Among bishops the level of education varied by extremes. They were elected by their congregations
subject to the veto of the consecrating bishops of the province under the metropolitan; they were local
people, not brought in from outside or overseas, and closely reflected the style of their laity. Illiterate
bishops- a favourite butt for the mockery of the half-educated, as Augustine once observed-were rare.
By the mid fifth century a bishopric could be the destiny of a voluntarily retired praetorian prefect or a
forcibly retired emperor. When Cyrus of Panopolis, a pagan poet who rose to be city prefect of
Constantinople, fell foul of the chamberlain Chrysaphius, he saved himself by baptism and a Phrygian
bishopric where the enraged population had lynched his four predecessors. Although individual bishops
were occasionally unpopular, we hear more of the respect and affection in which their people held them.
Like a rich patron, a bishop was expected to intercede with magistrates or tax authorities on behalf of his
people and even to get employment for them. Augustine liked to quote a wise man's aphorism, that he
had too much regard for his own reputation to vouch for other people's. He feared the dangers of his
social role. When an acquaintance was elected to a bishopric, he wrote to warn him of the trappings of
office, the raised throne with embroidered cloth, and the choir of nuns singing to welcome him; 'the
honour of this world is passing away.'
The storms of the fifth-century invasions made all honour in this world seem infinitely precarious. The
establishment of the barbarian kingdoms formalized a take-over which had long been reality. Even
before Constantine's time Germanic tribes were providing some of the best soldiers for the legions.
Julian's hymn of hate against Constantine includes the charge that he elevated barbarians to great offices
of state. To the distress of the Roman aristocrats, Julian himself found it necessary to put a barbarian
general into the prestigious post of consul. At the beginning of the fifth century the Vandal Stilicho held
all real power in the West. Long before 476 collaboration had gone so far that resistance was no option.
When the Goths poured into the Balkan peninsula to escape the Huns in 375, and shattered the imperial
army of Valens at Adrianople (378), Ambrose of Milan saw the fulfilment of biblical prophecies of Gog
and Magog coming from the north to ravage the city of God. Augustine would not accept this exegesis:
'the city of God has as much room for Goths as for Romans.'
The question has been repeatedly asked. Did Rome's conversion to Christianity directly cause or
indirectly contribute to the end of the ancient world? Is there truth (even if now to be drastically
reformulated in secular terms) in the contention of those whom Augustine sought to refute in the City of
God, who thought Alaric's capture of Rome in 410 a consequence of Rome's abandonment of the old
gods, the closing of the temples in 391, and the prohibition of pagan sacrifices?
In 412 the proconsul of Africa, Volusianus, later a Christian, but at that time still pagan, asked a friend
of Augustine if the ethic of the Sermon on the Mount would bring the collapse of the Empire. Was war
justifiable in self-defence or to recover stolen property? Augustine thought so, for it was in the cause of
justice, and 'those who desire peace must first love justice.' Yet the wars of the Empire must be so
conducted that afterwards the vanquished can enjoy justice and peace. Likewise mercy to prisoners of
war is a fundamental principle. (The redemption of prisoners of war was a ground on which bishops
thought it right to sell church plate given by wealthy benefactors.) There is no evidence that the Church
denounced or discouraged the defence of the Empire against Attila. At this period we meet the first