Pagan and Christian Rome | Page 9

also we find the intention of avoiding
an open profession of faith. A regular cemetery of Christian prætorians
was found in the spring of the same year by Marchese Francesco Patrizi,
in his villa adjoining the prætorian camp. It is neither large nor
interesting, and it seems to prove that the gospel must have made but
few proselytes in the imperial barracks.
* * * * *
We must not believe that the transformation of Rome from a pagan into

a Christian city was a sudden and unexpected event, which took the
world by surprise. It was the natural result of the work of three
centuries, brought to maturity under Constantine by an inevitable
reaction against the violence of Diocletian's rule. It was not a revolution
or a conversion in the true sense of these words; it was the official
recognition of a state of things which had long ceased to be a secret.
The moral superiority of the new doctrines over the old religions was
so evident, so overpowering, that the result of the struggle had been a
foregone conclusion since the age of the first apologists. The revolution
was an exceedingly mild one, the transformation almost imperceptible.
No violence was resorted to, and the tolerance and mutual benevolence
so characteristic of the Italian race was adopted as the fundamental
policy of State and Church.
The transformation may be followed stage by stage in both its moral
and material aspect. There is not a ruin of ancient Rome that does not
bear evidence of the great change. Many institutions and customs still
flourishing in our days are of classical origin, and were adopted, or
tolerated, because they were not in opposition to Christian principles.
Beginning with the material side of the question, the first monument to
which I have to refer is the Arch of Constantine, raised in 315 at the
foot of the Palatine, where the Via Triumphalis diverges from the Sacra
Via.
The importance of this arch, from the point of view of the question
treated in this chapter, rests not on its sculptured panels and
medallions,--spoils taken at random from older structures, from which
the arch has received the nickname of Æsop's crow (la cornacchia di
Esopo),--but on the inscription engraved on each side of the attic. "The
S. P. Q. R. have dedicated this triumphal arch to Constantine, because
instinctu divinitatis (by the will of God), and by his own virtue, etc., he
has liberated the country from the tyrant [Maxentius] and his faction."
The opinion long prevailed among archæologists that the words
instinctu divinitatis were not original, but added after Constantine's
conversion. Cardinal Mai thought that the original formula was diis
faventibus, "by the help of the gods," while Henzen suggested nutu
Iovis optimi maximi, "by the will of Jupiter." Cavedoni was the first to

declare that the inscription had never been altered, and that the two
memorable words--the first proclaiming officially the name of the true
God in the face of imperial Rome--belonged to the original text,
sanctioned by the Senate. The controversy was settled in 1863, when
Napoleon III. obtained from the Pope the permission to make a plaster
cast of the arch. With the help of the scaffolding, the scholars of the
time examined the inscription, the shape of each letter, the holes of the
bolts by which the gilt-bronze letters were fastened, the joints of the
marble blocks, the color and quality of the marble, and decided
unanimously that the inscription had never been tampered with, and
that none of its letters had been changed.
[Illustration: ARCH OF CONSTANTINE]
The arch was raised in 315. Was Constantine openly professing his
faith at that time? Opinions are divided. Some think he must have
waited until the defeat of Licinius in 323; others suggest the year 311
as a more probable date of his profession. The supporters of the first
theory quote in its favor the fact that the pagan symbols and images of
gods appear on coins struck by Constantine and his sons; but this fact is
easily explained, when we consider that the coinage of bronze was a
privilege of the Senate, and that the Senate was pagan by a large
majority. Many of Constantine's constitutions and official letters speak
in favor of an early declaration of faith. When the Donatists appealed to
him from the verdict of the councils of Arles and Rome, he wrote to the
bishops: Meum judicium postulant, qui ipse judicium Christi expecto:
"They appeal to me, when I myself must be judged by Christ." The
verdict of the council of Rome against the sectarians was rendered on
October 2, 313, in the "palace of Fausta in the Lateran;" the imperial
palace of the Lateran, therefore, had already been handed over to the
bishop of Rome, and a