Christian versions of history 423 



is no suggestion that similar brutality to an ordinary rustic would have 

 met with any punishment human or divine. Laws framed for the pro- 

 tection of provincials 1 against illegal exactions and to prevent encroach- 

 ments of the military 2 remained on the statute-book, but in remote 

 country parts they were dead letters. It is interesting to recall that 

 Martin had in his youth served for some years as a soldier. As the 

 son of a veteran, his enrolment 3 came in the ordinary course. But, 

 though he is said to have been efficient, he did not like the profession 

 and got his discharge with relief. His life covered about the last three 

 quarters of the fourth century. 



LIX. SALVIAN. 



The calamities that befel the Roman world in the fourth century 

 led to much recrimination between Pagan and Christian, each blaming 

 the other for misfortunes generally regarded as the signal expression 

 of divine wrath. Symmachus had been answered by Ambrose, and 

 Christian interpretation of the course of human history produced its 

 classic in Augustine's great work de civitate Dei early in the fifth century. 

 About the same time Orosius wrote his earnest but grotesque historiae 

 adversus paganos, an arbitrary and superficial distortion of history, 

 interesting as a specimen of partisan composition. But it is not till 

 the middle of the century that we come upon a Christian author who 

 gives us a graphic picture of the sufferings of the people in a Province 

 of the empire, and a working theory of their causes, strictly from 

 a pious Christian's point of view. This is Salvian, an elder of the 

 Church at Massalia. His evidence is cited by all historians, and must 

 be repeated here. The main thesis is that all the woes and calamities 

 of the age are judgments of God provoked by the gross immorality 4 

 of the Roman world. So far from imputing all vices and crimes to the 

 Heathen and the Pagan, he regards them as shared by all men : but 

 he draws a sharp line between those who sin in ignorance, knowing 

 no better, and those who profess the principles of a pure Christianity 

 and yet sin against the light that is in them. For the barbarians are 

 either Heathen or Heretics (he is thinking of the Arians), while in the 

 empire the Orthodox church prevails. And yet the barbarians prosper, 

 while the empire decays. Why? simply because even in their religious 

 darkness the barbarians are morally superior to the Romans. For our 

 present purpose it is the economic and social phenomena as depicted 

 by Salvian that are of interest, and I proceed to give an abstract of the 



1 For instance cod Th vn i 12, vm 5, xi 10, u. 2 Cod Th vn 20 7. 



3 Sulp Sev vita S Martini 2 5, and cf cod Th vn 22, also i 8. See the note of Seeck 

 II 490. 



4 This view has been challenged by Dill, pp u8~9. But cf Sidonius epist v 19, IX 6. 



