Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 4.djvu/346

CONSTANTINE availed as little as those against emasculation and pandering. St. Ambrose vividly depicts the sad spectacle of children being sold by their fathers, under pressure of creditors, or by the creditors themselves. All the many forms of institutions for feedmg and supporting children and the poor were of little avail. Constantine himself established asylums for foundlings; yet he recognized the right of parents to sell their children, and only excepted older children. He ruled that children who had been sold could be bought back, in contradistinction to children who had been ex- posed; but this ruling was of no avail if the children were taken into a foreign country. Valentinian, there- fore, prohibited the traffic in hiunan beings with foreign lands. The laws forbitlding such practices continually multiplied, but the greater part of the burden of saving the children fell on the Church.

Constantine was the first to prohibit the abduction of girls. The abductor and those who aided him by influencing the girl were threatened with severe punishment. In harmony with the views of the Church, Constantine rendered divorce more difficult; he made no changes where the divorce was agreed to by both parties, but imposed severe conditions when the demand for separation came from one side only. A man could put away his wife for adultery, poisoning, and pandering, and retain her dowry; but if he discarded her for any other cause, he was to return the dowry and was forbidden to marry again. If, nevertheless, he remarried, the discarded wife had the right to enter his house and take everything which the new wife had brought him. Constantine increased the severity of the earlier law forbidding the concubinage of a free woman with a slave, and the Church did not regard this measure with disfavour. On the other hand, his retention of the distinctions of rank in the marriage law was clearly contrary to the views of the Church. The Church rejected all class distinctions in marriage, and regarded informal marriages (the so-called concubinatus) as true marriages, in so far as they were lasting and monogamous. Constantine, however, increased the difficulties of the concubinatus and forbade senators and the higher officials in the State and in the pagan priesthoods to contract such unions with women of lower rank (feminæ humiles), thus making it impossible for them to marry women belonging to the lower classes, although his own mother was of inferior rank. But in other respects the emperor showed his mother, Helena, the greatest deference. Other concubinatus besides those mentioned were placed at a disadvantage in regard to property, and the rights of inheritance of the children and the concubines were restricted. Constantine, however, encouraged the emancipation of slaves and enacted that manumission in the church should have the same force as the public manumission before State officials and by will (321). Neither the Christian nor the heathen emperors permitted slaves to seek their freedom without authorization of law; the Christian rulers sought to ameliorate slavery by limiting the power of corporal punishment; the master was allowed only to use a rod or to send a .slave to prison, and the owner was not liable to punishment even if the slave died under these circumstances. But if death resulted from the use of clubs, stones, weapons, or instruments of torture, the person who caused the death was to be treated as a murderer. As will be .seen below, Constantine was himself obliged to observe this law when he sought to get rid of Licinianus. A criminal was no longer to be branded in the face, but only on the feet, as'the human face was fashioned in the likeness of God.

When these laws are compared with the ordinances of those earlier emperors who were of humane disposition, they do not go far beyond the older regulations. In everything not referring to religion Constantine followed in the footsteps of Diocletian. In spite of all unfortunate experiences, he adhered to the artificial division of the empire, tried for a long time to avoid a breach with Licinius, and divided the empire among his sons. On the other hand, the unperial power was increased by receiving a religious consecration. The Church tolerated the cult of the emperor under many forms. It was permitted to speak of the divinity of the emperor, of the sacred palace, the sacred chamber, and of the altar of the emperor, without being con- sidered on this account an idolater. From this point of view Constantine's religious change was relatively trifling; it consisted of little more than the renunciation of a formality. For what his predecessors had aimed to attain by the use of all their authority, and at the cost of incessant bloodshed, was in truth only the recognition of their own divinity; Constantine gained this end, though he renounced the offering of sacrifices to himself. Some bishops, blinded by the splendour of the court, even went so far as to laud the emperor as an angel of God, as a sacred being, and to prophesy that he would, like the Son of God, reign in heaven. It has consequently been asserted that Constantine favoured Christianity merely from political motives, and he has been regarded as an enlightened despot who made use of religion only to advance his policy. He certainly cannot be acquitted of grasping ambition. A\Tiere the policy of the State required, he could be cruel. Even after his conversion he caused the execution of his brother-in-law Licinius, and of the latter's son, as well as of Crispus his o^mi son by his first marriage, and of his wife Fausta. He quar- relled with his colleague Licinius about their religious policy, and in 323 defeated him in a bloody battle; Licinius surrendered on the promise of personal safety; notwithstanding this, half a year later he was strangled by order of Constantine. During the joint reign Licinianus, the son of Licinius, and Crispus, the son of Constantine, had been the two Caesars. Both were gradually set aside; Crispus was executed on the charge of inunorahty made against him by Constantine's second wife, Fausta. The charge was false and Constantine learned from his mother, Helena, after the deed was done. In punishment Fausta was suffocated in a superheated bath. The young Licinianus was flogged to death. Because Licinianus was not the son of his sister, but of a slave-woman, Constantine treated him as a slave. In this way Constantine evaded his own law regarding the mutilation of slaves. After reading these cruelties it is hard to believe that the same emperor could at times have mild and tender impulses; but human nature is full of contradictions. Constantine was liberal to prodigality, was generous in almsgiving, and adorned the Christian churches magnificently. He paid more attention to literature and art than we might expect from an emperor of this period, although this was partly due to vanity, as is proved by his appreciation of the dedication of literary works to him. It is likely that he practised the fine arts himself, and he frequently preached to those around him. No doubt he was endowed with a strong religious sense, was sincerely pious, and delighted to be represented in an attitude of prayer, with his eyes raised to heaven. In his palace he had a chapel to which he was fontl of retiring, and where he read the Bible and prayed. "Every day", Eusebius tells us, " at a fixed hour he shut himself up in the most secluded part of the palace, as if to assist at the Sacred Mysteries, and there commune with God alone, ardently beseeching Him, on bended knees, for his necessities ". As a cateclunuen he was not permitted to assist at the sacred Eucharist ic mysteries. He remained a catechumen to the end of his life, but not because he lacked conviction nor because, owing to his passionate disposition, he desired to lead a pagan life. He obeyed ;us strictly as possible the precepts of Christianity, observing especially the virtue of chastity, which his parents had impressed upon him; he