THE CAMBRIDGE MEDIEVAL HISTORY I 050
The Triumph of Christianity
4-1. The Triumph of Christianity
THE old or official religions of Greece and of Rome had lost most of their power long before Constantine first declared that Christianity was henceforth to be recognised as a religio licita and then proceeded to bestow the Imperial favour on the faith which his predecessors had persecuted. Hellenism had destroyed their influence over the cultivated classes, and other religions, coming from the East, had captivated the masses of the people. If temples, dedicated to the gods of Olympus, were still standing open; if the time-honoured rites were still duly and continuously celebrated; if the official priesthood, recognised and largely supported by the state, still performed its appointed functions; these things no longer compelled the devotion of the crowd. The Imperial cult of the Divi and Divae, once so popular, had also lost its power to attract and to charm; the routine of ceremonial worship was still performed; the well-organised priesthood spreading all over the Empire maintained its privileged position; but crowds no longer thronged the temples, and the rites were neglected by the great mass of the population.
Yet this did not mean, as has often been supposed, the universal triumph of Christianity. It may almost be said that Paganism was never so active, so assertive, so combative, as in the third century. But this paganism, for long the successful rival of Christianity and its real opponent, was almost as new to Europe as Christianity itself. Something must be known about it and its environment ere the reaction under Julian and the final triumph of Christianity can be sympathetically understood.
During the earlier centuries of the Roman Empire the process of disintegration was completed which had begun with the conquests of Alexander the Great. Instead of a system of self-contained societies, solidly united internally and fenced off from all external social, political, and religious influences, which characterised ancient civilisation, this age saw a mixing of peoples and a cosmopolitan society hitherto unknown.
If fighting went on continuously somewhere or other on the extended frontiers of the great Empire, peace reigned within its vast domains. A system of magnificent roads, for the most part passable all the year round, united the capitals with the extremities, from Britain and Spain on the west to the Euphrates on the east. The Mediterranean had been cleared of pirates, and lines of vessels united the great cities on its shores. Travelling, whether for business, health, or pleasure, was possible under the Empire with a certainty and a safety unknown in after centuries until the introduction of steam. It was facilitated by a common language, a coinage universally valid, and the protection of the same laws. Men could start from the Euphrates and travel onwards to Spain using one lingua-franca, everywhere understood. Greek could be heard in the streets of every commercial town — in Rome, Marseilles, Cadiz, and Bordeaux, on the banks of the Nile, of the Orontes, and of the Tigris.
With all these things to favour it, the movements of peoples within the Empire had become incalculably great, and all the larger cities were cosmopolitan. Families from all lands, of differing religions and social habits, dwelt within the same walls. National, social, intellectual, and religious differences faded insensibly. Thinking became eclectic as it had never been before.
This growing community in habit of thought and even of religious belief was fed by something peculiar to the times. The soldier of many lands, the travelled trader, the tourist in search of pleasure, and the invalid wandering in quest of health were common then as now. But a special characteristic of the end of the third and the beginning of the fourth century was the widely wandering student, the teacher far from the land of his birth, and the itinerant preacher of new religions.
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