CONDITION OF THE BUILDINGS IN THE FIFTH CENTURY—EXAGGERATED ZEAL OF THE FATHERS IN OVERTHROWING THE STATUES—CLAUDIAN'S DESCRIPTION OF ROME—IMPERIAL EDICTS OF PROTECTION—ATTEMPTS OF JULIAN TO RESTORE THE ANCIENT FAITH AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES

Condition of the Monuments

While the registers of the regions give us an idea of the outward aspect of the city in the fifth century, they tell us nothing of the condition of those splendid buildings which had so long sheltered the ancient faith. Had the temples of Rome been only deserted? Had the gods been merely banished to the solitude of their cells, behind the closed doors of the Temples? Had the triumphant hatred of long-persecuted Christianity disfigured or destroyed them? Or, finally, was the new religion, complying with practical shrewdness and its necessity, already taking possession of this or that temple of Paganism, seizing it for its own, and, after complete purification by holy water and prayer, transforming it into a dwelling for the Cross?

The Fathers of the Church derived from the Jews their hatred of Rome, which they named Sodom or Babylon, when speaking of the heathen of the city, but likened to Jerusalem, when referring to the number of monks and nuns which it contained. If we accept literally some of their utterances, we are forced to believe that even before the invasion of Alaric the temples and the images of the gods had been overthrown.