Acacius of Constantinople

“ He seated her on the throne as an equal and independent colleague in the sovereignty of the empire, and an oath of allegiance was imposed on the governors of the provinces in the joint names of Justinian and Theodora. The Eastern world fell prostrate before the genius and fortune of the daughter of Acacius. The prostitute who, in the presence of innumerable spectators, had polluted the theatre of Constantinople, was adored as a queen in the same city, by grave magistrates, orthodox bishops, victorious generals, and captive monarchs. ”

“ He persuaded Constantius to allow a council to be summoned to meet at Constantinople next year, January, 360. About fifty bishops were present. Acacius ruled the assembly; Aetius was made a scape-goat by the Acacians for having too boldly given expression to the error which they sought to propagate insidiously. The council then deposed the leading semi-Arians, but not on doctrinal grounds. Cyril of Jerusalem, and Silvanus of Tarsus were deposed, and with the emperor's power to back their decisions, they were driven into banishment. ”

“ These were Acacius Bishop of Berœa, Demetrius of Pessinus, and several other Bishops, with Isidorus Presbyter and Hospitaler of the Church of Alexandria, and a great Number of Presbyters and Deacons of the Church of Antioch. Acacius, who was at the Head of this Deputation, was charged by Chrysostom to present to Syricius the Decree of his Election to the See of Constantinople [1325] . ”

“ Gelasius as cited by the author, p. 198, "at what they (the Eastern bishops) claim for Acacius (bishop of Constantinople) because he was bishop of the imperial city. ... The power of the secular empire is one thing, the distribution of ecclesiastical dignities is quite a different thing. However small a city may be, it does not diminish the greatness of the prince who dwells there; but it is quite as true that the presence of the emperor does not change the order of religion ”

“ Achatius, made with Glass Stones, and inlay’d with Gold, was placed in the Church of the Neorium. But the Person of whom this is spoke was another Achatius, who, not only, as many Historians, but as Suidas the Grammarian tells us, was Bishop of Constantinople in the Time of Leo Marcellus, but a Man of so proud and haughty a Spirit, that he commanded many of his Pictures to be placed in Churches, while he was yet alive, from whence he was called Doxomanes. ”

“ Alexius’s resources were insufficient, and he had to beg the crusaders to wait at Constantinople for a year in order that he might have time. They waited; but the closer contact of a prolonged stay only brought into fuller play the essential antipathy of the Greek and the Latin. Continual friction developed at last into the open fire of war; and in March 1204 the crusaders resolved to storm Constantinople, and to divide among themselves the Eastern empire. In April Constantinople was captured; in May Baldwin of Flanders became the first Latin emperor of Constantinople. ”

“ As in a glass darkly we see the blind and aged Emperor Isaac taken from his prison to occupy the throne for a short space, the pathetic figure of his son Alexius, fourth of that name, who reigned not a year, to die by the hand of an assassin. A shorter reign followed, that of another Alexius, called Ducas, who in his turn made way for the Crusaders, and a Latin dynasty ruled over the destinies of Constantinople. Six Latin and four Nicæan emperors occupied the throne of Cæsar for the brief period of sixty years, until in 1260 Michael Palæologus restored the Empire of the Greeks. ”

“ Works of art were brought from afar, the most skillful artists and builders were assembled from all the cities of Europe and of the East, enormous sums of money were spent, Christian churches were built; but Constantine could not give to his Imperial city what was wanting to himself—a pure and steadfast faith. Constantinople was destined to be the home of every heresy.
In the meantime the holy Patriarch Alexander had gone to his rest. As he lay on his deathbed he called for his beloved Athanasius, but there was no reply. ”

“ Then, at the call of Alexius, son of the Eastern emperor, Isaac Angelus, they went with the Venetian fleet to Constantinople, and restored these princes to the throne. The result of the contentions that followed with the Greeks was the pillage of Constantinople, and the establishment of the Latin Empire under Baldwin. Principalities were carved out for different chiefs; the Venetians taking several Greek coast towns, and afterwards Candia (Crete) . The patriarch of Constantinople had to take his pallium from Rome. The Latin service was established in the churches. ”

“ This was a charge which touched Constantine very closely; because Constantinople depended very much on the Egyptian corn for food, and he thought that the bishop, who had so much power at Alexandria, might perhaps be able to stop the fleet, and to starve the people of the capital, if he pleased. And, whether the emperor believed the story, or whether he wished to shelter Athanasius for a while from his persecutors by putting him out of the way—he sent him into banishment at Treves, on the banks of the Moselle, in a part of Gaul which is now reckoned to belong to Germany. ”

“ It would have been the greatest possible mistake for Constantine the Great to have chosen either Sardica, Thessalonica, the territory of Ilium or Chalcedon, between which places he hesitated some time, to be the new Rome of the East, for however richly nature may have endowed them all, to elect any one would have seemed but the satisfying of a princely caprice; as Constantinople on the straits of the Bosporus was then and always will be the one natural city commanding the whole of the Balkan peninsula, Asia Minor, and the numerous seas and rivers uniting at this spot. ”

“ Able, courageous, and patriotic, he was soon recognised by the notables as the fittest man to have rule among them, and, though without hereditary claim to the imperial throne, he aspired to be emperor and was accepted as best suited to receive that dignity. Two years after the capture of Constantinople, a new patriarch was elected, who consented to live at Nicaea and who amid as much ceremony as if the coronation had taken place in St. Sophia placed the crown on the head of Theodore in the church of the same name at Nicaea. ”

“ Roman ambition would not allow outlying communities to formulate new doctrines or to revise old ones. In everything the adherents of the Eastern and Western Churches found points of disagreement. It needed but a small pretext to bring about a schism, small at this period of time but great and momentous to those who struggled through the controversy. A pretext was not long wanting. About the middle of the ninth century Photius, a layman, captain of the guards, was promoted by merit and favour to the office of Patriarch of Constantinople. ”

“ Constantinople was soon won, and the emperor, who had been deposed and blinded by the usurper, was brought from his dungeon, and was enthroned in the great church of St. Sophia, while his son Alexius was anointed and crowned as a partner in the empire.
But quarrels soon arose between the Greeks and the Latins. Alexius was murdered by a new usurper; his father died of grief: and the Crusaders found themselves drawn on to conquer the city afresh for themselves. ”

“ The crusaders knew about him! By his quick thinking and crafty talking this same Alexius, Emperor Alexius I, had not [Pg 20] only persuaded their grandsires and great-grandsires of an earlier crusade to stay out of Constantinople, but he had also talked them into fighting the Turks for him. He had even talked some of them into becoming his vassals. He had received the leaders in the Sacred Palace, however, and they told the other barons what they saw there. From then on Constantinople was a city of marvels to the men of the Middle Ages. They also began to covet its wealth. ”

“ Beneath an outward veneer of self-control there is a deal of the unbridled, unbroken master man of the Middle Ages left in this population. The slums of Constantinople have before now sent forth lovers for queens and wives for emperors. The Greek valet has the same pride in his veins as the more highly placed, for people in his humble station of life, men and women alike, still possess that sense of unsubdued personality the loss of which is one of the dark shadows which cloud our more “civilized” communities. ”

“ Martin, the well-known Oriental scholar, will be found eminently useful. The History of the Iconoclast Princes can be read in Schlosser (Geschichte de Bilder-Stürmenden Kaiser) .
The empire of the East began with the reign of Arcadius, A.D. 395. Justinian, A.D. 527—595, has the honour of being considered the second founder of Constantinople. In the fifth year of his reign the factions of the Circus and the memorable sedition of the Nika almost laid the city in ashes. A description of the buildings with which the emperor adorned his ruined capital is reserved for the topography of the city. ”

“ It was acquired almost without resistance, the Latin emperor, Baldwin II., taking promptly to flight. The destruction of life was slight; but the surprising party fired a considerable part of the city, to cover the smallness of its numbers, and Constantinople suffered once more from a disastrous conflagration. On the recovery of its ancient capital, the Greek empire ceased to bear the name of Nicæa, and its history is continued under the more imposing appellation of the Greek empire of Constantinople. ”

“ There was a Greek—not of the Byzantine breed in the imperial kennel yonder"—he emphasized the negative with a contemptuous glance in the direction of Constantinople—"a Greek of the old time of real heroes, he who has the first place in history as a conqueror. Think you he was happy because he owned the world? Delight in property merely, a horse, a palace, a ship, a kingdom, is vulgar: any man can be owner of something; the beggar polishes his crutch for the same reason the king gilds his throne—it belongs to him. ”

“ The light of Greek civilisation, which Byzantium had kept burning for nearly nine centuries after Constantine had chosen it as his capital, was suddenly extinguished. The hardness, the narrowness and the Hebraicism of western civilisation were left to develop themselves with little admixture from the joyousness and the beauty of Greek life. Every one knows that the Turkish conquest of Constantinople dispersed throughout the West a knowledge of Greek literature, and that such knowledge contributed largely to the bringing about of the Reformation and of modern ways of thought. ”

“ John Vataces succeeded, partly by force, partly by persuasion, in inducing the despot of Salonica to abandon the title of emperor and to recognise Nicaea as the true representative of the former empire of Constantine. Vataces thereupon became acknowledged ruler of the kingdom of Salonica from the Aegean to the Adriatic.
Decay of Constantinople.
Meantime the wealth and population of Constantinople were diminishing every day. Its commerce had almost gone. What was left was in the hands of the Venetians. No taxes could be levied on the poverty-stricken population. ”

“ Among the Greeks, some, in order to owe nothing to the Latins, declared that God himself had undertaken to save his people, and upon the faith of some prophecies they had made, they awaited in inaction a miraculous deliverance. Others, more dark in their scholastic reveries, were not willing that Constantinople should be saved, because they had predicted that the empire must perish to expiate the crime of the union. Every hope of victory had in their eyes something impious and contrary to the will of Heaven. ”

“ So feeble were the assaults of the barbarians, that for above two centuries of that time the single city of Constantinople, with the aid of the Greek fire, defended itself with scarce any territory from which to draw support. It was not the strength of its enemies, therefore, but the weakness of itself, which, after an existence in the West and East of two thousand years, at length extinguished the Roman empire.
What, then, were the causes of decay which proved fatal at length to this immense and enduring dominion? Philosophers in all ages have pondered on the causes ”

“ The foundation of Alexandria by Alexander, of Antioch by Seleucus have some parallels. Mecca, Jerusalem, Cairo, Delhi have had fluctuating histories. Peter’s creation of Petrograd was a splendid mistake, which has ended in hideous failure. But the creation of Constantinople marks Constantine as one of the truly great, beside Julius, Trajan, Charles and Washington. [56]
But more remarkable than anything that has yet been said of the Queen City of the Bosphorus is her marvelous continuity of imperial rule. ”

“ Alexius entered the imperial palace, and the rebel army commenced plundering every quarter of the city. Natives and mercenaries vied with one another in license and rapine. No class of society was sacred from their lust and avarice, and the inmates of monasteries, churches, and palaces were alike plundered and insulted. This sack of Constantinople by the Sclavonians, Bulgarians, and Greeks in the service of the families of Comnenus, Ducas, and Paleologos, who crept treacherously into the city, was a fit prologue to its sufferings when it was stormed by the Crusaders in 1204. ”

“ Nevertheless a metropolis constituted from such elements was scarcely below the level of the times, and was destined to prove a successful rival of the degenerate Rome which Constantine aspired to supplant.
The impressions of life and colour which affect a stranger on entering a new city arise in great part from the costume of its inhabitants. At Constantinople there prevails in this 86 age a decency in dress foreign to Rome during the first centuries of the Empire, and even to Greece in the most classic period. ”