Holy and Right-Believing Emperor Theodosius of Rome

Emperor Saint Theodosius

The seventeenth of January is the feast-day of Emperor Theodosius, the last man to rule a united Roman Empire in the last quarter of the fourth century. Theodosius was also the man – not, contrary to certain received wisdom, Constantine – who made Nicene Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. Theodosius is of interest particularly to British Christian history on account of his foundation of Cor Tewdws, the institution of higher learning led by Saint Illtud Farchog which produced the most celebrated of Welsh, Cornish and Breton hermits and monastic founders.

Personally, I’m of two minds or more about Theodosius, as I tend to believe any honest Orthodox Christian should be. Theodosius significantly advanced the cause of Nicene Christianity by using the power of the state to promote Orthodox bishops and to suppress paganism and hæresy. It is Theodosius rather than Constantine who deserves the credit for making Nicene Orthodoxy into an Imperial Church, with everything that double-headed eagle and double-edged sword implies. The admirable aspects of the complex of Orthodox political theology – including the separation of state and ethnos; the expectation of public philanthrōpía; even the model of church-state symphonía – owe their development and flourishing, if not its very existence, to the Theodosian settlement. On the other hand, this legacy has left us with some lasting and intractable problems of political theology, which are now playing out in some fairly ugly ways.

Many of his actions as emperor were not particularly saintly. His political murders of the family of his kinsman Magnus Maximus come to mind – although his sparing of Maximus’s wife, Saint Elen Luyddog, and their two daughters is commendable. There also stands as a black mark on his record, the civilian massacre he ordered at Thessaloniki. For this last outrage, he had to be excommunicated from the Church for several months, while he literally repented in sackcloth and ashes.

Flavius Theodosius was born in 347 in Roman Hispania, the son of Comes Flavius Theodosius, and his wife Thermantia. Because his father was made a magister equitum præsentalis to Emperor Valentinian in 368, Theodosius the Younger was obligated by law to enter military service as a young man. His father brought him, under his command, to Britannia, where he – alongside his cousin, the aforementioned Magnus Maximus – was assigned to quell a rebelling garrison posted at Hadrian’s Wall, as well as the various barbarian groups (Picts, Scots, Saxons and Franks) that attacked in the middle of that power vacuum.

Theodosius seems to have had a promising military career, having cut his teeth in Britain quelling this revolt and barbarian invasion. He was made a dux in the province of Mœsia Superior (modern-day Macedonia and parts of Serbia and Albania), and was placed in command of the troops there. However, while leading a campaign against the Sarmatian people to the east in 374, the Mœsians under his command had a falling-out with another Roman unit, from Pannonia. The Sarmatians took advantage of the division in the Roman ranks and scored an easy victory. An enraged Emperor Valentinian demanded the resignation and retirement of Theodosius the Younger on account of his ‘cowardice’ – for so it was treated legally when he failed to keep his troops in line and the Empire lost battles as a result. Valentinian’s rage was not sated with this, however, and he had Theodosius’s father Theodosius the Elder executed in Carthage in 375 when he urged Valentinian to reconsider his verdict. After Valentinian died and Gratian ascended the throne, Theodosius was reinstated, placed in charge of the Illyrian province and sent back to the frontier against the Sarmatians. This time he seems to have acquitted himself, as Gratian would appoint him co-emperor in charge of the Eastern Roman Empire in 379.

As Emperor in the East, Theodosius found himself facing an immediate crisis in the form of the Goths, who had spilled over the Danube and were settling in the Balkans. Gratian left this problem explicitly for Theodosius to deal with after his taking the laurels at Sirmium, but the Gothic presence in Macedonia and Dacia remained intractable, with them fighting Theodosius largely to a draw, despite the surrender of Aþanareiks at Constantinople in 381. The compromise that Theodosius affected to end the Gothic Wars, was the creation of the fœderati: in essence, the Goths were allowed to settle on land on the near side of the Danube that belonged to the Empire, in exchange for a levy of troops to be called up under Roman command. The Goths would continue, however, to give the Romans a headache for as long as they maintained their autonomy within the Empire’s marches.

Goths Crossing a River
by Évariste Vital Luminais, c. 1880

Theodosius also undertook minor skirmishes against the at that time still-pagan Hijâzi Arabs, who were conducting raids in Syria and Petræa. Theodosius had more amicable relations, perhaps a bit surprisingly, with the Persians to the East, who were ruled by Ardašir II from 379, Šâpur III from 384, and Bahrâm IV from 388. A settlement engineered by Theodosius in 387 over Armenia managed to defuse a potential flash-point that might easily have provoked another border war between the two powers.

More troublous was Theodosius’s rule at home. He had to deal with two attempts at usurpation of the Empire – one from his own kinsman Magnus Maximus, mentioned above. The proud and ambitious Maximus had served together with Theodosius under his father in Britain, and while there married a British woman and cultivated close ties with the Romano-British elites. He also served in Africa, and in Illyria against the Goths. Maximus seemed to have an innate understanding of imperial management, and conflict between him and Gratian seemed to become inevitable when he landed British colonists – the first Bretons, by all accounts – in the province of Gallia. He took his British fœderati and marched on Paris, but Gratian fled him. One of Maximus’s lieutenants, a man named Andragathius, caught up with and slew Gratian en route to Lyons.

Maximus was able to hold onto power in the West after Gratian’s fall for about four years, but in 387 he made the decision to invade Italy and depose the other pretender to the Imperium in the West: Valentinian II in Old Rome. It was then left to Theodosius in Constantinople, to whom Valentinian II fled seeking help, to attack Maximus before he reached Italy, and he did so. The reason he claimed was to avenge the murder of Gratian – but it seems equally likely that he was consolidating power for his own immediate kin. Theodosius sealed his agreement with Valentinian by marrying his sister Galla, and then sent an army across northern Italy to do battle with Maximus. Eventually Maximus was caught after action in the Alps and executed; his son Victor was also put to death on Theodosius’s orders.

Theodosius also faced trouble from Valentinian II’s lieutenant Arbogast, who betrayed and assassinated his emperor after Theodosius returned to Constantinople in 391. As Theodosius was likely to avenge this political murder due to his wife’s influence, Arbogast struck first by declaring Eugenius emperor in defiance of Theodosius. Theodosius marched on Italy once more in 394 and routed Arbogast’s troops at the Frigidus. He then captured Eugenius and had him killed; Arbogast committed suicide. Theodosius’s victory over Arbogast signalled the reunification of the Eastern and Western halves of the Empire – and the last time any such political reunification would be achieved until the reign of Justinian 150 years later. Theodosius would not live much longer to enjoy his victory: he would die of an illness six months after the battle of Frigidus, in early 395.

Battle of the Frigidus
by Janez Vajkard Valvasor, 1689

In terms of œconomic policy, Theodosius raised taxes harshly on propertied citizens in the Empire, and enforced these taxes rigorously. Like Saint Constantine before him, Theodosius was a believer in progressive taxation: the more a Roman citizen had, the more a Roman citizen should be obliged to pay for the common weal. Ironically – and counterintuitively to the libertarian mode of thinking – this tax hike had the effect of encouraging population growth and investment in the cities of the Eastern Empire; this trend would continue from Theodosius’s reign all the way up through that of Marcian in 450. In terms of reforms of coinage, weights and measures, Theodosius also introduced to the Roman Empire the tremissis, a gold coin worth ⅓ of a solidus, which continued to be used in the Christian East centuries after the fall of the West.

As a military and political leader, Theodosius was competent if somewhat lacklustre. He stands out in the annals of late Rome on account of his religious policies. He was a zealous Nicene Christian, and this zeal showed itself forth in his laws and policy choices once he became emperor. He converted to Christianity after his accession to the Eastern Empire in 380, when a life-threatening illness prompted him to reflect and choose a direction. He expelled the Arian bishop of Constantinople, Demophilos, and handed the see to Saint Gregory the Theologian, an action which earned him a number of enemies in the City and at least one attempt on his life. Throughout his reign Theodosius oversaw the transfer of thousands of churches and properties in the Eastern Empire from the wealthy, middle-class Arian community to the poorer Nicene one. He also had a tendency to look the other way when Nicene Christian officials and parties attacked and destroyed pagan temples and centres of worship, even though he had a policy of official toleration for certain pagan rites and observances. However, he did directly order the destruction of the Serapeum in Alexandria – an action which gave licence to private individuals and groups to carry out similar acts of destruction elsewhere.

Emperor Theodosius seems to have changed for the better after having made the acquaintance of Saint Ambrose of Milan. Holy Father Ambrose held the emperor to high standards of personal and political comportment.

To give one example of this: in 390, Theodosius had ordered his Gothic fœderati to punish the people of Thessaloniki, after they had rioted and killed one of his generals – a Goth named Bauþareiks – who had had a charioteer arrested and thrown in gaol on charges of sodomy. He sent the troops to the Greek city with orders for a severe collective punishment, before immediately thinking better of it and sending a messenger after them with revised orders telling them to identify and punish only the instigators of the riot. But the messenger arrived too late. Acting on their initial orders, the Goths put out false advertisements for a chariot race, and when all the spectators had gathered in the hippodrome the fœderati locked all the gates and began slaughtering the racing fans – about 7,000 of them.

When Saint Ambrose heard of this, he was volubly outraged, and compared Theodosius unfavourably to King David – likening his action to the betrayal of Uriah the Hittite. Saint Ambrose had Theodosius literally locked out of every Nicene church until the emperor not only spent eight months publicly mourning and repenting of his sins in sackcloth and ashes, but also by promulgating a law supported by Ambrose, by which condemned criminals were to be given a thirty-day stay of execution after the sentence was handed down. As an aside – this, gentle readers, is what the repentance of political leaders and public persons is supposed to look like in the apostolic Christian view. None of this maudlin, sentimental ‘only God knows the heart’ nonsense which American evangelicals like to indulge. Next time one of them has the chutzpah to compare the incumbent to King David, give them the answer of Saint Ambrose to Theodosius.

Theodosius Repulsed from the Church by Saint Ambrose
by Alessandro Magnasco, ca. 1700

At any rate, Emperor Theodosius seemingly did repent of his action with a sincerity that puts to shame all of our modern politicians. He made good his word to pass and enforce the law giving condemned criminals a solid thirty days’ chance at reprieve. More importantly: his public penance gave an indication to future emperors and churchmen of what symphonía can and should look like at its best, with the church behaving as a voice of conscience to the state.

Theodosius married twice. His first marriage was to a senatorial-class woman of Hispania, Saint Ælia Flavia Placilla, who bore him three children: two sons, the future emperors Arcadius and Honorius; and a daughter, Pulcheria. (The later Saint Ælia Pulcheria was actually Theodosius’s granddaughter by Arcadius.) This marriage was almost certainly a marriage of affection, as Theodosius was at that time out of favour with the emperor and living in forced retirement. Also, even when he was Emperor he cherished Placilla, gave her the coveted title of Augusta and favoured her with monuments – including one at Antioch which was very nearly the victim of vandalism by tax protesters. His second marriage, after Placilla’s death in 386, was much more a political match, to the aforementioned Galla, sister of Valentinian II. She bore him two children: a son, Gratian; and a daughter, Ælia Galla Placidia.

Theodosius’s reign is important for still another reason. He not only made his first military mark by fighting under his father’s command in Britain, but he actually left an academic mark in Britain by sponsoring and lending his name to the oldest institution of higher learning there: the College of Theodosius – Cor Tewdws in Welsh – at Llantwit Major. It’s uncertain if Theodosius went in person to open the College, which admitted its first class the year of his death, in 395. The College unfortunately fell into disuse after the barbarian invasions of Britannia. However, the site was given by Saint Dyfrig into the hands of Saint Illtud Farchog, who resurrected the College of Theodosius as a monastic school. There, he trained such intellectual luminaries of the Western world as Saint David of Mynyw, Saint Peulin of Léon, Saint Samson of Dol and Saint Gildas the Historian. At its peak under Saint Illtud, the monastic school boasted six lecture halls and housed over two thousand students, making it comparable in size to Oxford or Cambridge.

Theodosius’s reign is, as one can see here, quite chequered, but one can easily see in him certain admirable strains of nobility, compassion and self-reflection – as well as a violent temper that desperately needed curbing by Saint Ambrose. By blood, I am a descendant and kinsman, not of Romans or Greeks, but of the barbarian tribes Saint Theodosius did his level best either to kill off, drive off or buy off: Goths and Gæls, Saxons and Britons. Yet I cannot help but sympathise with Theodosius from a political view, forced as he was to deal with successive internal political crises. And his ability for repentance is something we badly need to emulate today. Righteous emperor Theodosius, patron of learning and unifier of east and west, pray unto Christ our God for our salvation!

The monastic grange dovecote at Llantwit Major, Wales