ence of the stronger tie of a common interest between
themselves and the mass of those whom they governed.
The limits of Roman citizenship, valuable at this period
only from the personal rights which it conferred, were
rapidly extended till, they included every free man born
on the soil of the empire. The highest position of all
was thrown open to every race. Gauls, Spaniards,
Africans, and Syrians, wielded as emperors the sway
which had been exercised by Julius and Augustus. For
the first time the idea of scientific law rose on mankind.
Rulers more powerful than the old Persian Kings were
not content to leave each petty community subject to
them to settle its own affairs in its own way, provided
only that it did not fall into arrears in the payment of its
tribute. They conceived the idea of duty from the
rulers to the ruled, of a necessity under which they were
to disseminate the benefits of which they were them-
selves partakers, and to hold out the hand to raise up the
less prosperous or less cultivated of their subjects to the
level which they had reached. In the effort, the legisla
tor of the empire cut himself adrift from the old notion
of law as the custom of a particular community.
Brought face to face with rules of living as various as the
soil on which they had sprung up, he learned to estimate
them all at their true value. He ceased to ask what was
law at Rome, at Athens, or at Lyons. He searched deep
into the needs and duties of men as the members of the
great human family. His task was rendered possible
by the growth of the sentiment of humanity, which had
found no root in the early days of the empire, when Rome
was still the conquering city, only distinguished from other
cities of the past by the mingled firmness and mildness
of her sway.

Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento,
Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos.

CHAP.

I.

СНАР.
I.

Four centuries later, Rome had become an abstract conception personifying the ideas of thoughtful and § 12. Ab- beneficent government. Imperceptibly, as another poet, himself of Gaulish origin, then sang, the city had melted into the world.

stract Con

ception of Rome.

$ 13. The Individual sacrificed

to the Society.

Exaudi, regina tui pulcherrima mundi,

Inter sidereos Roma recepta polos;

Exaudi, genetix hominum genetrixque deorum
Non procul a caelo per tua templa sumus.

Fecisti patriam diversis gentibus unam;
Profuit invitis, te dominante, capi;
Dumque offers victis patrii consortia juris,
Urbem fecisti quod prius orbis erat.

No great result is achieved without considerable cost. The action of the government of the empire had bound men more closely together than they had ever been bound before. It had taught them to consider themselves as members of a great society, which claimed their loyalty because it studied their real interests. But it had done nothing to employ them as co-operators in the work. The individual energies of each particular citizen had been weakened in the process of amalgamation. They were left to concentrate themselves on selfish and material, or, at the best, on purely local objects. The bloody spectacles of the gladiatorial combats and the enervating representations of a profligate drama were the staple amusements of the multitude. The Gaulish tribesman, the Roman burgher of olden days, had known that his own temperance, and valour, and prudence, would count for something in advancing the fortunes of the community to which he belonged. The Gaulish or Italian subject of the empire was but a drop in the ocean. Government was regarded by him as something external to himself, something which he was powerless to influence, even in the most infinitesimal degree. The em

pire, therefore, had at its service skilled legislators and rulers, taking in hand the management of an acquiescent population. What it lacked was the spontaneity of individual public spirit diffused over the whole body, and the moral earnestness of individual aspiration after a higher and better life.

Though the empire did not care to encourage by its institutions either individual vitality or the development of popular control, another society arose in its midst which occupied the ground which the empire had left untouched. The gospel of the Christian missionaries went straight to the heart of the individual convert. Christ, it told him, had died for his personal salvation, that he might be snatched from sin and the consequences of sin. It invited him not merely to obey laws imposed by some distant authority, but to be pure and righteous and merciful as the spotless model which was ever set before his eyes. Upon this foundation it built up an edifice of universal benevolence. Do what it would, the empire could not abolish slavery or serfdom, could not set aside the distinction between citizens within its limits. and the hostile populations without. In Christ Jesus there was neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free. The Christian theory started from the very opposite pole of thought from that from which the empire had started, though it is true that its desire to provide for the life to come rather than for the life of this world, prevented the Church from drawing forth all the practical consequences which were involved in its most cherished ideas.

СНАР.

I.

$14. The

Christian

Church.

of the

The organisation of the Church proceeded in the same § 15. Ordirection as its creed. The bishops who with the rest of ganisation the clergy were the instruments of collective acts of Church. charity, and who, as a moral and intellectual aristocracy, maintained the standard of doctrine to deviate from

CHAP.

I.

§ 16. The Empire and the Church.

which was heresy, had gained their position by the direct
or indirect choice of the churches over which they pre-
sided. The constitution of each church in the third cen-
tury was, in spirit at least, not unlike the constitution of
the Roman state six centuries earlier. The magistrates and
councillors sprang from the popular choice, and derived
all their authority from popular support. But they were
bound by their positions to respect the traditions of
their order, to instruct, and guide, rather than to listen
and to follow. It was no wonder therefore that not the
worst but the best emperors struggled hard against an
organisation so strong in every point in which their own
organisation was weak, and that they only at last gave
way when resistance was no longer possible. Con-
stantine, indeed, as is probable, had little idea that in
assembling at Nicæa a general council of the bishops,
he was increasing the strength of a society which
was stronger than that over which he ruled.
In fact,
he had given his consent to the erection of a real repre-
sentative assembly. The force which had been scattered
over countless congregations was at last brought into a
focus.

For a long time the empire and the church pursued their several paths side by side. Different as their organisations were, they were saved from collision by the difference of their aims. After some vain attempts, the emperors, at least in the west, refrained from promulgating creeds. The clergy had no wish to take part in the direction of armies. Nor were the materials of a conflict to be found in the domain of justice, afterwards so fruitful of quarrels between the lay and the ecclesiastical authorities. If the emperors sometimes interfered with the occupant of the important See of Rome, they showed no disposition to hamper the general relations between the clergy and their flocks, and the clergy were

too good Romans themselves to find fault with the working of the Roman law in other matters.

It was one thing to offer no positive opposition to the empire; it was another thing to support it actively in its day of trial. The empire at last suffered the fate of all institutions which do not root themselves in the active support of those for whose benefit they arise. As the danger from its Teutonic assailants grew more formidable, the pressure of taxation grew heavier till it was almost unendurable. The material wants of the people were not provided for. Its distresses were not alleviated. A population without enthusiasm could not be called upon to furnish men for the military defence of its rulers. The evil counsel prevailed of entrusting the defence of the frontier to Germans, trained and disciplined to the habits of Roman warfare. At last the time came when those who had been admitted as servants claimed to be masters, and their brethren from the forests of Germany poured in at the gaps left undefended. In Western Europe the empire melted away before so dire a succession of calamities.

CHAP.
I.

$17. Fall pire in the

of the Em

West.

Church and the

con

querors.

The church rapidly transferred its allegiance to the $18. The numerous Teutonic kings who sprung up on what had once been Roman soil. It was too universal in its Teutonic sympathies, and too independent in its action to be fettered by devotion to the frame-work of any existing government. The clergy, however, soon found that a new position had been created for them. If they had been less Roman than the emperors, they were more Roman than the new rulers. A political position, and that too an antagonistic position, was forced upon the bishops. They were the depositaries of a tradition of equal law and universal justice in the face of conquerors who understood none of these things. Occupying sees