A CRIMINAL HISTORY OF MANKIND

the rest ‘whom We judge demented and insane, shall sustain the infamy of heretical dogmas... shall
be smitten first by divine vengeance and secondly by the retribution of Our own initiative...’ The
pagan writer Symmachus pleaded eloquently: ‘Everything is full of God. We look up to the same
stars... What does it matter by what system of knowledge we seek the truth? It is not by one single
path that we arrive at so great a secret.’ But the Christians emphatically disagreed.
It would, of course, be a crude oversimplification to say that the triumph of Christianity was a
triumph for some of the worst elements in human nature. After all, the worst elements had already
had it mostly their own way for over two thousand years, since the great wars that tore the
Mediterranean apart. And they continued to have it their own way in spite of, rather than because
of, Christianity. The Christian emperor Theodosius, for example, behaved exactly like all other
‘Right Men’ who have managed to acquire power; any kind of slight to his authority aroused him to
a frenzy. The people of Antioch became increasingly restless at their burden of taxes, and their
complaints were treated as rebellion by the governor. Finally, there was an explosion of popular
fury, and statues of the emperor and members of his family were overthrown. A company of
soldiers quickly restored order, but Theodosius was infuriated. He declared that Antioch was no
longer a city but a village, suspended the distribution of corn, and ordered the examination of large
numbers of citizens by means of torture. Most of them were sentenced to death. But one of the
appointed judges went back to Constantinople to beg for leniency and found that Theodosius had
already half-forgotten the affair. So, congratulating himself on his generosity, Theodosius bestowed
his pardon, and basked in the praise of the grateful people of Antioch, who set up statues by the
hundred.
The citizens of Thessalonica, in Greece, were less fortunate. One of their favourite charioteers had
a homosexual affair with a pretty slave boy and landed in gaol. At the time the people were already
angry about various repressions, and when their favourite charioteer failed to appear at the circus
they revolted and murdered the garrison commander and some of his officers. This time,
Theodosius’s rage had no time to subside; besides, he could not have the whole populace put to the
torture. So the inhabitants of Thessalonica were invited to games in the circus - seven thousand of
them - and then the doors were closed and the soldiers given the signal for a massacre. It took three
hours, and at the end of that time all the citizens were dead.
Bishop Ambrose of Milan was horrified by news of the massacre. Theodosius was in Milan - which
had been one of the empire’s capitals since the time of Diocletian - and Ambrose wrote him a letter
declaring that he had seen a vision ordering him to excommunicate Theodosius until he did
penance. Theodosius went to church to obey, but was met by Ambrose, who told him that he had to
do penance in public. This was too much for a man of the emperor’s violent temperament, and he
stayed away from church for some time. But Ambrose won in the end; Theodosius was obliged to
remove his imperial robes in front of a crowded congregation and ask forgiveness for his sins.
The episode is certainly a dramatic illustration of the power for good that Christianity could bring
to bear on a tyrant. But when we look into it a little more closely, it ceases to be a simple parable of
good versus evil. Shortly before the massacre, the emperor had heard that Christian zealots in a
town on the Persian frontier had burned a Jewish synagogue. The local bishop, who had allowed
them to do it, was ordered to make restitution out of the church funds. Ambrose wrote an
extraordinary letter to the emperor, declaring that to tolerate Jews was tantamount to persecuting
Christians and that if he refused to change his mind he was probably damned. And when