorite niece. Stilicho claimed that Theodosius left him in charge of both sons, but in the east a powerful aide and authority in Constantinople named Rufinus claimed responsibility for the eighteen year-old, Arcadius.
The empire's Visigoths distrusted Honorius, Arcadius and their advisors. The leader of the Visigoths, Alaric, had bargained for pensions and for a post in the high command of the Roman army, and he had become disappointed over promises made by Theodosius that had not been fulfilled. The Visigoths wished to better themselves economically, and before Theodosius had been dead one year, Alaric and the Visigoths started marching toward Constantinople, devastating territory into Thrace. Rufinus, in Constantinople, requested help from Stilicho. Stilicho sent troops to Constantinople as requested, and members of his army murdered Rufinus. So hated had Rufinus been by the common people of Constantinople that upon hearing of his death they came running from every quarter of the city to trample upon his corpse. Someone put the head of Rufinus on the end of a lance, and the crowd followed it in a great parade through the city.
Sensing the weakness of the new rulers and taking advantage of the disunity between the western and eastern halves of the empire, the Visigoths marched into Greece where they sacked Corinth, Argos and Sparta. Athens was spared by paying the Visigoths a ransom. In 397, Stilicho led troops against the Visigoths and drove them north into Illyricum, which the Visigoths also plundered. There the Visigoths settled with permission from the eastern emperor, Arcadius. And Arcadius made the leader of the Visigoths, Alaric, prefect of the province.
In the eastern half of the empire, Arcadius and his wife Eudoxia came into conflict with John Chrysostom, who had been drafted as Bishop of Constantinople - holy father of the eastern half of the empire. Born of noble parents, Chrysostom had been a Church deacon and a presbyter. He had been tutored by Libanius, the last of the sophists. And he had developed into a talented and popular orator.
Chrysostom was as hostile toward Jews as were other Christians. He lectured Christian crowds that wherever Jews gathered "there the cross was ridiculed," Jesus was insulted and "the grace of the spirit rejected." He called the impiety of Jews "madness, " and he attacked Jews for what he called their "extravagance and gluttony." But Chrysostom also attacked slavery. "God," he said, "has given us hands and feet that we might not stand in need of slaves." He attacked the slavery of children and the training of child slaves in sexual specialties for sale as prostitutes. And against the commonly held notion that work was degrading he told his listeners that when they see a man who fells trees, or is grimy with soot from labor, or who works with his hammer they should admire rather than despise him.
Chrysostom touched upon another major ill of the age: autocracy. He declared that the right of government belongs not to emperors alone but to the human race. "In the beginning God honored our race with sovereignty," he claimed. He saw the link between free will and self-government, and he spoke of humans as being able to choose from existing circumstances.
Chrysostom spoke against pagan tradition of public entertainments that featured prostitutes and against what he called the senseless excitement of the bloody spectator sports that involved contests between men and wild animals. And he criticized the double standard in morality between husbands and wives, including laws that allowed a married man to have intercourse with a slave, prostitute or an unmarried woman.
Chrysostom annoyed many within the Christian clergy, which had grown lax under the previous bishop of Constantinople. He annoyed the bishop of Alexandria, Theophilus, who was jealous of the greater power and influence that had been accorded Chrysostom as bishop of Constantinople. Chrysostom annoyed churches in Asia Minor by asserting his authority there, deposing some bishops who had bought their positions with money. He annoyed the emperor Arcadius by not acting merely as a court chaplain as had Constantinople's previous bishop. He annoyed Arcadius also by his attacks against greed and his talk of injustices. Chrysostom especially annoyed Arcadius' wife, the empress Eudoxia, who was violent in her likes and dislikes and who liked to flaunt her piety.
Chrysostom became involved in the controversy over the views of Origen, whose writings the Church had outlawed. He received four of Origen's supporters who had been exiled from Egypt. The Bishop of Alexandria, Cyril, retaliated by organizing a regional Church council (synod) composed mostly of Chrysostom's enemies. (Cyril was in later years to lead in the murder of Hypatia, a popular woman mathematician and neo-Platonist). The council deposed Chrysostom as Bishop of Constantinople. Arcadius' imperial court in Constantinople confirmed the decision. An earthquake and public discontent led the empress to reinstate him, but when Chrysostom continued his criticism of the imperial family he was exiled to Armenia, where he was to die in 407.
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Copyright © 2009 by Frank E. Smitha. All rights reserved.