Part 49 (1/2)
(_a_) Jerome, _Ep._ 123, _ad Ageruchiam_. (MSL, 22:1057.)
The Barbarian Invasions in the opening years of the fifth century.
Jeromes letters are not to be considered a primary source for the barbarian invasion, but they are an admirable source for the way the invasion appeared to a man of culture and some patriotic feeling. With this pa.s.sage should be compared his _Ep._ 60, _ad Heliodorum_, 16, written in 396, in which he expresses his belief that Rome was falling and describes the barbarian invaders.
The following letter was written 409.
16. Innumerable savage tribes have overrun all parts of Gaul. The whole country between the Alps and the Pyrenees, between the Rhine and the ocean, have been laid waste by Quadi, Vandals, Sarmatians, Alans, Gepidi, Herules,(160) Saxons, Bergundians, Allemans and, alas for the common wealeven the hordes of the Pannonians. For a.s.shur is joined with them (Psalm 83:8). The once n.o.ble city of Mainz has been captured and destroyed. In its church many thousands have been ma.s.sacred. The people of Worms have been extirpated after a long siege. The powerful city of Rheims, the Ambiani [a tribe near Amiens], the Altrabt [a tribe near Arras], the Belgians on the outskirts of the world, Tournay, Speyer, and Stra.s.sburg have fallen to Germany. The provinces of Aquitaine and of the Nine Nations, of Lyons and Narbonne, with the exception of a few cities, all have been laid waste. Those whom the sword spares without, famine ravages within. I cannot speak of Toulouse without tears; it has been kept hitherto from falling by the merits of its revered bishop, Exuperius. Even the Spains are about to perish and tremble daily as they recall the invasion of the Cymri; and what others have suffered once they suffer continually in fear.
17. I am silent about other places, that I may not seem to despair of G.o.ds mercy. From the Pontic Sea to the Julian Alps, what was once ours is ours no longer. When for thirty years the barrier of the Danube had been broken there was war in the central provinces of the Roman Empire. Long use dried our tears. For all, except a few old people, had been born either in captivity or during a blockade, and they did not long for a liberty which they had never known. Who will believe it? What histories will seriously discuss it, that Rome has to fight within her borders, not for glory but for bare life; and that she does not fight even, but buys the right to exist by giving gold and sacrificing all her substance? This humiliation has been brought upon her, not by the fault of her emperors, both of them most religious men [Arcadius and Honorius], but by the crime of a half-barbarian traitor,(161)
(_b_) Jerome, _Prefaces to Commentary on Ezekiel_. (MSL, 25, 15:75.)
The fall of Rome.
Jeromes account of the capture of Rome by Alarich is greatly exaggerated (see his _Ep._ 127, _ad Principiam_). By his very exaggeration, however, one gains some impression of the shock the event must have occasioned in the Roman world.
Preface to Book I. Intelligence has suddenly been brought to me of the death of Pammachus and Marcella, the siege of Rome [A. D. 408], and the falling asleep of many of my brethren and sisters. I was so stupefied and dismayed that day and night I could think of nothing but the welfare of all. But when the bright light of all the world was put out,(162) or, rather, when the Roman Empire was decapitated, and, to speak more correctly, the whole world perished in one city, I became dumb and humbled myself, and kept silence from good words, but my grief broke out afresh, my heart was hot within me, and while I was musing the fire was kindled [Psalm 39:3, 4].
Preface to Book III. Who would believe that Rome, built up by the conquest of the whole world, had collapsed; that she had become both the mother of nations and their tomb; that all the sh.o.r.es of the East, of Egypt, of Africa, which had once belonged to the imperial city should be filled with the hosts of her men-servants and maid-servants; that every day holy Bethlehem should be receiving as mendicants men and women who were once n.o.ble and abounding in every kind of wealth?
(_c_) Theodosius II, _Novella I, de Theodosiani Codicis Auctoritate_; Feb.
15, 439.
The Emperors Theodosius and Valentinian, Augusti, to Florentius, Prtorian Prefect of the East.
Our clemency has often been at a loss to understand the cause of the fact that, although so many rewards are held out for the maintenance of arts and studies, so few and rare are they who are fully endowed with a knowledge of the civil law, and that although so many have grown pale from late studies, scarcely one or two have gained a sound and complete learning. When we consider the enormous mult.i.tude of books, the diversity in the forms of process, and the difficulty of legal cases, and, further, the huge ma.s.s of imperial const.i.tutions which, hidden as it were under a veil of gross mist and darkness, precludes mans intellect from gaining a knowledge of them, we have performed a task needful for our age, and, the darkness having been dispelled, we have given light to the laws by a brief compendium. n.o.ble men of approved faithfulness were selected, men of well-known learning, to whom the matter was intrusted. We have published the const.i.tutions of former princes, cleared by interpretation of difficulties so that men may no longer have to wait formidable responses from expert lawyers as from a shrine, since it is quite plain what is the value of a donation, by what action an inheritance is to be sued for, with what words a contract is to be made. Thus having wiped out the cloud of volumes, on which many wasted their lives and explained nothing in the end, we establish a compendious knowledge of the imperial const.i.tutions since the time of the divine Constantine, and permit no one after the first day of next January to use in courts and daily practice of law the imperial law, or to draw up pleadings except from these books which bear our name and are kept in the sacred archives.
To this we add that henceforward no const.i.tution can be pa.s.sed in the West or in any other place by the unconquerable Emperor, the son of our clemency, the everlasting Augustus Valentinian, or possess any legal validity, except the same by a divine pragmatica be communicated to us.
The same rule is to be observed in the acts which are promulgated by us in the East; and those are to be condemned as spurious which are not recorded in the Theodosian Code [certain doc.u.ments excepted which were kept in the registers of bureaux].
80. The Extension of the Church about the Beginning of the Fifth Century
The most important missionary work in the early part of the fifth century was the extension of the work of Ulfilas among the German tribes and the work of the missionaries of the West in Gaul and western Germany. Of the latter the most important was Martin of Tours.
(_a_) Socrates, _Hist. Ec._, II, 41. (MSG, 67:349.)