opposed to social revolution and violent measures of reform yet in its inmost instincts and ultimate tendencies favored the universal freedom of man, and, by elevating the slave te spiritual equality with the master, and uniformly treating him as capable of the same virtues, blessings, and rewards, has placed the hateful institution of human bondage in the way of gradual amelioration and final extinction. This result, how. ever, was not reached in Europe till many centuries after our period, nor by the influence of the church alone, but with the help of various economical and political causes, the unprofitableness of slavery, especially in more northern latitudes, the new relations introduced by the barbarian conquests, the habits of the Teutonic tribes settled within the Roman empire, the attachment of the rural slave to the soil, and the change of the slave into the serf, who was as immovable as the soil, and thus, in some degree independent on the caprice and des potism of his master.

5. The poor and unfortunate in general, above all the widows and orphans, prisoners and sick, who were so terribly neglected in heathen times, now drew the attention of the imperial legislators. Constantine in 315 prohibited the branding of criminals on the forehead, "that the human countenance," as he said, "formed after the image of heavenly beauty, should not be defaced." He provided against the inhuman maltreatment of prisoners before their trial." To deprive poor parents of all pretext for selling or exposing their children, he had them furnished with food and clothing, partly at his own expense and partly at that of the state." He likewise endeavored, particularly by a law of the year 331, to protect the poor against the venality and extortion of judges, advocates, and tax collectors, who drained the people by their exactions. In the year 334 he ordered that widows, orphans,

1 Cod. Theod. ix. 40, 1 and 2.

• C. Theod. ix. tit. 3, de custodia reorum. Comp. later similar laws of the year 409 in L. 7, and of 529 in the Cod. Justin. i. 4, 22.

• Comp. the two laws De alimentis quæ inopes parentes de publico petere de bent, in the Cod. Theod. xi. 27, 1 and 2.

Cod. Theod. I. tit. 7, 1. 1: Cessent jam nunc rapaces officialium manus, cessen inquam! nam si monti non cessaverint, gladiis præcidentur.

the sick, and the poor should not be compelled to appear be fore a tribunal outside their own province. Valentinian, in 365, exempted widows and orphans from the ignoble poll tax.' In 364 he intrusted the bishops with the supervision of the poor. Honorius did the same in 409. Justinian, in 529, as we have before remarked, gave the bishops the oversight cf the state prisons, which they were to visit on Wednesdays and Fridays, to bring home to the unfortunates the earnestness and comfort of religion. The same emperor issued laws against usury and inhuman severity in creditors, and secured benevolent and religious foundations by strict laws against alienation of their revenues from the original design of the founders. Several emperors and empresses took the churcb institutions for the poor and sick, for strangers, widows, and orphans, under their special patronage, exempted them from the usual taxes, and enriched or enlarged them from their pri vate funds. Yet in those days, as still in ours, the private beneficence of Christian love took the lead, and the state followed at a distance, rather with ratification and patronage than with independent and original activity.'

8 21. Abolition of Gladiatorial Shows.

6. And finally, one of the greatest and most beautiful victories of Christian humanity over heathen barbarism and cruelty was the abolition of gladiatorial contests, against which the apologists in the second century had already raised the most earnest protest."

The capitatio plebeja. Cod. Theod. xiii. 10, 1 and 4. Other laws in behalf of widows, Cod. Just. iii. 14; ix. 24.

* Cod. Theod. xi. 16, xiii. 1; Cod. Just. i. 8; Nov. 181. Comp. here in general Chastel: The Charity of the Primitive Churches (transl. by Matile), pp. 281–298. 8 Comp. Chastel, 1. c., p. 298: "It appears, then, as to charitable institutions, the part of the Christian emperors was much less to found themselves, than to recognize, to regulate, to guarantee, sometimes also to enrich with their private gifts, that which the church had founded. Everywhere the initiative had been taken by religious charity. Public charity only followed in the distance, and when it attempted to go ahead originally and alone, it soon found that it had strayed aside, and was constrained to withdraw."

4 Comp. vol. ii. § 95 (p. 338 sqq.).

These bloody shows, in which human beings, mostly crim inals, prisoners of war, and barbarians, by hundreds and thousands killed one another or were killed in fight with wild beasts for the amusement of the spectators, were still in full favor at the beginning of the period before us. The pagan civilization here proves itself impotent. In its eyes the life of a barbarian is of no other use than to serve the cruel amusement of the Roman people, who wish quietly to behold with their own eyes and enjoy at home the martial bloodshedding of their frontiers. Even the humane Symmachus gave an exhibition of this kind during his consulate (391), and was enraged that twenty-nine Saxon prisoners of war escaped this public shame by suicide.' While the Vestal virgins existed, it was their special prerogative to cheer on the combatants in the amphitheatre to the bloody work, and to give the signal for the deadly stroke.'

The contagion of the thirst for blood, which these spectacles generated, is presented to us in a striking example by Augustine in his Confessions. His friend Alypius, afterward bishop of Tagaste, was induced by some friends in 385 to visit the amphitheatre at Rome, and went resolved to lock himself up against all impressions. "When they reached the spot," says Augustine, "and took their places on the hired seats, everything already foamed with bloodthirsty delight. But Alypius, with closed eyes, forbade his soul to yield to this sin. O had he but stopped also his ears! For when, on the fall of a gladiator in the contest, the wild shout of the whole multitude fell upon him, overcome by curiosity he opened his eyes, though prepared to despise and resist the sight. But he was smitten with a more grievous wound in the soul than the combatant

'Symm. 1. ii. Ep. 46. Comp. vii. 4.
'Prudentius Adv. Symmach. ii. 1095:

Lib. 1. c. 8.

Virgo-consurgit ad ictus,

Et quotiens victor ferrum jugulo inserit, illa
Delicias ait esse suas, pectusque jacentis
Virgo modesta jubet, converso pollice, rumpi;
Ni lateat pars ulla animæ vitalibus imis,
Altius impresso dum palpitat ense secutor.

For when he

in the body, and fell more lamentably. saw the blood, he imbibed at once the love of it, turned not away, fastened his eyes upon it, caught the spirit of rage and vengeance before he knew it, and, fascinated with the murderous game, became drunk with bloodthirsty joy. looked, shouted applause, burned, and carried with him thence the frenzy, by which he was drawn to go back, not only with those who had taken him there, but before them, and taking others with him."

He

Christianity finally succeeded in closing the amphitheatre. Constantine, who in his earlier reign himself did homage to the popular custom in this matter, and exposed a great multitude of conquered barbarians to death in the amphitheatre at Treves, for which he was highly commended by a heathen orator,' issued in 325, the year of the great council of the church at Nice, the first prohibition of the bloody spectacles, “because they cannot be pleasing in a time of public peace.' But this edict, which is directed to the prefects of Phoenicia, had no permanent effect even in the East, except at Constantinople, which was never stained with the blood of gladiators. In Syria and especially in the West, above all in Rome, the deeply rooted institution continued into the fifth century. Honorius (395-423), who at first considered it indestructible, abolished the gladiatorial shows about 404, and did so at the instance of the heroic self-denial of an eastern monk by the name of Telemachus, who journeyed to Rome expressly to protest against this inhuman barbarity, threw himself into the arena, separated the combatants, and then was torn to pieces by the populace, a martyr to humanity.' Yet this put a stop only to the bloody combats of men. Unbloody spectacles of every kind, even on the high festivals of the church and amidst

1 Eumenii Panegyr. c. 12.

* Cod. Theod. xv. tit. 12, l. 1, de gladiatoribus: "Cruenta, spectacula in otio civili et domestica quiete non placent; quapropter omnino gladiatores esse prohibemus." Comp. Euseb. Vita Const. iv. 25.

So relates Theodoret: Hist. eccl. 1. v. c. 26. For there is no law of Honorius extant on the subject. Yet after this time there is no mention of a gladiatorial cotest between man and man.

the invasions of the barbarians, as we see by the grievous com plaints of a Chrysostom, an Augustine, and a Salvian, were as largely and as passionately attended as ever; and even fights with wild animals, in which human life was generally more or less sacrificed, continued,' and, to the scandal of the Christian name, are tolerated in Spain and South America to this day.

§ 22. Evils of the Union of Church and State. Seculariza tion of the Church.

We turn now to the dark side of the union of the church with the state; to the consideration of the disadvantages which grew out of their altered relation after the time of Constantine, and which continue to show themselves in the condition of the church in Europe to our own time.

These evil results may be summed up under the general designation of the secularization of the church. By taking in the whole population of the Roman empire the church became, indeed, a church of the masses, a church of the people, but at the same time more or less a church of the world. Christianity became a matter of fashion. The number of hypocrites and formal professors rapidly increased; strict discipline, zeal, self-sacrifice, and brotherly love proportionally ebbed away; and many heathen customs and usages, under altered names, crept into the worship of God and the life of the Christian people. The Roman state had grown up under the influence of idolatry, and was not to be magically transformed at a

In a law of Leo, of the year 469 (in the Cod. Justin. iii. tit. 12, L 11), besides the scena theatralis and the circense theatrum, also ferarum lacrymosa spectacula are mentioned as existing. Salvian likewise, in the fifth century (De gubern. Dei, 1. vi. p. 51), censures the delight of his contemporaries in such bloody combats of man with wild beasts. So late as the end of the seventh century a prohibition from the Trullan council was called for in the East. In the West, Theodoric appears to have exchanged the beast fights for military displays, whence proceeded the later tournaments. Yet these shows have never become entirely extinct, but remain in the bull fights of Southern Europe, especially in Spain.

'Thus Augustine, for example, Tract, in Joann. xxv. c. 10, laments that the church filled itself daily with those who sought Jesus not for Jesus, but for earthly profit. Comp. the similar complaint of Eusebius, Vita Const. L. iv. c. 54.