1887.] Archd. Farrar on Society in the Fourth Century after Christ. 75 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, March 11, 1887. 



Henry Pollock, Esq., Treasurer and Vice-President, in the Chair. 



The Ven. Archdeacon Farrar, M.A. D.D. F.R.S. 



Society in the Fourth Century after Christ. 



After a brief sketch of the fourth century in its varied and strik- 

 ing elements of life, and the great leaders of religious thought whom 

 it produced, the lecturer proceeded to mention some of its broad 

 general characteristics. 



1. It was an age of great calamities, in which men suffered from 

 war, pestilence, famine, and the incursions of barbarians. The sack 

 of Rome affected the civilised world like the shock of an earthquake. 

 The news of it fell with stunning force on the mind of St. Jerome, 

 in his cave at Bethlehem, and if St. Augustine was less deeply 

 moved by it, and felt chiefly concerned to prove that the catastrophe 

 was not the consequence of Christianity, the reason was that he was 

 chiefly interested in the City of God, while the City of Evil was 

 left to its predestined ruin. 



2. The highest no less than the lowest orders of society were 

 affected by these calamities. The age was full of " strange stories 

 of the deaths of kings." There was scarcely a single Emperor or 

 usurper of the century who did not perish by murder, suicide, or 

 execution, and the presentiment of Julian was justified, who, on 

 first putting on the Imperial purple, exclaimed, 



rhv 5e /far' oace 

 €AA.a)3e iroptpvpios Odvaros Koi /xoTpa KpaTnir). 



Or, as Chapman renders it, 



" Death with his purple finger shut, and violent fate his eyes." 



3. Yet the Emperors were surrounded with that elaborate pomp 

 and circumstance which we call Byzantinism. Constantino's cruelty, 

 and his passion for jewels, suggested the stinging epigram, 



" Saturni aurea ssecla quis requirat ? 

 Sunt hsec gemmea, sed Neroniana ! " 



The court was filled with pompous ceremonies and slavish officialism. 

 The title " Your Eternity " was just beginning to come into fashion, 

 when it was scoffed out of court by St. Athanasius. By way of 

 illustration, a description was given of one of the splendid summer 

 processes of the Emperor Arcadius. Yet the Emperors were often 

 slaves to their own eunuchs. 



4. This age of calamity was also an age of boundless luxury, of 



