Arbogastes and Flavianus extorted a reluctant assent from the meek usurper." The victory of Theodosius quenched almost entirely this flickering light which had rekindled among the dying embers on the altars of paganism. In the east, Theodosius had already achieved, as far as it was possible, the extirpation of opinions rooted by habit in the minds of so many-he had almost completed the subjugation of the east to the Christian yoke. The temples of Syria and Egypt had been stormed, and in some instances levelled, by soldiers acting under the imperial authority. Sacrifice was sternly prohibited, and the pagans found themselves the victims of edicts as vindictive and relentless as, not a century before, had vainly attempted the suppression of Christianity. But paganism had no martyrs, for it had no creed. In the west, the ill-cemented edifice fell in an instant before the conquering arms of Theodosius. The vain deities to whom the appeal had been made were tried and found wanting, and Theodosius himself is said, when his rival was led in chains before him, to have jested on his idle confidence in the protection of Hercules. But Theodosius used his victory with moderation. St. Ambrose, instead of exciting, appears to have mitigated his vengeance. Nothing took place at Rome similar to the demolition of the Serapeum at Alexandria. The temples were still permitted to stand in their inviolable majesty, and time or future accidents were left to perform the work of ruin. But M. Beugnot calls in question the memorable event which has been received on the authority of the poet Prudentius-the rejection, it is said, of paganism and the reception of Christianity as the religion of the empire by a deliberate vote of the senate. 'Jupiter,' says Gibbon, as quoted by M. Beugnot, 'was condemned by a considerable majority. Theodosius, says M. de Chateaubriand, t. ii. p. 202, in an assembly of the senate proposed this question, which god would the Romans adore, Christ or Jupiter? The majority of the senate condemned Jupiter.'-Beugnot, note, p. 485. Why, unless because he is a French writer, M. Chateaubriand should be introduced here, we do not understand. For this sentence, like almost every thing else of the least value * in his vaunted • Etudes de l'Histoire,' is merely translated from Gibbon. As to the story itself, one of the strongest objections to its credibility is the argument adduced by Pagi and adopted by Tillemont, to show * We are sorry to say, that in M. Chateaubriand's new work on English Literature there is nothing of any value whatever. We greatly doubt whether he could construe one page in any of the authors whom he there affects to discuss. The preposterous vanity which runs through the whole book is truly pitiable; but we are not disposed to enter at length upon this homily of Grenada. Requiescat ! that that Theodosius did not visit Rome. Gibbon appears to have felt this, for he observes that the Christian agrees with the pagan Zosimus in placing this visit of Theodosius after the second civil war-gemini bis victor cæde tyranni-but the time and circumstances are better suited to his first triumph.' But it is very singular that the pagan historian and the Christian poet should agree as to this principal fact, while they differ so entirely on the conduct of the senate. According to Prudentius, the triumph of Christianity was complete. The great families vied with each other in offering noble converts to the new faith, and Rome consecrated herself with pious unanimity to the worship of Christ. According to Zosimus, the senate firmly but respectfully resisted the persuasions and the admonitions of the zealous emperor. Theodosius then expressed his determination no longer to burthen the exhausted treasury with the expense of the public sacrifices. The senate replied that the sacrifices would be of no avail unless made at the public cost, that is, we may suppose, as national rites. But the sacrifices were abolished; and to this imperial act the historian attributes the invasions of the barbarians and the desolation of the empire. Had Prudentius been a better poet, we should at once have rejected his authority; but the scene is so striking as to appear beyond the range of his creative powers; and if we do not admit his historic veracity, we must ascribe the merit or the demerit of the invention to his Christian zeal rather than to his poetic imagination. M. Beugnot gives the following results of the victory of Theodosius: 'If Theodosius during his residence at Rome-[we supposed that M. Beugnot doubted the visit of the emperor to the capital]-did not promulgate any prohibitory law against the ancient worship; if he did not cause the temples either to be closed or destroyed; if he did not proscribe the pontiffs; if, in a word, he showed an external respect to the liberty of worship-his conduct was not the less dangerous and fatal to the ancient religion. Theodosius the elder, says Zosimus, after having triumphed over the tyranny of Eugenius, came to Rome; he excited all the citizens to contempt of sacred things; he seized the funds bestowed by the public for the expense of sacrifices; priests and priestesses were driven from their fanes, and the temples were abandoned by every kind of rite.'-Beugnot, vol. ii. p. 491. These, in fact, were the crimes committed by Theodosius, crimes which eventually, according to Zosimus, brought on the ruin of the Roman empire. The public sacrifices then ceased, not because they were positively prohibited, but because the public treasury would no longer bear the expense. The public and the private sacrifices in the provinces, which were not under the same regulations with those of the capital, continued to take place. In Rome itself many pagan ceremonies, which were with out out sacrifice, remained in full force. The gods therefore were invoked, the temples frequented, the pontificates inscribed, according to ancient usage, among the family titles of honour-and it cannot be asserted that idolatry was completely destroyed by Theodosius. That prince only completed the task bequeathed by Constantine to his successors, which was to abolish the ancient religious institutions of the Roman empire; but he did not attempt to interdict the private exercise of a worship which still counted so many millions of partisans, and which entrenched itself behind the public manners, a formidable barrier which time alone could overthrow. (Beugnot, p. 491.) The poetry of Claudian illustrates to a remarkable degree the influence of these general habits and manners. M. Beugnot has some striking observations on this subject. This poet, the most obstinate of pagans, according to the expression of a Christian writer, if he does not describe the apotheosis of this destroyer of paganism according to the ordinary ceremonial-me quoniam cœlestis regia poscit-yet, as Virgil did Cæsar, and still older poets, according to Niebuhr's theory, Romulus, he carries him up among the mythological constellations and transforms him into a new star. 'Sicut erat liquido signavit tramite nubes, Ingrediturque globum Lunæ, limenque relinquit The very rare and slight allusions of the extant pagan writers to the progress of Christianity during its earlier annals, have been the subject of some perplexity to Christian writers-of sarcastic triumph to unbelievers. After all the laborious collections of Lardner, there is some disappointment in finding so little which can put us in possession of the views and feelings excited in the minds of the pagan world by this new and rapidly increasing religion. We wonder that, even if disinclined candidly to examine the nature and pretensions of Christianity, they can have been apparently so indifferent to the momentous change which was working below the surface of society. Tschirner expresses his opinion, that many passages were erased from the pagan writers on account of their hostility to Christianity, by the misjudging jealousy But it may be jealousy or apprehension of the Christians. doubted whether this, if generally done, would have been so neatly and ingeniously executed, as not to betray itself occasionally by an hiatus in some particular part, where we might expect some such allusion. Here, however, is a poet, writing at the actual crisis of the complete triumph of the new religion, the visible extinction of the old ;-if we may so speak, a strictly historical poet, whose works, excepting his mythological poem on the Rape of Proserpine, are confined to temporary subjects, and to the politics of his own eventful day;—yet, excepting in one or two small and indifferent pieces, manifestly written by a Christian, and interpolated among his poems, there is no allusion whatever to the great religious strife. No one would know the existence of Christianity at that period of the world, by reading the works of Claudian. His panegyric and his satire preserve the same religious impartiality, award their most lavish praise or their bitterest invective on Christian or pagan; he insults the fall of Eugenius, and glories in the victories of Theodosius. Under the child Honorius, and Honorius never became more than a child, Christianity continued to inflict wounds, more and more deadly, on expiring paganism. Are the gods of Olympus agitated with apprehension at the birth of this new enemy? They are introduced as rejoicing at his appearance, and promising long years of glory. The whole prophetic choir of paganism, all the oracles throughout the world, are summoned to predict the felicity of his reign. His birth is compared to that of Apollo, but the narrow limits of an island must not confine the new deity— 'Non litora nostro Sufficerent angusta Deo.' Augury and divination, the shrines of Ammon and of Delphi, the Persian magi, and the Etruscan seers, the Chaldean astrologers, the Sibyl herself, are described as still discharging their prophetic functions, and celebrating the natal day of this Christian prince. They are noble lines, as well as curious illustrations of the times : 'Quæ tunc documenta futuri? Quæ voces avium? Quanti per inane volatus? Quis vatum discursus erat? Tibi corniger Ammon, Et dudum taciti rupere silentia Delphi. Te Persæ cecinêre magi, te sensit Etruscus Augur, et inspectis Babylonius horruit astris. Chaldæi stupuere senes, Cumanaque rursus Intonuit rupes, rabida delubra Sibyllæ.'-Claud. viii. 141. Is this to be considered no more than the received and tradi tional phraseology of poetry? Was it servile adherence to the imagery imagery and the language of his great masters in the art, which induced Claudian to this incongruous association of the tutelary protection of the gods of paganism over the fortunes of an emperor, who destroyed their temples and proscribed their sacrifices? The strange mingling up of Christianity and heathenism in later poets, as M. Beugnot observes, is not a parallel case. After Christianity had been firmly established, the heathen deities became a mere poetical machinery. The Christian reader might question the taste, but he would scarcely condemn the impiety of the poet who might use them. But the remarkable point is, the employment of such imagery at this precise period, when we should have expected the most hostile collision, the broadest and most rigid line of demarcation between the separate parties. We cannot but wonder at the total absence of all passion or earnestness in the votaries of the expiring religion; the unaccountable blindness, or the still more unaccountable insensibility to the complete religious revolution which was now achieving its final consummation. M. Beugnot is inclined to fix the year 408 as the date of the final abrogation of paganism as the religion of the empire. Gratian had confiscated the property of the temples; Theodosius had refused to defray the expense of public sacrifices from the public funds. Still, however, there remained chargeable on the revenue of the state, a certain annona or vectigal templorum, which was applied to the Epulæ sacræ and the public games. During the early part of his reign, in the year 399, an edict of Honorius had respected these periods of public festivity. The communis latitia' of the people was guarded by a special provision. The whole was now swept away; all allowances to the temples were to be at once withdrawn (templorum detrahantur annona); they would be of greater advantage applied solely to the use of the loyal army (expensis devotissimorum militum profuture). The same edict proceeded to actual violence, to invade the sanctuaries of paganism with open force. Whatever images remained in the temples (and Rome, at this time, and all Italy, must have been crowded with images) were to be thrown from their pedestals. The now useless and deserted buildings were to be seized by the imperial officers and appropriated to useful purposes. The government seems to have wavered between desecration and demolition. It could not consent to destroy the buildings which were the great ornament of the cities; the only way to preserve them from the zeal of the more fanatical Christians was to take them, as public property, under the protection of the magistracy. All sacrilegious rites, festivals, and ceremonies of all kinds were entirely prohibited: the bishops of the towns were invested with power to suppress these forbidden usages; the civil authorities were bound to assist under a |