barian is given. The fate of some of the emperors we have glanced at implies the growing danger of this menace. Septimius Severus died in Britain, where he went to oppose Barbarian attacks from the North; Decius perished on the Danube, where hordes of Goths were advancing; Aurelian, after defeating Barbarian invaders of Italy, and fortifying Rome, and overcoming Zenobia of Palmyra, was murdered in Thrace. No great Barbarian personages, to be sure, have traditionally survived from this Century; but tribal names destined to linger in later Europe begin to appear. We have just mentioned that of the Goths. Among others recorded in the accounts of these times are those of the Alamanni and of the Germans, already possessed of regions now called Germany; of the Franks, who by Diocletian's reign were settled somewhere in Gaul; and of the Burgundians, of the Saxons, and of the Vandals. In Europe, before long, such enemies were to be irresistible.

So was the internal growth of Christianity. The blood of the martyrs was bearing harvests the richer for each recurrent persecution. Their names are not familiar. Of the sixteen popes believed to have lived in the Third Century, more than one martyred, and all-like all their predecessors-recognised as saints, none is distinctly remembered as a personal tradition. But there is a general notion, right or wrong makes no difference now, that this was a time when the faithful could be depended on to die for the faith.

Compared with the Second Century, the century of the Five Good Emperors, this next seems indistinct, and still more so when we compare it with the First Century, the century of the Twelve

Cæsars-not to speak of the First Century before Christ, the century of Julius Cæsar himself. It was as long, though, as any of them. In the time of Diocletian, Septimius Severus was as much a thing of the past as Trajan was in the time of Septimius Severus, or Augustus in the time of Trajan, or Caius Marius in the time of Augustus; and in the time of Caius Marius the age of Pericles was almost as remote as the age of Caius Marius was in the time of Diocletian. Traditionally, however, as we shall soon come to feel, the sterile centuries far outnumber the prolific. And if we ask ourselves what the Third Century added to historical tradition, besides vague imperial names like those of Caracalla, Heliogabalus, Decius, Aurelian, and Diocletian, we can hardly find more precise answer than that the tottering Empire was threatened at once by Barbarian aggression and by surgent Christianity. As constellations, the Twelve Cæsars were setting and the Twelve Apostles rising clear.

II

LITERARY TRADITIONS

To general literary tradition, the Third Century added hardly anything. Names, no doubt, like that of Tertullian at the beginning, will always be important for students of religion and of philosophy. One is that of Origen, who has been called the greatest scholar and the most original thinker of the Church. This was the century of Longinus, too, philosopher and critic, counsellor of Zenobia, and put to death by Aurelian. It was

the century when Plotinus made Neo-Platonic philosophy permanently important in the history of thought, not least because of its influence a hundred years later on the doctrine of St. Augustine. It was the century of Porphyry, disciple of Plotinus, and himself author of a now lost attack on Christianity. It was the century when Eusebius grew up, who lived to be eminent at the Council of Nicæa, and who is called the "Father of Church History." It was the century, too, when Lactantius was born, who has been called "the Christian Cicero." But if anybody can tell you without reference to authority which of these wrote Greek and which Latin, you may hold him wiser than most mere men of letters. It is fair to add that some refer the Pervigilium Veneris1 to the Third Century and others to the Fourth; but the most learned nowadays incline to place it in the Second.

CHAPTER II

THE FOURTH CENTURY

I

HISTORICAL TRADITIONS

Though so far as historical detail goes the Fourth Century may be almost as shadowy in traditional memory as the Third, it includes far and obviously more important names and facts. Of these the most memorable is the conversion to Christianity of the Emperor Constantine. His father was a soldier who under Diocletian had been advanced to imperial rank. His mother, Helena, seems to have been of humble origin and to have had marital experiences not unlike those of Josephine with Napoleon; as was the case with Josephine, however, the passing of the sovereign power to her descendants confirmed her imperial dignity, and furthermore the piety of Helena presently made her a saint. On the death of his father at York, Constantine was proclaimed emperor there. His title was disputed. A period of anarchically rival Cæsars ensued, during which Constantine boldly marched on Rome itself. As a very old legend has it, he perceived on the way a miraculous vision of a flaming cross in the sky, surrounded by the words "In hoc signo vinces ("With this standard thou shalt conquer"). Duly impressed by the heavenly mandate, he put the Christian emblem on his banners. To this obe

dience was attributed the victory at the Milvian Bridge, near Rome, which made him master of the imperial city and thereafter of the world. From that moment, although his formal baptism was long delayed, tradition dates the Christian sovereignty of Europe.

His triumphal arch at Rome, near the ruined Coliseum, singularly implies the condition of his time. Its form has all the grandeur of Roman tradition; but its decoration proves on inspection to be largely made up of spoils from monuments of earlier emperors, particularly Trajan and Marcus Aurelius. In two hundred years the art of sculpture had so declined that even if they had waited for time to make new ornaments for this new structure they could hardly have produced better effects than that of the few original reliefs which they added to it. Not even undeniable decorative splendour can prevent these from looking barbarically rude.

Yet Rome was still imperial, and in view of the future never more so than when Constantine, as Emperor, presided over the famous Church council at Nicæa, in Asia Minor. The cause of this meeting and the matters disputed there would take us into regions of theology and of Church history far beyond our present scope. Even tradition, however, remembers the names of Arius, whose views were held heretical, and of Athanasius, which has become a synonym for uncompromising orthodoxy. The dogmatic and minatory Creed called by his name, though not historically traceable to him, has persisted in the Prayer Book even of the Church of England. To this day, the Creed attributed to the Council of Nicæa is professed as basic