Sketches of Church History Part 9

The Donatists dwindled away from this time, and were little heard of after Augustine's days, although there were still some in Africa two hundred years later, as we learn from the letters of St. Gregory the Great.

PART VI.

Of all the disputes in which Augustine was engaged, that with the Pelagians was the most famous. The leader of these people, Pelagius, was a Briton. His name would mean, either in Latin or in Greek, a _man of the sea_; and it is said that his British name was Morgan--meaning the same as the Greek or Latin name. Pelagius was the first native of our own island who gained fame as a writer or as a divine; but his fame was not of a desirable kind, as it arose from the errors which he ran into.

He was a man of learning, and of strict life; and at Rome, where he spent many years, he was much respected, until in his old age he began to set forth opinions which brought him into the repute of a heretic. At Rome he became acquainted with a man named Celestius, who is said by some to have been an Italian, while others suppose him an Irishman. It is not known whether Celestius learnt his opinions from Pelagius, or whether each of them had come to think in the same way before they knew one another. But, however this may be, they became great friends, and joined in teaching the same errors.

Augustine, as we have seen, had pa.s.sed through such trials of the spirit that he thoroughly felt the need of G.o.d's gracious help in order to do, or even to will, any good thing. Pelagius, on the contrary, seems to have always gone on steadily in the way of his religion. Now this was really a reason why he should have thanked that grace and mercy of G.o.d which had spared him the dangers and the terrible sufferings which others have to bear in the course of their spiritual life. But unhappily Pelagius overlooked the help of grace. He owned, indeed, that all is from G.o.d; but, instead of understanding that the power of doing any good, or of avoiding any sin, is the especial gift of the Holy Spirit, he fancied that the power of living without sin was given to us by G.o.d as a part of our _nature_. He saw that some people made a wrong use of the doctrine of our natural corruption. He saw that, instead of throwing the blame of their sins on their own neglect of the grace which is offered to us through Christ, they spoke of the weakness and corruption of their nature as if these were an excuse for their sins. This was, indeed, a grievous error, and one which Pelagius would have done well to warn people against. But, in condemning it, he went far wrong in an opposite way: he said that man's nature is _not_ corrupt; that it is nothing the worse for the fall of our first parents; that man can be good by his own natural power, without needing any higher help; that men might live without sin, and that many _had_ so lived. These notions of his are mentioned and are condemned in the ninth Article of our own Church, where it is said that "Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam, as the Pelagians do vainly talk" [that is to say, original sin is not merely the actual imitation of Adam's sin]; "but it is the fault and corruption of the nature of every man that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam; whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness" [that is, he is very far gone from that righteousness which Adam had at the first]. And then it is said in the next Article--"The condition of man, after the fall of Adam, is such that he cannot turn and prepare himself by his own natural strength and good works to faith and calling upon G.o.d. Wherefore we have no power to do good works, pleasing and acceptable to G.o.d, without the grace of G.o.d by Christ preventing us [or _going before_ us], that we may have a good will, and working with us when we have that good will." Thus at every step there is a need of grace from above to help us on the way of salvation.

After Rome had been taken by the Goths, in the year 410,[38] Pelagius and Celestius pa.s.sed over into Africa, from which Pelagius, after a short stay, went into the Holy Land. Celestius tried to get himself ordained by the African church; but objections were made to him, and a council was held which condemned and excommunicated him. Augustine was too busy with the Donatists to attend this council; but he was very much alarmed by the errors of the new teachers, and soon took the lead in writing against them, and in opposing them by other means.

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Pelagius was examined by some councils in the Holy Land, and contrived to persuade them that there was nothing wrong in his doctrines. He and Celestius even got a bishop of Rome, Zosimus, to own them as sound in the faith, and to reprove the African bishops for condemning them. The secret of this was, that Pelagius used words in a crafty way, which neither the synods in the Holy Land nor the bishop of Rome suspected.

When he was charged with denying the need of grace, he said that he owned it to be necessary; but, instead of using the word _grace_ in its right meaning, to signify the working of the Holy Spirit on the heart, he used it as a name for other means by which G.o.d helps us; such as the power which Pelagius supposed to be bestowed on us as a part of our nature; the forgiveness of our sins in baptism; the offer of salvation; the knowledge and instruction given to us through Holy Scripture, or in other ways. By such tricks the Pelagians imposed on the bishop of Rome and others; but the Africans, with Augustine at their head, stood firm.

They steadily maintained that Pelagius and Celestius were unsound in their opinions; they told Zosimus that he had no right to meddle with Africa, and that he had been altogether deceived by the heretics. So, after a while, the bishop of Rome took quite the opposite line, and condemned Pelagius with his followers; and they were also condemned in several councils, of which the most famous was the General Council of Ephesus, held in the year 431. Augustine did great service in opposing these dangerous doctrines; but in doing so, he said some things as to G.o.d's choosing of his elect, and predestinating them (or _marking them out beforehand_) to salvation, which are rather startling, and might lead to serious error. But as to this deep and difficult subject, I shall content myself with quoting a few words from our Church's seventeenth Article--"We must receive G.o.d's promises in such wise as they be generally set forth to us in Holy Scripture; and in our doings, that will of G.o.d is to be followed, which we have expressly declared to us in the word of G.o.d."

PART VII.

Augustine was still busied in the Pelagian controversy when a fearful calamity burst upon his country. The commander of the troops in Africa, Boniface, had been an intimate friend of his, and had been much under his influence. A rival of Boniface, Aetius, persuaded the empress, Placidia, who governed in the name of her young son, Valentinian the Third, to recall the general from Africa; and at the same time he persuaded Boniface to disobey the order, telling him that his ruin was intended. Boniface, who was a man of open and generous mind, did not suspect the villany of Aetius; and, as the only means of saving himself, he rebelled against the emperor, and invited the Vandals from Spain to invade Africa. These Vandals were a savage nation, which had overrun part of Spain about twenty years before. They now gladly accepted Boniface's invitation, and pa.s.sed in great numbers into Africa, where the Moors joined them, and the Donatists eagerly seized the opportunity of avenging themselves on the Catholics, by a.s.sisting the invaders. The country was laid waste, and the Catholic clergy were treated with especial cruelty, both by the Vandals (who were Arians) and by the Donatists.

Augustine had urged Boniface to return to his duty as a subject of the empire. Boniface, who was disgusted by the savage doings of the Vandals, and had discovered the tricks by which Aetius had tempted him to revolt, begged the Vandal leader Genseric to return to Spain; but he found that he had rashly raised a power which he could not manage, and the barbarians laughed at his entreaties. As he could not prevail with them by words, he fought a battle with them; but he was defeated, and he then shut himself up in Augustine's city, Hippo.

During all these troubles Augustine was very active in writing letters of exhortation to his brethren, and in endeavouring to support them under their trials. And when Hippo was crowded by a mult.i.tude of all kinds, who had fled to its walls for shelter, he laboured without ceasing among them. In June, 430, the Vandals laid siege to the place, and soon after, the bishop fell sick in consequence of his labours. He felt that his end was near, and he wished, during his short remaining time, to be free from interruption in preparing for death. He, therefore, would not allow his friends to see him, except at the hours when he took food or medicine. He desired that the penitential psalms--(the seven psalms which are read in church on Ash-Wednesday, and which especially express sorrow for sin)--should be hung up within his sight; and he read them over and over, shedding floods of tears as he read. On the 28th of August, 430, he was taken to his rest, and in the following year Hippo fell into the hands of the Vandals, who thus became masters of the whole of northern Africa.

CHAPTER XXII.

COUNCILS OF EPHESUS AND CHALCEDON.

A.D. 431-451.

Augustine died just as a great council was about to be held in the East.

In preparing for this council, a compliment was paid to him which was not paid to any other person; for, whereas it was usual to invite the chief bishop only of each province to such meetings, and to leave him to choose which of his brethren should accompany him, a special invitation was sent to Augustine, although he was not even a metropolitan,[39] but only bishop of a small town. This shows what fame he had gained, and in what respect his name was held, even in the Eastern church.

[39] See page 82.

The object of calling the council was to inquire into the opinions of Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople. It would have been well for it if it had enjoyed the benefit of the great and good Augustine's presence; for its proceedings were carried on in such a way that it is not pleasant to read of them. But, whatever may have been the faults of those who were active in the council, it laid down clearly the truth which Nestorius was charged with denying--that (as is said in the Athanasian creed) our blessed Lord, "although He be G.o.d and man, yet is He not two, but one Christ;" and this council, which was held at Ephesus in the year 431, is reckoned as the third general council.

Some years after it, a disturbance arose about a monk of Constantinople, named Eutyches, who had been very zealous against Nestorius, and now ran into errors of an opposite kind. Another council was held at Ephesus in 449; but Dioscorus, bishop of Alexandria, and a number of disorderly monks who were favourable to Eutyches, behaved in such a furious manner at this a.s.sembly, that, instead of being considered as a general council, it is known by a name which means a _meeting of robbers_. But two years later, when a new emperor had succeeded to the government of the east, another general council was held at Chalcedon (A.D. 451); and there the doctrines of Eutyches were condemned, and Dioscorus was deprived of his bishopric. This council, which was the fourth of the general councils, was attended by six hundred and thirty bishops. It laid down the doctrine that our Lord is "One, not by conversion [or _turning_] of the G.o.dhead into flesh, but by taking of the manhood into G.o.d: One altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person; for, as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so G.o.d and man is one Christ."

According, then, to these two councils, which were held against Nestorius and Eutyches, we are to believe that our blessed Lord is really G.o.d and really man. The G.o.dhead and the manhood are not _mixed_ together in Him, so as to make something which would be neither the one nor the other (which is what the creed means by "confusion of substance"); but they are in Him distinct from each other, just as the soul and the body are distinct in man; and yet they are not two _Persons_, but are joined together in one Person, just as the soul and the body are joined in one man. All this may perhaps be rather hard for young readers to understand, but the third and fourth general councils are too important to be pa.s.sed over, even in a little book like this; and, even if what has been said here should not be quite understood, it will at least show that all those distinctions in the Athanasian creed mean _something_, and that they were not set forth without some reason, but in order to meet errors which had actually been taught.

I may mention here two other things which were settled by the Council of Chalcedon--that it gave the bishops of Constantinople authority over Thrace, Asia, and Pontus; and that it raised Jerusalem, which until then had been only an ordinary bishopric, to have authority of the same kind over the Holy Land. These chief bishops are now called _patriarchs_, and there were thus five patriarchs--namely, the bishops of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. The map will show you how these patriarchates were divided;[40] but there were still some Christian countries which did not belong to any of them.

[40] Read here the Explanation of the Map, at the end of the volume.

Having thus mentioned the t.i.tle of patriarchs, I may explain here the use of another t.i.tle which we hear much oftener,--I mean the t.i.tle of _pope_. The proper meaning of it is _father_; in short, it is nothing else than the word _papa_, which children among ourselves use in speaking to their fathers. This t.i.tle of pope (or father), then, was at first given to all bishops; but, by degrees, it came to be confined in its use; so that, in the east, only the bishops of Rome and Alexandria were called by it, while in the west it was given to the bishop or patriarch of Rome alone.

CHAPTER XXIII.

FALL OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE.

A.D. 451-476.

The empire of the west was now fast sinking. One weak prince was at the head of it after another, and the spirit of the old Romans, who had conquered the world, had quite died out. Immense hosts of barbarous nations poured in from the north. The Goths, under Alaric, who took Rome by siege, in the reign of Honorius, have been already mentioned.[41]

Forty years later, Attila, King of the Huns, who was called "The scourge of G.o.d," kept both the east and the west in terror. In the year 451, he advanced as far as Orleans, and, after having for some time besieged it, he made a breach in the wall of the city. The soldiers of the garrison, and such of the citizens as could fight, had done their best in the defence of the walls; those who could not bear arms betook themselves to the churches, and were occupied in anxious prayer. The bishop, Ania.n.u.s, had before earnestly begged that troops might be sent to the relief of the place; and he had posted a man on a tower, with orders to look out in the direction from which succour might be hoped for. The watchman twice returned to the bishop without any tidings of comfort; but the third time he said that he had noticed a little cloud of dust as far off as he could see. "It is the aid of G.o.d!" said the bishop; and the people who heard him took up the words, and shouted, "It is the aid of G.o.d!" The little cloud, from being "like a man's hand" (1 _Kings_ xviii.

44), grew larger and drew nearer; the dust was cleared away by the wind, and the glitter of spears and armour was seen; and just as the Huns had broken through the wall, and were rushing into the city, greedy of plunder and bloodshed, an army of Romans and allies arrived and forced them to retreat. After having been thus driven from Orleans, Attila was defeated in a great battle near Chalons, on the river Marne, and withdrew into Germany.

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In the following year (452), Attila invaded Italy, where he caused great consternation. But when the bishop of Rome, Leo the Great, went to his camp near Mantua, and entreated him to spare the country, Attila was so much struck by the bishop's venerable appearance and his powerful words, that he agreed to withdraw on receiving a large sum of money. A few months later he suddenly died, and his kingdom soon fell to pieces.

By degrees, the Romans lost Britain, Gaul, Spain, and Africa; and Italy was all that was left of the western empire.

Genseric, who, as has been mentioned,[42] had led the Vandals into Africa, long kept the Mediterranean in constant dread of his fleets.

Three years after the invasion of Italy by Attila, he appeared at the mouth of the Tiber (A.D. 455), having been invited by the empress Eudoxia, who wished to be revenged on her husband, in consequence of his having told her that he had been the cause of her former husband's death. As the Vandals approached the walls of Rome, the bishop, Leo, went forth at the head of his clergy. He pleaded with Genseric as he had before pleaded with Attila, and he brought him to promise that the city should not be burnt, and that the lives of the inhabitants should be spared; but Genseric gave up the place for fourteen days to plunder, and the sufferings of the people were frightful. The Vandal king returned to Africa with a vast quant.i.ty of booty, and with a great number of captives, among whom were the unfortunate empress and her two daughters. On this occasion the bishop of Carthage, Deogratias, behaved with n.o.ble charity;--he sold the gold and silver plate of the church, and with the price he redeemed some of the captives, and relieved the sufferings of others. Two of the churches were turned into hospitals.

The sick were comfortably lodged, and were plentifully supplied with food and medicines; and the good bishop, old and infirm as he was, visited them often, by night as well as by day, and spoke words of kindness and of Christian consolation to them.

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This behaviour of Deogratias was the more to his honour, because his own flock was suffering severely from the oppression of the Vandals, who, as we have already seen,[43] were Arians. Genseric treated the Catholics of Africa very tyrannically; his son and successor, Hunneric, was still more cruel to them; and, as long as the Vandals held possession of Africa, the persecution, in one shape or another, was carried on almost without ceasing.

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The last emperor of the west, Augustulus, was put down in the year 476, and a barbarian prince named Odoacer became king of Italy.

CHAPTER XXIV.

CONVERSION OF THE BARBARIANS--CHRISTIANITY IN BRITAIN.

As the old empire of Rome disappears, the modern kingdoms of Europe begin to come to view; and we may now look at the progress of the Gospel among the nations of the west.

The barbarians who got possession of France, Spain, South Germany, and other parts of the empire, were soon converted to a sort of Christianity; but, unfortunately, it was not the true Catholic faith. I have told you[44] that Ulfilas, "the Moses of the Goths," led his people into the errors of Arianism. As it was from the Goths that the missionaries generally went forth to convert the other northern nations, these nations, too, for the most part, became Arians; while some of them, after having been converted by Catholics, afterwards fell into Arianism. It is curious to observe how opposite the course of conversion was among these nations to what it had been in earlier times. In the Roman empire, the Gospel worked its way up from the poor and simple people who were the first to believe it, until the emperor himself became at length a convert. But among the nations which now overran the western empire, the missionaries usually began by making a convert of the prince; when the prince was converted, his subjects followed him to the font; and if he changed from Catholicism to Arianism, or from Arianism to Catholicism, the people did the same. In the course of time, all the nations which had professed Arianism, were brought over to the true faith. The last who held out were the Goths in Spain, who gave up their errors at a great council which was held at Toledo in 589; and the Lombards, in the north of Italy, who were converted in the early part of the following century.

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