stantinople. Spain, however, through the
commanding influence of Hosius, adhered to the doctrines of Athanasius,
while the eloquence of the commanding intellects of the age was put
forth in behalf of Trinitarianism. The great leader of Arianism had
passed away when Augustine dictated to the Christian world from the
little town of Hippo, and Jerome transplanted the monasticism of the
East into the West. At Tours Martin defended the same cause that
Augustine had espoused in Africa; while at Milan, the court capital of
the West, the venerable Ambrose confirmed Italy in the Latin creed. In
Alexandria the fierce Theophilus suppressed Arianism with the same
weapons that he had used in extirpating the worship of Isis and Osiris.
Chrysostom at Antioch was the equally strenuous advocate of the
Athanasian Creed. We are struck with the appearance of these commanding
intellects in the last days of the Empire,--not statesmen and generals,
but ecclesiastics and churchmen, generally agreed in the interpretation
of the faith as declared by Paul, and through whose counsels the emperor
was unquestionably governed. In all matters of religion Theodosius was
simply the instrument of the great prelates of the age,--the only great
men that the age produced.

After Theodosius had thus established the Nicene faith, so far as
imperial authority, in conjunction with that of the great prelates,
could do so, he closed the final contest with Paganism itself. His laws
against Pagan sacrifices were severe. It was death to inspect the
entrails of victims for sacrifice; and all other sacrifices, in the year
392, were made a capital offence. He even demolished the Pagan temples,
as the Scots destroyed the abbeys and convents which were the great
monuments of Mediaeval piety. The revenues of the temples were
confiscated. Among the great works of ancient art which were destroyed,
but might have been left or converted into Christian use, were the
magnificent temple of Edessa and the serapis of Alexandria, uniting the
colossal grandeur of Egyptian with the graceful harmony of Grecian art.
At Rome not only was the property of the temples confiscated, but also
all privileges of the priesthood. The Vestal virgins passed unhonored in
the streets. Whoever permitted any Pagan rite--even the hanging of a
chaplet on a tree--forfeited his estate. The temples of Rome were not
destroyed, as in Syria and Egypt; but as all their revenues were
confiscated, public worship