subject: Theodosius The Emperor - Roman Empire 390 AD [print this page] Theodosius The Emperor - Roman Empire 390 AD
In A D 390 the people of Thessalonica, dissatisfied with their German garrison, rose up, murdered the commander, and killed many other officers. When the Emperor Theodosius the Great heard the news he ordered a terrible vegeance; thousands of the citizens men, women, and children were massacred by the German troops.
Soon afterwards the Emperor went to the great church of Milan to worship. As he was entering, the Bishop, Ambrose, appeared and stopped him. A man who was polluted with the blood of so many people, said Ambrose, might not take Holy Communion even if he were the Emperor. Theodosius must publicly admit his guilt for the massacre, and perform a severe penance. And the Emperor submitted. For several months he was not even allowed to wear the Imperial regalia. And when he was again admitted to the Communion table the new power of the Church had been clearly demonstrated.
Theodosius was a devout Christian, and crushed the last remnants of paganism. This was one of the achievements which earned him the description the Great'.
Theodosius and the Goths
Theodosius's rise to power began in 378 when the Emperor Valens was killed and the Roman army routed by the Goths at Adrianople. Gratian, who was Emperor in the west, appointed Theodosius Augustus of the eastern Empire. Although he did not in name rule over the whole Empire until 393, Theodosius soon became its real ruler.
His first job was to pacify the Goths, a Germanic tribe which had migrated south from the shores of the Baltic Sea to the northern shore of the Black Sea. From there they threatened the Empire throughout the 3rd and 4th centuries. But they were not always at war with Rome; and Gothic prisoners of war served faithfully in the Roman army. In 376 the Goths were forced to beg for Roman help. They asked to be allowed to cross the Danube and settle inside the Empire, in order to escape from another, even fiercer, tribe which had pushed westwards from Asia the Huns. The Goths were given permission to cross the river and settle in Moesia, and in return they agreed to serve in the army.
Within a year or two, however, they were discontented and rose in revolt. It was then that they won their great victory at Adrianople. After this it looked as though the whole of the Empire in the east was open to them, and soon they were at the walls of Constantinople
It was at this critical time that Theodosius became Emperor in the east. He soon succeeded in bringing the Goths under control, but he went further than this. The Goths were too many and too strong to be kept down permanently by a few minor defeats. Theodosius started a new policy of active friendship with them; he made treaties, gave them various privileges, and appointed them to important posts in the army and the administration.
In this way the army became more and more a Gothic, or German, army. This policy was forced on Theodosius, but there was a heavy price to pay for it. Although the Goths were acquiring something of the Roman culture and civilization, and although Christianity was spreading among them, they were still barbarians and were dangerous allies. In the army they learned Roman tactics and discipline some day they would be able to turn this knowledge against the Empire.
Theodosius and the Christians
The Emperor Julian the Apostate (see page 2762) had tried to restore paganism, the worship of the old gods. After his death in 363 there was religious freedom for both Christians and pagans, but Theodosius was determined to destroy paganism, and succeeded. Paganism ceased to exist as an organized religion, although a few pagans still worshipped their gods in secret.
Theodosius also fought Christians whose beliefs were different from his own. In these times the Church was split by serious disagreements over doctrine, which Theodosius tried to stop by establishing by law who was and who was not a member of the Catholic Church. From now on only those who upheld the Nicene Creed were true believers and Catholics. All others, like those who followed the teaching of the Alexandrian priest, Anus, were heretics'. They were forbidden to meet and worship and the true Christians took over all the churches in the Empire.
Theodosius genuinely wanted to restore unity to the Church. In 381 he summoned the second Ecumenical Council, a great assembly of the elders and bishops of the whole Church, who met at Constantinople to decide on the true teaching of the Church and to denounce heresies. But religious disputes did not cease because of Theodosius's policy. Indeed they increased and multiplied after his death. Perhaps his methods were the wrong ones. Theodosius wanted to impose his own views on the Church by virtue of his power and authority as Emperor. But the Church was too vigorous to accept any solution that was imposed on it, and did not grow up naturally within the Church itself.
Theodosius was the last to rule over a united Roman Empire; he controlled two puppet' emperors in the west, and when the second was murdered in 393 he made his younger son, Honorius, Augustus. When he died in 395 he left the Empire to his two sons: the east to Arcadius, the west to Honorius. Although the Empire remained one in theory, the two halves in fact became more and more separated. The east prospered; the west declined before the invading barbarians.
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