The details given in this chapter on some of the outstanding Christian witnesses of the fourth and fifth centuries will throw light on the Christian testimony of this period. The available information is in many cases mixed with much that is legendary and fictitious, but our object is to present positive evidences of faith. We have not dwelt on their shortcomings, though it must be admitted that none of them was free from the defects of their age in doctrine and practice. Some, like Augustine, shine more brightly than others amid the prevailing gloom, but even he was not an exception to the rule. However, we who have benefited by the truth that has been recovered in so large a measure cannot afford to criticize those who lived in less favored times but who served the Lord with a faithfulness and devotion that we may well emulate. Whatever shortcomings they had, it was through them, and others like them, that the Christian testimony was spread and passed on to the generations following.
Ephraim the Syrian
Among the outstanding Christian men of these two centuries of whom history has left a record is Ephraim the Syrian. He was born at Nisibis in Mesopotamia. His parents were believers and he early showed signs of piety, and, like many devout men of his day, he sought the solitude of the monastery. But he felt a call to serve more usefully and left his cell for the great city of Edessa. He never became more than a deacon, though he was offered the post of bishop. He wrote much on the Scriptures, and he composed hymns in his native tongue and tunes to which they could be sung. In common with many of his day, he seems to have lacked a clear understanding of justification by faith and hence the true liberty of Christianity, but he was a lover of Christ and desired to please Him. “Blessed is he,” he says, “who shall be counted worthy to see that hour in which all that loved the immortal Bridegroom are taken up into the clouds to meet Him.”
Another extract throws light on the ardent longings of his soul.
“I beseech Thy goodness, heal my wounds and enlighten my understanding that I may see Thy gracious dispensations towards me. When my heart is infatuated, let the salt of Thy grace season it. Thou alone knowest how my soul thirsts as a dry land after Thee. As Thou hast ever heard me, neglect not now my petition; my mind is as a captive, yet seeking Thee, the only true Saviour. Send Thy grace that I may eat and drink and be satisfied. Distil one drop of Thy love that it may burn as liquid fire in my soul and consume its thorns — even evil lusts.”
His reverence is revealed in a passage directed against those who presume to analyze divine mysteries beyond the power of the creature to grasp.
“Unhappy, miserable and most impudent is he who desires to search out his Maker. Innumerable myriads of angels glorify with reverence and trembling adore, while men of clay, full of sins, dispute without fear concerning the Divinity. Their body trembles not; their mind is not disconcerted. But secure and loquacious, they speak of Christ, the Son of God, who suffered for me, an unworthy sinner, and of His twofold generation, nor do they feel how blind they are in the light.”
Ephraim died in 379 A.D.
Hilary of Poitiers
Hilary was born of a noble family and well educated. He was led to see the folly of paganism. From nature itself he inferred the existence of the almighty, eternal Being who is its Maker and Upholder. By reading Moses and the prophets, he became further enlightened. God’s declaration in Exodus, “I Am That I Am” (Ex. 3:1414And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you. (Exodus 3:14)), deeply impressed him. From the New Testament he learned of the Word, the Son of God.
“The Son of God was made man that men may become sons of God. A man, who with gladness receives this doctrine, renews his spirit by faith and conceives a hope full of immortality. Having once learned to believe the gospel, he rejects captious difficulties and no longer judges after the maxims of the world. He now neither fears death nor is weary of life and presses forward to a blessed immortality.”
Such, in his own words, is the clear and confident faith of Hilary of Poitiers. He was a man who drew his instruction from the pure fountain of Holy Scripture. “The chief qualification,” he says, “required in a reader is that he be willing to take the sense of an author from what he reads and not give him one of his own. He ought not to endeavor to find in the passages which he reads that which he presumed might be there. In such passages as describe the character of the Supreme Being particularly, he ought at least to be persuaded that God knew Himself.”
Like Athanasius, with whom he was contemporary, he contended for the faith against the wiles and arguments of Arianism. Like Athanasius, he suffered persecution and, in 356, was banished to Phrygia. He travelled among the churches of Asia Minor and returned to Poitiers in 362. He was converted about 350, chosen Bishop of Poitiers by popular acclamation in 353 and died in 368.
Basil of Caesarea
Basil (called the Great), a man of Christian antecedents who had the advantages of education and travel, seems early to have had longings after that satisfaction which the world cannot afford. Had he chosen to make a name for himself in the world, he had every opportunity of learning and influence. The Emperor Julian, with whom he had studied at Athens, invited him to his court, but he refused and wrote with Christian sincerity to the Emperor, choosing rather to remain a despised Christian than to receive honor from an ungodly king.
Yet how easily the very best motives may be marred by false notions and human ideas. His desire to live apart from the world led him, with a number of companions, to choose a monastic life and to spend their time in prayers, psalm singing and religious devotions. With his friend, Gregory Nazianzen, he drew up rules of monastic discipline, which were copied as models in after ages. He was one of the pioneers of monasticism. In afterlife he suffered as a result of his earlier austerities. He founded other monasteries, erected hospitals and was much admired for his charity. Later he became Bishop of Caesarea and seems to have effected a reformation in the local church. He contended much against the Arians and suffered great opposition from his enemies with unwearied patience. Having cared for the Christian community in Caesarea for some eight years, the people loved him dearly and flocked around his house in his last days. His last words as he departed were, “Into Thy hands I commend my spirit.” This was in 379. His doctrine was mixed with superstition and self-righteousness, but his life proclaimed a man whose hopes were set on another world.
Martin, Bishop of Tours
The glimpses which history gives of this man’s life are largely obscured by extravagant legends common to that age of superstition. He was pious from boyhood and at twelve desired to become a monk, but as a youth he was compelled to do military service. Even as a soldier his piety seems to have shone out in a blameless life, and in his liberality to the poor he is said to have kept for himself only what he needed for his daily food. After two years he left the army and some time later fell into the hands of robbers. His calm and fearless demeanor impressed one of the band to whom he was delivered to be robbed. To this man Martin preached the gospel. The man believed and led him back to the highway, begging Martin to pray for him. For a time he entered a monastery, later becoming Bishop of Tours.
His integrity was shown in his conduct toward the Emperor Maximus, who had, at the instigation of certain of the bishops, authorized the execution of Priscillian and others, who were alleged to be heretics. Martin entreated him not to shed their blood. At first his plea was successful, but others gaining the Emperor’s ear, the men were executed. The Emperor had great respect for Martin and courted his friendship, but Martin felt he could not countenance one who was in his eyes a murderer. He saw clearly that such persecution even of heretics is unchristian. The Church was then in a very low and worldly state, guided mostly by ambitious hirelings who cared nothing for the sheep of Christ. Martin departed this life in the year 400.
Priscillian
Priscillian was a Spanish nobleman who, on his conversion, gave up his wealth and devoted himself to Christian service. Little is known about him, and that mostly through his enemies. He became leader of a movement which might be compared with the Puritanism of a later age. It became very numerous in Spain but was bitterly opposed by the official Church. The hatred it aroused leads one to suppose that it was a vital movement, for real heretics have usually escaped persecution. The followers of Priscillian were charged with gnosticism and other errors just as the Albigenses and Waldenses of the Middle Ages were vilified with similar false aspersions. In a day when communication was largely by word of mouth, such calumnies spread readily but were hard to refute. The case of Priscillian and his chief followers came before the Emperor Maximus with the result already described.
These were the first Christians to die under the auspices of the Church, for the case against Priscillian was engineered by the bishops. The charges were a tissue of falsehoods, his accusers taking advantage of the Emperor’s utter ignorance of Christianity. Priscillian and four of his companions were beheaded at Treves in 385. There can be no doubt that Priscillian was a true follower of Christ according to his light. Fifteen years after his death Priscillian’s case was reviewed at the Council of Toledo, and every charge against him disproved except one statement. He had said as to Christ, “The Word became flesh. Being invisible, He became visible; being unbegotten, He became born; being incomprehensible, He allowed Himself to be understood.”
This statement was apparently deemed unsound by the Council of Toledo.
But a fuller justification was to follow many centuries later. The writings of Priscillian had been completely lost, until in 1886 eleven tracts of his were discovered in a library in Europe. They were found to contain nothing heretical. Indeed, quotations from Scripture constitute a very large proportion of their contents. He sometimes quotes apocryphal writings in which he believed elements of truth were to be found, but he did not apparently view them as inspired.
Those who see a historical parallel between the worldly Church of the fourth century and the Pergamos Church of Revelation 2:1212And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write; These things saith he which hath the sharp sword with two edges; (Revelation 2:12) will recall the words of the Lord, “Antipas my faithful witness ... who was slain among you, where Satan dwells” (vs. 13 JND).
Ambrose of Milan
Another shining light amid the darkness of the fourth century was Ambrose of Milan. He was born about 340, his father being the Emperor’s lieutenant in France. The family went to Rome on the death of his father and there he studied with great success. He became a very successful lawyer. Meanwhile, he had learned something of Christianity from his sister. He was appointed governor of Milan, which office he discharged with prudence and justice for five years.
A tumult arose over the nomination of a new bishop, as the rivalry between the Arians and the orthodox was very bitter. Ambrose himself went to the church and tried to calm the people. The result was surprising. A cry was heard, “Ambrose is bishop.” This was taken up by the crowd, and he was elected by universal consent. He strenuously declined the office but finally yielded to the universal pressure. Having done so, he gave his fortune to the Church and the poor and devoted himself to the ministry. He applied himself diligently to the study of Scripture. He was at this time thirty-six years of age. He labored much and preached every Lord’s Day. One great result of his efforts was that Arianism was largely expelled from Italy.
There was at Rome a presbyter named Simplician, a man of learning and piety whose help Ambrose obtained. This man was content to serve under Ambrose, although he was his spiritual instructor. Simplician was later used to help Augustine. When quite an old man, he succeeded Ambrose as Bishop of Milan.
Undoubtedly these two men served God in their generation. We must ever bear in mind that we are dealing with a dark and superstitious age, and even the most eminent of the Lord’s servants was colored by the characteristics of the times in which they lived. The history of the Church shows that God does not disdain to use men and bless their services because in some things they come short. On the other hand, there are certain vital and fundamental truths without which there can be no blessing.
Ambrose excluded the Emperor Theodosius from communion for eight months for his having permitted a massacre of the people of Thessalonica. The Emperor accepted the discipline in a repentant spirit. Such things, while they reflect favorably on the integrity of Ambrose, tended to exalt the episcopal office in a way which less worthy men were afterwards ready to imitate. Ambrose died in 397, when about fifty-seven years of age, his life being shortened, perhaps, by his constant and arduous labors.
John Chrysostom
John Chrysostom was a native of Antioch, born about the year 347. His parents were persons of some rank. His father died while he was young, but his mother brought him up in the truth of Christianity. He studied oratory, for which he had a natural aptitude. (His surname means “golden mouth.”) After practicing for some time in the Forum, the Spirit of God led him to the study of Scriptures in which he appears to have made much progress, paying attention to its plain sense rather than following the fanciful interpretations of Origen which characterized the theology of his day. Like many other earnest men, he spent a number of years in asceticism. Later he became a presbyter in his native city of Antioch.
Antioch, where believers were first called Christians, had always been a stronghold of Christianity, but worldliness was then rife and the state of the Church was very low. Sedition broke out in the city in 379, and the people dragged the statues of the Emperor and his family through the streets. Many were arrested and tried and seemed likely to pay dearly for their folly. The Emperor’s anger was placated by Flavian, the bishop, who prevailed upon him to show mercy on Christian grounds. His plea prevailed and the city was forgiven — a striking instance of the effect of Christianity on the conscience of an emperor.
At the age of forty Chrysostom was appointed bishop of the imperial city of Constantinople. He found the Church in a bad condition and the clergy themselves very corrupt. He immediately proceeded to effect a reformation. The custom of the bishops had been to live like lords, entertaining lavishly. This expense he curtailed and the proceeds were given to relieve the poor. A large hospital was built for the infirm. Some of the ministers were suspended, the widows, maintained at the Church’s expense, were admonished to abandon their immoral manner of life or else to marry, and the people were urged to attend divine worship in the evening. There was a noticeable reformation in the life of the capital. Many came to hear him. He preached three times a week and sometimes every day. The crowd of hearers became so great that he had to place himself in the middle of the church in order to be heard. His influence extended to the neighboring provinces, and through his zeal many unworthy men were deposed from their offices. He strove to spread the truth among the Arian Goths and endeavored to evangelize some of the heathen nations.
Chrysostom, by preaching the gospel and stirring up men’s consciences, was carrying the attack into the enemy’s land. This was not unheeded. Satan stirred up enemies, and lying charges were brought against him. The Empress, of whose behavior he had apparently spoken severely, was opposed to him, and he was banished by imperial orders. No sooner was he gone than the whole city was in uproar, and in order to pacify the people, he was recalled. His zeal, however, again overcame his prudence, and once more he incurred the Emperor’s displeasure. He was again exiled, and his friends were severely persecuted. In his exile he was driven from place to place and harassed in many ways, yet in spite of all he appears to have done good. His enemies, incensed by the respect he everywhere received, pursued him even in his banishment, and while he was being dragged to a spot on the shore of the Black Sea, he died of exhaustion in the fifty-third year of his age. His followers remained separate from the Church for thirty years. In 438 his body was brought back to Constantinople in great solemnity, public honor was done to his memory, and his followers were reconciled to the Church.
Augustine
Augustine’s father was a pagan, though later he was converted through the example and influence of his wife, a woman of great faith and exemplary piety. Augustine’s early life, his unbelief, his wantonness, and the way God finally led him to salvation through faith are movingly told by himself in his Confessions. For thirty long years and with bitter tears, his devoted mother prayed for her wayward son. He was successful in his studies and took up the teaching of rhetoric, first in his own town, then in Carthage, later at Rome, and finally in Milan.
He tried to find happiness in pleasure and yet longed for something higher. He was led into the strange cult of Manichaeism, a mixture of philosophy and religious superstition, and remained for some years with a “mind darkened by error and a heart led astray by passion.” The teachings of Plato seem to have been used to undermine his faith in the folly of Manichaeism. At Milan he heard Ambrose preach. Augustine now began to move towards the truth. His mother joined him at Milan, and she and others influenced him for good. A great struggle was still going on in his soul. Clearly the Spirit of God was working. Let the crisis he finally reached be told in his own words:
“I prostrated myself under a fig tree with tears bursting forth. I spoke to this effect: ‘How long, Lord, wilt Thou be angry? Forever? Remember not my old iniquities,’ for I perceived myself entangled by them. ‘How long shall I say tomorrow? Why should not this hour put an end to my slavery?’ Thus I spoke and wept in the bitterness of my soul, and I heard a voice as from a neighboring house repeating frequently, ‘Take up and read; take up and read.’ I paused and began to think whether I had ever heard boys use such an expression in any play, and I could recollect nothing like it. I then concluded I was ordered from heaven to take up the book and read the first sentence I cast mine eyes upon. I returned hastily to the place where Alypius was sitting, for there I had placed the book of St. Paul’s epistles. I seized it, opened it and read what first struck my eyes. ‘Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying: but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof’ (Rom. 13:13-1413Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. 14But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof. (Romans 13:13‑14)), nor did I choose to read anything more, nor had I occasion. Immediately at the end of this sentence all my doubts vanished. I closed the book and gave it with a tranquil countenance to Alypius. ... He joined me in going to my mother, who now triumphed in the abundant answer to her petitions. Thus God turned her mourning into joy.”
Not long after this, Augustine’s saintly mother, at the close of a conversation with her son on heavenly things, said to him, “Son, I have now no delight in life. What I should do here and why I am here I know not, the hope of this life being quite spent. One thing only, your conversion, was an object for which I wished to live. Now God has given me this in larger measure.” About two weeks afterwards she fell asleep in Jesus at the age of fifty-six.
The change in Augustine was complete. The preparation had been long, and God, who sees the end from the beginning, knew the vessel he was preparing. The long and painful conflict was not wasted. Several years after his conversion, Augustine, who had returned to Africa, became a presbyter. His life and his preaching quickly made an impression, and his influence spread. Later he became Bishop of Hippo and served God with single-eyed devotion. His preaching was effective; his pen, which was always busy, was a powerful weapon for the truth. He attacked the folly of the Manichees, of which he had had personal experience in his unconverted days. The schism of the Donatists, some of whom were violent and turbulent men, is said to have gradually withered away through his teaching.
About this time Pelagius appeared, who denied the corruption of human nature through the fall, and in opposing this Augustine brought into relief the sovereignty of divine grace as taught in the Scriptures.
God used Augustine as the chief instrument in a dark day to effect a distinct revival in godliness and doctrine, and this light continued to shine if but dimly through the still darker centuries which followed. Among his voluminous writings are his Confessions, in which he gives an account of his life and conversion, a moving story of his soul’s experience in the bondage of sin and his emancipation by divine grace. His other outstanding work is the City of God, in which he draws a vivid contrast between the city of this world and that which God is building. It is a long and discursive work in which the active mind and pen of Augustine cover a very wide field.
As Bishop of Hippo in northern Africa, Augustine served faithfully and effectively. His writings are well-known. It must be acknowledged that he was not entirely free from some of the errors of his time. Those who, by divine grace, enjoy a much fuller light must bear in mind the character of the days in which he lived. He had great concern for the poor, lived quite apart from the world, and gave himself wholly to divine things.
For some years past the barbarian tribes had been attacking the Roman Empire. Just before Augustine’s death, the Vandals overran northern Africa. During the siege of Hippo in 430 A.D., he died, having lived seventy-six years, of which forty were passed in the service of God.
Jerome (346-420)
Jerome was a striking contrast to Augustine in many ways. If the latter was a shepherd and teacher, the former was a recluse and a scholar. Born in 346 A.D. of a Christian family, he was educated at Rome and subsequently traveled in furtherance of his education. He lived for a time in the desert near Antioch where he learned Hebrew. After becoming presbyter at Antioch, he went to Constantinople and returned to Rome. Leaving it in 385, he settled in Bethlehem, establishing a convent there. He was a prolific writer and a bitter controversialist. Heretics and friends felt the lash of his pen. His encouragement of celibacy and seclusion peopled the deserts with monks and hermits. He translated the whole Bible into Latin but his translation was at first widely opposed as an innovation. Well-known as the Vulgate, this translation became later the Bible of Christendom and is still the recognized Bible of the Roman Catholic Church.
Had Jerome imbibed more of the spirit of Christianity, his talents might have been more useful to his day and generation.
Jovinian and Vigilantius
Both these men were contemporaries of Jerome, and both dared to raise their voices in protest against useless austerities, monkish seclusion and the prohibition of marriage. Both seem to have been men who were nearer to the truth of Christianity than the majority of their fellow-Christians at that time. Jerome inveighed against both. Jovinian was accused of convening sacrilegious meetings outside the walls of the city of Rome, which may suggest they were gatherings of believers endeavoring to return to the simplicity of true Christian worship. By the orders of the reigning emperor, he was banished to a desolate island near the coast of Illyria, there to finish his days in solitude.
Vigilantius, a native of Gaul and a well-instructed Christian, declaimed against the worship of the tombs of the martyrs and other idolatrous practices, only too rife and supported, alas, by men who ought to have known better. The teachings of Vigilantius also were assailed so violently by the pen of Jerome that they made no headway. Thus was the Spirit quenched and the Church became every year more worldly and more corrupt.
Nestorius
The stigma of heresy rests (unjustly we believe) on Nestorius. He became Bishop of Constantinople in 428, but he was deposed in 431 and banished in 435. Christians had for long exercised their intellects on matters which are inscrutable, and about this time there was a dispute as to how the human and the divine natures were united in Christ. But what brought Nestorius into difficulty was that he objected to the expression “Mother of God” which was being applied to Mary. He was accused, therefore, of dividing Christ into two persons, the Son of God and the Son of Mary. This he strenuously denied. It has been said by those familiar with his writings that he was nearer to the Scriptures than the orthodoxy of his day. The subject, however, was one which lent itself to involved, bitter and fruitless controversy. The Council of Ephesus which condemned him was corrupt, and Bishop Cyril, his enemy, was animated by jealousy. However, the Emperor banished him to an oasis in the desert where he remained till he died 16 years later. His followers formed a separate communion and spread far and wide. They took the gospel to China and a remarkable monument erected by them in the sixth century was still standing in recent times. Nestorius suffered much in exile. Two brief and touching extracts from his later writings give an insight into his feelings while in exile.
“Earthly things have but little interest for me. I have died to the world and live for Him to whom my life belongs.”
“I have borne the sufferings of my life as the sufferings of a single day, and I have not changed all these years. And now I am already on the point to depart and daily pray to God to dismiss me — me whose eyes have seen His salvation. Farewell desert, my friend, my upbringer and my place of sojourning, my mother, who after my death shall keep my body until the resurrection comes in the time of God’s pleasure. Amen.”
Ninian
Ninian has been styled “the Apostle of the Picts.” He was sent as bishop to the Picts living in the southwest of Scotland toward the end of the fourth century. Bede speaks of him as a reverend bishop and most saintly man. He was of British birth and had been trained in Rome. Doubtless there were already a few Christians in the area, but as a result of Ninian’s activity the Picts in those parts abandoned idolatry and accepted Christianity.
Patrick
Patrick, known as the patron saint of Ireland, belongs to the fifth century. He originated from a Christian family living somewhere on the west coast of Britain. The district was raided by a band of Irish marauders and young Patrick, a youth in his teens, was, with a number of others, taken and sold as a slave. In captivity he turned to God, as he said himself, “with all his heart.” He became a man of prayer, and in answer to his prayers a way of escape opened up. He got on a boat sailing to Europe. After spending some years in a monastery, he returned home, but he appears to have felt a distinct call to go to Ireland as an evangelist. By way of preparation he went again to France and studied the Christian faith at Auxerre. He was forty years old when his opportunity came to go to Ireland as the successor of Palladius, who had been previously made bishop of the Irish. Wherever he went, he tried to win over the local chief. His labors were very successful. In a book which he entitled his Confession, he disavows any merit of his own and freely attributes what success he had to God’s working through him. His teaching was doubtless colored by the features that marked the Church generally in that day, but the light shone for many a day more brightly in Ireland than in many other parts, and a number of missionaries went from there to spread the gospel in less enlightened lands. Patrick died in 473, being about ninety years of age.
Leo the Great
Leo became Bishop of Rome in 440 A.D. At that time the Roman Empire was in a state of dissolution. He was a man of marked ability, and he did much to enhance the prestige of the Roman See and lay the foundation of the authority that it was later to exert over the world. He devoted much energy to attacking heresy and suppressing heretics. He also introduced private confession, another feature which was afterwards to contribute to Rome’s power over men’s consciences. This has indeed been called the cornerstone of the Roman Church.
In 452 he persuaded Atilla, the Hun, to refrain from invading Italy, while two years later, when Genseric, King of the Vandals, found Rome without an emperor and without defense, it was Leo who went out to meet him and persuaded him to be content with his plunder and abstain from destruction of the city. In his day, at the Council of Chalcedon, Rome was given precedence of rank over the other patriarchates.