nd
the public penance of the emperor Theodosius has been recorded as one of
the most honorable events in the annals of the church. According to the
mildest rules of ecclesiastical discipline, which were established in
the fourth century, the crime of homicide was expiated by the penitence
of twenty years: [97] and as it was impossible, in the period of human
life, to purge the accumulated guilt of the massacre of Thessalonica,
the murderer should have been excluded from the holy communion till
the hour of his death. But the archbishop, consulting the maxims of
religious policy, granted some indulgence to the rank of his illustrious
penitent, who humbled in the dust the pride of the diadem; and the
public edification might be admitted as a weighty reason to abridge the
duration of his punishment. It was sufficient, that the emperor of the
Romans, stripped of the ensigns of royalty, should appear in a mournful
and suppliant posture; and that, in the midst of the church of Milan,
he should humbly solicit, with sighs and tears, the pardon of his sins.
[98] In this spiritual cure, Ambrose employed the various methods of
mildness and severity. After a delay of about eight months, Theodosius
was restored to the communion of the faithful; and the edict which
interposes a salutary interval of thirty days between the sentence and
the execution, may be accepted as the worthy fruits of his repentance.
[99] Posterity has applauded the virtuous firmness of the archbishop;
and the example of Theodosius may prove the beneficial influence
of those principles, which could force a monarch, exalted above the
apprehension of human punishment, to respect the laws, and ministers, of
an invisible Judge. "The prince," says Montesquieu, "who is actuated by
the hopes and fears of religion, may be compared to a lion, docile
only to the voice, and tractable to the hand, of his keeper." [100] The
motions of the royal animal will therefore depend on the inclination,
and interest, of the man who has acquired such dangerous authority over
him; and the priest, who holds in his hands the conscience of a
king, may inflame, or moderate, his sanguinary passions. The cause
of humanity, and that of persecution, have been asserted, by the same
Ambrose, with equal energy, and with equal success.

[Footnote 96: Ambros. tom. ii. Epist. li. p. 997-1001. His epistle is a
miserable rhapsody on a noble subject. Ambrose could act better than he
could write. His compos