THE CAMBRIDGE MEDIEVAL HISTORY I 066

The Last Stronghold of Paganism

4-16. The Last Stronghold of Paganism

Literature may almost be called the last stronghold of paganism for the cultivated classes all over the Empire. It is hard for us to sympathise with the feelings of Christians in the fifth century for whom cultivated paganism was a living reality possessed of a seductive power; who could not separate classical literature from the religious atmosphere in which it had been produced; and who regarded the masterpieces of the Augustan age as beautiful horrors from which they might hardly escape. Jerome had fears for his soul's salvation because he could not conquer his admiration for Cicero's Latin prose, and Augustine shrank within himself when he thought on his love for the poems of Vergil. Had not his classical tastes driven him in youth from the uncouth latinity of the copies of the Holy Scriptures when he tried to read them? Christianity had mastered their heart, mind, and conscience, but it could not stifle fond recollection nor tame the imagination.

In some respects paganism ruled over literature. The poet Claudian, whether he was heathen or Christian, lived and moved and had his being in the world of pagan thought. Sidonius Apollinaris could not string verses without endless mythological allusions. Rutilius, a hater of Christians and of their religion, adored with heart and soul the Dea Roma, Urbs Aeterna. Perhaps the dread of the power which seemed to lurk in literature was heightened by the courteous and kindly intercourse of Christians with pagans during the years of the last struggle. The Church owed much to the schools and was almost afraid of the debt. Basil and Gregory had been fellow-students with Julian at Athens. Chrysostom had been a pupil of Libanius, and acknowledged how much he owed to the great anti-Christian leader. Synesius had sat in the class-room of Hypatia at Alexandria, and never forgot some of the lessons he had learned there.

And paganism never shewed itself to greater advantage than during its last years of heroic but unavailing struggle. Its leaders, whether in the Schools of Athens or among the Senatorial party at Rome, were for the most part men of pure lives with a high moral standard of conduct — men who commanded esteem and respect. Immorality abounded, but the pagan standard had become much higher. Christians and heathen were full of mutual esteem for each other. The letters exchanged between Symmachus and Ambrose reveal the intimacy in which the nobler pagans and earnest-minded Christians lived. Even the caustic Jerome seems to have a lurking but sincere affection for some of the leaders of the pagan Senatorial party. It is curious too to find that many of those stalwart supporters of the old religion of Rome were married to Christian wives, and that their daughters were brought up as Christians while the sons followed the father's faith. Jerome has drawn no more charming picture than that of the old heathen pontiff Albinus, the leader of the anti-Christian party in Rome, sitting in his study with his small granddaughter on his knees, listening to the child while she repeated to him a Christian hymn she had just been taught by her mother. Theodosius II, most theological of emperors, married the daughter of a pagan who had taught philosophy in the Schools of Athens.

Yet however near pagans and Christians might approach each other in life and standard of conduct, a great gulf separated them. In the grey twilight of that fifth century, when men whose sight seemed furthest looked forward to the coming of a night of chaos, the Christian whisper of consolation was better than the pagan thought of destiny. The difference went further than ideals. If it be strange to find practical statesmen like Ambrose and Augustine, able to see that the pressing need of the times was upright citizenship, defending that ascetic life which threw aside all civic duties and responsibilities, surely it is stranger still to find those pure-minded, noble pagans forced by religious partisanship to be the zealous defenders of the bloody gladiatorial spectacles and the untiring opponents of all attempts to better the unhappy lot of actors and actresses condemned to life-long slavery in a calling which then could not fail to be disgraceful. If the dying world was to be requickened, it was not paganism that could bring salvation. So it slowly, almost unconsciously, passed away before the advancing tide of Christianity.

Means were found of reconciling many festivals to which the populace was devoted, both in town and in country, with the prevailing Christian sentiment. It was evil to fete Bacchus or Ceres, but there could be no harm in rejoicing publicly over the vintage and the harvest. The Lupercalia themselves were changed into a Christian festival by Pope Gelasius. Many a tutelary deity became a patron saint. The people retained their rustic processions, their feasts, and their earthly delights. The temples were left standing. They became public halls where the citizens could meet, or exchanges where the merchants could congregate, while the statues of the gods looked down from their niches undisturbed and unheeded.

So when the Teutonic invasion seemed to overwhelm utterly the ancient civilisation, the Church with its compact organisation was strong enough to sustain itself amid the wreck of all things, and was able to teach the barbarian conquerors to assimilate much of the culture, many of the laws and institutions of the conquered, and in the end to rear a new and Holy Roman Empire on the ruins of the old.

This marks the end of Chapter IV: The Triumph of Christianity.

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