So it seems to me that you're getting at two broader points. What was the situation of the Roman Empire in the early 4th century and how did elites react to it?

Looking at a timeline it seems that the Roman Empire is nearing its end (ignoring the whole problem of the Eastern Romans), but was this actually in evidence at this time in history? Not really. The first half of this century was actually relatively stable and prosperous in general. Constantine had won control of the whole Roman world in 312, and he ruled for decades. The crisis of the Third Century had ended under Diocletian, and while there were inevitable bouts of civil war between various strongmen in different corners of the Empire, Constantine brought a period of peace and robust government (and military) action. This allowed the engines of the Roman machine to keep on turning for most of the 4th century.

His reign saw the foundation of Constantinople (or rather the refounding), and perhaps more importantly he oversaw the Roman army at a new period of strength Bryan Ward-Perkins estimates the Roman army numbered some 600,000 soldiers in the 4th century and was able to remain lavishly funded because of Roman access to tax revenue. This point is key and worth delving into deeply. Tax revenue was the means by which the Roman state survived, through funding the military. So as long as Rome's tax base remained secure and Rome was able to spend the money, the Empire was more or less secure. Did the empire maintain access to this revenue? For the 4th century the answer is certainly yes, while revenues would fall off in the 5th century for a variety of reasons, in the 4th, the situation was not really so dire, and did not appear to be so to the Romans themselves. War with the Sassanids and border incursions by the Goths and other "Germanic" peoples did occur throughout the 4th century, but the large scale Roman disasters such as the death of Julian and the defeat of Valens were much later in the century.

So what was the broader economic situation in Rome's empire in the 4th century? Ward-Perkins cites archaeological evidence that indicates that most of the Roman world was still flourishing economically at this time. There is some evidence of economic decline in Gaul and Italy, but the most agriculturally productive parts of the Empire, Africa, Egypt, and the Levant, remained prosperous. Britain was a bit of an outlier in that it was about to experience rapid and grand economic collapse that would eventually end Roman life in Britain, but this too hadn't come to pass yet in the early 4th century. To summarize the first part of his book on the collapse of the Roman world, Bryan Ward-Perkins concludes that the fall of Rome in the West was more or less down to bad luck and bad management, it was not an inevitable consequence of a period of nebulous "decline" and even West Roman fortunes were not set in stone until perhaps the loss of Africa and Iberia in the mid 5th century (other historians such as Peter Heather can be put in the same boat even if they point to a different specific cause to sell books). Nor does he think that the East was necessarily better off in this situation, and with a different roll of history's dice the roles may have reversed. The Roman state was still robust and and quite formidable at this point in history, and though some cracks were starting to show, they were not necessarily apparent at the time.

So how did elites react to this situation in the early 4th century? It mattered a great deal where they lived in the Empire and their religious outlook. Edward Watts follows the development of "the final pagan generation", elites who still remained pagan and functioned essentially like stereotypical British public school gentlemen in the 19th and early 20th centuries. While there is something of Gibbons in his waxing nostalgic for this final generation of Romans firmly rooted in Roman tradition, he does provide a glimpse into the life of pagan elite members of society at this time. So what are they worried about? The encroachment of barbarians from Germania? The religious changes enacted by the Christianization of the Empire? Falling economic productivity in Italy and Gaul? Hardly! They're mostly interested in reading and studying philosophy or their own careers, businesses, and families. The figures that Watts follows are teachers at prestigious schools and prominent intellectuals who comprised part of the Roman elite, and while they butted heads with upcoming new figures of authority, usually bishops or Christian intellectuals, for the first half of the 4th century life was good for them in general.

For Christians the situation was somewhat different, and the Christians in the Empire were still working out what it meant to be a Christian and how that intersected with being a Roman. Imperial patronage for the Church did result in widespread newly found power and authority for the "new men" of the century who were less rooted in traditional Roman systems and essentially provided a parallel work force to the Roman civil service. There were still many different sects at this time as the religion was only slowly starting to coalesce into a defined "Church", heresies such as Arianism and later Donatism were relatively widespread and influential at the time.

The 4th century saw the gradual supplanting of Paganism by Christianity, and at various points pagan elites could claim some measure of persecution, with the closing and seizing of temple sites/wealth and bans on pagans holding offices, private sacrifices, teaching positions and so on. While these measures were never completely effective, Roman elites who ran afoul of the state could very well end up in trouble. Chris Wickham points to the increased tax burdens on the lower rungs of the upper classes, city councilors for example, and their flight to more rural parts of the empire as a possible cause of social instability, but also the increasing break down of social order even in cities where authority between institutions became muddled between local elites, the state, and the Church. This however was a later phenomenon, late 4th and mostly early 5th century.

So to summarize, the situation in the 4th century for Rome was not as dire as you might imagine, and many Roman elites did not recognize that they were in a time of noteworthy upheaval and instability. The borders were relatively secure, Rome's economy was chugging along with only some minor setbacks in Gaul and Italy, and the elites were more interested in waxing philosophic or their own careers in Imperial service than abandoning Rome because of its "inevitable" decline.