PROLEGOMENA TO JEROME.

Valentinian had died in 375, leaving two sons: Gratian, an accomplished youth of eighteen who became Emperor of Gaul and the West, and Valentinian II., then a child who was nominal Emperor of Italy and the central provinces, residing at Milan with his mother, Justina. Gratian distinguished himself by leading several expeditions against the German tribes beyond the Rhine and, upon the death of his uncle Valens, nominated Theodosius as Emperor of the East. However, Gratian later yielded to idleness and frivolous pleasure, and in 383, he was murdered by agents of the usurper Maximus.

Theodosius—son of the elder Theodosius, who had recovered Britain and Africa for the Empire but was later executed at Carthage due to false accusations—was called to the Empire from his retirement in Spain. He proved himself a capable and great ruler. He defeated the Goths in detail and gradually displaced them. He put down the usurper Maximus (383), and after the death of the young Valentinian (392), fought against the usurper Eugenius, becoming sole Emperor in 394, the year before his death. He reformed the laws, enacting the Theodosian Code. Under his reign, Paganism was finally suppressed. He ordered a vote in the Roman Senate to establish Christian worship and suppress Paganism. He destroyed the temples—the destruction of the Serapeum at Alexandria in 389 being the most notable instance—and supported Ambrose in his vehement efforts to suppress Paganism. Though he loyally befriended Empress Justina (who was an Arian) and her son Valentinian II., he did not support their demand for the toleration of Arian worship at Milan, which Ambrose had denied them, and he suppressed Arianism throughout the Empire.

To settle doctrinal disputes raised by Apollinaris, Bishop of Laodicæa in Syria—who held that the Logos in Christ took the place of the human soul—and the disputed succession at Antioch (where the episcopal throne was claimed by the Arian Vitalis, the Trinitarian but Arian-ordained Meletius, and Paulinus, champion of the uncompromising orthodoxy of the West), he summoned the Council of Constantinople in 381. The president of the council was Gregory Nazianzen, who had arrived in Constantinople in 379 and, partly through his eloquence and power, and partly through Theodosius's influence, had risen from ministering to a single church (the Anastasis) to the episcopal throne. The Egyptian bishops opposed him and vainly tried to install the Cynic Maximus in his place. The Council did not settle the dispute at Antioch, but it upheld the Nicene Creed and added the articles following “I believe in the Holy Ghost.” The Council held in Rome the following year (382), which Jerome attended with Epiphanius, Bishop of Cyprus, and Paulinus of Antioch (p. 255), contradicted the Council of Constantinople regarding the succession at Antioch but agreed with it on the creed. Shortly after the Council, Gregory Nazianzen resigned the Bishopric of Constantinople, and Damasus, Bishop of Rome, died in 384.

Theodosius was, like Henry II of England, prone to violent fits of passion. When the people of Antioch rose in insurrection in 387 and destroyed the Emperor’s busts, he ordered the city to be razed and reduced to a village; he was deterred only by the entreaties of the city's governor and its bishop, John Chrysostom. When a similar rising occurred at Thessalonica in 390, he was not so easily appeased; he ordered that the people, when summoned to the theater, be massacred by his soldiers. Seven thousand men, women, and children were killed. Ambrose, upon Theodosius’ arrival in Milan, refused to admit him to church communion until he had undergone five months of penance and shown repentance for his crime.

Upon the death of young Valentinian in 391, the rhetorician Eugenius usurped the throne of the West. Justina fled to Theodosius’ court; after long preparations, he marched against Eugenius and defeated him at Aquileia in 394. Theodosius, however, did not long survive his rival; after this final success, he gave himself to ease and self-indulgence and died in 395.

The Empire was divided between the sons of Theodosius. Arcadius, who became Emperor of the East, was eighteen; Honorius was fourteen. Both were weak characters, ill-suited to handle the growing dangers facing the Empire. Arcadius married Eudoxia, a woman of a worldly and violent disposition. Honorius married the daughter of Stilicho, the great semi-barbarian general who was his cousin (having married Serena, daughter of Honorius, brother to the great Theodosius). Arcadius’ minister, Rufinus, became so unbearable in his greed (see Jerome’s allusion to him, p. 447) that a riot was raised against him and he was killed (395). Honorius moved his court to Ravenna, where he was more secure from invasion among the pine forests; so long as he was under Stilicho’s guidance, he was able to live in security.