Yet neither the emperor nor the primate of the East were disposed

to obey the mandate of an Italian priest; and a synod of the

Catholic, or rather of the Greek church, was unanimously demanded

as the sole remedy that could appease or decide this

ecclesiastical quarrel. 41 Ephesus, on all sides accessible by

sea and land, was chosen for the place, the festival of Pentecost

for the day, of the meeting; a writ of summons was despatched to

each metropolitan, and a guard was stationed to protect and

confine the fathers till they should settle the mysteries of

heaven, and the faith of the earth. Nestorius appeared not as a

criminal, but as a judge; he depended on the weight rather than

the number of his prelates, and his sturdy slaves from the baths

of Zeuxippus were armed for every service of injury or defence.

But his adversary Cyril was more powerful in the weapons both of

the flesh and of the spirit. Disobedient to the letter, or at

least to the meaning, of the royal summons, he was attended by

fifty Egyptian bishops, who expected from their patriarch’s nod

the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. He had contracted an intimate

alliance with Memnon, bishop of Ephesus. The despotic primate of

Asia disposed of the ready succors of thirty or forty episcopal

votes: a crowd of peasants, the slaves of the church, was poured

into the city to support with blows and clamors a metaphysical

argument; and the people zealously asserted the honor of the

Virgin, whose body reposed within the walls of Ephesus. 42 The

fleet which had transported Cyril from Alexandria was laden with

the riches of Egypt; and he disembarked a numerous body of

mariners, slaves, and fanatics, enlisted with blind obedience

under the banner of St. Mark and the mother of God. The fathers,

and even the guards, of the council were awed by this martial

array; the adversaries of Cyril and Mary were insulted in the

streets, or threatened in their houses; his eloquence and

liberality made a daily increase in the number of his adherents;

and the Egyptian soon computed that he might command the

attendance and the voices of two hundred bishops. 43 But the

author of the twelve anathemas foresaw and dreaded the opposition

of John of Antioch, who, with a small, but respectable, train of

metropolitans and divines, was advancing by slow journeys from

the distant capital of the East. Impatient of a delay, which he

stigmatized as voluntary and culpable, 44 Cyril announced the

opening of the synod sixteen days after the festival of

Pentecost. Nestorius, who depended on the near approach of his

Eastern friends, persisted, like his predecessor Chrysostom, to

disclaim the jurisdiction, and to disobey the summons, of his

enemies: they hastened his trial, and his accuser presided in the

seat of judgment. Sixty-eight bishops, twenty-two of metropolitan

rank, defended his cause by a modest and temperate protest: they

were excluded from the councils of their brethren. Candidian, in

the emperor’s name, requested a delay of four days; the profane

magistrate was driven with outrage and insult from the assembly

of the saints. The whole of this momentous transaction was

crowded into the compass of a summer’s day: the bishops delivered

their separate opinions; but the uniformity of style reveals the

influence or the hand of a master, who has been accused of

corrupting the public evidence of their acts and subscriptions.

45 Without a dissenting voice, they recognized in the epistles of

Cyril the Nicene creed and the doctrine of the fathers: but the

partial extracts from the letters and homilies of Nestorius were

interrupted by curses and anathemas: and the heretic was degraded

from his episcopal and ecclesiastical dignity. The sentence,

maliciously inscribed to the new Judas, was affixed and

proclaimed in the streets of Ephesus: the weary prelates, as they

issued from the church of the mother of God, were saluted as her

champions; and her victory was celebrated by the illuminations,

the songs, and the tumult of the night.

41 (return) [ The origin and progress of the Nestorian

controversy, till the synod of Ephesus, may be found in Socrates,

(l. vii. c. 32,) Evagrius, (l. i. c. 1, 2,) Liberatus, (Brev. c.

1—4,) the original Acts, (Concil. tom. iii. p. 551—991, edit.

Venice, 1728,) the Annals of Baronius and Pagi, and the faithful

collections of Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. xiv p. 283—377.)]

42 (return) [ The Christians of the four first centuries were

ignorant of the death and burial of Mary. The tradition of

Ephesus is affirmed by the synod, (Concil. tom. iii. p. 1102;)

yet it has been superseded by the claim of Jerusalem; and her

empty sepulchre, as it was shown to the pilgrims, produced the

fable of her resurrection and assumption, in which the Greek and

Latin churches have piously acquiesced. See Baronius (Annal.

Eccles. A.D. 48, No. 6, &c.) and Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. i.

p. 467—477.)]

43 (return) [ The Acts of Chalcedon (Concil. tom. iv. p. 1405,

1408) exhibit a lively picture of the blind, obstinate servitude

of the bishops of Egypt to their patriarch.]

44 (return) [ Civil or ecclesiastical business detained the

bishops at Antioch till the 18th of May. Ephesus was at the

distance of thirty days’ journey; and ten days more may be fairly

allowed for accidents and repose. The march of Xenophon over the

same ground enumerates above 260 parasangs or leagues; and this

measure might be illustrated from ancient and modern itineraries,

if I knew how to compare the speed of an army, a synod, and a

caravan. John of Antioch is reluctantly acquitted by Tillemont

himself, (Mem. Eccles. tom. xiv. p. 386—389.)]

45 (return) [ Evagrius, l. i. c. 7. The same imputation was urged

by Count Irenaeus, (tom. iii. p. 1249;) and the orthodox critics

do not find it an easy task to defend the purity of the Greek or

Latin copies of the Acts.]

On the fifth day, the triumph was clouded by the arrival and

indignation of the Eastern bishops. In a chamber of the inn,

before he had wiped the dust from his shoes, John of Antioch gave

audience to Candidian, the Imperial minister; who related his

ineffectual efforts to prevent or to annul the hasty violence of

the Egyptian. With equal haste and violence, the Oriental synod

of fifty bishops degraded Cyril and Memnon from their episcopal

honors, condemned, in the twelve anathemas, the purest venom of

the Apollinarian heresy, and described the Alexandrian primate as

a monster, born and educated for the destruction of the church.

46 His throne was distant and inaccessible; but they instantly

resolved to bestow on the flock of Ephesus the blessing of a

faithful shepherd. By the vigilance of Memnon, the churches were

shut against them, and a strong garrison was thrown into the

cathedral. The troops, under the command of Candidian, advanced

to the assault; the outguards were routed and put to the sword,

but the place was impregnable: the besiegers retired; their

retreat was pursued by a vigorous sally; they lost their horses,

and many of their soldiers were dangerously wounded with clubs

and stones. Ephesus, the city of the Virgin, was defiled with

rage and clamor, with sedition and blood; the rival synods darted

anathemas and excommunications from their spiritual engines; and

the court of Theodosius was perplexed by the adverse and

contradictory narratives of the Syrian and Egyptian factions.

During a busy period of three months, the emperor tried every

method, except the most effectual means of indifference and

contempt, to reconcile this theological quarrel. He attempted to

remove or intimidate the leaders by a common sentence, of

acquittal or condemnation; he invested his representatives at

Ephesus with ample power and military force; he summoned from

either party eight chosen deputies to a free and candid

conference in the neighborhood of the capital, far from the

contagion of popular frenzy. But the Orientals refused to yield,

and the Catholics, proud of their numbers and of their Latin

allies, rejected all terms of union or toleration. The patience

of the meek Theodosius was provoked; and he dissolved in anger

this episcopal tumult, which at the distance of thirteen

centuries assumes the venerable aspect of the third oecumenical

council. 47 “God is my witness,” said the pious prince, “that I

am not the author of this confusion. His providence will discern

and punish the guilty. Return to your provinces, and may your

private virtues repair the mischief and scandal of your meeting.”

They returned to their provinces; but the same passions which had

distracted the synod of Ephesus were diffused over the Eastern

world. After three obstinate and equal campaigns, John of Antioch

and Cyril of Alexandria condescended to explain and embrace: but

their seeming reunion must be imputed rather to prudence than to

reason, to the mutual lassitude rather than to the Christian

charity of the patriarchs.

46 (return) [ After the coalition of John and Cyril these

invectives were mutually forgotten. The style of declamation must

never be confounded with the genuine sense which respectable

enemies entertain of each other’s merit, (Concil tom. iii. p.

1244.)]

47 (return) [ See the acts of the synod of Ephesus in the

original Greek, and a Latin version almost contemporary, (Concil.

tom. iii. p. 991—1339, with the Synodicon adversus Tragoediam

Irenaei, tom. iv. p. 235—497,) the Ecclesiastical Histories of

Socrates (l. vii. c. 34) and Evagrius, (l i. c. 3, 4, 5,) and the

Breviary of Liberatus, (in Concil. tom. vi. p. 419—459, c. 5, 6,)

and the Memoires Eccles. of Tillemont, (tom. xiv p. 377-487.)]

The Byzantine pontiff had instilled into the royal ear a baleful

prejudice against the character and conduct of his Egyptian

rival. An epistle of menace and invective, 48 which accompanied

the summons, accused him as a busy, insolent, and envious priest,

who perplexed the simplicity of the faith, violated the peace of

the church and state, and, by his artful and separate addresses

to the wife and sister of Theodosius, presumed to suppose, or to

scatter, the seeds of discord in the Imperial family. At the

stern command of his sovereign, Cyril had repaired to Ephesus,

where he was resisted, threatened, and confined, by the

magistrates in the interest of Nestorius and the Orientals; who

assembled the troops of Lydia and Ionia to suppress the fanatic

and disorderly train of the patriarch. Without expecting the

royal license, he escaped from his guards, precipitately

embarked, deserted the imperfect synod, and retired to his

episcopal fortress of safety and independence. But his artful

emissaries, both in the court and city, successfully labored to

appease the resentment, and to conciliate the favor, of the

emperor. The feeble son of Arcadius was alternately swayed by his

wife and sister, by the eunuchs and women of the palace:

superstition and avarice were their ruling passions; and the

orthodox chiefs were assiduous in their endeavors to alarm the

former, and to gratify the latter. Constantinople and the suburbs

were sanctified with frequent monasteries, and the holy abbots,

Dalmatius and Eutyches, 49 had devoted their zeal and fidelity to

the cause of Cyril, the worship of Mary, and the unity of Christ.

From the first moment of their monastic life, they had never

mingled with the world, or trod the profane ground of the city.

But in this awful moment of the danger of the church, their vow

was superseded by a more sublime and indispensable duty. At the

head of a long order of monks and hermits, who carried burning

tapers in their hands, and chanted litanies to the mother of God,

they proceeded from their monasteries to the palace. The people

was edified and inflamed by this extraordinary spectacle, and the

trembling monarch listened to the prayers and adjurations of the

saints, who boldly pronounced, that none could hope for

salvation, unless they embraced the person and the creed of the

orthodox successor of Athanasius. At the same time, every avenue

of the throne was assaulted with gold. Under the decent names of

eulogies and benedictions, the courtiers of both sexes were

bribed according to the measure of their power and rapaciousness.

But their incessant demands despoiled the sanctuaries of

Constantinople and Alexandria; and the authority of the patriarch

was unable to silence the just murmur of his clergy, that a debt

of sixty thousand pounds had already been contracted to support

the expense of this scandalous corruption. 50 Pulcheria, who

relieved her brother from the weight of an empire, was the

firmest pillar of orthodoxy; and so intimate was the alliance

between the thunders of the synod and the whispers of the court,

that Cyril was assured of success if he could displace one

eunuch, and substitute another in the favor of Theodosius. Yet

the Egyptian could not boast of a glorious or decisive victory.

The emperor, with unaccustomed firmness, adhered to his promise

of protecting the innocence of the Oriental bishops; and Cyril

softened his anathemas, and confessed, with ambiguity and

reluctance, a twofold nature of Christ, before he was permitted

to satiate his revenge against the unfortunate Nestorius. 51

48 (return) [ I should be curious to know how much Nestorius paid

for these expressions, so mortifying to his rival.]

49 (return) [ Eutyches, the heresiarch Eutyches, is honorably

named by Cyril as a friend, a saint, and the strenuous defender

of the faith. His brother, the abbot Dalmatus, is likewise

employed to bind the emperor and all his chamberlains terribili

conjuratione. Synodicon. c. 203, in Concil. tom. iv p. 467.]

50 (return) [ Clerici qui hic sunt contristantur, quod ecclesia

Alexandrina nudata sit hujus causa turbelae: et debet praeter

illa quae hinc transmissa sint auri libras mille quingentas. Et

nunc ei scriptum est ut praestet; sed de tua ecclesia praesta

avaritiae quorum nosti, &c. This curious and original letter,

from Cyril’s archdeacon to his creature the new bishop of

Constantinople, has been unaccountably preserved in an old Latin

version, (Synodicon, c. 203, Concil. tom. iv. p. 465—468.) The

mask is almost dropped, and the saints speak the honest language

of interest and confederacy.]

51 (return) [ The tedious negotiations that succeeded the synod

of Ephesus are diffusely related in the original acts, (Concil.

tom. iii. p. 1339—1771, ad fin. vol. and the Synodicon, in tom.

iv.,) Socrates, (l. vii. c. 28, 35, 40, 41,) Evagrius, (l. i. c.

6, 7, 8, 12,) Liberatus, (c. 7—10, 7-10,) Tillemont, (Mem.

Eccles. tom. xiv. p. 487—676.) The most patient reader will thank

me for compressing so much nonsense and falsehood in a few

lines.]

The rash and obstinate Nestorius, before the end of the synod,

was oppressed by Cyril, betrayed by the court, and faintly

supported by his Eastern friends. A sentiment of fear or

indignation prompted him, while it was yet time, to affect the

glory of a voluntary abdication: 52 his wish, or at least his

request, was readily granted; he was conducted with honor from

Ephesus to his old monastery of Antioch; and, after a short

pause, his successors, Maximian and Proclus, were acknowledged as

the lawful bishops of Constantinople. But in the silence of his

cell, the degraded patriarch could no longer resume the innocence

and security of a private monk. The past he regretted, he was

discontented with the present, and the future he had reason to

dread: the Oriental bishops successively disengaged their cause

from his unpopular name, and each day decreased the number of the

schismatics who revered Nestorius as the confessor of the faith.

After a residence at Antioch of four years, the hand of

Theodosius subscribed an edict, 53 which ranked him with Simon

the magician, proscribed his opinions and followers, condemned

his writings to the flames, and banished his person first to

Petra, in Arabia, and at length to Oasis, one of the islands of

the Libyan desert. 54 Secluded from the church and from the

world, the exile was still pursued by the rage of bigotry and

war. A wandering tribe of the Blemmyes or Nubians invaded his

solitary prison: in their retreat they dismissed a crowd of

useless captives: but no sooner had Nestorius reached the banks

of the Nile, than he would gladly have escaped from a Roman and

orthodox city, to the milder servitude of the savages. His flight

was punished as a new crime: the soul of the patriarch inspired

the civil and ecclesiastical powers of Egypt; the magistrates,

the soldiers, the monks, devoutly tortured the enemy of Christ

and St. Cyril; and, as far as the confines of Aethiopia, the

heretic was alternately dragged and recalled, till his aged body

was broken by the hardships and accidents of these reiterated

journeys. Yet his mind was still independent and erect; the

president of Thebais was awed by his pastoral letters; he

survived the Catholic tyrant of Alexandria, and, after sixteen

years’ banishment, the synod of Chalcedon would perhaps have

restored him to the honors, or at least to the communion, of the

church. The death of Nestorius prevented his obedience to their

welcome summons; 55 and his disease might afford some color to

the scandalous report, that his tongue, the organ of blasphemy,

had been eaten by the worms. He was buried in a city of Upper

Egypt, known by the names of Chemnis, or Panopolis, or Akmim; 56

but the immortal malice of the Jacobites has persevered for ages

to cast stones against his sepulchre, and to propagate the

foolish tradition, that it was never watered by the rain of

heaven, which equally descends on the righteous and the ungodly.

57 Humanity may drop a tear on the fate of Nestorius; yet justice

must observe, that he suffered the persecution which he had

approved and inflicted. 58

52 (return) [ Evagrius, l. i. c. 7. The original letters in the

Synodicon (c. 15, 24, 25, 26) justify the appearance of a

voluntary resignation, which is asserted by Ebed-Jesu, a

Nestorian writer, apud Asseman. Bibliot. Oriental. tom. iii. p.

299, 302.]

53 (return) [ See the Imperial letters in the Acts of the Synod

of Ephesus, (Concil. tom. iii. p. 1730—1735.) The odious name of

Simonians, which was affixed to the disciples of this. Yet these

were Christians! who differed only in names and in shadows.]

54 (return) [ The metaphor of islands is applied by the grave

civilians (Pandect. l. xlviii. tit. 22, leg. 7) to those happy

spots which are discriminated by water and verdure from the

Libyan sands. Three of these under the common name of Oasis, or

Alvahat: 1. The temple of Jupiter Ammon. 2. The middle Oasis,

three days’ journey to the west of Lycopolis. 3. The southern,

where Nestorius was banished in the first climate, and only three

days’ journey from the confines of Nubia. See a learned note of

Michaelis, (ad Descript. Aegypt. Abulfedae, p. 21-34.) * Note: 1.

The Oasis of Sivah has been visited by Mons. Drovetti and Mr.

Browne. 2. The little Oasis, that of El Kassar, was visited and

described by Belzoni. 3. The great Oasis, and its splendid ruins,

have been well described in the travels of Sir A. Edmonstone. To

these must be added another Western Oasis also visited by Sir A.

Edmonstone.—M.]

55 (return) [ The invitation of Nestorius to the synod of

Chalcedon, is related by Zacharias, bishop of Melitene (Evagrius,

l. ii. c. 2. Asseman. Biblioth. Orient. tom. ii. p. 55,) and the

famous Xenaias or Philoxenus, bishop of Hierapolis, (Asseman.

Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii. p. 40, &c.,) denied by Evagrius and

Asseman, and stoutly maintained by La Croze, (Thesaur. Epistol.

tom. iii. p. 181, &c.) The fact is not improbable; yet it was the

interest of the Monophysites to spread the invidious report, and

Eutychius (tom. ii. p. 12) affirms, that Nestorius died after an

exile of seven years, and consequently ten years before the synod

of Chalcedon.]

56 (return) [ Consult D’Anville, (Memoire sur l’Egypte, p. 191,)

Pocock. (Description of the East, vol. i. p. 76,) Abulfeda,

(Descript. Aegypt, p. 14,) and his commentator Michaelis, (Not.

p. 78—83,) and the Nubian Geographer, (p. 42,) who mentions, in

the xiith century, the ruins and the sugar-canes of Akmim.]

57 (return) [ Eutychius (Annal. tom. ii. p. 12) and Gregory

Bar-Hebraeus, of Abulpharagius, (Asseman, tom. ii. p. 316,)

represent the credulity of the xth and xiith centuries.]

58 (return) [ We are obliged to Evagrius (l. i. c. 7) for some

extracts from the letters of Nestorius; but the lively picture of

his sufferings is treated with insult by the hard and stupid

fanatic.]

Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part III.

The death of the Alexandrian primate, after a reign of thirty-two

years, abandoned the Catholics to the intemperance of zeal and

the abuse of victory. 59 The monophysite doctrine (one incarnate

nature) was rigorously preached in the churches of Egypt and the

monasteries of the East; the primitive creed of Apollinarius was

protected by the sanctity of Cyril; and the name of Eutyches, his

venerable friend, has been applied to the sect most adverse to

the Syrian heresy of Nestorius. His rival Eutyches was the abbot,

or archimandrite, or superior of three hundred monks, but the

opinions of a simple and illiterate recluse might have expired in

the cell, where he had slept above seventy years, if the

resentment or indiscretion of Flavian, the Byzantine pontiff, had

not exposed the scandal to the eyes of the Christian world. His

domestic synod was instantly convened, their proceedings were

sullied with clamor and artifice, and the aged heretic was

surprised into a seeming confession, that Christ had not derived

his body from the substance of the Virgin Mary. From their

partial decree, Eutyches appealed to a general council; and his

cause was vigorously asserted by his godson Chrysaphius, the

reigning eunuch of the palace, and his accomplice Dioscorus, who

had succeeded to the throne, the creed, the talents, and the

vices, of the nephew of Theophilus. By the special summons of

Theodosius, the second synod of Ephesus was judiciously composed

of ten metropolitans and ten bishops from each of the six

dioceses of the Eastern empire: some exceptions of favor or merit

enlarged the number to one hundred and thirty-five; and the

Syrian Barsumas, as the chief and representative of the monks,

was invited to sit and vote with the successors of the apostles.

But the despotism of the Alexandrian patriarch again oppressed

the freedom of debate: the same spiritual and carnal weapons were

again drawn from the arsenals of Egypt: the Asiatic veterans, a

band of archers, served under the orders of Dioscorus; and the

more formidable monks, whose minds were inaccessible to reason or

mercy, besieged the doors of the cathedral. The general, and, as

it should seem, the unconstrained voice of the fathers, accepted

the faith and even the anathemas of Cyril; and the heresy of the

two natures was formally condemned in the persons and writings of

the most learned Orientals. “May those who divide Christ be

divided with the sword, may they be hewn in pieces, may they be

burned alive!” were the charitable wishes of a Christian synod.

60 The innocence and sanctity of Eutyches were acknowledged

without hesitation; but the prelates, more especially those of

Thrace and Asia, were unwilling to depose their patriarch for the

use or even the abuse of his lawful jurisdiction. They embraced

the knees of Dioscorus, as he stood with a threatening aspect on

the footstool of his throne, and conjured him to forgive the

offences, and to respect the dignity, of his brother. “Do you

mean to raise a sedition?” exclaimed the relentless tyrant.

“Where are the officers?” At these words a furious multitude of

monks and soldiers, with staves, and swords, and chains, burst

into the church; the trembling bishops hid themselves behind the

altar, or under the benches, and as they were not inspired with

the zeal of martyrdom, they successively subscribed a blank

paper, which was afterwards filled with the condemnation of the

Byzantine pontiff. Flavian was instantly delivered to the wild

beasts of this spiritual amphitheatre: the monks were stimulated

by the voice and example of Barsumas to avenge the injuries of

Christ: it is said that the patriarch of Alexandria reviled, and

buffeted, and kicked, and trampled his brother of Constantinople:

61 it is certain, that the victim, before he could reach the

place of his exile, expired on the third day of the wounds and

bruises which he had received at Ephesus. This second synod has

been justly branded as a gang of robbers and assassins; yet the

accusers of Dioscorus would magnify his violence, to alleviate

the cowardice and inconstancy of their own behavior.

59 (return) [ Dixi Cyrillum dum viveret, auctoritate sua

effecisse, ne Eutychianismus et Monophysitarum error in nervum

erumperet: idque verum puto...aliquo... honesto modo cecinerat.

The learned but cautious Jablonski did not always speak the whole

truth. Cum Cyrillo lenius omnino egi, quam si tecum aut cum aliis

rei hujus probe gnaris et aequis rerum aestimatoribus sermones

privatos conferrem, (Thesaur. Epistol. La Crozian. tom. i. p.

197, 198) an excellent key to his dissertations on the Nestorian

controversy!]

60 (return) [ At the request of Dioscorus, those who were not

able to roar, stretched out their hands. At Chalcedon, the

Orientals disclaimed these exclamations: but the Egyptians more

consistently declared. (Concil. tom. iv. p. 1012.)]

61 (return) [ (Eusebius, bishop of Dorylaeum): and this testimony

of Evagrius (l. ii. c. 2) is amplified by the historian Zonaras,

(tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 44,) who affirms that Dioscorus kicked like

a wild ass. But the language of Liberatus (Brev. c. 12, in

Concil. tom. vi. p. 438) is more cautious; and the Acts of

Chalcedon, which lavish the names of homicide, Cain, &c., do not

justify so pointed a charge. The monk Barsumas is more

particularly accused, (Concil. tom. iv. p. 1418.)]

The faith of Egypt had prevailed: but the vanquished party was

supported by the same pope who encountered without fear the

hostile rage of Attila and Genseric. The theology of Leo, his

famous tome or epistle on the mystery of the incarnation, had

been disregarded by the synod of Ephesus: his authority, and that

of the Latin church, was insulted in his legates, who escaped

from slavery and death to relate the melancholy tale of the

tyranny of Dioscorus and the martyrdom of Flavian. His provincial

synod annulled the irregular proceedings of Ephesus; but as this

step was itself irregular, he solicited the convocation of a

general council in the free and orthodox provinces of Italy. From

his independent throne, the Roman bishop spoke and acted without

danger as the head of the Christians, and his dictates were

obsequiously transcribed by Placidia and her son Valentinian; who

addressed their Eastern colleague to restore the peace and unity

of the church. But the pageant of Oriental royalty was moved with

equal dexterity by the hand of the eunuch; and Theodosius could

pronounce, without hesitation, that the church was already

peaceful and triumphant, and that the recent flame had been

extinguished by the just punishment of the Nestorians. Perhaps

the Greeks would be still involved in the heresy of the

Monophysites, if the emperor’s horse had not fortunately

stumbled; Theodosius expired; his orthodox sister Pulcheria, with

a nominal husband, succeeded to the throne; Chrysaphius was

burnt, Dioscorus was disgraced, the exiles were recalled, and the

tome of Leo was subscribed by the Oriental bishops. Yet the pope

was disappointed in his favorite project of a Latin council: he

disdained to preside in the Greek synod, which was speedily

assembled at Nice in Bithynia; his legates required in a

peremptory tone the presence of the emperor; and the weary

fathers were transported to Chalcedon under the immediate eye of

Marcian and the senate of Constantinople. A quarter of a mile

from the Thracian Bosphorus, the church of St. Euphemia was built

on the summit of a gentle though lofty ascent: the triple

structure was celebrated as a prodigy of art, and the boundless

prospect of the land and sea might have raised the mind of a

sectary to the contemplation of the God of the universe. Six

hundred and thirty bishops were ranged in order in the nave of

the church; but the patriarchs of the East were preceded by the

legates, of whom the third was a simple priest; and the place of

honor was reserved for twenty laymen of consular or senatorian

rank. The gospel was ostentatiously displayed in the centre, but

the rule of faith was defined by the Papal and Imperial

ministers, who moderated the thirteen sessions of the council of

Chalcedon. 62 Their partial interposition silenced the

intemperate shouts and execrations, which degraded the episcopal

gravity; but, on the formal accusation of the legates, Dioscorus

was compelled to descend from his throne to the rank of a

criminal, already condemned in the opinion of his judges. The

Orientals, less adverse to Nestorius than to Cyril, accepted the

Romans as their deliverers: Thrace, and Pontus, and Asia, were

exasperated against the murderer of Flavian, and the new

patriarchs of Constantinople and Antioch secured their places by

the sacrifice of their benefactor. The bishops of Palestine,

Macedonia, and Greece, were attached to the faith of Cyril; but

in the face of the synod, in the heat of the battle, the leaders,

with their obsequious train, passed from the right to the left

wing, and decided the victory by this seasonable desertion. Of

the seventeen suffragans who sailed from Alexandria, four were

tempted from their allegiance, and the thirteen, falling

prostrate on the ground, implored the mercy of the council, with

sighs and tears, and a pathetic declaration, that, if they

yielded, they should be massacred, on their return to Egypt, by

the indignant people. A tardy repentance was allowed to expiate

the guilt or error of the accomplices of Dioscorus: but their

sins were accumulated on his head; he neither asked nor hoped for

pardon, and the moderation of those who pleaded for a general

amnesty was drowned in the prevailing cry of victory and revenge.

To save the reputation of his late adherents, some personal

offences were skilfully detected; his rash and illegal

excommunication of the pope, and his contumacious refusal (while

he was detained a prisoner) to attend to the summons of the

synod. Witnesses were introduced to prove the special facts of

his pride, avarice, and cruelty; and the fathers heard with

abhorrence, that the alms of the church were lavished on the

female dancers, that his palace, and even his bath, was open to

the prostitutes of Alexandria, and that the infamous Pansophia,

or Irene, was publicly entertained as the concubine of the

patriarch. 63

62 (return) [ The Acts of the Council of Chalcedon (Concil. tom.

iv. p. 761—2071) comprehend those of Ephesus, (p. 890—1189,)

which again comprise the synod of Constantinople under Flavian,

(p. 930—1072;) and at requires some attention to disengage this

double involution. The whole business of Eutyches, Flavian, and

Dioscorus, is related by Evagrius (l. i. c. 9—12, and l. ii. c.

1, 2, 3, 4,) and Liberatus, (Brev. c. 11, 12, 13, 14.) Once more,

and almost for the last time, I appeal to the diligence of

Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. xv. p. 479-719.) The annals of

Baronius and Pagi will accompany me much further on my long and

laborious journey.]

63 (return) [ (Concil. tom. iv. p. 1276.) A specimen of the wit

and malice of the people is preserved in the Greek Anthology, (l.

ii. c. 5, p. 188, edit. Wechel,) although the application was

unknown to the editor Brodaeus. The nameless epigrammatist raises

a tolerable pun, by confounding the episcopal salutation of

“Peace be to all!” with the genuine or corrupted name of the

bishop’s concubine: I am ignorant whether the patriarch, who

seems to have been a jealous lover, is the Cimon of a preceding

epigram, was viewed with envy and wonder by Priapus himself.]

For these scandalous offences, Dioscorus was deposed by the

synod, and banished by the emperor; but the purity of his faith

was declared in the presence, and with the tacit approbation, of

the fathers. Their prudence supposed rather than pronounced the

heresy of Eutyches, who was never summoned before their tribunal;

and they sat silent and abashed, when a bold Monophysite casting

at their feet a volume of Cyril, challenged them to anathematize

in his person the doctrine of the saint. If we fairly peruse the

acts of Chalcedon as they are recorded by the orthodox party, 64

we shall find that a great majority of the bishops embraced the

simple unity of Christ; and the ambiguous concession that he was

formed Of or From two natures, might imply either their previous

existence, or their subsequent confusion, or some dangerous

interval between the conception of the man and the assumption of

the God. The Roman theology, more positive and precise, adopted

the term most offensive to the ears of the Egyptians, that Christ

existed In two natures; and this momentous particle 65 (which the

memory, rather than the understanding, must retain) had almost

produced a schism among the Catholic bishops. The tome of Leo had

been respectfully, perhaps sincerely, subscribed; but they

protested, in two successive debates, that it was neither

expedient nor lawful to transgress the sacred landmarks which had

been fixed at Nice, Constantinople, and Ephesus, according to the

rule of Scripture and tradition. At length they yielded to the

importunities of their masters; but their infallible decree,

after it had been ratified with deliberate votes and vehement

acclamations, was overturned in the next session by the

opposition of the legates and their Oriental friends. It was in

vain that a multitude of episcopal voices repeated in chorus,

“The definition of the fathers is orthodox and immutable! The

heretics are now discovered! Anathema to the Nestorians! Let them

depart from the synod! Let them repair to Rome.” 66 The legates

threatened, the emperor was absolute, and a committee of eighteen

bishops prepared a new decree, which was imposed on the reluctant

assembly. In the name of the fourth general council, the Christ

in one person, but in two natures, was announced to the Catholic

world: an invisible line was drawn between the heresy of

Apollinaris and the faith of St. Cyril; and the road to paradise,

a bridge as sharp as a razor, was suspended over the abyss by the

master-hand of the theological artist. During ten centuries of

blindness and servitude, Europe received her religious opinions

from the oracle of the Vatican; and the same doctrine, already

varnished with the rust of antiquity, was admitted without

dispute into the creed of the reformers, who disclaimed the

supremacy of the Roman pontiff. The synod of Chalcedon still

triumphs in the Protestant churches; but the ferment of

controversy has subsided, and the most pious Christians of the

present day are ignorant, or careless, of their own belief

concerning the mystery of the incarnation.

64 (return) [ Those who reverence the infallibility of synods,

may try to ascertain their sense. The leading bishops were

attended by partial or careless scribes, who dispersed their

copies round the world. Our Greek Mss. are sullied with the false

and prescribed reading of (Concil. tom. iii. p. 1460:) the

authentic translation of Pope Leo I. does not seem to have been

executed, and the old Latin versions materially differ from the

present Vulgate, which was revised (A.D. 550) by Rusticus, a

Roman priest, from the best Mss. at Constantinople, (Ducange, C.

P. Christiana, l. iv. p. 151,) a famous monastery of Latins,

Greeks, and Syrians. See Concil. tom. iv. p. 1959—2049, and Pagi,

Critica, tom. ii. p. 326, &c.]

65 (return) [ It is darkly represented in the microscope of

Petavius, (tom. v. l. iii. c. 5;) yet the subtle theologian is

himself afraid—ne quis fortasse supervacaneam, et nimis anxiam

putet hujusmodi vocularum inquisitionem, et ab instituti

theologici gravitate alienam, (p. 124.)]

66 (return) [ (Concil. tom. iv. p. 1449.) Evagrius and Liberatus

present only the placid face of the synod, and discreetly slide

over these embers, suppositos cineri doloso.]

Far different was the temper of the Greeks and Egyptians under

the orthodox reigns of Leo and Marcian. Those pious emperors

enforced with arms and edicts the symbol of their faith; 67 and

it was declared by the conscience or honor of five hundred

bishops, that the decrees of the synod of Chalcedon might be

lawfully supported, even with blood. The Catholics observed with

satisfaction, that the same synod was odious both to the

Nestorians and the Monophysites; 68 but the Nestorians were less

angry, or less powerful, and the East was distracted by the

obstinate and sanguinary zeal of the Monophysites. Jerusalem was

occupied by an army of monks; in the name of the one incarnate

nature, they pillaged, they burnt, they murdered; the sepulchre

of Christ was defiled with blood; and the gates of the city were

guarded in tumultuous rebellion against the troops of the

emperor. After the disgrace and exile of Dioscorus, the Egyptians

still regretted their spiritual father; and detested the

usurpation of his successor, who was introduced by the fathers of

Chalcedon. The throne of Proterius was supported by a guard of

two thousand soldiers: he waged a five years’ war against the

people of Alexandria; and on the first intelligence of the death

of Marcian, he became the victim of their zeal. On the third day

before the festival of Easter, the patriarch was besieged in the

cathedral, and murdered in the baptistery. The remains of his

mangled corpse were delivered to the flames, and his ashes to the

wind; and the deed was inspired by the vision of a pretended

angel: an ambitious monk, who, under the name of Timothy the Cat,

69 succeeded to the place and opinions of Dioscorus. This deadly

superstition was inflamed, on either side, by the principle and

the practice of retaliation: in the pursuit of a metaphysical

quarrel, many thousands 70 were slain, and the Christians of

every degree were deprived of the substantial enjoyments of

social life, and of the invisible gifts of baptism and the holy

communion. Perhaps an extravagant fable of the times may conceal

an allegorical picture of these fanatics, who tortured each other

and themselves. “Under the consulship of Venantius and Celer,”

says a grave bishop, “the people of Alexandria, and all Egypt,

were seized with a strange and diabolical frenzy: great and

small, slaves and freedmen, monks and clergy, the natives of the

land, who opposed the synod of Chalcedon, lost their speech and

reason, barked like dogs, and tore, with their own teeth the

flesh from their hands and arms.” 71

67 (return) [ See, in the Appendix to the Acts of Chalcedon, the

confirmation of the Synod by Marcian, (Concil. tom. iv. p. 1781,

1783;) his letters to the monks of Alexandria, (p. 1791,) of

Mount Sinai, (p. 1793,) of Jerusalem and Palestine, (p. 1798;)

his laws against the Eutychians, (p. 1809, 1811, 1831;) the

correspondence of Leo with the provincial synods on the

revolution of Alexandria, (p. 1835—1930.)]

68 (return) [ Photius (or rather Eulogius of Alexandria)

confesses, in a fine passage, the specious color of this double

charge against Pope Leo and his synod of Chalcedon, (Bibliot.

cod. ccxxv. p. 768.) He waged a double war against the enemies of

the church, and wounded either foe with the darts of his

adversary. Against Nestorius he seemed to introduce Monophysites;

against Eutyches he appeared to countenance the Nestorians. The

apologist claims a charitable interpretation for the saints: if

the same had been extended to the heretics, the sound of the

controversy would have been lost in the air]

69 (return) [ From his nocturnal expeditions. In darkness and

disguise he crept round the cells of the monastery, and whispered

the revelation to his slumbering brethren, (Theodor. Lector. l.

i.)]

70 (return) [ Such is the hyperbolic language of the Henoticon.]

71 (return) [ See the Chronicle of Victor Tunnunensis, in the

Lectiones Antiquae of Canisius, republished by Basnage, tom.

326.]

The disorders of thirty years at length produced the famous

Henoticon 72 of the emperor Zeno, which in his reign, and in that

of Anastasius, was signed by all the bishops of the East, under

the penalty of degradation and exile, if they rejected or

infringed this salutary and fundamental law. The clergy may smile

or groan at the presumption of a layman who defines the articles

of faith; yet if he stoops to the humiliating task, his mind is

less infected by prejudice or interest, and the authority of the

magistrate can only be maintained by the concord of the people.

It is in ecclesiastical story, that Zeno appears least

contemptible; and I am not able to discern any Manichaean or

Eutychian guilt in the generous saying of Anastasius. That it was

unworthy of an emperor to persecute the worshippers of Christ and

the citizens of Rome. The Henoticon was most pleasing to the

Egyptians; yet the smallest blemish has not been described by the

jealous, and even jaundiced eyes of our orthodox schoolmen, and

it accurately represents the Catholic faith of the incarnation,

without adopting or disclaiming the peculiar terms of tenets of

the hostile sects. A solemn anathema is pronounced against

Nestorius and Eutyches; against all heretics by whom Christ is

divided, or confounded, or reduced to a phantom. Without defining

the number or the article of the word nature, the pure system of

St. Cyril, the faith of Nice, Constantinople, and Ephesus, is

respectfully confirmed; but, instead of bowing at the name of the

fourth council, the subject is dismissed by the censure of all

contrary doctrines, if any such have been taught either elsewhere

or at Chalcedon. Under this ambiguous expression, the friends and

the enemies of the last synod might unite in a silent embrace.

The most reasonable Christians acquiesced in this mode of

toleration; but their reason was feeble and inconstant, and their

obedience was despised as timid and servile by the vehement

spirit of their brethren. On a subject which engrossed the

thoughts and discourses of men, it was difficult to preserve an

exact neutrality; a book, a sermon, a prayer, rekindled the flame

of controversy; and the bonds of communion were alternately

broken and renewed by the private animosity of the bishops. The

space between Nestorius and Eutyches was filled by a thousand

shades of language and opinion; the acephali 73 of Egypt, and the

Roman pontiffs, of equal valor, though of unequal strength, may

be found at the two extremities of the theological scale. The

acephali, without a king or a bishop, were separated above three

hundred years from the patriarchs of Alexandria, who had accepted

the communion of Constantinople, without exacting a formal

condemnation of the synod of Chalcedon. For accepting the

communion of Alexandria, without a formal approbation of the same

synod, the patriarchs of Constantinople were anathematized by the

popes. Their inflexible despotism involved the most orthodox of

the Greek churches in this spiritual contagion, denied or doubted

the validity of their sacraments, 74 and fomented, thirty-five

years, the schism of the East and West, till they finally

abolished the memory of four Byzantine pontiffs, who had dared to

oppose the supremacy of St. Peter. 75 Before that period, the

precarious truce of Constantinople and Egypt had been violated by

the zeal of the rival prelates. Macedonius, who was suspected of

the Nestorian heresy, asserted, in disgrace and exile, the synod

of Chalcedon, while the successor of Cyril would have purchased

its overthrow with a bribe of two thousand pounds of gold.

72 (return) [The Henoticon is transcribed by Evagrius, (l. iii.

c. 13,) and translated by Liberatus, (Brev. c. 18.) Pagi

(Critica, tom. ii. p. 411) and (Bibliot. Orient. tom. i. p. 343)

are satisfied that it is free from heresy; but Petavius (Dogmat.

Theolog. tom. v. l. i. c. 13, p. 40) most unaccountably affirms

Chalcedonensem ascivit. An adversary would prove that he had

never read the Henoticon.]

73 (return) [ See Renaudot, (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 123, 131,

145, 195, 247.) They were reconciled by the care of Mark I. (A.D.

799—819;) he promoted their chiefs to the bishoprics of Athribis

and Talba, (perhaps Tava. See D’Anville, p. 82,) and supplied the

sacraments, which had failed for want of an episcopal

ordination.]

74 (return) [ De his quos baptizavit, quos ordinavit Acacius,

majorum traditione confectam et veram, praecipue religiosae

solicitudini congruam praebemus sine difficultate medicinam,

(Galacius, in epist. i. ad Euphemium, Concil. tom. v. 286.) The

offer of a medicine proves the disease, and numbers must have

perished before the arrival of the Roman physician. Tillemont

himself (Mem. Eccles. tom. xvi. p. 372, 642, &c.) is shocked at

the proud, uncharitable temper of the popes; they are now glad,

says he, to invoke St. Flavian of Antioch, St. Elias of

Jerusalem, &c., to whom they refused communion whilst upon earth.

But Cardinal Baronius is firm and hard as the rock of St. Peter.]

75 (return) [ Their names were erased from the diptych of the

church: ex venerabili diptycho, in quo piae memoriae transitum ad

coelum habentium episcoporum vocabula continentur, (Concil. tom.

iv. p. 1846.) This ecclesiastical record was therefore equivalent

to the book of life.]

In the fever of the times, the sense, or rather the sound of a

syllable, was sufficient to disturb the peace of an empire. The

Trisagion 76 (thrice holy,) “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of

Hosts!” is supposed, by the Greeks, to be the identical hymn

which the angels and cherubim eternally repeat before the throne

of God, and which, about the middle of the fifth century, was

miraculously revealed to the church of Constantinople. The

devotion of Antioch soon added, “who was crucified for us!” and

this grateful address, either to Christ alone, or to the whole

Trinity, may be justified by the rules of theology, and has been

gradually adopted by the Catholics of the East and West. But it

had been imagined by a Monophysite bishop; 77 the gift of an

enemy was at first rejected as a dire and dangerous blasphemy,

and the rash innovation had nearly cost the emperor Anastasius

his throne and his life. 78 The people of Constantinople was

devoid of any rational principles of freedom; but they held, as a

lawful cause of rebellion, the color of a livery in the races, or

the color of a mystery in the schools. The Trisagion, with and

without this obnoxious addition, was chanted in the cathedral by

two adverse choirs, and when their lungs were exhausted, they had

recourse to the more solid arguments of sticks and stones; the

aggressors were punished by the emperor, and defended by the

patriarch; and the crown and mitre were staked on the event of

this momentous quarrel. The streets were instantly crowded with

innumerable swarms of men, women, and children; the legions of

monks, in regular array, marched, and shouted, and fought at

their head, “Christians! this is the day of martyrdom: let us not

desert our spiritual father; anathema to the Manichaean tyrant!

he is unworthy to reign.” Such was the Catholic cry; and the

galleys of Anastasius lay upon their oars before the palace, till

the patriarch had pardoned his penitent, and hushed the waves of

the troubled multitude. The triumph of Macedonius was checked by

a speedy exile; but the zeal of his flock was again exasperated

by the same question, “Whether one of the Trinity had been

crucified?” On this momentous occasion, the blue and green

factions of Constantinople suspended their discord, and the civil

and military powers were annihilated in their presence. The keys

of the city, and the standards of the guards, were deposited in

the forum of Constantine, the principal station and camp of the

faithful. Day and night they were incessantly busied either in

singing hymns to the honor of their God, or in pillaging and

murdering the servants of their prince. The head of his favorite

monk, the friend, as they styled him, of the enemy of the Holy

Trinity, was borne aloft on a spear; and the firebrands, which

had been darted against heretical structures, diffused the

undistinguishing flames over the most orthodox buildings. The

statues of the emperor were broken, and his person was concealed

in a suburb, till, at the end of three days, he dared to implore

the mercy of his subjects. Without his diadem, and in the posture

of a suppliant, Anastasius appeared on the throne of the circus.

The Catholics, before his face, rehearsed their genuine

Trisagion; they exulted in the offer, which he proclaimed by the

voice of a herald, of abdicating the purple; they listened to the

admonition, that, since all could not reign, they should

previously agree in the choice of a sovereign; and they accepted

the blood of two unpopular ministers, whom their master, without

hesitation, condemned to the lions. These furious but transient

seditions were encouraged by the success of Vitalian, who, with

an army of Huns and Bulgarians, for the most part idolaters,

declared himself the champion of the Catholic faith. In this

pious rebellion he depopulated Thrace, besieged Constantinople,

exterminated sixty-five thousand of his fellow-Christians, till

he obtained the recall of the bishops, the satisfaction of the

pope, and the establishment of the council of Chalcedon, an

orthodox treaty, reluctantly signed by the dying Anastasius, and

more faithfully performed by the uncle of Justinian. And such was

the event of the first of the religious wars which have been

waged in the name and by the disciples, of the God of peace. 79

76 (return) [ Petavius (Dogmat. Theolog. tom. v. l. v. c. 2, 3,

4, p. 217-225) and Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. tom. xiv. p. 713, &c.,

799) represent the history and doctrine of the Trisagion. In the

twelve centuries between Isaiah and St. Proculs’s boy, who was

taken up into heaven before the bishop and people of

Constantinople, the song was considerably improved. The boy heard

the angels sing, “Holy God! Holy strong! Holy immortal!”]

77 (return) [ Peter Gnapheus, the fuller, (a trade which he had

exercised in his monastery,) patriarch of Antioch. His tedious

story is discussed in the Annals of Pagi (A.D. 477—490) and a

dissertation of M. de Valois at the end of his Evagrius.]

78 (return) [ The troubles under the reign of Anastasius must be

gathered from the Chronicles of Victor, Marcellinus, and

Theophanes. As the last was not published in the time of

Baronius, his critic Pagi is more copious, as well as more

correct.]

79 (return) [ The general history, from the council of Chalcedon

to the death of Anastasius, may be found in the Breviary of

Liberatus, (c. 14—19,) the iid and iiid books of Evagrius, the

abstract of the two books of Theodore the Reader, the Acts of the

Synods, and the Epistles of the Pope, (Concil. tom. v.) The

series is continued with some disorder in the xvth and xvith

tomes of the Memoires Ecclesiastiques of Tillemont. And here I

must take leave forever of that incomparable guide—whose bigotry

is overbalanced by the merits of erudition, diligence, veracity,

and scrupulous minuteness. He was prevented by death from

completing, as he designed, the vith century of the church and

empire.]

Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part IV.

Justinian has been already seen in the various lights of a

prince, a conqueror, and a lawgiver: the theologian 80 still

remains, and it affords an unfavorable prejudice, that his

theology should form a very prominent feature of his portrait.

The sovereign sympathized with his subjects in their

superstitious reverence for living and departed saints: his Code,

and more especially his Novels, confirm and enlarge the

privileges of the clergy; and in every dispute between a monk and

a layman, the partial judge was inclined to pronounce, that

truth, and innocence, and justice, were always on the side of the

church. In his public and private devotions, the emperor was

assiduous and exemplary; his prayers, vigils, and fasts,

displayed the austere penance of a monk; his fancy was amused by

the hope, or belief, of personal inspiration; he had secured the

patronage of the Virgin and St. Michael the archangel; and his

recovery from a dangerous disease was ascribed to the miraculous

succor of the holy martyrs Cosmas and Damian. The capital and the

provinces of the East were decorated with the monuments of his

religion; 81 and though the far greater part of these costly

structures may be attributed to his taste or ostentation, the

zeal of the royal architect was probably quickened by a genuine

sense of love and gratitude towards his invisible benefactors.

Among the titles of Imperial greatness, the name of Pious was

most pleasing to his ear; to promote the temporal and spiritual

interest of the church was the serious business of his life; and

the duty of father of his country was often sacrificed to that of

defender of the faith. The controversies of the times were

congenial to his temper and understanding and the theological

professors must inwardly deride the diligence of a stranger, who

cultivated their art and neglected his own. “What can ye fear,”

said a bold conspirator to his associates, “from your bigoted

tyrant? Sleepless and unarmed, he sits whole nights in his

closet, debating with reverend graybeards, and turning over the

pages of ecclesiastical volumes.” 82 The fruits of these

lucubrations were displayed in many a conference, where Justinian

might shine as the loudest and most subtile of the disputants; in

many a sermon, which, under the name of edicts and epistles,

proclaimed to the empire the theology of their master. While the

Barbarians invaded the provinces, while the victorious legion

marched under the banners of Belisarius and Narses, the successor

of Trajan, unknown to the camp, was content to vanquish at the

head of a synod. Had he invited to these synods a disinterested

and rational spectator, Justinian might have learned, “that

religious controversy is the offspring of arrogance and folly;

that true piety is most laudably expressed by silence and

submission; that man, ignorant of his own nature, should not

presume to scrutinize the nature of his God; and that it is

sufficient for us to know, that power and benevolence are the

perfect attributes of the Deity.” 83

80 (return) [ The strain of the Anecdotes of Procopius, (c. 11,

13, 18, 27, 28,) with the learned remarks of Alemannus, is

confirmed, rather than contradicted, by the Acts of the Councils,

the fourth book of Evagrius, and the complaints of the African

Facundus, in his xiith book—de tribus capitulis, “cum videri

doctus appetit importune...spontaneis quaestionibus ecclesiam

turbat.” See Procop. de Bell. Goth. l. iii. c. 35.]

81 (return) [ Procop. de Edificiis, l. i. c. 6, 7, &c., passim.]

82 (return) [ Procop. de Bell. Goth. l. iii. c. 32. In the life

of St. Eutychius (apud Aleman. ad Procop. Arcan. c. 18) the same

character is given with a design to praise Justinian.]

83 (return) [ For these wise and moderate sentiments, Procopius

(de Bell. Goth. l. i. c. 3) is scourged in the preface of

Alemannus, who ranks him among the political Christians—sed longe

verius haeresium omnium sentinas, prorsusque Atheos—abominable

Atheists, who preached the imitation of God’s mercy to man, (ad

Hist. Arcan. c. 13.)]

Toleration was not the virtue of the times, and indulgence to

rebels has seldom been the virtue of princes. But when the prince

descends to the narrow and peevish character of a disputant, he

is easily provoked to supply the defect of argument by the

plenitude of power, and to chastise without mercy the perverse

blindness of those who wilfully shut their eyes against the light

of demonstration. The reign of Justinian was a uniform yet

various scene of persecution; and he appears to have surpassed

his indolent predecessors, both in the contrivance of his laws

and the rigor of their execution. The insufficient term of three

months was assigned for the conversion or exile of all heretics;

84 and if he still connived at their precarious stay, they were

deprived, under his iron yoke, not only of the benefits of

society, but of the common birth-right of men and Christians. At

the end of four hundred years, the Montanists of Phrygia 85 still

breathed the wild enthusiasm of perfection and prophecy which

they had imbibed from their male and female apostles, the special

organs of the Paraclete. On the approach of the Catholic priests

and soldiers, they grasped with alacrity the crown of martyrdom

the conventicle and the congregation perished in the flames, but

these primitive fanatics were not extinguished three hundred

years after the death of their tyrant. Under the protection of

their Gothic confederates, the church of the Arians at

Constantinople had braved the severity of the laws: their clergy

equalled the wealth and magnificence of the senate; and the gold

and silver which were seized by the rapacious hand of Justinian

might perhaps be claimed as the spoils of the provinces, and the

trophies of the Barbarians. A secret remnant of Pagans, who still

lurked in the most refined and most rustic conditions of mankind,

excited the indignation of the Christians, who were perhaps

unwilling that any strangers should be the witnesses of their

intestine quarrels. A bishop was named as the inquisitor of the

faith, and his diligence soon discovered, in the court and city,

the magistrates, lawyers, physicians, and sophists, who still

cherished the superstition of the Greeks. They were sternly

informed that they must choose without delay between the

displeasure of Jupiter or Justinian, and that their aversion to

the gospel could no longer be distinguished under the scandalous

mask of indifference or impiety. The patrician Photius, perhaps,

alone was resolved to live and to die like his ancestors: he

enfranchised himself with the stroke of a dagger, and left his

tyrant the poor consolation of exposing with ignominy the

lifeless corpse of the fugitive. His weaker brethren submitted to

their earthly monarch, underwent the ceremony of baptism, and

labored, by their extraordinary zeal, to erase the suspicion, or

to expiate the guilt, of idolatry. The native country of Homer,

and the theatre of the Trojan war, still retained the last sparks

of his mythology: by the care of the same bishop, seventy

thousand Pagans were detected and converted in Asia, Phrygia,

Lydia, and Caria; ninety-six churches were built for the new

proselytes; and linen vestments, Bibles, and liturgies, and vases

of gold and silver, were supplied by the pious munificence of

Justinian. 86 The Jews, who had been gradually stripped of their

immunities, were oppressed by a vexatious law, which compelled

them to observe the festival of Easter the same day on which it

was celebrated by the Christians. 87 And they might complain with

the more reason, since the Catholics themselves did not agree

with the astronomical calculations of their sovereign: the people

of Constantinople delayed the beginning of their Lent a whole

week after it had been ordained by authority; and they had the

pleasure of fasting seven days, while meat was exposed for sale

by the command of the emperor. The Samaritans of Palestine 88

were a motley race, an ambiguous sect, rejected as Jews by the

Pagans, by the Jews as schismatics, and by the Christians as

idolaters. The abomination of the cross had already been planted

on their holy mount of Garizim, 89 but the persecution of

Justinian offered only the alternative of baptism or rebellion.

They chose the latter: under the standard of a desperate leader,

they rose in arms, and retaliated their wrongs on the lives, the

property, and the temples, of a defenceless people. The

Samaritans were finally subdued by the regular forces of the

East: twenty thousand were slain, twenty thousand were sold by

the Arabs to the infidels of Persia and India, and the remains of

that unhappy nation atoned for the crime of treason by the sin of

hypocrisy. It has been computed that one hundred thousand Roman

subjects were extirpated in the Samaritan war, 90 which converted

the once fruitful province into a desolate and smoking

wilderness. But in the creed of Justinian, the guilt of murder

could not be applied to the slaughter of unbelievers; and he

piously labored to establish with fire and sword the unity of the

Christian faith. 91

84 (return) [ This alternative, a precious circumstance, is

preserved by John Malala, (tom. ii. p. 63, edit. Venet. 1733,)

who deserves more credit as he draws towards his end. After

numbering the heretics, Nestorians, Eutychians, &c., ne

expectent, says Justinian, ut digni venia judicen tur: jubemus,

enim ut...convicti et aperti haeretici justae et idoneae

animadversioni subjiciantur. Baronius copies and applauds this

edict of the Code, (A.D. 527, No. 39, 40.)]

85 (return) [ See the character and principles of the Montanists,

in Mosheim, Rebus Christ. ante Constantinum, p. 410—424.]

86 (return) [ Theophan. Chron. p. 153. John, the Monophysite

bishop of Asia, is a more authentic witness of this transaction,

in which he was himself employed by the emperor, (Asseman. Bib.

Orient. tom. ii. p. 85.)]

87 (return) [ Compare Procopius (Hist. Arcan. c. 28, and Aleman’s

Notes) with Theophanes, (Chron. p. 190.) The council of Nice has

intrusted the patriarch, or rather the astronomers, of

Alexandria, with the annual proclamation of Easter; and we still

read, or rather we do not read, many of the Paschal epistles of

St. Cyril. Since the reign of Monophytism in Egypt, the Catholics

were perplexed by such a foolish prejudice as that which so long

opposed, among the Protestants, the reception of the Gregorian

style.]

88 (return) [ For the religion and history of the Samaritans,

consult Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, a learned and impartial

work.]

89 (return) [ Sichem, Neapolis, Naplous, the ancient and modern

seat of the Samaritans, is situate in a valley between the barren

Ebal, the mountain of cursing to the north, and the fruitful

Garizim, or mountain of cursing to the south, ten or eleven

hours’ travel from Jerusalem. See Maundrel, Journey from Aleppo

&c.]

90 (return) [ Procop. Anecdot. c. 11. Theophan. Chron. p. 122.

John Malala Chron. tom. ii. p. 62. I remember an observation,

half philosophical. half superstitious, that the province which

had been ruined by the bigotry of Justinian, was the same through

which the Mahometans penetrated into the empire.]

91 (return) [ The expression of Procopius is remarkable. Anecdot.

c. 13.]

With these sentiments, it was incumbent on him, at least, to be

always in the right. In the first years of his administration, he

signalized his zeal as the disciple and patron of orthodoxy: the

reconciliation of the Greeks and Latins established the tome of

St. Leo as the creed of the emperor and the empire; the

Nestorians and Eutychians were exposed, on either side, to the

double edge of persecution; and the four synods of Nice,

Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon, were ratified by the code

of a Catholic lawgiver. 92 But while Justinian strove to maintain

the uniformity of faith and worship, his wife Theodora, whose

vices were not incompatible with devotion, had listened to the

Monophysite teachers; and the open or clandestine enemies of the

church revived and multiplied at the smile of their gracious

patroness. The capital, the palace, the nuptial bed, were torn by

spiritual discord; yet so doubtful was the sincerity of the royal

consorts, that their seeming disagreement was imputed by many to

a secret and mischievous confederacy against the religion and

happiness of their people. 93 The famous dispute of the Three

Chapters, 94 which has filled more volumes than it deserves

lines, is deeply marked with this subtile and disingenuous

spirit. It was now three hundred years since the body of Origen

95 had been eaten by the worms: his soul, of which he held the

preexistence, was in the hands of its Creator; but his writings

were eagerly perused by the monks of Palestine. In these

writings, the piercing eye of Justinian descried more than ten

metaphysical errors; and the primitive doctor, in the company of

Pythagoras and Plato, was devoted by the clergy to the eternity

of hell-fire, which he had presumed to deny. Under the cover of

this precedent, a treacherous blow was aimed at the council of

Chalcedon. The fathers had listened without impatience to the

praise of Theodore of Mopsuestia; 96 and their justice or

indulgence had restored both Theodore of Cyrrhus, and Ibas of

Edessa, to the communion of the church. But the characters of

these Oriental bishops were tainted with the reproach of heresy;

the first had been the master, the two others were the friends,

of Nestorius; their most suspicious passages were accused under

the title of the three chapters; and the condemnation of their

memory must involve the honor of a synod, whose name was

pronounced with sincere or affected reverence by the Catholic

world. If these bishops, whether innocent or guilty, were

annihilated in the sleep of death, they would not probably be

awakened by the clamor which, after a hundred years, was raised

over their grave. If they were already in the fangs of the

daemon, their torments could neither be aggravated nor assuaged

by human industry. If in the company of saints and angels they

enjoyed the rewards of piety, they must have smiled at the idle

fury of the theological insects who still crawled on the surface

of the earth. The foremost of these insects, the emperor of the

Romans, darted his sting, and distilled his venom, perhaps

without discerning the true motives of Theodora and her

ecclesiastical faction. The victims were no longer subject to his

power, and the vehement style of his edicts could only proclaim

their damnation, and invite the clergy of the East to join in a

full chorus of curses and anathemas. The East, with some

hesitation, consented to the voice of her sovereign: the fifth

general council, of three patriarchs and one hundred and

sixty-five bishops, was held at Constantinople; and the authors,

as well as the defenders, of the three chapters were separated

from the communion of the saints, and solemnly delivered to the

prince of darkness. But the Latin churches were more jealous of

the honor of Leo and the synod of Chalcedon: and if they had

fought as they usually did under the standard of Rome, they might

have prevailed in the cause of reason and humanity. But their

chief was a prisoner in the hands of the enemy; the throne of St.

Peter, which had been disgraced by the simony, was betrayed by

the cowardice, of Vigilius, who yielded, after a long and

inconsistent struggle, to the despotism of Justinian and the

sophistry of the Greeks. His apostasy provoked the indignation of

the Latins, and no more than two bishops could be found who would

impose their hands on his deacon and successor Pelagius. Yet the

perseverance of the popes insensibly transferred to their

adversaries the appellation of schismatics; the Illyrian,

African, and Italian churches were oppressed by the civil and

ecclesiastical powers, not without some effort of military force;

97 the distant Barbarians transcribed the creed of the Vatican,

and, in the period of a century, the schism of the three chapters

expired in an obscure angle of the Venetian province. 98 But the

religious discontent of the Italians had already promoted the

conquests of the Lombards, and the Romans themselves were

accustomed to suspect the faith and to detest the government of

their Byzantine tyrant.

92 (return) [ See the Chronicle of Victor, p. 328, and the

original evidence of the laws of Justinian. During the first

years of his reign, Baronius himself is in extreme good humor

with the emperor, who courted the popes, till he got them into

his power.]

93 (return) [ Procopius, Anecdot. c. 13. Evagrius, l. iv. c. 10.

If the ecclesiastical never read the secret historian, their

common suspicion proves at least the general hatred.]

94 (return) [ On the subject of the three chapters, the original

acts of the vth general council of Constantinople supply much

useless, though authentic, knowledge, (Concil. tom. vi. p.

1-419.) The Greek Evagrius is less copious and correct (l. iv. c.

38) than the three zealous Africans, Facundus, (in his twelve

books, de tribus capitulis, which are most correctly published by

Sirmond,) Liberatus, (in his Breviarium, c. 22, 23, 24,) and

Victor Tunnunensis in his Chronicle, (in tom. i. Antiq. Lect.

Canisii, 330—334.) The Liber Pontificalis, or Anastasius, (in

Vigilio, Pelagio, &c.,) is original Italian evidence. The modern

reader will derive some information from Dupin (Bibliot. Eccles.

tom. v. p. 189—207) and Basnage, (Hist. de l’Eglise, tom. i. p.

519—541;) yet the latter is too firmly resolved to depreciate the

authority and character of the popes.]

95 (return) [ Origen had indeed too great a propensity to imitate

the old philosophers, (Justinian, ad Mennam, in Concil. tom. vi.

p. 356.) His moderate opinions were too repugnant to the zeal of

the church, and he was found guilty of the heresy of reason.]

96 (return) [ Basnage (Praefat. p. 11—14, ad tom. i. Antiq. Lect.

Canis.) has fairly weighed the guilt and innocence of Theodore of

Mopsuestia. If he composed 10,000 volumes, as many errors would

be a charitable allowance. In all the subsequent catalogues of

heresiarchs, he alone, without his two brethren, is included; and

it is the duty of Asseman (Bibliot. Orient. tom. iv. p. 203—207)

to justify the sentence.]

97 (return) [ See the complaints of Liberatus and Victor, and the

exhortations of Pope Pelagius to the conqueror and exarch of

Italy. Schisma.. per potestates publicas opprimatur, &c.,

(Concil. tom. vi. p. 467, &c.) An army was detained to suppress

the sedition of an Illyrian city. See Procopius, (de Bell. Goth.

l. iv. c. 25:). He seems to promise an ecclesiastical history. It

would have been curious and impartial.]

98 (return) [ The bishops of the patriarchate of Aquileia were

reconciled by Pope Honorius, A.D. 638, (Muratori, Annali d’

Italia, tom. v. p. 376;) but they again relapsed, and the schism

was not finally extinguished till 698. Fourteen years before, the

church of Spain had overlooked the vth general council with

contemptuous silence, (xiii. Concil. Toretan. in Concil. tom.

vii. p. 487—494.)]

Justinian was neither steady nor consistent in the nice process

of fixing his volatile opinions and those of his subjects. In his

youth he was offended by the slightest deviation from the

orthodox line; in his old age he transgressed the measure of

temperate heresy, and the Jacobites, not less than the Catholics,

were scandalized by his declaration, that the body of Christ was

incorruptible, and that his manhood was never subject to any

wants and infirmities, the inheritance of our mortal flesh. This

fantastic opinion was announced in the last edicts of Justinian;

and at the moment of his seasonable departure, the clergy had

refused to subscribe, the prince was prepared to persecute, and

the people were resolved to suffer or resist. A bishop of Treves,

secure beyond the limits of his power, addressed the monarch of

the East in the language of authority and affection. “Most

gracious Justinian, remember your baptism and your creed. Let not

your gray hairs be defiled with heresy. Recall your fathers from

exile, and your followers from perdition. You cannot be ignorant,

that Italy and Gaul, Spain and Africa, already deplore your fall,

and anathematize your name. Unless, without delay, you destroy

what you have taught; unless you exclaim with a loud voice, I

have erred, I have sinned, anathema to Nestorius, anathema to

Eutyches, you deliver your soul to the same flames in which they

will eternally burn.” He died and made no sign. 99 His death

restored in some degree the peace of the church, and the reigns

of his four successors, Justin Tiberius, Maurice, and Phocas, are

distinguished by a rare, though fortunate, vacancy in the

ecclesiastical history of the East. 100

99 (return) [ Nicetus, bishop of Treves, (Concil. tom. vi. p.

511-513:) he himself, like most of the Gallican prelates,

(Gregor. Epist. l. vii. 5 in Concil. tom. vi. p. 1007,) was

separated from the communion of the four patriarchs by his

refusal to condemn the three chapters. Baronius almost pronounces

the damnation of Justinian, (A.D. 565, No. 6.)]

100 (return) [ After relating the last heresy of Justinian, (l.

iv. c. 39, 40, 41,) and the edict of his successor, (l. v. c. 3,)

the remainder of the history of Evagrius is filled with civil,

instead of ecclesiastical events.]

The faculties of sense and reason are least capable of acting on

themselves; the eye is most inaccessible to the sight, the soul

to the thought; yet we think, and even feel, that one will, a

sole principle of action, is essential to a rational and

conscious being. When Heraclius returned from the Persian war,

the orthodox hero consulted his bishops, whether the Christ whom

he adored, of one person, but of two natures, was actuated by a

single or a double will. They replied in the singular, and the

emperor was encouraged to hope that the Jacobites of Egypt and

Syria might be reconciled by the profession of a doctrine, most

certainly harmless, and most probably true, since it was taught

even by the Nestorians themselves. 101 The experiment was tried

without effect, and the timid or vehement Catholics condemned

even the semblance of a retreat in the presence of a subtle and

audacious enemy. The orthodox (the prevailing) party devised new

modes of speech, and argument, and interpretation: to either

nature of Christ they speciously applied a proper and distinct

energy; but the difference was no longer visible when they

allowed that the human and the divine will were invariably the

same. 102 The disease was attended with the customary symptoms:

but the Greek clergy, as if satiated with the endless controversy

of the incarnation, instilled a healing counsel into the ear of

the prince and people. They declared themselves Monothelites

(asserters of the unity of will), but they treated the words as

new, the questions as superfluous; and recommended a religious

silence as the most agreeable to the prudence and charity of the

gospel. This law of silence was successively imposed by the

ecthesis or exposition of Heraclius, the type or model of his

grandson Constans; 103 and the Imperial edicts were subscribed

with alacrity or reluctance by the four patriarchs of Rome,

Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch. But the bishop and monks

of Jerusalem sounded the alarm: in the language, or even in the

silence, of the Greeks, the Latin churches detected a latent

heresy: and the obedience of Pope Honorius to the commands of his

sovereign was retracted and censured by the bolder ignorance of

his successors. They condemned the execrable and abominable

heresy of the Monothelites, who revived the errors of Manes,

Apollinaris, Eutyches, &c.; they signed the sentence of

excommunication on the tomb of St. Peter; the ink was mingled

with the sacramental wine, the blood of Christ; and no ceremony

was omitted that could fill the superstitious mind with horror

and affright. As the representative of the Western church, Pope

Martin and his Lateran synod anathematized the perfidious and

guilty silence of the Greeks: one hundred and five bishops of

Italy, for the most part the subjects of Constans, presumed to

reprobate his wicked type, and the impious ecthesis of his

grandfather; and to confound the authors and their adherents with

the twenty-one notorious heretics, the apostates from the church,

and the organs of the devil. Such an insult under the tamest

reign could not pass with impunity. Pope Martin ended his days on

the inhospitable shore of the Tauric Chersonesus, and his oracle,

the abbot Maximus, was inhumanly chastised by the amputation of

his tongue and his right hand. 104 But the same invincible spirit

survived in their successors; and the triumph of the Latins

avenged their recent defeat, and obliterated the disgrace of the

three chapters. The synods of Rome were confirmed by the sixth

general council of Constantinople, in the palace and the presence

of a new Constantine, a descendant of Heraclius. The royal

convert converted the Byzantine pontiff and a majority of the

bishops; 105 the dissenters, with their chief, Macarius of

Antioch, were condemned to the spiritual and temporal pains of

heresy; the East condescended to accept the lessons of the West;

and the creed was finally settled, which teaches the Catholics of

every age, that two wills or energies are harmonized in the

person of Christ. The majesty of the pope and the Roman synod was

represented by two priests, one deacon, and three bishops; but

these obscure Latins had neither arms to compel, nor treasures to

bribe, nor language to persuade; and I am ignorant by what arts

they could determine the lofty emperor of the Greeks to abjure

the catechism of his infancy, and to persecute the religion of

his fathers. Perhaps the monks and people of Constantinople 106

were favorable to the Lateran creed, which is indeed the least

reasonable of the two: and the suspicion is countenanced by the

unnatural moderation of the Greek clergy, who appear in this

quarrel to be conscious of their weakness. While the synod

debated, a fanatic proposed a more summary decision, by raising a

dead man to life: the prelates assisted at the trial; but the

acknowledged failure may serve to indicate, that the passions and

prejudices of the multitude were not enlisted on the side of the

Monothelites. In the next generation, when the son of Constantine

was deposed and slain by the disciple of Macarius, they tasted

the feast of revenge and dominion: the image or monument of the

sixth council was defaced, and the original acts were committed

to the flames. But in the second year, their patron was cast

headlong from the throne, the bishops of the East were released

from their occasional conformity, the Roman faith was more firmly

replanted by the orthodox successors of Bardanes, and the fine

problems of the incarnation were forgotten in the more popular

and visible quarrel of the worship of images. 107

101 (return) [ This extraordinary, and perhaps inconsistent,

doctrine of the Nestorians, had been observed by La Croze,

(Christianisme des Indes, tom. i. p. 19, 20,) and is more fully

exposed by Abulpharagius, (Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii. p. 292.

Hist. Dynast. p. 91, vers. Latin. Pocock.) and Asseman himself,

(tom. iv. p. 218.) They seem ignorant that they might allege the

positive authority of the ecthesis. (the common reproach of the

Monophysites) (Concil. tom. vii. p. 205.)]

102 (return) [ See the Orthodox faith in Petavius, (Dogmata

Theolog. tom. v. l. ix. c. 6—10, p. 433—447:) all the depths of

this controversy in the Greek dialogue between Maximus and

Pyrrhus, (acalcem tom. viii. Annal. Baron. p. 755—794,) which

relates a real conference, and produced as short-lived a

conversion.]

103 (return) [ Impiissimam ecthesim.... scelerosum typum (Concil.

tom. vii p. 366) diabolicae operationis genimina, (fors. germina,

or else the Greek in the original. Concil. p. 363, 364,) are the

expressions of the xviiith anathema. The epistle of Pope Martin

to Amandus, Gallican bishop, stigmatizes the Monothelites and

their heresy with equal virulence, (p. 392.)]

104 (return) [ The sufferings of Martin and Maximus are described

with simplicity in their original letters and acts, (Concil. tom.

vii. p. 63—78. Baron. Annal. Eccles. A.D. 656, No. 2, et annos

subsequent.) Yet the chastisement of their disobedience had been

previously announced in the Type of Constans, (Concil. tom. vii.

p. 240.)]

105 (return) [ Eutychius (Annal. tom. ii. p. 368) most

erroneously supposes that the 124 bishops of the Roman synod

transported themselves to Constantinople; and by adding them to

the 168 Greeks, thus composes the sixth council of 292 fathers.]

106 (return) [ The Monothelite Constans was hated by all, (says

Theophanes, Chron. p. 292). When the Monothelite monk failed in

his miracle, the people shouted, (Concil. tom. vii. p. 1032.) But

this was a natural and transient emotion; and I much fear that

the latter is an anticipation of the good people of

Constantinople.]

107 (return) [ The history of Monothelitism may be found in the

Acts of the Synods of Rome (tom. vii. p. 77—395, 601—608) and

Constantinople, (p. 609—1429.) Baronius extracted some original

documents from the Vatican library; and his chronology is

rectified by the diligence of Pagi. Even Dupin (Bibliotheque

Eccles. tom. vi. p. 57—71) and Basnage (Hist. de l’Eglise, tom.

i. p. 451—555) afford a tolerable abridgment.]

Before the end of the seventh century, the creed of the

incarnation, which had been defined at Rome and Constantinople,

was uniformly preached in the remote islands of Britain and

Ireland; 108 the same ideas were entertained, or rather the same

words were repeated, by all the Christians whose liturgy was

performed in the Greek or the Latin tongue. Their numbers, and

visible splendor, bestowed an imperfect claim to the appellation

of Catholics: but in the East, they were marked with the less

honorable name of Melchites, or Royalists; 109 of men, whose

faith, instead of resting on the basis of Scripture, reason, or

tradition, had been established, and was still maintained, by the

arbitrary power of a temporal monarch. Their adversaries might

allege the words of the fathers of Constantinople, who profess

themselves the slaves of the king; and they might relate, with

malicious joy, how the decrees of Chalcedon had been inspired and

reformed by the emperor Marcian and his virgin bride. The

prevailing faction will naturally inculcate the duty of

submission, nor is it less natural that dissenters should feel

and assert the principles of freedom. Under the rod of

persecution, the Nestorians and Monophysites degenerated into

rebels and fugitives; and the most ancient and useful allies of

Rome were taught to consider the emperor not as the chief, but as

the enemy of the Christians. Language, the leading principle

which unites or separates the tribes of mankind, soon

discriminated the sectaries of the East, by a peculiar and

perpetual badge, which abolished the means of intercourse and the

hope of reconciliation. The long dominion of the Greeks, their

colonies, and, above all, their eloquence, had propagated a

language doubtless the most perfect that has been contrived by

the art of man. Yet the body of the people, both in Syria and

Egypt, still persevered in the use of their national idioms; with

this difference, however, that the Coptic was confined to the

rude and illiterate peasants of the Nile, while the Syriac, 110

from the mountains of Assyria to the Red Sea, was adapted to the

higher topics of poetry and argument. Armenia and Abyssinia were

infected by the speech or learning of the Greeks; and their

Barbaric tongues, which have been revived in the studies of

modern Europe, were unintelligible to the inhabitants of the

Roman empire. The Syriac and the Coptic, the Armenian and the

Aethiopic, are consecrated in the service of their respective

churches: and their theology is enriched by domestic versions 111

both of the Scriptures and of the most popular fathers. After a

period of thirteen hundred and sixty years, the spark of

controversy, first kindled by a sermon of Nestorius, still burns

in the bosom of the East, and the hostile communions still

maintain the faith and discipline of their founders. In the most

abject state of ignorance, poverty, and servitude, the Nestorians

and Monophysites reject the spiritual supremacy of Rome, and

cherish the toleration of their Turkish masters, which allows

them to anathematize, on the one hand, St. Cyril and the synod of

Ephesus: on the other, Pope Leo and the council of Chalcedon. The

weight which they cast into the downfall of the Eastern empire

demands our notice, and the reader may be amused with the various

prospect of, I. The Nestorians; II. The Jacobites; 112 III. The

Maronites; IV. The Armenians; V. The Copts; and, VI. The

Abyssinians. To the three former, the Syriac is common; but of

the latter, each is discriminated by the use of a national idiom.

Yet the modern natives of Armenia and Abyssinia would be

incapable of conversing with their ancestors; and the Christians

of Egypt and Syria, who reject the religion, have adopted the

language of the Arabians. The lapse of time has seconded the

sacerdotal arts; and in the East, as well as in the West, the

Deity is addressed in an obsolete tongue, unknown to the majority

of the congregation.

108 (return) [ In the Lateran synod of 679, Wilfred, an

Anglo-Saxon bishop, subscribed pro omni Aquilonari parte

Britanniae et Hiberniae, quae ab Anglorum et Britonum, necnon

Scotorum et Pictorum gentibus colebantur, (Eddius, in Vit. St.

Wilfrid. c. 31, apud Pagi, Critica, tom. iii. p. 88.) Theodore

(magnae insulae Britanniae archiepiscopus et philosophus) was

long expected at Rome, (Concil. tom. vii. p. 714,) but he

contented himself with holding (A.D. 680) his provincial synod of

Hatfield, in which he received the decrees of Pope Martin and the

first Lateran council against the Monothelites, (Concil. tom.

vii. p. 597, &c.) Theodore, a monk of Tarsus in Cilicia, had been

named to the primacy of Britain by Pope Vitalian, (A.D. 688; see

Baronius and Pagi,) whose esteem for his learning and piety was

tainted by some distrust of his national character—ne quid

contrarium veritati fidei, Graecorum more, in ecclesiam cui

praeesset introduceret. The Cilician was sent from Rome to

Canterbury under the tuition of an African guide, (Bedae Hist.

Eccles. Anglorum. l. iv. c. 1.) He adhered to the Roman doctrine;

and the same creed of the incarnation has been uniformly

transmitted from Theodore to the modern primates, whose sound

understanding is perhaps seldom engaged with that abstruse

mystery.]

109 (return) [ This name, unknown till the xth century, appears

to be of Syriac origin. It was invented by the Jacobites, and

eagerly adopted by the Nestorians and Mahometans; but it was

accepted without shame by the Catholics, and is frequently used

in the Annals of Eutychius, (Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii.

p. 507, &c., tom. iii. p. 355. Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch.

Alexandrin. p. 119.), was the acclamation of the fathers of

Constantinople, (Concil. tom. vii. p. 765.)]

110 (return) [ The Syriac, which the natives revere as the

primitive language, was divided into three dialects. 1. The

Aramoean, as it was refined at Edessa and the cities of

Mesopotamia. 2. The Palestine, which was used in Jerusalem,

Damascus, and the rest of Syria. 3. The Nabathoean, the rustic

idiom of the mountains of Assyria and the villages of Irak,

(Gregor, Abulpharag. Hist. Dynast. p. 11.) On the Syriac, sea

Ebed-Jesu, (Asseman. tom. iii. p. 326, &c.,) whose prejudice

alone could prefer it to the Arabic.]

111 (return) [ I shall not enrich my ignorance with the spoils of

Simon, Walton, Mill, Wetstein, Assemannus, Ludolphus, La Croze,

whom I have consulted with some care. It appears, 1. That, of all

the versions which are celebrated by the fathers, it is doubtful

whether any are now extant in their pristine integrity. 2. That

the Syriac has the best claim, and that the consent of the

Oriental sects is a proof that it is more ancient than their

schism.]

112 (return) [ In the account of the Monophysites and Nestorians,

I am deeply indebted to the Bibliotheca Orientalis

Clementino-Vaticana of Joseph Simon Assemannus. That learned

Maronite was despatched, in the year 1715, by Pope Clement XI. to

visit the monasteries of Egypt and Syria, in search of Mss. His

four folio volumes, published at Rome 1719—1728, contain a part

only, though perhaps the most valuable, of his extensive project.

As a native and as a scholar, he possessed the Syriac literature;

and though a dependent of Rome, he wishes to be moderate and

candid.]

Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part V.

I. Both in his native and his episcopal province, the heresy of

the unfortunate Nestorius was speedily obliterated. The Oriental

bishops, who at Ephesus had resisted to his face the arrogance of

Cyril, were mollified by his tardy concessions. The same

prelates, or their successors, subscribed, not without a murmur,

the decrees of Chalcedon; the power of the Monophysites

reconciled them with the Catholics in the conformity of passion,

of interest, and, insensibly, of belief; and their last reluctant

sigh was breathed in the defence of the three chapters. Their

dissenting brethren, less moderate, or more sincere, were crushed

by the penal laws; and, as early as the reign of Justinian, it

became difficult to find a church of Nestorians within the limits

of the Roman empire. Beyond those limits they had discovered a

new world, in which they might hope for liberty, and aspire to

conquest. In Persia, notwithstanding the resistance of the Magi,

Christianity had struck a deep root, and the nations of the East

reposed under its salutary shade. The catholic, or primate,

resided in the capital: in his synods, and in their dioceses, his

metropolitans, bishops, and clergy, represented the pomp and

order of a regular hierarchy: they rejoiced in the increase of

proselytes, who were converted from the Zendavesta to the gospel,

from the secular to the monastic life; and their zeal was

stimulated by the presence of an artful and formidable enemy. The

Persian church had been founded by the missionaries of Syria; and

their language, discipline, and doctrine, were closely interwoven

with its original frame. The catholics were elected and ordained

by their own suffragans; but their filial dependence on the

patriarchs of Antioch is attested by the canons of the Oriental

church. 113 In the Persian school of Edessa, 114 the rising

generations of the faithful imbibed their theological idiom: they

studied in the Syriac version the ten thousand volumes of

Theodore of Mopsuestia; and they revered the apostolic faith and

holy martyrdom of his disciple Nestorius, whose person and

language were equally unknown to the nations beyond the Tigris.

The first indelible lesson of Ibas, bishop of Edessa, taught them

to execrate the Egyptians, who, in the synod of Ephesus, had

impiously confounded the two natures of Christ. The flight of the

masters and scholars, who were twice expelled from the Athens of

Syria, dispersed a crowd of missionaries inflamed by the double

zeal of religion and revenge. And the rigid unity of the

Monophysites, who, under the reigns of Zeno and Anastasius, had

invaded the thrones of the East, provoked their antagonists, in a

land of freedom, to avow a moral, rather than a physical, union

of the two persons of Christ. Since the first preaching of the

gospel, the Sassanian kings beheld with an eye of suspicion a

race of aliens and apostates, who had embraced the religion, and

who might favor the cause, of the hereditary foes of their

country. The royal edicts had often prohibited their dangerous

correspondence with the Syrian clergy: the progress of the schism

was grateful to the jealous pride of Perozes, and he listened to

the eloquence of an artful prelate, who painted Nestorius as the

friend of Persia, and urged him to secure the fidelity of his

Christian subjects, by granting a just preference to the victims

and enemies of the Roman tyrant. The Nestorians composed a large

majority of the clergy and people: they were encouraged by the

smile, and armed with the sword, of despotism; yet many of their

weaker brethren were startled at the thought of breaking loose

from the communion of the Christian world, and the blood of seven

thousand seven hundred Monophysites, or Catholics, confirmed the

uniformity of faith and discipline in the churches of Persia. 115

Their ecclesiastical institutions are distinguished by a liberal

principle of reason, or at least of policy: the austerity of the

cloister was relaxed and gradually forgotten; houses of charity

were endowed for the education of orphans and foundlings; the law

of celibacy, so forcibly recommended to the Greeks and Latins,

was disregarded by the Persian clergy; and the number of the

elect was multiplied by the public and reiterated nuptials of the

priests, the bishops, and even the patriarch himself. To this

standard of natural and religious freedom, myriads of fugitives

resorted from all the provinces of the Eastern empire; the narrow

bigotry of Justinian was punished by the emigration of his most

industrious subjects; they transported into Persia the arts both

of peace and war: and those who deserved the favor, were promoted

in the service, of a discerning monarch. The arms of Nushirvan,

and his fiercer grandson, were assisted with advice, and money,

and troops, by the desperate sectaries who still lurked in their

native cities of the East: their zeal was rewarded with the gift

of the Catholic churches; but when those cities and churches were

recovered by Heraclius, their open profession of treason and

heresy compelled them to seek a refuge in the realm of their

foreign ally. But the seeming tranquillity of the Nestorians was

often endangered, and sometimes overthrown. They were involved in

the common evils of Oriental despotism: their enmity to Rome

could not always atone for their attachment to the gospel: and a

colony of three hundred thousand Jacobites, the captives of

Apamea and Antioch, was permitted to erect a hostile altar in the

face of the catholic, and in the sunshine of the court. In his

last treaty, Justinian introduced some conditions which tended to

enlarge and fortify the toleration of Christianity in Persia. The

emperor, ignorant of the rights of conscience, was incapable of

pity or esteem for the heretics who denied the authority of the

holy synods: but he flattered himself that they would gradually

perceive the temporal benefits of union with the empire and the

church of Rome; and if he failed in exciting their gratitude, he

might hope to provoke the jealousy of their sovereign. In a later

age the Lutherans have been burnt at Paris, and protected in

Germany, by the superstition and policy of the most Christian

king.

113 (return) [ See the Arabic canons of Nice in the translation

of Abraham Ecchelensis, No. 37, 38, 39, 40. Concil. tom. ii. p.

335, 336, edit. Venet. These vulgar titles, Nicene and Arabic,

are both apocryphal. The council of Nice enacted no more than

twenty canons, (Theodoret. Hist. Eccles. l. i. c. 8;) and the

remainder, seventy or eighty, were collected from the synods of

the Greek church. The Syriac edition of Maruthas is no longer

extant, (Asseman. Bibliot. Oriental. tom. i. p. 195, tom. iii. p.

74,) and the Arabic version is marked with many recent

interpolations. Yet this Code contains many curious relics of

ecclesiastical discipline; and since it is equally revered by all

the Eastern communions, it was probably finished before the

schism of the Nestorians and Jacobites, (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec.

tom. xi. p. 363—367.)]

114 (return) [ Theodore the Reader (l. ii. c. 5, 49, ad calcem

Hist. Eccles.) has noticed this Persian school of Edessa. Its

ancient splendor, and the two aeras of its downfall, (A.D. 431

and 489) are clearly discussed by Assemanni, (Biblioth. Orient.

tom. ii. p. 402, iii. p. 376, 378, iv. p. 70, 924.)]

115 (return) [ A dissertation on the state of the Nestorians has

swelled in the bands of Assemanni to a folio volume of 950 pages,

and his learned researches are digested in the most lucid order.

Besides this ivth volume of the Bibliotheca Orientalis, the

extracts in the three preceding tomes (tom. i. p. 203, ii. p.

321-463, iii. 64—70, 378—395, &c., 405—408, 580—589) may be

usefully consulted.]

The desire of gaining souls for God and subjects for the church,

has excited in every age the diligence of the Christian priests.

From the conquest of Persia they carried their spiritual arms to

the north, the east, and the south; and the simplicity of the

gospel was fashioned and painted with the colors of the Syriac

theology. In the sixth century, according to the report of a

Nestorian traveller, 116 Christianity was successfully preached

to the Bactrians, the Huns, the Persians, the Indians, the

Persarmenians, the Medes, and the Elamites: the Barbaric

churches, from the Gulf of Persia to the Caspian Sea, were almost

infinite; and their recent faith was conspicuous in the number

and sanctity of their monks and martyrs. The pepper coast of

Malabar, and the isles of the ocean, Socotora and Ceylon, were

peopled with an increasing multitude of Christians; and the

bishops and clergy of those sequestered regions derived their

ordination from the Catholic of Babylon. In a subsequent age the

zeal of the Nestorians overleaped the limits which had confined

the ambition and curiosity both of the Greeks and Persians. The

missionaries of Balch and Samarcand pursued without fear the

footsteps of the roving Tartar, and insinuated themselves into

the camps of the valleys of Imaus and the banks of the Selinga.

They exposed a metaphysical creed to those illiterate shepherds:

to those sanguinary warriors, they recommended humanity and

repose. Yet a khan, whose power they vainly magnified, is said to

have received at their hands the rites of baptism, and even of

ordination; and the fame of Prester or Presbyter John 117 has

long amused the credulity of Europe. The royal convert was

indulged in the use of a portable altar; but he despatched an

embassy to the patriarch, to inquire how, in the season of Lent,

he should abstain from animal food, and how he might celebrate

the Eucharist in a desert that produced neither corn nor wine. In

their progress by sea and land, the Nestorians entered China by

the port of Canton and the northern residence of Sigan. Unlike

the senators of Rome, who assumed with a smile the characters of

priests and augurs, the mandarins, who affect in public the

reason of philosophers, are devoted in private to every mode of

popular superstition. They cherished and they confounded the gods

of Palestine and of India; but the propagation of Christianity

awakened the jealousy of the state, and, after a short

vicissitude of favor and persecution, the foreign sect expired in

ignorance and oblivion. 118 Under the reign of the caliphs, the

Nestorian church was diffused from China to Jerusalem and Cyrus;

and their numbers, with those of the Jacobites, were computed to

surpass the Greek and Latin communions. 119 Twenty-five

metropolitans or archbishops composed their hierarchy; but

several of these were dispensed, by the distance and danger of

the way, from the duty of personal attendance, on the easy

condition that every six years they should testify their faith

and obedience to the catholic or patriarch of Babylon, a vague

appellation which has been successively applied to the royal

seats of Seleucia, Ctesiphon, and Bagdad. These remote branches

are long since withered; and the old patriarchal trunk 120 is now

divided by the Elijahs of Mosul, the representatives almost on

lineal descent of the genuine and primitive succession; the

Josephs of Amida, who are reconciled to the church of Rome: 121

and the Simeons of Van or Ormia, whose revolt, at the head of

forty thousand families, was promoted in the sixteenth century by

the Sophis of Persia. The number of three hundred thousand is

allowed for the whole body of the Nestorians, who, under the name

of Chaldeans or Assyrians, are confounded with the most learned

or the most powerful nation of Eastern antiquity.

116 (return) [ See the Topographia Christiana of Cosmas, surnamed

Indicopleustes, or the Indian navigator, l. iii. p. 178, 179, l.

xi. p. 337. The entire work, of which some curious extracts may

be found in Photius, (cod. xxxvi. p. 9, 10, edit. Hoeschel,)

Thevenot, (in the 1st part of his Relation des Voyages, &c.,) and

Fabricius, (Bibliot. Graec. l. iii. c. 25, tom. ii. p. 603-617,)

has been published by Father Montfaucon at Paris, 1707, in the

Nova Collectio Patrum, (tom. ii. p. 113—346.) It was the design

of the author to confute the impious heresy of those who

maintained that the earth is a globe, and not a flat, oblong

table, as it is represented in the Scriptures, (l. ii. p. 138.)

But the nonsense of the monk is mingled with the practical

knowledge of the traveller, who performed his voyage A.D. 522,

and published his book at Alexandria, A.D. 547, (l. ii. p. 140,

141. Montfaucon, Praefat. c. 2.) The Nestorianism of Cosmas,

unknown to his learned editor, was detected by La Croze,

(Christianisme des Indes, tom. i. p. 40—55,) and is confirmed by

Assemanni, (Bibliot. Orient. tom. iv. p. 605, 606.)]

117 (return) [ In its long progress to Mosul, Jerusalem, Rome,

&c., the story of Prester John evaporated in a monstrous fable,

of which some features have been borrowed from the Lama of

Thibet, (Hist. Genealogique des Tartares, P. ii. p. 42. Hist. de

Gengiscan, p. 31, &c.,) and were ignorantly transferred by the

Portuguese to the emperor of Abyssinia, (Ludolph. Hist. Aethiop.

Comment. l. ii. c. 1.) Yet it is probable that in the xith and

xiith centuries, Nestorian Christianity was professed in the

horde of the Keraites, (D’Herbelot, p. 256, 915, 959. Assemanni,

tom. iv. p. 468—504.) Note: The extent to which Nestorian

Christianity prevailed among the Tartar tribes is one of the most

curious questions in Oriental history. M. Schmidt (Geschichte der

Ost Mongolen, notes, p. 383) appears to question the Christianity

of Ong Chaghan, and his Keraite subjects.—M.]

118 (return) [ The Christianity of China, between the seventh and

the thirteenth century, is invincibly proved by the consent of

Chinese, Arabian, Syriac, and Latin evidence, (Assemanni,

Biblioth. Orient. tom. iv. p. 502—552. Mem. de l’Academie des

Inscript. tom. xxx. p. 802—819.) The inscription of Siganfu which

describes the fortunes of the Nestorian church, from the first

mission, A.D. 636, to the current year 781, is accused of forgery

by La Croze, Voltaire, &c., who become the dupes of their own

cunning, while they are afraid of a Jesuitical fraud. * Note:

This famous monument, the authenticity of which many have

attempted to impeach, rather from hatred to the Jesuits, by whom

it was made known, than by a candid examination of its contents,

is now generally considered above all suspicion. The Chinese text

and the facts which it relates are equally strong proofs of its

authenticity. This monument was raised as a memorial of the

establishment of Christianity in China. It is dated the year 1092

of the era of the Greeks, or the Seleucidae, A.D. 781, in the

time of the Nestorian patriarch Anan-jesu. It was raised by

Iezdbouzid, priest and chorepiscopus of Chumdan, that is, of the

capital of the Chinese empire, and the son of a priest who came

from Balkh in Tokharistan. Among the various arguments which may

be urged in favor of the authenticity of this monument, and which

has not yet been advanced, may be reckoned the name of the priest

by whom it was raised. The name is Persian, and at the time the

monument was discovered, it would have been impossible to have

imagined it; for there was no work extant from whence the

knowledge of it could be derived. I do not believe that ever

since this period, any book has been published in which it can be

found a second time. It is very celebrated amongst the Armenians,

and is derived from a martyr, a Persian by birth, of the royal

race, who perished towards the middle of the seventh century, and

rendered his name celebrated among the Christian nations of the

East. St. Martin, vol. i. p. 69. M. Remusat has also strongly

expressed his conviction of the authenticity of this monument.

Melanges Asiatiques, P. i. p. 33. Yet M. Schmidt (Geschichte der

Ost Mongolen, p. 384) denies that there is any satisfactory proof

that much a monument was ever found in China, or that it was not

manufactured in Europe. But if the Jesuits had attempted such a

forgery, would it not have been more adapted to further their

peculiar views?—M.]

119 (return) [ Jacobitae et Nestorianae plures quam Graeci et

Latini Jacob a Vitriaco, Hist. Hierosol. l. ii. c. 76, p. 1093,

in the Gesta Dei per Francos. The numbers are given by Thomassin,

Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. i. p. 172.]

120 (return) [ The division of the patriarchate may be traced in

the Bibliotheca Orient. of Assemanni, tom. i. p. 523—549, tom.

ii. p. 457, &c., tom. iii. p. 603, p. 621—623, tom. iv. p.

164-169, p. 423, p. 622—629, &c.]

121 (return) [ The pompous language of Rome on the submission of

a Nestorian patriarch, is elegantly represented in the viith book

of Fra Paola, Babylon, Nineveh, Arbela, and the trophies of

Alexander, Tauris, and Ecbatana, the Tigris and Indus.]

According to the legend of antiquity, the gospel was preached in

India by St. Thomas. 122 At the end of the ninth century, his

shrine, perhaps in the neighborhood of Madras, was devoutly

visited by the ambassadors of Alfred; and their return with a

cargo of pearls and spices rewarded the zeal of the English

monarch, who entertained the largest projects of trade and

discovery. 123 When the Portuguese first opened the navigation of

India, the Christians of St. Thomas had been seated for ages on

the coast of Malabar, and the difference of their character and

color attested the mixture of a foreign race. In arms, in arts,

and possibly in virtue, they excelled the natives of Hindostan;

the husbandmen cultivated the palm-tree, the merchants were

enriched by the pepper trade, the soldiers preceded the nairs or

nobles of Malabar, and their hereditary privileges were respected

by the gratitude or the fear of the king of Cochin and the

Zamorin himself. They acknowledged a Gentoo of sovereign, but

they were governed, even in temporal concerns, by the bishop of

Angamala. He still asserted his ancient title of metropolitan of

India, but his real jurisdiction was exercised in fourteen

hundred churches, and he was intrusted with the care of two

hundred thousand souls. Their religion would have rendered them

the firmest and most cordial allies of the Portuguese; but the

inquisitors soon discerned in the Christians of St. Thomas the

unpardonable guilt of heresy and schism. Instead of owning

themselves the subjects of the Roman pontiff, the spiritual and

temporal monarch of the globe, they adhered, like their

ancestors, to the communion of the Nestorian patriarch; and the

bishops whom he ordained at Mosul, traversed the dangers of the

sea and land to reach their diocese on the coast of Malabar. In

their Syriac liturgy the names of Theodore and Nestorius were

piously commemorated: they united their adoration of the two

persons of Christ; the title of Mother of God was offensive to

their ear, and they measured with scrupulous avarice the honors

of the Virgin Mary, whom the superstition of the Latins had

almost exalted to the rank of a goddess. When her image was first

presented to the disciples of St. Thomas, they indignantly

exclaimed, “We are Christians, not idolaters!” and their simple

devotion was content with the veneration of the cross. Their

separation from the Western world had left them in ignorance of

the improvements, or corruptions, of a thousand years; and their

conformity with the faith and practice of the fifth century would

equally disappoint the prejudices of a Papist or a Protestant. It

was the first care of the ministers of Rome to intercept all

correspondence with the Nestorian patriarch, and several of his

bishops expired in the prisons of the holy office.

The flock, without a shepherd, was assaulted by the power of the

Portuguese, the arts of the Jesuits, and the zeal of Alexis de

Menezes, archbishop of Goa, in his personal visitation of the

coast of Malabar. The synod of Diamper, at which he presided,

consummated the pious work of the reunion; and rigorously imposed

the doctrine and discipline of the Roman church, without

forgetting auricular confession, the strongest engine of

ecclesiastical torture. The memory of Theodore and Nestorius was

condemned, and Malabar was reduced under the dominion of the

pope, of the primate, and of the Jesuits who invaded the see of

Angamala or Cranganor. Sixty years of servitude and hypocrisy

were patiently endured; but as soon as the Portuguese empire was

shaken by the courage and industry of the Dutch, the Nestorians

asserted, with vigor and effect, the religion of their fathers.

The Jesuits were incapable of defending the power which they had

abused; the arms of forty thousand Christians were pointed

against their falling tyrants; and the Indian archdeacon assumed

the character of bishop till a fresh supply of episcopal gifts

and Syriac missionaries could be obtained from the patriarch of

Babylon. Since the expulsion of the Portuguese, the Nestorian

creed is freely professed on the coast of Malabar. The trading

companies of Holland and England are the friends of toleration;

but if oppression be less mortifying than contempt, the

Christians of St. Thomas have reason to complain of the cold and

silent indifference of their brethren of Europe. 124

122 (return) [ The Indian missionary, St. Thomas, an apostle, a

Manichaean, or an Armenian merchant, (La Croze, Christianisme des

Indes, tom. i. p. 57—70,) was famous, however, as early as the

time of Jerom, (ad Marcellam, epist. 148.) Marco-Polo was

informed on the spot that he suffered martyrdom in the city of

Malabar, or Meliapour, a league only from Madras, (D’Anville,

Eclaircissemens sur l’Inde, p. 125,) where the Portuguese founded

an episcopal church under the name of St. Thome, and where the

saint performed an annual miracle, till he was silenced by the

profane neighborhood of the English, (La Croze, tom. ii. p.

7-16.)]