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Chapter XXXVII: Conversion Of The Barbarians To Christianity.—Part I.
Origin Progress, And Effects Of The Monastic Life.—
Conversion Of The Barbarians To Christianity And Arianism.—
Persecution Of The Vandals In Africa.—Extinction Of
Arianism Among The Barbarians.
Chapter XXXVII: Conversion Of The Barbarians To Christianity.—Part II. Chapter XXXVII: Conversion Of The Barbarians To Christianity.—Part III. Chapter XXXVII: Conversion Of The Barbarians To Christianity.—Part IV. |
Origin Progress, And Effects Of The Monastic Life.—
Conversion Of The Barbarians To Christianity And Arianism.—
Persecution Of The Vandals In Africa.—Extinction Of
Arianism Among The Barbarians.
The indissoluble connection of civil and ecclesiastical affairs has compelled, and encouraged, me to relate the progress, the persecutions, the establishment, the divisions, the final triumph, and the gradual corruption, of Christianity. I have purposely delayed the consideration of two religious events, interesting in the study of human nature, and important in the decline and fall of the Roman empire. I. The institution of the monastic life; 1 and, II. The conversion of the northern Barbarians.
1 (return)
[ The origin of the monastic institution has been laboriously
discussed by Thomassin (Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. i. p. 1119-1426)
and Helyot, (Hist. des Ordres Monastiques, tom. i. p. 1-66.) These
authors are very learned, and tolerably honest, and their difference
of opinion shows the subject in its full extent. Yet the cautious
Protestant, who distrusts any popish guides, may consult the seventh
book of Bingham's Christian Antiquities.]
I. Prosperity and peace introduced the distinction of the vulgar and the Ascetic Christians. 2 The loose and imperfect practice of religion satisfied the conscience of the multitude. The prince or magistrate, the soldier or merchant, reconciled their fervent zeal, and implicit faith, with the exercise of their profession, the pursuit of their interest, and the indulgence of their passions: but the Ascetics, who obeyed and abused the rigid precepts of the gospel, were inspired by the savage enthusiasm which represents man as a criminal, and God as a tyrant. They seriously renounced the business, and the pleasures, of the age; abjured the use of wine, of flesh, and of marriage; chastised their body, mortified their affections, and embraced a life of misery, as the price of eternal happiness. In the reign of Constantine, the Ascetics fled from a profane and degenerate world, to perpetual solitude, or religious society. Like the first Christians of Jerusalem, 3 311 they resigned the use, or the property of their temporal possessions; established regular communities of the same sex, and a similar disposition; and assumed the names of Hermits, Monks, and Anachorets, expressive of their lonely retreat in a natural or artificial desert. They soon acquired the respect of the world, which they despised; and the loudest applause was bestowed on this Divine Philosophy, 4 which surpassed, without the aid of science or reason, the laborious virtues of the Grecian schools. The monks might indeed contend with the Stoics, in the contempt of fortune, of pain, and of death: the Pythagorean silence and submission were revived in their servile discipline; and they disdained, as firmly as the Cynics themselves, all the forms and decencies of civil society. But the votaries of this Divine Philosophy aspired to imitate a purer and more perfect model. They trod in the footsteps of the prophets, who had retired to the desert; 5 and they restored the devout and contemplative life, which had been instituted by the Essenians, in Palestine and Egypt. The philosophic eye of Pliny had surveyed with astonishment a solitary people, who dwelt among the palm-trees near the Dead Sea; who subsisted without money, who were propagated without women; and who derived from the disgust and repentance of mankind a perpetual supply of voluntary associates. 6
2 (return)
[ See Euseb. Demonstrat. Evangel., (l. i. p. 20, 21, edit.
Graec. Rob. Stephani, Paris, 1545.) In his Ecclesiastical History,
published twelve years after the Demonstration, Eusebius (l. ii. c. 17)
asserts the Christianity of the Therapeutae; but he appears ignorant
that a similar institution was actually revived in Egypt.]
3 (return)
[ Cassian (Collat. xviii. 5.) claims this origin for the
institution of the Coenobites, which gradually decayed till it was
restored by Antony and his disciples.]
311 (return)
[ It has before been shown that the first Christian
community was not strictly coenobitic. See vol. ii.—M.]
4 (return)
[ These are the expressive words of Sozomen, who copiously
and agreeably describes (l. i. c. 12, 13, 14) the origin and progress
of this monkish philosophy, (see Suicer. Thesau, Eccles., tom. ii.
p. 1441.) Some modern writers, Lipsius (tom. iv. p. 448. Manuduct. ad
Philosoph. Stoic. iii. 13) and La Mothe le Vayer, (tom. ix. de la
Vertu des Payens, p. 228-262,) have compared the Carmelites to the
Pythagoreans, and the Cynics to the Capucins.]
5 (return)
[ The Carmelites derive their pedigree, in regular
succession, from the prophet Elijah, (see the Theses of Beziers, A.D.
1682, in Bayle's Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres, Oeuvres,
tom. i. p. 82, &c., and the prolix irony of the Ordres Monastiques,
an anonymous work, tom. i. p. 1-433, Berlin, 1751.) Rome, and the
inquisition of Spain, silenced the profane criticism of the Jesuits of
Flanders, (Helyot, Hist. des Ordres Monastiques, tom. i. p. 282-300,)
and the statue of Elijah, the Carmelite, has been erected in the church
of St. Peter, (Voyages du P. Labat tom. iii. p. 87.)]
6 (return)
[ Plin. Hist. Natur. v. 15. Gens sola, et in toto orbe
praeter ceteras mira, sine ulla femina, omni venere abdicata, sine
pecunia, socia palmarum. Ita per seculorum millia (incredibile dictu)
gens aeterna est in qua nemo nascitur. Tam foecunda illis aliorum vitae
poenitentia est. He places them just beyond the noxious influence of the
lake, and names Engaddi and Massada as the nearest towns. The Laura, and
monastery of St. Sabas, could not be far distant from this place. See
Reland. Palestin., tom. i. p. 295; tom. ii. p. 763, 874, 880, 890.]
Egypt, the fruitful parent of superstition, afforded the first example of the monastic life. Antony, 7 an illiterate 8 youth of the lower parts of Thebais, distributed his patrimony, 9 deserted his family and native home, and executed his monastic penance with original and intrepid fanaticism. After a long and painful novitiate, among the tombs, and in a ruined tower, he boldly advanced into the desert three days' journey to the eastward of the Nile; discovered a lonely spot, which possessed the advantages of shade and water, and fixed his last residence on Mount Colzim, near the Red Sea; where an ancient monastery still preserves the name and memory of the saint. 10 The curious devotion of the Christians pursued him to the desert; and when he was obliged to appear at Alexandria, in the face of mankind, he supported his fame with discretion and dignity. He enjoyed the friendship of Athanasius, whose doctrine he approved; and the Egyptian peasant respectfully declined a respectful invitation from the emperor Constantine. The venerable patriarch (for Antony attained the age of one hundred and five years) beheld the numerous progeny which had been formed by his example and his lessons. The prolific colonies of monks multiplied with rapid increase on the sands of Libya, upon the rocks of Thebais, and in the cities of the Nile. To the south of Alexandria, the mountain, and adjacent desert, of Nitria, were peopled by five thousand anachorets; and the traveller may still investigate the ruins of fifty monasteries, which were planted in that barren soil by the disciples of Antony. 11 In the Upper Thebais, the vacant island of Tabenne, 12 was occupied by Pachomius and fourteen hundred of his brethren. That holy abbot successively founded nine monasteries of men, and one of women; and the festival of Easter sometimes collected fifty thousand religious persons, who followed his angelic rule of discipline. 13 The stately and populous city of Oxyrinchus, the seat of Christian orthodoxy, had devoted the temples, the public edifices, and even the ramparts, to pious and charitable uses; and the bishop, who might preach in twelve churches, computed ten thousand females and twenty thousand males, of the monastic profession. 14 The Egyptians, who gloried in this marvellous revolution, were disposed to hope, and to believe, that the number of the monks was equal to the remainder of the people; 15 and posterity might repeat the saying, which had formerly been applied to the sacred animals of the same country, That in Egypt it was less difficult to find a god than a man.
7 (return)
[ See Athanas. Op. tom. ii. p. 450-505, and the Vit. Patrum,
p. 26-74, with Rosweyde's Annotations. The former is the Greek original
the latter, a very ancient Latin version by Evagrius, the friend of St.
Jerom.]
8 (return)
[ Athanas. tom. ii. in Vit. St. Anton. p. 452; and the
assertion of his total ignorance has been received by many of the
ancients and moderns. But Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 666)
shows, by some probable arguments, that Antony could read and write in
the Coptic, his native tongue; and that he was only a stranger to the
Greek letters. The philosopher Synesius (p. 51) acknowledges that the
natural genius of Antony did not require the aid of learning.]
9 (return)
[ Aruroe autem erant ei trecentae uberes, et valde optimae,
(Vit. Patr. l. v. p. 36.) If the Arura be a square measure, of a hundred
Egyptian cubits, (Rosweyde, Onomasticon ad Vit. Patrum, p. 1014, 1015,)
and the Egyptian cubit of all ages be equal to twenty-two English
inches, (Greaves, vol. i. p. 233,) the arura will consist of about three
quarters of an English acre.]
10 (return)
[ The description of the monastery is given by Jerom (tom.
i. p. 248, 249, in Vit. Hilarion) and the P. Sicard, (Missions du Levant
tom. v. p. 122-200.) Their accounts cannot always be reconciled the
father painted from his fancy, and the Jesuit from his experience.]
11 (return)
[ Jerom, tom. i. p. 146, ad Eustochium. Hist. Lausiac. c. 7,
in Vit. Patrum, p. 712. The P. Sicard (Missions du Levant, tom. ii. p.
29-79) visited and has described this desert, which now contains four
monasteries, and twenty or thirty monks. See D'Anville, Description de
l'Egypte, p. 74.]
12 (return)
[ Tabenne is a small island in the Nile, in the diocese of
Tentyra or Dendera, between the modern town of Girge and the ruins of
ancient Thebes, (D'Anville, p. 194.) M. de Tillemont doubts whether it
was an isle; but I may conclude, from his own facts, that the primitive
name was afterwards transferred to the great monastery of Bau or Pabau,
(Mem. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 678, 688.)]
13 (return)
[ See in the Codex Regularum (published by Lucas Holstenius,
Rome, 1661) a preface of St. Jerom to his Latin version of the Rule of
Pachomius, tom. i. p. 61.]
14 (return)
[ Rufin. c. 5, in Vit. Patrum, p. 459. He calls it civitas
ampla ralde et populosa, and reckons twelve churches. Strabo (l.
xvii. p. 1166) and Ammianus (xxii. 16) have made honorable mention
of Oxyrinchus, whose inhabitants adored a small fish in a magnificent
temple.]
15 (return)
[ Quanti populi habentur in urbibus, tantae paene habentur
in desertis multitudines monachorum. Rufin. c. 7, in Vit. Patrum, p.
461. He congratulates the fortunate change.]
Athanasius introduced into Rome the knowledge and practice of the monastic life; and a school of this new philosophy was opened by the disciples of Antony, who accompanied their primate to the holy threshold of the Vatican. The strange and savage appearance of these Egyptians excited, at first, horror and contempt, and, at length, applause and zealous imitation. The senators, and more especially the matrons, transformed their palaces and villas into religious houses; and the narrow institution of six vestals was eclipsed by the frequent monasteries, which were seated on the ruins of ancient temples, and in the midst of the Roman forum. 16 Inflamed by the example of Antony, a Syrian youth, whose name was Hilarion, 17 fixed his dreary abode on a sandy beach, between the sea and a morass, about seven miles from Gaza. The austere penance, in which he persisted forty-eight years, diffused a similar enthusiasm; and the holy man was followed by a train of two or three thousand anachorets, whenever he visited the innumerable monasteries of Palestine. The fame of Basil 18 is immortal in the monastic history of the East. With a mind that had tasted the learning and eloquence of Athens; with an ambition scarcely to be satisfied with the archbishopric of Caesarea, Basil retired to a savage solitude in Pontus; and deigned, for a while, to give laws to the spiritual colonies which he profusely scattered along the coast of the Black Sea. In the West, Martin of Tours, 19 a soldier, a hermit, a bishop, and a saint, established the monasteries of Gaul; two thousand of his disciples followed him to the grave; and his eloquent historian challenges the deserts of Thebais to produce, in a more favorable climate, a champion of equal virtue. The progress of the monks was not less rapid, or universal, than that of Christianity itself. Every province, and, at last, every city, of the empire, was filled with their increasing multitudes; and the bleak and barren isles, from Lerins to Lipari, that arose out of the Tuscan Sea, were chosen by the anachorets for the place of their voluntary exile. An easy and perpetual intercourse by sea and land connected the provinces of the Roman world; and the life of Hilarion displays the facility with which an indigent hermit of Palestine might traverse Egypt, embark for Sicily, escape to Epirus, and finally settle in the Island of Cyprus. 20 The Latin Christians embraced the religious institutions of Rome. The pilgrims, who visited Jerusalem, eagerly copied, in the most distant climates of the earth, the faithful model of the monastic life. The disciples of Antony spread themselves beyond the tropic, over the Christian empire of Aethiopia. 21 The monastery of Banchor, 22 in Flintshire, which contained above two thousand brethren, dispersed a numerous colony among the Barbarians of Ireland; 23 and Iona, one of the Hebrides, which was planted by the Irish monks, diffused over the northern regions a doubtful ray of science and superstition. 24
16 (return)
[ The introduction of the monastic life into Rome and Italy
is occasionally mentioned by Jerom, tom. i. p. 119, 120, 199.]
17 (return)
[ See the Life of Hilarion, by St. Jerom, (tom. i. p. 241,
252.) The stories of Paul, Hilarion, and Malchus, by the same author,
are admirably told: and the only defect of these pleasing compositions
is the want of truth and common sense.]
18 (return)
[ His original retreat was in a small village on the banks
of the Iris, not far from Neo-Caesarea. The ten or twelve years of
his monastic life were disturbed by long and frequent avocations. Some
critics have disputed the authenticity of his Ascetic rules; but the
external evidence is weighty, and they can only prove that it is the
work of a real or affected enthusiast. See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles tom.
ix. p. 636-644. Helyot, Hist. des Ordres Monastiques tom. i. p. 175-181]
19 (return)
[ See his Life, and the three Dialogues by Sulpicius
Severus, who asserts (Dialog. i. 16) that the booksellers of Rome were
delighted with the quick and ready sale of his popular work.]
20 (return)
[ When Hilarion sailed from Paraetonium to Cape Pachynus,
he offered to pay his passage with a book of the Gospels. Posthumian,
a Gallic monk, who had visited Egypt, found a merchant ship bound from
Alexandria to Marseilles, and performed the voyage in thirty days,
(Sulp. Sever. Dialog. i. 1.) Athanasius, who addressed his Life of St.
Antony to the foreign monks, was obliged to hasten the composition, that
it might be ready for the sailing of the fleets, (tom. ii. p. 451.)]
21 (return)
[ See Jerom, (tom. i. p. 126,) Assemanni, Bibliot. Orient.
tom. iv. p. 92, p. 857-919, and Geddes, Church History of Aethiopia,
p. 29-31. The Abyssinian monks adhere very strictly to the primitive
institution.]
22 (return)
[ Camden's Britannia, vol. i. p. 666, 667.]
23 (return)
[ All that learning can extract from the rubbish of the
dark ages is copiously stated by Archbishop Usher in his Britannicarum
Ecclesiarum Antiquitates, cap. xvi. p. 425-503.]
24 (return)
[ This small, though not barren, spot, Iona, Hy, or
Columbkill, only two miles in length, aud one mile in breadth, has been
distinguished, 1. By the monastery of St. Columba, founded A.D. 566;
whose abbot exercised an extraordinary jurisdiction over the bishops
of Caledonia; 2. By a classic library, which afforded some hopes of
an entire Livy; and, 3. By the tombs of sixty kings, Scots, Irish, and
Norwegians, who reposed in holy ground. See Usher (p. 311, 360-370) and
Buchanan, (Rer. Scot. l. ii. p. 15, edit. Ruddiman.)]
These unhappy exiles from social life were impelled by the dark and implacable genius of superstition. Their mutual resolution was supported by the example of millions, of either sex, of every age, and of every rank; and each proselyte who entered the gates of a monastery, was persuaded that he trod the steep and thorny path of eternal happiness. 25 But the operation of these religious motives was variously determined by the temper and situation of mankind. Reason might subdue, or passion might suspend, their influence: but they acted most forcibly on the infirm minds of children and females; they were strengthened by secret remorse, or accidental misfortune; and they might derive some aid from the temporal considerations of vanity or interest. It was naturally supposed, that the pious and humble monks, who had renounced the world to accomplish the work of their salvation, were the best qualified for the spiritual government of the Christians. The reluctant hermit was torn from his cell, and seated, amidst the acclamations of the people, on the episcopal throne: the monasteries of Egypt, of Gaul, and of the East, supplied a regular succession of saints and bishops; and ambition soon discovered the secret road which led to the possession of wealth and honors. 26 The popular monks, whose reputation was connected with the fame and success of the order, assiduously labored to multiply the number of their fellow-captives. They insinuated themselves into noble and opulent families; and the specious arts of flattery and seduction were employed to secure those proselytes who might bestow wealth or dignity on the monastic profession. The indignant father bewailed the loss, perhaps, of an only son; 27 the credulous maid was betrayed by vanity to violate the laws of nature; and the matron aspired to imaginary perfection, by renouncing the virtues of domestic life. Paula yielded to the persuasive eloquence of Jerom; 28 and the profane title of mother-in-law of God 29 tempted that illustrious widow to consecrate the virginity of her daughter Eustochium. By the advice, and in the company, of her spiritual guide, Paula abandoned Rome and her infant son; retired to the holy village of Bethlem; founded a hospital and four monasteries; and acquired, by her alms and penance, an eminent and conspicuous station in the Catholic church. Such rare and illustrious penitents were celebrated as the glory and example of their age; but the monasteries were filled by a crowd of obscure and abject plebeians, 30 who gained in the cloister much more than they had sacrificed in the world. Peasants, slaves, and mechanics, might escape from poverty and contempt to a safe and honorable profession; whose apparent hardships are mitigated by custom, by popular applause, and by the secret relaxation of discipline. 31 The subjects of Rome, whose persons and fortunes were made responsible for unequal and exorbitant tributes, retired from the oppression of the Imperial government; and the pusillanimous youth preferred the penance of a monastic, to the dangers of a military, life. The affrighted provincials of every rank, who fled before the Barbarians, found shelter and subsistence: whole legions were buried in these religious sanctuaries; and the same cause, which relieved the distress of individuals, impaired the strength and fortitude of the empire. 32
25 (return)
[ Chrysostom (in the first tome of the Benedictine edition)
has consecrated three books to the praise and defence of the monastic
life. He is encouraged, by the example of the ark, to presume that
none but the elect (the monks) can possibly be saved (l. i. p. 55, 56.)
Elsewhere, indeed, he becomes more merciful, (l. iii. p. 83, 84,) and
allows different degrees of glory, like the sun, moon, and stars. In
his lively comparison of a king and a monk, (l. iii. p. 116-121,) he
supposes (what is hardly fair) that the king will be more sparingly
rewarded, and more rigorously punished.]
26 (return)
[ Thomassin (Discipline de l'Eglise tom. i. p. 1426-1469)
and Mabillon, (Oeuvres Posthumes, tom. ii. p. 115-158.) The monks were
gradually adopted as a part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy.]
27 (return)
[ Dr. Middleton (vol. i. p. 110) liberally censures the
conduct and writings of Chrysostom, one of the most eloquent and
successful advocates for the monastic life.]
28 (return)
[ Jerom's devout ladies form a very considerable portion
of his works: the particular treatise, which he styles the Epitaph of
Paula, (tom. i. p. 169-192,) is an elaborate and extravagant panegyric.
The exordium is ridiculously turgid: "If all the members of my body were
changed into tongues, and if all my limbs resounded with a human voice,
yet should I be incapable," &c.]
29 (return)
[ Socrus Dei esse coepisti, (Jerom, tom. i. p. 140, ad
Eustochium.) Rufinus, (in Hieronym. Op. tom. iv. p. 223,) who was justly
scandalized, asks his adversary, from what Pagan poet he had stolen an
expression so impious and absurd.]
30 (return)
[ Nunc autem veniunt plerumque ad hanc professionem
servitutis Dei, et ex conditione servili, vel etiam liberati, vel
propter hoc a Dominis liberati sive liberandi; et ex vita rusticana et
ex opificum exercitatione, et plebeio labore. Augustin, de Oper. Monach.
c. 22, ap. Thomassin, Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. iii. p. 1094. The
Egyptian, who blamed Arsenius, owned that he led a more comfortable life
as a monk than as a shepherd. See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xiv. p.
679.]
31 (return)
[ A Dominican friar, (Voyages du P. Labat, tom. i. p. 10,)
who lodged at Cadiz in a convent of his brethren, soon understood that
their repose was never interrupted by nocturnal devotion; "quoiqu'on ne
laisse pas de sonner pour l'edification du peuple."]
32 (return)
[ See a very sensible preface of Lucas Holstenius to the
Codex Regularum. The emperors attempted to support the obligation of
public and private duties; but the feeble dikes were swept away by
the torrent of superstition; and Justinian surpassed the most sanguine
wishes of the monks, (Thomassin, tom. i. p. 1782-1799, and Bingham,
l. vii. c. iii. p. 253.) Note: The emperor Valens, in particular,
promulgates a law contra ignavise quosdam sectatores, qui desertis
civitatum muneribus, captant solitudines secreta, et specie religionis
cum coetibus monachorum congregantur. Cad. Theod l. xii. tit. i. leg.
63.—G.]
The monastic profession of the ancients 33 was an act of voluntary devotion. The inconstant fanatic was threatened with the eternal vengeance of the God whom he deserted; but the doors of the monastery were still open for repentance. Those monks, whose conscience was fortified by reason or passion, were at liberty to resume the character of men and citizens; and even the spouses of Christ might accept the legal embraces of an earthly lover. 34 The examples of scandal, and the progress of superstition, suggested the propriety of more forcible restraints. After a sufficient trial, the fidelity of the novice was secured by a solemn and perpetual vow; and his irrevocable engagement was ratified by the laws of the church and state. A guilty fugitive was pursued, arrested, and restored to his perpetual prison; and the interposition of the magistrate oppressed the freedom and the merit, which had alleviated, in some degree, the abject slavery of the monastic discipline. 35 The actions of a monk, his words, and even his thoughts, were determined by an inflexible rule, 36 or a capricious superior: the slightest offences were corrected by disgrace or confinement, extraordinary fasts, or bloody flagellation; and disobedience, murmur, or delay, were ranked in the catalogue of the most heinous sins. 37 A blind submission to the commands of the abbot, however absurd, or even criminal, they might seem, was the ruling principle, the first virtue of the Egyptian monks; and their patience was frequently exercised by the most extravagant trials. They were directed to remove an enormous rock; assiduously to water a barren staff, that was planted in the ground, till, at the end of three years, it should vegetate and blossom like a tree; to walk into a fiery furnace; or to cast their infant into a deep pond: and several saints, or madmen, have been immortalized in monastic story, by their thoughtless and fearless obedience. 38 The freedom of the mind, the source of every generous and rational sentiment, was destroyed by the habits of credulity and submission; and the monk, contracting the vices of a slave, devoutly followed the faith and passions of his ecclesiastical tyrant. The peace of the Eastern church was invaded by a swarm of fanatics, incapable of fear, or reason, or humanity; and the Imperial troops acknowledged, without shame, that they were much less apprehensive of an encounter with the fiercest Barbarians. 39
33 (return)
[ The monastic institutions, particularly those of Egypt,
about the year 400, are described by four curious and devout travellers;
Rufinus, (Vit. Patrum, l. ii. iii. p. 424-536,) Posthumian, (Sulp.
Sever. Dialog. i.) Palladius, (Hist. Lausiac. in Vit. Patrum, p.
709-863,) and Cassian, (see in tom. vii. Bibliothec. Max. Patrum,
his four first books of Institutes, and the twenty-four Collations or
Conferences.)]
34 (return)
[ The example of Malchus, (Jerom, tom. i. p. 256,) and
the design of Cassian and his friend, (Collation. xxiv. 1,) are
incontestable proofs of their freedom; which is elegantly described by
Erasmus in his Life of St. Jerom. See Chardon, Hist. des Sacremens, tom.
vi. p. 279-300.]
35 (return)
[ See the Laws of Justinian, (Novel. cxxiii. No. 42,) and of
Lewis the Pious, (in the Historians of France, tom vi. p. 427,) and the
actual jurisprudence of France, in Denissart, (Decisions, &c., tom. iv.
p. 855,) &c.]
36 (return)
[ The ancient Codex Regularum, collected by Benedict
Anianinus, the reformer of the monks in the beginning of the ninth
century, and published in the seventeenth, by Lucas Holstenius, contains
thirty different rules for men and women. Of these, seven were composed
in Egypt, one in the East, one in Cappadocia, one in Italy, one in
Africa, four in Spain, eight in Gaul, or France, and one in England.]
37 (return)
[ The rule of Columbanus, so prevalent in the West, inflicts
one hundred lashes for very slight offences, (Cod. Reg. part ii. p.
174.) Before the time of Charlemagne, the abbots indulged themselves
in mutilating their monks, or putting out their eyes; a punishment much
less cruel than the tremendous vade in pace (the subterraneous dungeon
or sepulchre) which was afterwards invented. See an admirable discourse
of the learned Mabillon, (Oeuvres Posthumes, tom. ii. p. 321-336,) who,
on this occasion, seems to be inspired by the genius of humanity. For
such an effort, I can forgive his defence of the holy tear of Vendeme
(p. 361-399.)]
38 (return)
[ Sulp. Sever. Dialog. i. 12, 13, p. 532, &c. Cassian.
Institut. l. iv. c. 26, 27. "Praecipua ibi virtus et prima est
obedientia." Among the Verba seniorum, (in Vit. Patrum, l. v. p. 617,)
the fourteenth libel or discourse is on the subject of obedience; and
the Jesuit Rosweyde, who published that huge volume for the use of
convents, has collected all the scattered passages in his two copious
indexes.]
39 (return)
[ Dr. Jortin (Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. iv. p.
161) has observed the scandalous valor of the Cappadocian monks, which
was exemplified in the banishment of Chrysostom.]
Superstition has often framed and consecrated the fantastic garments of the monks: 40 but their apparent singularity sometimes proceeds from their uniform attachment to a simple and primitive model, which the revolutions of fashion have made ridiculous in the eyes of mankind. The father of the Benedictines expressly disclaims all idea of choice of merit; and soberly exhorts his disciples to adopt the coarse and convenient dress of the countries which they may inhabit. 41 The monastic habits of the ancients varied with the climate, and their mode of life; and they assumed, with the same indifference, the sheep-skin of the Egyptian peasants, or the cloak of the Grecian philosophers. They allowed themselves the use of linen in Egypt, where it was a cheap and domestic manufacture; but in the West they rejected such an expensive article of foreign luxury. 42 It was the practice of the monks either to cut or shave their hair; they wrapped their heads in a cowl to escape the sight of profane objects; their legs and feet were naked, except in the extreme cold of winter; and their slow and feeble steps were supported by a long staff. The aspect of a genuine anachoret was horrid and disgusting: every sensation that is offensive to man was thought acceptable to God; and the angelic rule of Tabenne condemned the salutary custom of bathing the limbs in water, and of anointing them with oil. 43 431 The austere monks slept on the ground, on a hard mat, or a rough blanket; and the same bundle of palm-leaves served them as a seat in the lay, and a pillow in the night. Their original cells were low, narrow huts, built of the slightest materials; which formed, by the regular distribution of the streets, a large and populous village, enclosing, within the common wall, a church, a hospital, perhaps a library, some necessary offices, a garden, and a fountain or reservoir of fresh water. Thirty or forty brethren composed a family of separate discipline and diet; and the great monasteries of Egypt consisted of thirty or forty families.
40 (return)
[ Cassian has simply, though copiously, described the
monastic habit of Egypt, (Institut. l. i.,) to which Sozomen (l. iii. c.
14) attributes such allegorical meaning and virtue.]
41 (return)
[ Regul. Benedict. No. 55, in Cod. Regul. part ii. p. 51.]
42 (return)
[ See the rule of Ferreolus, bishop of Usez, (No. 31, in
Cod. Regul part ii. p. 136,) and of Isidore, bishop of Seville, (No. 13,
in Cod. Regul part ii. p. 214.)]
43 (return)
[ Some partial indulgences were granted for the hands
and feet "Totum autem corpus nemo unguet nisi causa infirmitatis, nec
lavabitur aqua nudo corpore, nisi languor perspicuus sit," (Regul.
Pachom xcii. part i. p. 78.)]
431 (return)
[ Athanasius (Vit. Ant. c. 47) boasts of Antony's holy
horror of clear water, by which his feet were uncontaminated except
under dire necessity—M.]
Pleasure and guilt are synonymous terms in the language of the monks, and they discovered, by experience, that rigid fasts, and abstemious diet, are the most effectual preservatives against the impure desires of the flesh. 44 The rules of abstinence which they imposed, or practised, were not uniform or perpetual: the cheerful festival of the Pentecost was balanced by the extraordinary mortification of Lent; the fervor of new monasteries was insensibly relaxed; and the voracious appetite of the Gauls could not imitate the patient and temperate virtue of the Egyptians. 45 The disciples of Antony and Pachomius were satisfied with their daily pittance, 46 of twelve ounces of bread, or rather biscuit, 47 which they divided into two frugal repasts, of the afternoon and of the evening. It was esteemed a merit, and almost a duty, to abstain from the boiled vegetables which were provided for the refectory; but the extraordinary bounty of the abbot sometimes indulged them with the luxury of cheese, fruit, salad, and the small dried fish of the Nile. 48 A more ample latitude of sea and river fish was gradually allowed or assumed; but the use of flesh was long confined to the sick or travellers; and when it gradually prevailed in the less rigid monasteries of Europe, a singular distinction was introduced; as if birds, whether wild or domestic, had been less profane than the grosser animals of the field. Water was the pure and innocent beverage of the primitive monks; and the founder of the Benedictines regrets the daily portion of half a pint of wine, which had been extorted from him by the intemperance of the age. 49 Such an allowance might be easily supplied by the vineyards of Italy; and his victorious disciples, who passed the Alps, the Rhine, and the Baltic, required, in the place of wine, an adequate compensation of strong beer or cider.
44 (return)
[ St. Jerom, in strong, but indiscreet, language, expresses
the most important use of fasting and abstinence: "Non quod Deus
universitatis Creator et Dominus, intestinorum nostrorum rugitu, et
inanitate ventris, pulmonisque ardore delectetur, sed quod aliter
pudicitia tuta esse non possit." (Op. tom. i. p. 32, ad Eustochium.) See
the twelfth and twenty-second Collations of Cassian, de Castitate and de
Illusionibus Nocturnis.]
45 (return)
[ Edacitas in Graecis gula est, in Gallis natura, (Dialog.
i. c. 4 p. 521.) Cassian fairly owns, that the perfect model of
abstinence cannot be imitated in Gaul, on account of the aerum
temperies, and the qualitas nostrae fragilitatis, (Institut. iv. 11.)
Among the Western rules, that of Columbanus is the most austere; he
had been educated amidst the poverty of Ireland, as rigid, perhaps, and
inflexible as the abstemious virtue of Egypt. The rule of Isidore of
Seville is the mildest; on holidays he allows the use of flesh.]
46 (return)
[ "Those who drink only water, and have no nutritious
liquor, ought, at least, to have a pound and a half (twenty-four ounces)
of bread every day." State of Prisons, p. 40, by Mr. Howard.]
47 (return)
[ See Cassian. Collat. l. ii. 19-21. The small loaves,
or biscuit, of six ounces each, had obtained the name of Paximacia,
(Rosweyde, Onomasticon, p. 1045.) Pachomius, however, allowed his monks
some latitude in the quantity of their food; but he made them work in
proportion as they ate, (Pallad. in Hist. Lausiac. c. 38, 39, in Vit.
Patrum, l. viii. p. 736, 737.)]
48 (return)
[ See the banquet to which Cassian (Collation viii. 1) was
invited by Serenus, an Egyptian abbot.]
49 (return)
[ See the Rule of St. Benedict, No. 39, 40, (in Cod. Reg.
part ii. p. 41, 42.) Licet legamus vinum omnino monachorum non esse,
sed quia nostris temporibus id monachis persuaderi non potest; he allows
them a Roman hemina, a measure which may be ascertained from Arbuthnot's
Tables.]
The candidate who aspired to the virtue of evangelical poverty, abjured, at his first entrance into a regular community, the idea, and even the name, of all separate or exclusive possessions. 50 The brethren were supported by their manual labor; and the duty of labor was strenuously recommended as a penance, as an exercise, and as the most laudable means of securing their daily subsistence. 51 The garden and fields, which the industry of the monks had often rescued from the forest or the morass, were diligently cultivated by their hands. They performed, without reluctance, the menial offices of slaves and domestics; and the several trades that were necessary to provide their habits, their utensils, and their lodging, were exercised within the precincts of the great monasteries. The monastic studies have tended, for the most part, to darken, rather than to dispel, the cloud of superstition. Yet the curiosity or zeal of some learned solitaries has cultivated the ecclesiastical, and even the profane, sciences; and posterity must gratefully acknowledge, that the monuments of Greek and Roman literature have been preserved and multiplied by their indefatigable pens. 52 But the more humble industry of the monks, especially in Egypt, was contented with the silent, sedentary occupation of making wooden sandals, or of twisting the leaves of the palm-tree into mats and baskets. The superfluous stock, which was not consumed in domestic use, supplied, by trade, the wants of the community: the boats of Tabenne, and the other monasteries of Thebais, descended the Nile as far as Alexandria; and, in a Christian market, the sanctity of the workmen might enhance the intrinsic value of the work.
50 (return)
[ Such expressions as my book, my cloak, my shoes, (Cassian
Institut. l. iv. c. 13,) were not less severely prohibited among the
Western monks, (Cod. Regul. part ii. p. 174, 235, 288;) and the rule
of Columbanus punished them with six lashes. The ironical author of the
Ordres Monastiques, who laughs at the foolish nicety of modern convents,
seems ignorant that the ancients were equally absurd.]
51 (return)
[ Two great masters of ecclesiastical science, the P.
Thomassin, (Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. iii. p. 1090-1139,) and the
P. Mabillon, (Etudes Monastiques, tom. i. p. 116-155,) have seriously
examined the manual labor of the monks, which the former considers as a
merit and the latter as a duty.]
52 (return)
[ Mabillon (Etudes Monastiques, tom. i. p. 47-55) has
collected many curious facts to justify the literary labors of his
predecessors, both in the East and West. Books were copied in the
ancient monasteries of Egypt, (Cassian. Institut. l. iv. c. 12,) and
by the disciples of St. Martin, (Sulp. Sever. in Vit. Martin. c. 7,
p. 473.) Cassiodorus has allowed an ample scope for the studies of the
monks; and we shall not be scandalized, if their pens sometimes wandered
from Chrysostom and Augustin to Homer and Virgil. But the necessity of
manual labor was insensibly superseded.]
The novice was tempted to bestow his fortune on the saints, in whose society he was resolved to spend the remainder of his life; and the pernicious indulgence of the laws permitted him to receive, for their use, any future accessions of legacy or inheritance. 53 Melania contributed her plate, three hundred pounds weight of silver; and Paula contracted an immense debt, for the relief of their favorite monks; who kindly imparted the merits of their prayers and penance to a rich and liberal sinner. 54 Time continually increased, and accidents could seldom diminish, the estates of the popular monasteries, which spread over the adjacent country and cities: and, in the first century of their institution, the infidel Zosimus has maliciously observed, that, for the benefit of the poor, the Christian monks had reduced a great part of mankind to a state of beggary. 55 As long as they maintained their original fervor, they approved themselves, however, the faithful and benevolent stewards of the charity, which was entrusted to their care. But their discipline was corrupted by prosperity: they gradually assumed the pride of wealth, and at last indulged the luxury of expense. Their public luxury might be excused by the magnificence of religious worship, and the decent motive of erecting durable habitations for an immortal society. But every age of the church has accused the licentiousness of the degenerate monks; who no longer remembered the object of their institution, embraced the vain and sensual pleasures of the world, which they had renounced, 56 and scandalously abused the riches which had been acquired by the austere virtues of their founders. 57 Their natural descent, from such painful and dangerous virtue, to the common vices of humanity, will not, perhaps, excite much grief or indignation in the mind of a philosopher.
53 (return)
[ Thomassin (Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. iii. p. 118,
145, 146, 171-179) has examined the revolution of the civil, canon, and
common law. Modern France confirms the death which monks have inflicted
on themselves, and justly deprives them of all right of inheritance.]
54 (return)
[ See Jerom, (tom. i. p. 176, 183.) The monk Pambo made a
sublime answer to Melania, who wished to specify the value of her
gift: "Do you offer it to me, or to God? If to God, He who suspends
the mountain in a balance, need not be informed of the weight of your
plate." (Pallad. Hist. Lausiac. c. 10, in the Vit. Patrum, l. viii. p.
715.)]
55 (return)
[ Zosim. l. v. p. 325. Yet the wealth of the Eastern monks
was far surpassed by the princely greatness of the Benedictines.]
56 (return)
[ The sixth general council (the Quinisext in Trullo, Canon
xlvii in Beveridge, tom. i. p. 213) restrains women from passing the
night in a male, or men in a female, monastery. The seventh general
council (the second Nicene, Canon xx. in Beveridge, tom. i. p. 325)
prohibits the erection of double or promiscuous monasteries of both
sexes; but it appears from Balsamon, that the prohibition was not
effectual. On the irregular pleasures and expenses of the clergy and
monks, see Thomassin, tom. iii. p. 1334-1368.]
57 (return)
[ I have somewhere heard or read the frank confession of a
Benedictine abbot: "My vow of poverty has given me a hundred thousand
crowns a year; my vow of obedience has raised me to the rank of a
sovereign prince."—I forget the consequences of his vow of chastity.]
The lives of the primitive monks were consumed in penance and solitude; undisturbed by the various occupations which fill the time, and exercise the faculties, of reasonable, active, and social beings. Whenever they were permitted to step beyond the precincts of the monastery, two jealous companions were the mutual guards and spies of each other's actions; and, after their return, they were condemned to forget, or, at least, to suppress, whatever they had seen or heard in the world. Strangers, who professed the orthodox faith, were hospitably entertained in a separate apartment; but their dangerous conversation was restricted to some chosen elders of approved discretion and fidelity. Except in their presence, the monastic slave might not receive the visits of his friends or kindred; and it was deemed highly meritorious, if he afflicted a tender sister, or an aged parent, by the obstinate refusal of a word or look. 58 The monks themselves passed their lives, without personal attachments, among a crowd which had been formed by accident, and was detained, in the same prison, by force or prejudice. Recluse fanatics have few ideas or sentiments to communicate: a special license of the abbot regulated the time and duration of their familiar visits; and, at their silent meals, they were enveloped in their cowls, inaccessible, and almost invisible, to each other. 59 Study is the resource of solitude: but education had not prepared and qualified for any liberal studies the mechanics and peasants who filled the monastic communities. They might work: but the vanity of spiritual perfection was tempted to disdain the exercise of manual labor; and the industry must be faint and languid, which is not excited by the sense of personal interest.
58 (return)
[ Pior, an Egyptian monk, allowed his sister to see him;
but he shut his eyes during the whole visit. See Vit. Patrum, l. iii. p.
504. Many such examples might be added.]
59 (return)
[ The 7th, 8th, 29th, 30th, 31st, 34th, 57th, 60th, 86th,
and 95th articles of the Rule of Pachomius, impose most intolerable laws
of silence and mortification.]
According to their faith and zeal, they might employ the day, which they passed in their cells, either in vocal or mental prayer: they assembled in the evening, and they were awakened in the night, for the public worship of the monastery. The precise moment was determined by the stars, which are seldom clouded in the serene sky of Egypt; and a rustic horn, or trumpet, the signal of devotion, twice interrupted the vast silence of the desert. 60 Even sleep, the last refuge of the unhappy, was rigorously measured: the vacant hours of the monk heavily rolled along, without business or pleasure; and, before the close of each day, he had repeatedly accused the tedious progress of the sun. 61 In this comfortless state, superstition still pursued and tormented her wretched votaries. 62 The repose which they had sought in the cloister was disturbed by a tardy repentance, profane doubts, and guilty desires; and, while they considered each natural impulse as an unpardonable sin, they perpetually trembled on the edge of a flaming and bottomless abyss. From the painful struggles of disease and despair, these unhappy victims were sometimes relieved by madness or death; and, in the sixth century, a hospital was founded at Jerusalem for a small portion of the austere penitents, who were deprived of their senses. 63 Their visions, before they attained this extreme and acknowledged term of frenzy, have afforded ample materials of supernatural history. It was their firm persuasion, that the air, which they breathed, was peopled with invisible enemies; with innumerable demons, who watched every occasion, and assumed every form, to terrify, and above all to tempt, their unguarded virtue. The imagination, and even the senses, were deceived by the illusions of distempered fanaticism; and the hermit, whose midnight prayer was oppressed by involuntary slumber, might easily confound the phantoms of horror or delight, which had occupied his sleeping and his waking dreams. 64
60 (return)
[ The diurnal and nocturnal prayers of the monks are
copiously discussed by Cassian, in the third and fourth books of his
Institutions; and he constantly prefers the liturgy, which an angel had
dictated to the monasteries of Tebennoe.]
61 (return)
[ Cassian, from his own experience, describes the acedia,
or listlessness of mind and body, to which a monk was exposed, when he
sighed to find himself alone. Saepiusque egreditur et ingreditur
cellam, et Solem velut ad occasum tardius properantem crebrius intuetur,
(Institut. x. l.)]
62 (return)
[ The temptations and sufferings of Stagirius were
communicated by that unfortunate youth to his friend St. Chrysostom. See
Middleton's Works, vol. i. p. 107-110. Something similar introduces the
life of every saint; and the famous Inigo, or Ignatius, the founder of
the Jesuits, (vide d'Inigo de Guiposcoa, tom. i. p. 29-38,) may serve as
a memorable example.]
63 (return)
[ Fleury, Hist. Ecclesiastique, tom. vii. p. 46. I have
read somewhere, in the Vitae Patrum, but I cannot recover the place
that several, I believe many, of the monks, who did not reveal their
temptations to the abbot, became guilty of suicide.]
64 (return)
[ See the seventh and eighth Collations of Cassian, who
gravely examines, why the demons were grown less active and numerous
since the time of St. Antony. Rosweyde's copious index to the Vitae
Patrum will point out a variety of infernal scenes. The devils were most
formidable in a female shape.]
The monks were divided into two classes: the Coenobites, who lived under a common and regular discipline; and the Anachorets, who indulged their unsocial, independent fanaticism. 65 The most devout, or the most ambitious, of the spiritual brethren, renounced the convent, as they had renounced the world. The fervent monasteries of Egypt, Palestine, and Syria, were surrounded by a Laura, 66 a distant circle of solitary cells; and the extravagant penance of Hermits was stimulated by applause and emulation. 67 They sunk under the painful weight of crosses and chains; and their emaciated limbs were confined by collars, bracelets, gauntlets, and greaves of massy and rigid iron. All superfluous encumbrance of dress they contemptuously cast away; and some savage saints of both sexes have been admired, whose naked bodies were only covered by their long hair. They aspired to reduce themselves to the rude and miserable state in which the human brute is scarcely distinguishable above his kindred animals; and the numerous sect of Anachorets derived their name from their humble practice of grazing in the fields of Mesopotamia with the common herd. 68 They often usurped the den of some wild beast whom they affected to resemble; they buried themselves in some gloomy cavern, which art or nature had scooped out of the rock; and the marble quarries of Thebais are still inscribed with the monuments of their penance. 69 The most perfect Hermits are supposed to have passed many days without food, many nights without sleep, and many years without speaking; and glorious was the man ( I abuse that name) who contrived any cell, or seat, of a peculiar construction, which might expose him, in the most inconvenient posture, to the inclemency of the seasons.
65 (return)
[ For the distinction of the Coenobites and the Hermits,
especially in Egypt, see Jerom, (tom. i. p. 45, ad Rusticum,) the first
Dialogue of Sulpicius Severus, Rufinus, (c. 22, in Vit. Patrum, l. ii.
p. 478,) Palladius, (c. 7, 69, in Vit. Patrum, l. viii. p. 712, 758,)
and, above all, the eighteenth and nineteenth Collations of Cassian.
These writers, who compare the common and solitary life, reveal the
abuse and danger of the latter.]
66 (return)
[ Suicer. Thesaur. Ecclesiast. tom. ii. p. 205, 218.
Thomassin (Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. i. p. 1501, 1502) gives a good
account of these cells. When Gerasimus founded his monastery in the
wilderness of Jordan, it was accompanied by a Laura of seventy cells.]
67 (return)
[ Theodoret, in a large volume, (the Philotheus in Vit.
Patrum, l. ix. p. 793-863,) has collected the lives and miracles of
thirty Anachorets. Evagrius (l. i. c. 12) more briefly celebrates the
monks and hermits of Palestine.]
68 (return)
[ Sozomen, l. vi. c. 33. The great St. Ephrem composed a
panegyric on these or grazing monks, (Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. viii.
p. 292.)]
69 (return)
[ The P. Sicard (Missions du Levant, tom. ii. p. 217-233)
examined the caverns of the Lower Thebais with wonder and devotion.
The inscriptions are in the old Syriac character, which was used by the
Christians of Abyssinia.]
Among these heroes of the monastic life, the name and genius of Simeon Stylites 70 have been immortalized by the singular invention of an aerial penance. At the age of thirteen, the young Syrian deserted the profession of a shepherd, and threw himself into an austere monastery. After a long and painful novitiate, in which Simeon was repeatedly saved from pious suicide, he established his residence on a mountain, about thirty or forty miles to the east of Antioch. Within the space of a mandra, or circle of stones, to which he had attached himself by a ponderous chain, he ascended a column, which was successively raised from the height of nine, to that of sixty, feet from the ground. 71 In this last and lofty station, the Syrian Anachoret resisted the heat of thirty summers, and the cold of as many winters. Habit and exercise instructed him to maintain his dangerous situation without fear or giddiness, and successively to assume the different postures of devotion. He sometimes prayed in an erect attitude, with his outstretched arms in the figure of a cross, but his most familiar practice was that of bending his meagre skeleton from the forehead to the feet; and a curious spectator, after numbering twelve hundred and forty-four repetitions, at length desisted from the endless account. The progress of an ulcer in his thigh 72 might shorten, but it could not disturb, this celestial life; and the patient Hermit expired, without descending from his column. A prince, who should capriciously inflict such tortures, would be deemed a tyrant; but it would surpass the power of a tyrant to impose a long and miserable existence on the reluctant victims of his cruelty. This voluntary martyrdom must have gradually destroyed the sensibility both of the mind and body; nor can it be presumed that the fanatics, who torment themselves, are susceptible of any lively affection for the rest of mankind. A cruel, unfeeling temper has distinguiseed the monks of every age and country: their stern indifference, which is seldom mollified by personal friendship, is inflamed by religious hatred; and their merciless zeal has strenuously administered the holy office of the Inquisition.
70 (return)
[ See Theodoret (in Vit. Patrum, l. ix. p. 848-854,) Antony,
(in Vit. Patrum, l. i. p. 170-177,) Cosmas, (in Asseman. Bibliot.
Oriental tom. i. p. 239-253,) Evagrius, (l. i. c. 13, 14,) and
Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. xv. p. 347-392.)]
71 (return)
[ The narrow circumference of two cubits, or three feet,
which Evagrius assigns for the summit of the column is inconsistent with
reason, with facts, and with the rules of architecture. The people who
saw it from below might be easily deceived.]
72 (return)
[ I must not conceal a piece of ancient scandal concerning
the origin of this ulcer. It has been reported that the Devil, assuming
an angelic form, invited him to ascend, like Elijah, into a fiery
chariot. The saint too hastily raised his foot, and Satan seized the
moment of inflicting this chastisement on his vanity.]
The monastic saints, who excite only the contempt and pity of a philosopher, were respected, and almost adored, by the prince and people. Successive crowds of pilgrims from Gaul and India saluted the divine pillar of Simeon: the tribes of Saracens disputed in arms the honor of his benediction; the queens of Arabia and Persia gratefully confessed his supernatural virtue; and the angelic Hermit was consulted by the younger Theodosius, in the most important concerns of the church and state. His remains were transported from the mountain of Telenissa, by a solemn procession of the patriarch, the master-general of the East, six bishops, twenty-one counts or tribunes, and six thousand soldiers; and Antioch revered his bones, as her glorious ornament and impregnable defence. The fame of the apostles and martyrs was gradually eclipsed by these recent and popular Anachorets; the Christian world fell prostrate before their shrines; and the miracles ascribed to their relics exceeded, at least in number and duration, the spiritual exploits of their lives. But the golden legend of their lives 73 was embellished by the artful credulity of their interested brethren; and a believing age was easily persuaded, that the slightest caprice of an Egyptian or a Syrian monk had been sufficient to interrupt the eternal laws of the universe. The favorites of Heaven were accustomed to cure inveterate diseases with a touch, a word, or a distant message; and to expel the most obstinate demons from the souls or bodies which they possessed. They familiarly accosted, or imperiously commanded, the lions and serpents of the desert; infused vegetation into a sapless trunk; suspended iron on the surface of the water; passed the Nile on the back of a crocodile, and refreshed themselves in a fiery furnace. These extravagant tales, which display the fiction without the genius, of poetry, have seriously affected the reason, the faith, and the morals, of the Christians. Their credulity debased and vitiated the faculties of the mind: they corrupted the evidence of history; and superstition gradually extinguished the hostile light of philosophy and science. Every mode of religious worship which had been practised by the saints, every mysterious doctrine which they believed, was fortified by the sanction of divine revelation, and all the manly virtues were oppressed by the servile and pusillanimous reign of the monks. If it be possible to measure the interval between the philosophic writings of Cicero and the sacred legend of Theodoret, between the character of Cato and that of Simeon, we may appreciate the memorable revolution which was accomplished in the Roman empire within a period of five hundred years.
73 (return)
[ I know not how to select or specify the miracles contained
in the Vitae Patrum of Rosweyde, as the number very much exceeds the
thousand pages of that voluminous work. An elegant specimen may be found
in the dialogues of Sulpicius Severus, and his Life of St. Martin. He
reveres the monks of Egypt; yet he insults them with the remark, that
they never raised the dead; whereas the bishop of Tours had restored
three dead men to life.]
II. The progress of Christianity has been marked by two glorious and decisive victories: over the learned and luxurious citizens of the Roman empire; and over the warlike Barbarians of Scythia and Germany, who subverted the empire, and embraced the religion, of the Romans. The Goths were the foremost of these savage proselytes; and the nation was indebted for its conversion to a countryman, or, at least, to a subject, worthy to be ranked among the inventors of useful arts, who have deserved the remembrance and gratitude of posterity. A great number of Roman provincials had been led away into captivity by the Gothic bands, who ravaged Asia in the time of Gallienus; and of these captives, many were Christians, and several belonged to the ecclesiastical order. Those involuntary missionaries, dispersed as slaves in the villages of Dacia, successively labored for the salvation of their masters. The seeds which they planted, of the evangelic doctrine, were gradually propagated; and before the end of a century, the pious work was achieved by the labors of Ulphilas, whose ancestors had been transported beyond the Danube from a small town of Cappadocia.
Ulphilas, the bishop and apostle of the Goths, 74 acquired their love and reverence by his blameless life and indefatigable zeal; and they received, with implicit confidence, the doctrines of truth and virtue which he preached and practised. He executed the arduous task of translating the Scriptures into their native tongue, a dialect of the German or Teutonic language; but he prudently suppressed the four books of Kings, as they might tend to irritate the fierce and sanguinary spirit of the Barbarians. The rude, imperfect idiom of soldiers and shepherds, so ill qualified to communicate any spiritual ideas, was improved and modulated by his genius: and Ulphilas, before he could frame his version, was obliged to compose a new alphabet of twenty-four letters; 741 four of which he invented, to express the peculiar sounds that were unknown to the Greek and Latin pronunciation. 75 But the prosperous state of the Gothic church was soon afflicted by war and intestine discord, and the chieftains were divided by religion as well as by interest. Fritigern, the friend of the Romans, became the proselyte of Ulphilas; while the haughty soul of Athanaric disdained the yoke of the empire and of the gospel The faith of the new converts was tried by the persecution which he excited. A wagon, bearing aloft the shapeless image of Thor, perhaps, or of Woden, was conducted in solemn procession through the streets of the camp; and the rebels, who refused to worship the god of their fathers, were immediately burnt, with their tents and families. The character of Ulphilas recommended him to the esteem of the Eastern court, where he twice appeared as the minister of peace; he pleaded the cause of the distressed Goths, who implored the protection of Valens; and the name of Moses was applied to this spiritual guide, who conducted his people through the deep waters of the Danube to the Land of Promise. 76 The devout shepherds, who were attached to his person, and tractable to his voice, acquiesced in their settlement, at the foot of the Maesian mountains, in a country of woodlands and pastures, which supported their flocks and herds, and enabled them to purchase the corn and wine of the more plentiful provinces. These harmless Barbarians multiplied in obscure peace and the profession of Christianity. 77
74 (return)
[ On the subject of Ulphilas, and the conversion of the
Goths, see Sozomen, l. vi. c. 37. Socrates, l. iv. c. 33. Theodoret, l.
iv. c. 37. Philostorg. l. ii. c. 5. The heresy of Philostorgius appears
to have given him superior means of information.]
741 (return)
[ This is the Moeso-Gothic alphabet of which many of the
letters are evidently formed from the Greek and Roman. M. St. Martin,
however contends, that it is impossible but that some written alphabet
must have been known long before among the Goths. He supposes that
their former letters were those inscribed on the runes, which, being
inseparably connected with the old idolatrous superstitions, were
proscribed by the Christian missionaries. Everywhere the runes, so
common among all the German tribes, disappear after the propagation of
Christianity. S. Martin iv. p. 97, 98.—M.]
75 (return)
[ A mutilated copy of the four Gospels, in the Gothic
version, was published A.D. 1665, and is esteemed the most ancient
monument of the Teutonic language, though Wetstein attempts, by some
frivolous conjectures, to deprive Ulphilas of the honor of the work. Two
of the four additional letters express the W, and our own Th. See Simon,
Hist. Critique du Nouveau Testament, tom ii. p. 219-223. Mill. Prolegom
p. 151, edit. Kuster. Wetstein, Prolegom. tom. i. p. 114. * Note: The
Codex Argenteus, found in the sixteenth century at Wenden, near Cologne,
and now preserved at Upsal, contains almost the entire four Gospels.
The best edition is that of J. Christ. Zahn, Weissenfels, 1805. In 1762
Knettel discovered and published from a Palimpsest MS. four chapters of
the Epistle to the Romans: they were reprinted at Upsal, 1763. M. Mai
has since that time discovered further fragments, and other remains
of Moeso-Gothic literature, from a Palimpsest at Milan. See Ulphilae
partium inedi arum in Ambrosianis Palimpsestis ab Ang. Maio repertarum
specimen Milan. Ito. 1819.—M.]
76 (return)
[ Philostorgius erroneously places this passage under the
reign of Constantine; but I am much inclined to believe that it preceded
the great emigration.]
77 (return)
[ We are obliged to Jornandes (de Reb. Get. c. 51, p. 688)
for a short and lively picture of these lesser Goths. Gothi minores,
populus immensus, cum suo Pontifice ipsoque primate Wulfila. The
last words, if they are not mere tautology, imply some temporal
jurisdiction.]
Their fiercer brethren, the formidable Visigoths, universally adopted the religion of the Romans, with whom they maintained a perpetual intercourse, of war, of friendship, or of conquest. In their long and victorious march from the Danube to the Atlantic Ocean, they converted their allies; they educated the rising generation; and the devotion which reigned in the camp of Alaric, or the court of Thoulouse, might edify or disgrace the palaces of Rome and Constantinople. 78 During the same period, Christianity was embraced by almost all the Barbarians, who established their kingdoms on the ruins of the Western empire; the Burgundians in Gaul, the Suevi in Spain, the Vandals in Africa, the Ostrogoths in Pannonia, and the various bands of mercenaries, that raised Odoacer to the throne of Italy. The Franks and the Saxons still persevered in the errors of Paganism; but the Franks obtained the monarchy of Gaul by their submission to the example of Clovis; and the Saxon conquerors of Britain were reclaimed from their savage superstition by the missionaries of Rome. These Barbarian proselytes displayed an ardent and successful zeal in the propagation of the faith. The Merovingian kings, and their successors, Charlemagne and the Othos, extended, by their laws and victories, the dominion of the cross. England produced the apostle of Germany; and the evangelic light was gradually diffused from the neighborhood of the Rhine, to the nations of the Elbe, the Vistula, and the Baltic. 79
78 (return)
[ At non ita Gothi non ita Vandali; malis licet doctoribus
instituti meliores tamen etiam in hac parte quam nostri. Salvian, de
Gubern, Dei, l. vii. p. 243.]
79 (return)
[ Mosheim has slightly sketched the progress of Christianity
in the North, from the fourth to the fourteenth century. The subject
would afford materials for an ecclesiastical and even philosophical,
history]
The different motives which influenced the reason, or the passions, of the Barbarian converts, cannot easily be ascertained. They were often capricious and accidental; a dream, an omen, the report of a miracle, the example of some priest, or hero, the charms of a believing wife, and, above all, the fortunate event of a prayer, or vow, which, in a moment of danger, they had addressed to the God of the Christians. 80 The early prejudices of education were insensibly erased by the habits of frequent and familiar society, the moral precepts of the gospel were protected by the extravagant virtues of the monks; and a spiritual theology was supported by the visible power of relics, and the pomp of religious worship. But the rational and ingenious mode of persuasion, which a Saxon bishop 81 suggested to a popular saint, might sometimes be employed by the missionaries, who labored for the conversion of infidels. "Admit," says the sagacious disputant, "whatever they are pleased to assert of the fabulous, and carnal, genealogy of their gods and goddesses, who are propagated from each other. From this principle deduce their imperfect nature, and human infirmities, the assurance they were born, and the probability that they will die. At what time, by what means, from what cause, were the eldest of the gods or goddesses produced? Do they still continue, or have they ceased, to propagate? If they have ceased, summon your antagonists to declare the reason of this strange alteration. If they still continue, the number of the gods must become infinite; and shall we not risk, by the indiscreet worship of some impotent deity, to excite the resentment of his jealous superior? The visible heavens and earth, the whole system of the universe, which may be conceived by the mind, is it created or eternal? If created, how, or where, could the gods themselves exist before creation? If eternal, how could they assume the empire of an independent and preexisting world? Urge these arguments with temper and moderation; insinuate, at seasonable intervals, the truth and beauty of the Christian revelation; and endeavor to make the unbelievers ashamed, without making them angry." This metaphysical reasoning, too refined, perhaps, for the Barbarians of Germany, was fortified by the grosser weight of authority and popular consent. The advantage of temporal prosperity had deserted the Pagan cause, and passed over to the service of Christianity. The Romans themselves, the most powerful and enlightened nation of the globe, had renounced their ancient superstition; and, if the ruin of their empire seemed to accuse the efficacy of the new faith, the disgrace was already retrieved by the conversion of the victorious Goths. The valiant and fortunate Barbarians, who subdued the provinces of the West, successively received, and reflected, the same edifying example. Before the age of Charlemagne, the Christian nations of Europe might exult in the exclusive possession of the temperate climates, of the fertile lands, which produced corn, wine, and oil; while the savage idolaters, and their helpless idols, were confined to the extremities of the earth, the dark and frozen regions of the North. 82
80 (return)
[ To such a cause has Socrates (l. vii. c. 30) ascribed the
conversion of the Burgundians, whose Christian piety is celebrated by
Orosius, (l. vii. c. 19.)]
81 (return)
[ See an original and curious epistle from Daniel, the first
bishop of Winchester, (Beda, Hist. Eccles. Anglorum, l. v. c. 18, p.
203, edit Smith,) to St. Boniface, who preached the gospel among the
savages of Hesse and Thuringia. Epistol. Bonifacii, lxvii., in the
Maxima Bibliotheca Patrum, tom. xiii. p. 93]
82 (return)
[ The sword of Charlemagne added weight to the argument; but
when Daniel wrote this epistle, (A.D. 723,) the Mahometans, who reigned
from India to Spain, might have retorted it against the Christians.]
Christianity, which opened the gates of Heaven to the Barbarians, introduced an important change in their moral and political condition. They received, at the same time, the use of letters, so essential to a religion whose doctrines are contained in a sacred book; and while they studied the divine truth, their minds were insensibly enlarged by the distant view of history, of nature, of the arts, and of society. The version of the Scriptures into their native tongue, which had facilitated their conversion, must excite among their clergy some curiosity to read the original text, to understand the sacred liturgy of the church, and to examine, in the writings of the fathers, the chain of ecclesiastical tradition. These spiritual gifts were preserved in the Greek and Latin languages, which concealed the inestimable monuments of ancient learning. The immortal productions of Virgil, Cicero, and Livy, which were accessible to the Christian Barbarians, maintained a silent intercourse between the reign of Augustus and the times of Clovis and Charlemagne. The emulation of mankind was encouraged by the remembrance of a more perfect state; and the flame of science was secretly kept alive, to warm and enlighten the mature age of the Western world.
In the most corrupt state of Christianity, the Barbarians might learn justice from the law, and mercy from the gospel; and if the knowledge of their duty was insufficient to guide their actions, or to regulate their passions, they were sometimes restrained by conscience, and frequently punished by remorse. But the direct authority of religion was less effectual than the holy communion, which united them with their Christian brethren in spiritual friendship. The influence of these sentiments contributed to secure their fidelity in the service, or the alliance, of the Romans, to alleviate the horrors of war, to moderate the insolence of conquest, and to preserve, in the downfall of the empire, a permanent respect for the name and institutions of Rome. In the days of Paganism, the priests of Gaul and Germany reigned over the people, and controlled the jurisdiction of the magistrates; and the zealous proselytes transferred an equal, or more ample, measure of devout obedience, to the pontiffs of the Christian faith. The sacred character of the bishops was supported by their temporal possessions; they obtained an honorable seat in the legislative assemblies of soldiers and freemen; and it was their interest, as well as their duty, to mollify, by peaceful counsels, the fierce spirit of the Barbarians. The perpetual correspondence of the Latin clergy, the frequent pilgrimages to Rome and Jerusalem, and the growing authority of the popes, cemented the union of the Christian republic, and gradually produced the similar manners, and common jurisprudence, which have distinguished, from the rest of mankind, the independent, and even hostile, nations of modern Europe.
But the operation of these causes was checked and retarded by the unfortunate accident, which infused a deadly poison into the cup of Salvation. Whatever might be the early sentiments of Ulphilas, his connections with the empire and the church were formed during the reign of Arianism. The apostle of the Goths subscribed the creed of Rimini; professed with freedom, and perhaps with sincerity, that the Son was not equal, or consubstantial to the Father; 83 communicated these errors to the clergy and people; and infected the Barbaric world with a heresy, 84 which the great Theodosius proscribed and extinguished among the Romans. The temper and understanding of the new proselytes were not adapted to metaphysical subtilties; but they strenuously maintained, what they had piously received, as the pure and genuine doctrines of Christianity. The advantage of preaching and expounding the Scriptures in the Teutonic language promoted the apostolic labors of Ulphilas and his successors; and they ordained a competent number of bishops and presbyters for the instruction of the kindred tribes. The Ostrogoths, the Burgundians, the Suevi, and the Vandals, who had listened to the eloquence of the Latin clergy, 85 preferred the more intelligible lessons of their domestic teachers; and Arianism was adopted as the national faith of the warlike converts, who were seated on the ruins of the Western empire. This irreconcilable difference of religion was a perpetual source of jealousy and hatred; and the reproach of Barbarian was imbittered by the more odious epithet of Heretic. The heroes of the North, who had submitted, with some reluctance, to believe that all their ancestors were in hell, 86 were astonished and exasperated to learn, that they themselves had only changed the mode of their eternal condemnation. Instead of the smooth applause, which Christian kings are accustomed to expect from their royal prelates, the orthodox bishops and their clergy were in a state of opposition to the Arian courts; and their indiscreet opposition frequently became criminal, and might sometimes be dangerous. 87 The pulpit, that safe and sacred organ of sedition, resounded with the names of Pharaoh and Holofernes; 88 the public discontent was inflamed by the hope or promise of a glorious deliverance; and the seditious saints were tempted to promote the accomplishment of their own predictions. Notwithstanding these provocations, the Catholics of Gaul, Spain, and Italy, enjoyed, under the reign of the Arians, the free and peaceful exercise of their religion. Their haughty masters respected the zeal of a numerous people, resolved to die at the foot of their altars; and the example of their devout constancy was admired and imitated by the Barbarians themselves. The conquerors evaded, however, the disgraceful reproach, or confession, of fear, by attributing their toleration to the liberal motives of reason and humanity; and while they affected the language, they imperceptiby imbibed the spirit, of genuine Christianity.
83 (return)
[ The opinions of Ulphilas and the Goths inclined to
semi-Arianism, since they would not say that the Son was a creature,
though they held communion with those who maintained that heresy. Their
apostle represented the whole controversy as a question of trifling
moment, which had been raised by the passions of the clergy. Theodoret
l. iv. c. 37.]
84 (return)
[ The Arianism of the Goths has been imputed to the emperor
Valens: "Itaque justo Dei judicio ipsi eum vivum incenderunt, qui
propter eum etiam mortui, vitio erroris arsuri sunt." Orosius, l. vii.
c. 33, p. 554. This cruel sentence is confirmed by Tillemont, (Mem.
Eccles. tom. vi. p. 604-610,) who coolly observes, "un seul homme
entraina dans l'enfer un nombre infini de Septentrionaux, &c." Salvian
(de Gubern. Dei, l. v p. 150, 151) pities and excuses their involuntary
error.]
85 (return)
[ Orosius affirms, in the year 416, (l. vii. c. 41, p. 580,)
that the Churches of Christ (of the Catholics) were filled with Huns,
Suevi, Vandals, Burgundians.]
86 (return)
[ Radbod, king of the Frisons, was so much scandalized by
this rash declaration of a missionary, that he drew back his foot after
he had entered the baptismal font. See Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom. ix p.
167.]
87 (return)
[ The epistles of Sidonius, bishop of Clermont, under the
Visigotha, and of Avitus, bishop of Vienna, under the Burgundians,
explain sometimes in dark hints, the general dispositions of the
Catholics. The history of Clovis and Theodoric will suggest some
particular facts]
88 (return)
[ Genseric confessed the resemblance, by the severity with
which he punished such indiscreet allusions. Victor Vitensis, l. 7, p.
10.]
The peace of the church was sometimes interrupted. The Catholics were indiscreet, the Barbarians were impatient; and the partial acts of severity or injustice, which had been recommended by the Arian clergy, were exaggerated by the orthodox writers. The guilt of persecution may be imputed to Euric, king of the Visigoths; who suspended the exercise of ecclesiastical, or, at least, of episcopal functions; and punished the popular bishops of Aquitain with imprisonment, exile, and confiscation. 89 But the cruel and absurd enterprise of subduing the minds of a whole people was undertaken by the Vandals alone. Genseric himself, in his early youth, had renounced the orthodox communion; and the apostate could neither grant, nor expect, a sincere forgiveness. He was exasperated to find that the Africans, who had fled before him in the field, still presumed to dispute his will in synods and churches; and his ferocious mind was incapable of fear or of compassion. His Catholic subjects were oppressed by intolerant laws and arbitrary punishments. The language of Genseric was furious and formidable; the knowledge of his intentions might justify the most unfavorable interpretation of his actions; and the Arians were reproached with the frequent executions which stained the palace and the dominions of the tyrant. Arms and ambition were, however, the ruling passions of the monarch of the sea. But Hunneric, his inglorious son, who seemed to inherit only his vices, tormented the Catholics with the same unrelenting fury which had been fatal to his brother, his nephews, and the friends and favorites of his father; and even to the Arian patriarch, who was inhumanly burnt alive in the midst of Carthage. The religious war was preceded and prepared by an insidious truce; persecution was made the serious and important business of the Vandal court; and the loathsome disease which hastened the death of Hunneric, revenged the injuries, without contributing to the deliverance, of the church. The throne of Africa was successively filled by the two nephews of Hunneric; by Gundamund, who reigned about twelve, and by Thrasimund, who governed the nation about twenty-seven, years. Their administration was hostile and oppressive to the orthodox party. Gundamund appeared to emulate, or even to surpass, the cruelty of his uncle; and, if at length he relented, if he recalled the bishops, and restored the freedom of Athanasian worship, a premature death intercepted the benefits of his tardy clemency. His brother, Thrasimund, was the greatest and most accomplished of the Vandal kings, whom he excelled in beauty, prudence, and magnanimity of soul. But this magnanimous character was degraded by his intolerant zeal and deceitful clemency. Instead of threats and tortures, he employed the gentle, but efficacious, powers of seduction. Wealth, dignity, and the royal favor, were the liberal rewards of apostasy; the Catholics, who had violated the laws, might purchase their pardon by the renunciation of their faith; and whenever Thrasimund meditated any rigorous measure, he patiently waited till the indiscretion of his adversaries furnished him with a specious opportunity. Bigotry was his last sentiment in the hour of death; and he exacted from his successor a solemn oath, that he would never tolerate the sectaries of Athanasius. But his successor, Hilderic, the gentle son of the savage Hunneric, preferred the duties of humanity and justice to the vain obligation of an impious oath; and his accession was gloriously marked by the restoration of peace and universal freedom. The throne of that virtuous, though feeble monarch, was usurped by his cousin Gelimer, a zealous Arian: but the Vandal kingdom, before he could enjoy or abuse his power, was subverted by the arms of Belisarius; and the orthodox party retaliated the injuries which they had endured. 90
89 (return)
[ Such are the contemporary complaints of Sidonius, bishop
of Clermont (l. vii. c. 6, p. 182, &c., edit. Sirmond.) Gregory of Tours
who quotes this Epistle, (l. ii. c. 25, in tom. ii. p. 174,) extorts an
unwarrantable assertion, that of the nine vacancies in Aquitain, some
had been produced by episcopal martyrdoms]
90 (return)
[ The original monuments of the Vandal persecution are
preserved in the five books of the history of Victor Vitensis, (de
Persecutione Vandalica,) a bishop who was exiled by Hunneric; in the
life of St. Fulgentius, who was distinguished in the persecution of
Thrasimund (in Biblioth. Max. Patrum, tom. ix. p. 4-16;) and in the
first book of the Vandalic War, by the impartial Procopius, (c. 7, 8,
p. 196, 197, 198, 199.) Dom Ruinart, the last editor of Victor, has
illustrated the whole subject with a copious and learned apparatus of
notes and supplement (Paris, 1694.)]
The passionate declamations of the Catholics, the sole historians of this persecution, cannot afford any distinct series of causes and events; any impartial view of the characters, or counsels; but the most remarkable circumstances that deserve either credit or notice, may be referred to the following heads; I. In the original law, which is still extant, 91 Hunneric expressly declares, (and the declaration appears to be correct,) that he had faithfully transcribed the regulations and penalties of the Imperial edicts, against the heretical congregations, the clergy, and the people, who dissented from the established religion. If the rights of conscience had been understood, the Catholics must have condemned their past conduct or acquiesced in their actual suffering. But they still persisted to refuse the indulgence which they claimed. While they trembled under the lash of persecution, they praised the laudable severity of Hunneric himself, who burnt or banished great numbers of Manichaeans; 92 and they rejected, with horror, the ignominious compromise, that the disciples of Arius and of Athanasius should enjoy a reciprocal and similar toleration in the territories of the Romans, and in those of the Vandals. 93 II. The practice of a conference, which the Catholics had so frequently used to insult and punish their obstinate antagonists, was retorted against themselves. 94 At the command of Hunneric, four hundred and sixty-six orthodox bishops assembled at Carthage; but when they were admitted into the hall of audience, they had the mortification of beholding the Arian Cyrila exalted on the patriarchal throne. The disputants were separated, after the mutual and ordinary reproaches of noise and silence, of delay and precipitation, of military force and of popular clamor. One martyr and one confessor were selected among the Catholic bishops; twenty-eight escaped by flight, and eighty-eight by conformity; forty-six were sent into Corsica to cut timber for the royal navy; and three hundred and two were banished to the different parts of Africa, exposed to the insults of their enemies, and carefully deprived of all the temporal and spiritual comforts of life. 95 The hardships of ten years' exile must have reduced their numbers; and if they had complied with the law of Thrasimund, which prohibited any episcopal consecrations, the orthodox church of Africa must have expired with the lives of its actual members. They disobeyed, and their disobedience was punished by a second exile of two hundred and twenty bishops into Sardinia; where they languished fifteen years, till the accession of the gracious Hilderic. 96 The two islands were judiciously chosen by the malice of their Arian tyrants. Seneca, from his own experience, has deplored and exaggerated the miserable state of Corsica, 97 and the plenty of Sardinia was overbalanced by the unwholesome quality of the air. 98 III. The zeal of Generic and his successors, for the conversion of the Catholics, must have rendered them still more jealous to guard the purity of the Vandal faith. Before the churches were finally shut, it was a crime to appear in a Barbarian dress; and those who presumed to neglect the royal mandate were rudely dragged backwards by their long hair. 99 The palatine officers, who refused to profess the religion of their prince, were ignominiously stripped of their honors and employments; banished to Sardinia and Sicily; or condemned to the servile labors of slaves and peasants in the fields of Utica. In the districts which had been peculiarly allotted to the Vandals, the exercise of the Catholic worship was more strictly prohibited; and severe penalties were denounced against the guilt both of the missionary and the proselyte. By these arts, the faith of the Barbarians was preserved, and their zeal was inflamed: they discharged, with devout fury, the office of spies, informers, or executioners; and whenever their cavalry took the field, it was the favorite amusement of the march to defile the churches, and to insult the clergy of the adverse faction. 100 IV. The citizens who had been educated in the luxury of the Roman province, were delivered, with exquisite cruelty, to the Moors of the desert. A venerable train of bishops, presbyters, and deacons, with a faithful crowd of four thousand and ninety-six persons, whose guilt is not precisely ascertained, were torn from their native homes, by the command of Hunneric. During the night they were confined, like a herd of cattle, amidst their own ordure: during the day they pursued their march over the burning sands; and if they fainted under the heat and fatigue, they were goaded, or dragged along, till they expired in the hands of their tormentors. 101 These unhappy exiles, when they reached the Moorish huts, might excite the compassion of a people, whose native humanity was neither improved by reason, nor corrupted by fanaticism: but if they escaped the dangers, they were condemned to share the distress of a savage life. V. It is incumbent on the authors of persecution previously to reflect, whether they are determined to support it in the last extreme. They excite the flame which they strive to extinguish; and it soon becomes necessary to chastise the contumacy, as well as the crime, of the offender. The fine, which he is unable or unwilling to discharge, exposes his person to the severity of the law; and his contempt of lighter penalties suggests the use and propriety of capital punishment. Through the veil of fiction and declamation we may clearly perceive, that the Catholics more especially under the reign of Hunneric, endured the most cruel and ignominious treatment. 102 Respectable citizens, noble matrons, and consecrated virgins, were stripped naked, and raised in the air by pulleys, with a weight suspended at their feet. In this painful attitude their naked bodies were torn with scourges, or burnt in the most tender parts with red-hot plates of iron. The amputation of the ears the nose, the tongue, and the right hand, was inflicted by the Arians; and although the precise number cannot be defined, it is evident that many persons, among whom a bishop 103 and a proconsul 104 may be named, were entitled to the crown of martyrdom. The same honor has been ascribed to the memory of Count Sebastian, who professed the Nicene creed with unshaken constancy; and Genseric might detest, as a heretic, the brave and ambitious fugitive whom he dreaded as a rival. 105 VI. A new mode of conversion, which might subdue the feeble, and alarm the timorous, was employed by the Arian ministers. They imposed, by fraud or violence, the rites of baptism; and punished the apostasy of the Catholics, if they disclaimed this odious and profane ceremony, which scandalously violated the freedom of the will, and the unity of the sacrament. 106 The hostile sects had formerly allowed the validity of each other's baptism; and the innovation, so fiercely maintained by the Vandals, can be imputed only to the example and advice of the Donatists. VII. The Arian clergy surpassed in religious cruelty the king and his Vandals; but they were incapable of cultivating the spiritual vineyard, which they were so desirous to possess. A patriarch 107 might seat himself on the throne of Carthage; some bishops, in the principal cities, might usurp the place of their rivals; but the smallness of their numbers, and their ignorance of the Latin language, 108 disqualified the Barbarians for the ecclesiastical ministry of a great church; and the Africans, after the loss of their orthodox pastors, were deprived of the public exercise of Christianity. VIII. The emperors were the natural protectors of the Homoousian doctrine; and the faithful people of Africa, both as Romans and as Catholics, preferred their lawful sovereignty to the usurpation of the Barbarous heretics. During an interval of peace and friendship, Hunneric restored the cathedral of Carthage; at the intercession of Zeno, who reigned in the East, and of Placidia, the daughter and relict of emperors, and the sister of the queen of the Vandals. 109 But this decent regard was of short duration; and the haughty tyrant displayed his contempt for the religion of the empire, by studiously arranging the bloody images of persecution, in all the principal streets through which the Roman ambassador must pass in his way to the palace. 110 An oath was required from the bishops, who were assembled at Carthage, that they would support the succession of his son Hilderic, and that they would renounce all foreign or transmarine correspondence. This engagement, consistent, as it should seem, with their moral and religious duties, was refused by the more sagacious members 111 of the assembly. Their refusal, faintly colored by the pretence that it is unlawful for a Christian to swear, must provoke the suspicions of a jealous tyrant.
91 (return)
[ Victor, iv. 2, p. 65. Hunneric refuses the name of
Catholics to the Homoousians. He describes, as the veri Divinae
Majestatis cultores, his own party, who professed the faith, confirmed
by more than a thousand bishops, in the synods of Rimini and Seleucia.]
92 (return)
[ Victor, ii, 1, p. 21, 22: Laudabilior... videbatur. In
the Mss which omit this word, the passage is unintelligible. See Ruinart
Not. p. 164.]
93 (return)
[ Victor, ii. p. 22, 23. The clergy of Carthage called these
conditions periculosoe; and they seem, indeed, to have been proposed as
a snare to entrap the Catholic bishops.]
94 (return)
[ See the narrative of this conference, and the treatment of
the bishops, in Victor, ii. 13-18, p. 35-42 and the whole fourth book p.
63-171. The third book, p. 42-62, is entirely filled by their apology or
confession of faith.]
95 (return)
[ See the list of the African bishops, in Victor, p.
117-140, and Ruinart's notes, p. 215-397. The schismatic name of Donatus
frequently occurs, and they appear to have adopted (like our fanatics
of the last age) the pious appellations of Deodatus, Deogratias,
Quidvultdeus, Habetdeum, &c. Note: These names appear to have been
introduced by the Donatists.—M.]
96 (return)
[ Fulgent. Vit. c. 16-29. Thrasimund affected the praise
of moderation and learning; and Fulgentius addressed three books of
controversy to the Arian tyrant, whom he styles piissime Rex. Biblioth.
Maxim. Patrum, tom. ix. p. 41. Only sixty bishops are mentioned as
exiles in the life of Fulgentius; they are increased to one hundred and
twenty by Victor Tunnunensis and Isidore; but the number of two hundred
and twenty is specified in the Historia Miscella, and a short authentic
chronicle of the times. See Ruinart, p. 570, 571.]
97 (return)
[ See the base and insipid epigrams of the Stoic, who could
not support exile with more fortitude than Ovid. Corsica might not
produce corn, wine, or oil; but it could not be destitute of grass,
water, and even fire.]
98 (return)
[ Si ob gravitatem coeli interissent vile damnum. Tacit.
Annal. ii. 85. In this application, Thrasimund would have adopted the
reading of some critics, utile damnum.]
99 (return)
[ See these preludes of a general persecution, in Victor,
ii. 3, 4, 7 and the two edicts of Hunneric, l. ii. p. 35, l. iv. p. 64.]
100 (return)
[ See Procopius de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 7, p. 197, 198.
A Moorish prince endeavored to propitiate the God of the Christians, by
his diligence to erase the marks of the Vandal sacrilege.]
101 (return)
[ See this story in Victor. ii. 8-12, p. 30-34. Victor
describes the distress of these confessors as an eye-witness.]
102 (return)
[ See the fifth book of Victor. His passionate complaints
are confirmed by the sober testimony of Procopius, and the public
declaration of the emperor Justinian. Cod. l. i. tit. xxvii.]
103 (return)
[ Victor, ii. 18, p. 41.]
104 (return)
[ Victor, v. 4, p. 74, 75. His name was Victorianus, and
he was a wealthy citizen of Adrumetum, who enjoyed the confidence of the
king; by whose favor he had obtained the office, or at least the title,
of proconsul of Africa.]
105 (return)
[ Victor, i. 6, p. 8, 9. After relating the firm resistance
and dexterous reply of Count Sebastian, he adds, quare alio generis
argumento postea bellicosum virum eccidit.]
106 (return)
[ Victor, v. 12, 13. Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. vi. p.
609.]
107 (return)
[ Primate was more properly the title of the bishop of
Carthage; but the name of patriarch was given by the sects and nations
to their principal ecclesiastic. See Thomassin, Discipline de l'Eglise,
tom. i. p. 155, 158.]
108 (return)
[ The patriarch Cyrila himself publicly declared, that he
did not understand Latin (Victor, ii. 18, p. 42:) Nescio Latine; and he
might converse with tolerable ease, without being capable of disputing
or preaching in that language. His Vandal clergy were still more
ignorant; and small confidence could be placed in the Africans who had
conformed.]
109 (return)
[ Victor, ii. 1, 2, p. 22.]
110 (return)
[ Victor, v. 7, p. 77. He appeals to the ambassador
himself, whose name was Uranius.]
111 (return)
[ Astutiores, Victor, iv. 4, p. 70. He plainly intimates
that their quotation of the gospel "Non jurabitis in toto," was only
meant to elude the obligation of an inconvenient oath. The forty-six
bishops who refused were banished to Corsica; the three hundred and two
who swore were distributed through the provinces of Africa.]
The Catholics, oppressed by royal and military force, were far superior to their adversaries in numbers and learning. With the same weapons which the Greek 112 and Latin fathers had already provided for the Arian controversy, they repeatedly silenced, or vanquished, the fierce and illiterate successors of Ulphilas. The consciousness of their own superiority might have raised them above the arts and passions of religious warfare. Yet, instead of assuming such honorable pride, the orthodox theologians were tempted, by the assurance of impunity, to compose fictions, which must be stigmatized with the epithets of fraud and forgery. They ascribed their own polemical works to the most venerable names of Christian antiquity; the characters of Athanasius and Augustin were awkwardly personated by Vigilius and his disciples; 113 and the famous creed, which so clearly expounds the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation, is deduced, with strong probability, from this African school. 114 Even the Scriptures themselves were profaned by their rash and sacrilegious hands. The memorable text, which asserts the unity of the three who bear witness in heaven, 115 is condemned by the universal silence of the orthodox fathers, ancient versions, and authentic manuscripts. 116 It was first alleged by the Catholic bishops whom Hunneric summoned to the conference of Carthage. 117 An allegorical interpretation, in the form, perhaps, of a marginal note, invaded the text of the Latin Bibles, which were renewed and corrected in a dark period of ten centuries. 118 After the invention of printing, 119 the editors of the Greek Testament yielded to their own prejudices, or those of the times; 120 and the pious fraud, which was embraced with equal zeal at Rome and at Geneva, has been infinitely multiplied in every country and every language of modern Europe.
112 (return)
[ Fulgentius, bishop of Ruspae, in the Byzacene province,
was of a senatorial family, and had received a liberal education. He
could repeat all Homer and Menander before he was allowed to study Latin
his native tongue, (Vit. Fulgent. c. l.) Many African bishops might
understand Greek, and many Greek theologians were translated into
Latin.]
113 (return)
[ Compare the two prefaces to the Dialogue of Vigilius of
Thapsus, (p. 118, 119, edit. Chiflet.) He might amuse his learned
reader with an innocent fiction; but the subject was too grave, and the
Africans were too ignorant.]
114 (return)
[ The P. Quesnel started this opinion, which has been
favorably received. But the three following truths, however surprising
they may seem, are now universally acknowledged, (Gerard Vossius, tom.
vi. p. 516-522. Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 667-671.) 1. St.
Athanasius is not the author of the creed which is so frequently read in
our churches. 2. It does not appear to have existed within a century
after his death. 3. It was originally composed in the Latin tongue, and,
consequently in the Western provinces. Gennadius patriarch of
Constantinople, was so much amazed by this extraordinary composition,
that he frankly pronounced it to be the work of a drunken man. Petav.
Dogmat. Theologica, tom. ii. l. vii. c. 8, p. 687.]
115 (return)
[ 1 John, v. 7. See Simon, Hist. Critique du Nouveau
Testament, part i. c. xviii. p. 203-218; and part ii. c. ix. p. 99-121;
and the elaborate Prolegomena and Annotations of Dr. Mill and Wetstein
to their editions of the Greek Testament. In 1689, the papist Simon
strove to be free; in 1707, the Protestant Mill wished to be a slave;
in 1751, the Armenian Wetstein used the liberty of his times, and of his
sect. * Note: This controversy has continued to be agitated, but with
declining interest even in the more religious part of the community; and
may now be considered to have terminated in an almost general
acquiescence of the learned to the conclusions of Porson in his Letters
to Travis. See the pamphlets of the late Bishop of Salisbury and of
Crito Cantabrigiensis, Dr. Turton of Cambridge.—M.]
116 (return)
[ Of all the Mss. now extant, above fourscore in number,
some of which are more than 1200 years old, (Wetstein ad loc.) The
orthodox copies of the Vatican, of the Complutensian editors, of Robert
Stephens, are become invisible; and the two Mss. of Dublin and Berlin
are unworthy to form an exception. See Emlyn's Works, vol. ii. p
227-255, 269-299; and M. de Missy's four ingenious letters, in tom.
viii. and ix. of the Journal Britannique.]
117 (return)
[ Or, more properly, by the four bishops who composed and
published the profession of faith in the name of their brethren. They
styled this text, luce clarius, (Victor Vitensis de Persecut. Vandal.
l. iii. c. 11, p. 54.) It is quoted soon afterwards by the African
polemics, Vigilius and Fulgentius.]
118 (return)
[ In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the Bibles were
corrected by Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury, and by Nicholas,
cardinal and librarian of the Roman church, secundum orthodoxam fidem,
(Wetstein, Prolegom. p. 84, 85.) Notwithstanding these corrections, the
passage is still wanting in twenty-five Latin Mss., (Wetstein ad loc.,)
the oldest and the fairest; two qualities seldom united, except in
manuscripts.]
119 (return)
[ The art which the Germans had invented was applied in
Italy to the profane writers of Rome and Greece. The original Greek of
the New Testament was published about the same time (A.D. 1514, 1516,
1520,) by the industry of Erasmus, and the munificence of Cardinal
Ximenes. The Complutensian Polyglot cost the cardinal 50,000 ducats.
See Mattaire, Annal. Typograph. tom. ii. p. 2-8, 125-133; and Wetstein,
Prolegomena, p. 116-127.]
120 (return)
[ The three witnesses have been established in our Greek
Testaments by the prudence of Erasmus; the honest bigotry of the
Complutensian editors; the typographical fraud, or error, of Robert
Stephens, in the placing a crotchet; and the deliberate falsehood, or
strange misapprehension, of Theodore Beza.]
The example of fraud must excite suspicion: and the specious miracles by which the African Catholics have defended the truth and justice of their cause, may be ascribed, with more reason, to their own industry, than to the visible protection of Heaven. Yet the historian, who views this religious conflict with an impartial eye, may condescend to mention one preternatural event, which will edify the devout, and surprise the incredulous. Tipasa, 121 a maritime colony of Mauritania, sixteen miles to the east of Caesarea, had been distinguished, in every age, by the orthodox zeal of its inhabitants. They had braved the fury of the Donatists; 122 they resisted, or eluded, the tyranny of the Arians. The town was deserted on the approach of an heretical bishop: most of the inhabitants who could procure ships passed over to the coast of Spain; and the unhappy remnant, refusing all communion with the usurper, still presumed to hold their pious, but illegal, assemblies. Their disobedience exasperated the cruelty of Hunneric. A military count was despatched from Carthage to Tipasa: he collected the Catholics in the Forum, and, in the presence of the whole province, deprived the guilty of their right hands and their tongues. But the holy confessors continued to speak without tongues; and this miracle is attested by Victor, an African bishop, who published a history of the persecution within two years after the event. 123 "If any one," says Victor, "should doubt of the truth, let him repair to Constantinople, and listen to the clear and perfect language of Restitutus, the sub-deacon, one of these glorious sufferers, who is now lodged in the palace of the emperor Zeno, and is respected by the devout empress." At Constantinople we are astonished to find a cool, a learned, and unexceptionable witness, without interest, and without passion. Aeneas of Gaza, a Platonic philosopher, has accurately described his own observations on these African sufferers. "I saw them myself: I heard them speak: I diligently inquired by what means such an articulate voice could be formed without any organ of speech: I used my eyes to examine the report of my ears; I opened their mouth, and saw that the whole tongue had been completely torn away by the roots; an operation which the physicians generally suppose to be mortal." 124 The testimony of Aeneas of Gaza might be confirmed by the superfluous evidence of the emperor Justinian, in a perpetual edict; of Count Marcellinus, in his Chronicle of the times; and of Pope Gregory the First, who had resided at Constantinople, as the minister of the Roman pontiff. 125 They all lived within the compass of a century; and they all appeal to their personal knowledge, or the public notoriety, for the truth of a miracle, which was repeated in several instances, displayed on the greatest theatre of the world, and submitted, during a series of years, to the calm examination of the senses. This supernatural gift of the African confessors, who spoke without tongues, will command the assent of those, and of those only, who already believe, that their language was pure and orthodox. But the stubborn mind of an infidel, is guarded by secret, incurable suspicion; and the Arian, or Socinian, who has seriously rejected the doctrine of a Trinity, will not be shaken by the most plausible evidence of an Athanasian miracle.
121 (return)
[ Plin. Hist. Natural. v. 1. Itinerar. Wesseling, p. 15.
Cellanius, Geograph. Antiq. tom. ii. part ii. p. 127. This Tipasa (which
must not be confounded with another in Numidia) was a town of some note
since Vespasian endowed it with the right of Latium.]
122 (return)
[ Optatus Milevitanus de Schism. Donatist. l. ii. p. 38.]
123 (return)
[ Victor Vitensis, v. 6, p. 76. Ruinart, p. 483-487.]
124 (return)
[ Aeneas Gazaeus in Theophrasto, in Biblioth. Patrum, tom.
viii. p. 664, 665. He was a Christian, and composed this Dialogue (the
Theophrastus) on the immortality of the soul, and the resurrection of
the body; besides twenty-five Epistles, still extant. See Cave, (Hist.
Litteraria, p. 297,) and Fabricius, (Biblioth. Graec. tom. i. p. 422.)]
125 (return)
[ Justinian. Codex. l. i. tit. xxvii. Marcellin. in Chron.
p. 45, in Thesaur. Temporum Scaliger. Procopius, de Bell. Vandal. l. i.
c. 7. p. 196. Gregor. Magnus, Dialog. iii. 32. None of these witnesses
have specified the number of the confessors, which is fixed at sixty in
an old menology, (apud Ruinart. p. 486.) Two of them lost their speech
by fornication; but the miracle is enhanced by the singular instance of
a boy who had never spoken before his tongue was cut out. ]
The Vandals and the Ostrogoths persevered in the profession of Arianism till the final ruin of the kingdoms which they had founded in Africa and Italy. The Barbarians of Gaul submitted to the orthodox dominion of the Franks; and Spain was restored to the Catholic church by the voluntary conversion of the Visigoths.
This salutary revolution 126 was hastened by the example of a royal martyr, whom our calmer reason may style an ungrateful rebel. Leovigild, the Gothic monarch of Spain, deserved the respect of his enemies, and the love of his subjects; the Catholics enjoyed a free toleration, and his Arian synods attempted, without much success, to reconcile their scruples by abolishing the unpopular rite of a second baptism. His eldest son Hermenegild, who was invested by his father with the royal diadem, and the fair principality of Boetica, contracted an honorable and orthodox alliance with a Merovingian princess, the daughter of Sigebert, king of Austrasia, and of the famous Brunechild. The beauteous Ingundis, who was no more than thirteen years of age, was received, beloved, and persecuted, in the Arian court of Toledo; and her religious constancy was alternately assaulted with blandishments and violence by Goisvintha, the Gothic queen, who abused the double claim of maternal authority. 127 Incensed by her resistance, Goisvintha seized the Catholic princess by her long hair, inhumanly dashed her against the ground, kicked her till she was covered with blood, and at last gave orders that she should be stripped, and thrown into a basin, or fish-pond. 128 Love and honor might excite Hermenegild to resent this injurious treatment of his bride; and he was gradually persuaded that Ingundis suffered for the cause of divine truth. Her tender complaints, and the weighty arguments of Le ander, archbishop of Seville, accomplished his conversion and the heir of the Gothic monarchy was initiated in the Nicene faith by the solemn rites of confirmation. 129 The rash youth, inflamed by zeal, and perhaps by ambition, was tempted to violate the duties of a son and a subject; and the Catholics of Spain, although they could not complain of persecution, applauded his pious rebellion against an heretical father. The civil war was protracted by the long and obstinate sieges of Merida, Cordova, and Seville, which had strenuously espoused the party of Hermenegild He invited the orthodox Barbarians, the Seuvi, and the Franks, to the destruction of his native land; he solicited the dangerous aid of the Romans, who possessed Africa, and a part of the Spanish coast; and his holy ambassador, the archbishop Leander, effectually negotiated in person with the Byzantine court. But the hopes of the Catholics were crushed by the active diligence of the monarch who commanded the troops and treasures of Spain; and the guilty Hermenegild, after his vain attempts to resist or to escape, was compelled to surrender himself into the hands of an incensed father. Leovigild was still mindful of that sacred character; and the rebel, despoiled of the regal ornaments, was still permitted, in a decent exile, to profess the Catholic religion. His repeated and unsuccessful treasons at length provoked the indignation of the Gothic king; and the sentence of death, which he pronounced with apparent reluctance, was privately executed in the tower of Seville. The inflexible constancy with which he refused to accept the Arian communion, as the price of his safety, may excuse the honors that have been paid to the memory of St. Hermenegild. His wife and infant son were detained by the Romans in ignominious captivity; and this domestic misfortune tarnished the glories of Leovigild, and imbittered the last moments of his life.
126 (return)
[ See the two general historians of Spain, Mariana (Hist.
de Rebus Hispaniae, tom. i. l. v. c. 12-15, p. 182-194) and Ferreras,
(French translation, tom. ii. p. 206-247.) Mariana almost forgets that
he is a Jesuit, to assume the style and spirit of a Roman classic.
Ferreras, an industrious compiler, reviews his facts, and rectifies his
chronology.]
127 (return)
[ Goisvintha successively married two kings of the
Visigoths: Athanigild, to whom she bore Brunechild, the mother of
Ingundis; and Leovigild, whose two sons, Hermenegild and Recared, were
the issue of a former marriage.]
128 (return)
[ Iracundiae furore succensa, adprehensam per comam capitis
puellam in terram conlidit, et diu calcibus verberatam, ac sanguins
cruentatam, jussit exspoliari, et piscinae immergi. Greg. Turon. l. v.
c. 39. in tom. ii. p. 255. Gregory is one of our best originals for this
portion of history.]
129 (return)
[ The Catholics who admitted the baptism of heretics
repeated the rite, or, as it was afterwards styled, the sacrament,
of confirmation, to which they ascribed many mystic and marvellous
prerogatives both visible and invisible. See Chardon. Hist. des
Sacremens, tom. 1. p. 405-552.]
His son and successor, Recared, the first Catholic king of Spain, had imbibed the faith of his unfortunate brother, which he supported with more prudence and success. Instead of revolting against his father, Recared patiently expected the hour of his death. Instead of condemning his memory, he piously supposed, that the dying monarch had abjured the errors of Arianism, and recommended to his son the conversion of the Gothic nation. To accomplish that salutary end, Recared convened an assembly of the Arian clergy and nobles, declared himself a Catholic, and exhorted them to imitate the example of their prince. The laborious interpretation of doubtful texts, or the curious pursuit of metaphysical arguments, would have excited an endless controversy; and the monarch discreetly proposed to his illiterate audience two substantial and visible arguments,—the testimony of Earth, and of Heaven. The Earth had submitted to the Nicene synod: the Romans, the Barbarians, and the inhabitants of Spain, unanimously professed the same orthodox creed; and the Visigoths resisted, almost alone, the consent of the Christian world. A superstitious age was prepared to reverence, as the testimony of Heaven, the preternatural cures, which were performed by the skill or virtue of the Catholic clergy; the baptismal fonts of Osset in Boetica, 130 which were spontaneously replenished every year, on the vigil of Easter; 131 and the miraculous shrine of St. Martin of Tours, which had already converted the Suevic prince and people of Gallicia. 132 The Catholic king encountered some difficulties on this important change of the national religion. A conspiracy, secretly fomented by the queen-dowager, was formed against his life; and two counts excited a dangerous revolt in the Narbonnese Gaul. But Recared disarmed the conspirators, defeated the rebels, and executed severe justice; which the Arians, in their turn, might brand with the reproach of persecution. Eight bishops, whose names betray their Barbaric origin, abjured their errors; and all the books of Arian theology were reduced to ashes, with the house in which they had been purposely collected. The whole body of the Visigoths and Suevi were allured or driven into the pale of the Catholic communion; the faith, at least of the rising generation, was fervent and sincere: and the devout liberality of the Barbarians enriched the churches and monasteries of Spain. Seventy bishops, assembled in the council of Toledo, received the submission of their conquerors; and the zeal of the Spaniards improved the Nicene creed, by declaring the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son, as well as from the Father; a weighty point of doctrine, which produced, long afterwards, the schism of the Greek and Latin churches. 133 The royal proselyte immediately saluted and consulted Pope Gregory, surnamed the Great, a learned and holy prelate, whose reign was distinguished by the conversion of heretics and infidels. The ambassadors of Recared respectfully offered on the threshold of the Vatican his rich presents of gold and gems; they accepted, as a lucrative exchange, the hairs of St. John the Baptist; a cross, which enclosed a small piece of the true wood; and a key, that contained some particles of iron which had been scraped from the chains of St. Peter. 134
130 (return)
[ Osset, or Julia Constantia, was opposite to Seville, on
the northern side of the Boetis, (Plin. Hist. Natur. iii. 3:) and the
authentic reference of Gregory of Tours (Hist. Francor. l. vi. c. 43, p.
288) deserves more credit than the name of Lusitania, (de Gloria Martyr.
c. 24,) which has been eagerly embraced by the vain and superstitious
Portuguese, (Ferreras, Hist. d'Espagne, tom. ii. p. 166.)]
131 (return)
[ This miracle was skilfully performed. An Arian king
sealed the doors, and dug a deep trench round the church, without being
able to intercept the Easter supply of baptismal water.]
132 (return)
[ Ferreras (tom. ii. p. 168-175, A.D. 550) has illustrated
the difficulties which regard the time and circumstances of the
conversion of the Suevi. They had been recently united by Leovigild to
the Gothic monarchy of Spain.]
133 (return)
[ This addition to the Nicene, or rather the
Constantinopolitan creed, was first made in the eighth council of
Toledo, A.D. 653; but it was expressive of the popular doctrine, (Gerard
Vossius, tom. vi. p. 527, de tribus Symbolis.)]
134 (return)
[ See Gregor. Magn. l. vii. epist. 126, apud Baronium,
Annal. Eccles. A.D. 559, No. 25, 26.]
The same Gregory, the spiritual conqueror of Britain, encouraged the pious Theodelinda, queen of the Lombards, to propagate the Nicene faith among the victorious savages, whose recent Christianity was polluted by the Arian heresy. Her devout labors still left room for the industry and success of future missionaries; and many cities of Italy were still disputed by hostile bishops. But the cause of Arianism was gradually suppressed by the weight of truth, of interest, and of example; and the controversy, which Egypt had derived from the Platonic school, was terminated, after a war of three hundred years, by the final conversion of the Lombards of Italy. 135
135 (return)
[ Paul Warnefrid (de Gestis Langobard. l. iv. c. 44, p.
153, edit Grot.) allows that Arianism still prevailed under the reign of
Rotharis, (A.D. 636-652.) The pious deacon does not attempt to mark the
precise era of the national conversion, which was accomplished, however,
before the end of the seventh century.]
The first missionaries who preached the gospel to the Barbarians, appealed to the evidence of reason, and claimed the benefit of toleration. 136 But no sooner had they established their spiritual dominion, than they exhorted the Christian kings to extirpate, without mercy, the remains of Roman or Barbaric superstition. The successors of Clovis inflicted one hundred lashes on the peasants who refused to destroy their idols; the crime of sacrificing to the demons was punished by the Anglo-Saxon laws with the heavier penalties of imprisonment and confiscation; and even the wise Alfred adopted, as an indispensable duty, the extreme rigor of the Mosaic institutions. 137 But the punishment and the crime were gradually abolished among a Christian people; the theological disputes of the schools were suspended by propitious ignorance; and the intolerant spirit which could find neither idolaters nor heretics, was reduced to the persecution of the Jews. That exiled nation had founded some synagogues in the cities of Gaul; but Spain, since the time of Hadrian, was filled with their numerous colonies. 138 The wealth which they accumulated by trade, and the management of the finances, invited the pious avarice of their masters; and they might be oppressed without danger, as they had lost the use, and even the remembrance, of arms. Sisebut, a Gothic king, who reigned in the beginning of the seventh century, proceeded at once to the last extremes of persecution. 139 Ninety thousand Jews were compelled to receive the sacrament of baptism; the fortunes of the obstinate infidels were confiscated, their bodies were tortured; and it seems doubtful whether they were permitted to abandon their native country. The excessive zeal of the Catholic king was moderated, even by the clergy of Spain, who solemnly pronounced an inconsistent sentence: that the sacraments should not be forcibly imposed; but that the Jews who had been baptized should be constrained, for the honor of the church, to persevere in the external practice of a religion which they disbelieved and detested. Their frequent relapses provoked one of the successors of Sisebut to banish the whole nation from his dominions; and a council of Toledo published a decree, that every Gothic king should swear to maintain this salutary edict. But the tyrants were unwilling to dismiss the victims, whom they delighted to torture, or to deprive themselves of the industrious slaves, over whom they might exercise a lucrative oppression. The Jews still continued in Spain, under the weight of the civil and ecclesiastical laws, which in the same country have been faithfully transcribed in the Code of the Inquisition. The Gothic kings and bishops at length discovered, that injuries will produce hatred, and that hatred will find the opportunity of revenge. A nation, the secret or professed enemies of Christianity, still multiplied in servitude and distress; and the intrigues of the Jews promoted the rapid success of the Arabian conquerors. 140
136 (return)
[ Quorum fidei et conversioni ita congratulatus esse rex
perhibetur, ut nullum tamen cogeret ad Christianismum.... Didiceret enim
a doctoribus auctoribusque suae salutis, servitium Christi voluntarium
non coactitium esse debere. Bedae Hist. Ecclesiastic. l. i. c. 26, p.
62, edit. Smith.]
137 (return)
[ See the Historians of France, tom. iv. p. 114;
and Wilkins, Leges Anglo-Saxonicae, p. 11, 31. Siquis sacrificium
immolaverit praeter Deo soli morte moriatur.]
138 (return)
[ The Jews pretend that they were introduced into Spain
by the fleets of Solomon, and the arms of Nebuchadnezzar; that Hadrian
transported forty thousand families of the tribe of Judah, and ten
thousand of the tribe of Benjamin, &c. Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, tom.
vii. c. 9, p. 240-256.]
139 (return)
[ Isidore, at that time archbishop of Seville, mentions,
disapproves and congratulates, the zeal of Sisebut (Chron. Goth. p.
728.) Barosins (A.D. 614, No. 41) assigns the number of the evidence of
Almoin, (l. iv. c. 22;) but the evidence is weak, and I have not been
able to verify the quotation, (Historians of France, tom. iii. p. 127.)]
140 (return)
[ Basnage (tom. viii. c. 13, p. 388-400) faithfully
represents the state of the Jews; but he might have added from the
canons of the Spanish councils, and the laws of the Visigoths, many
curious circumstances, essential to his subject, though they are foreign
to mine. * Note: Compare Milman, Hist. of Jews iii. 256—M]
As soon as the Barbarians withdrew their powerful support, the unpopular heresy of Arius sunk into contempt and oblivion. But the Greeks still retained their subtle and loquacious disposition: the establishment of an obscure doctrine suggested new questions, and new disputes; and it was always in the power of an ambitious prelate, or a fanatic monk, to violate the peace of the church, and, perhaps, of the empire. The historian of the empire may overlook those disputes which were confined to the obscurity of schools and synods. The Manichaeans, who labored to reconcile the religions of Christ and of Zoroaster, had secretly introduced themselves into the provinces: but these foreign sectaries were involved in the common disgrace of the Gnostics, and the Imperial laws were executed by the public hatred. The rational opinions of the Pelagians were propagated from Britain to Rome, Africa, and Palestine, and silently expired in a superstitious age. But the East was distracted by the Nestorian and Eutychian controversies; which attempted to explain the mystery of the incarnation, and hastened the ruin of Christianity in her native land. These controversies were first agitated under the reign of the younger Theodosius: but their important consequences extend far beyond the limits of the present volume. The metaphysical chain of argument, the contests of ecclesiastical ambition, and their political influence on the decline of the Byzantine empire, may afford an interesting and instructive series of history, from the general councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, to the conquest of the East by the successors of Mahomet.