The Protestant and philosophic readers of the present age will incline

to believe, that in the account of his own conversion, Constantine

attested a wilful falsehood by a solemn and deliberate perjury. They may

not hesitate to pronounce, that in the choice of a religion, his mind

was determined only by a sense of interest; and that (according to the

expression of a profane poet ) he used the altars of the church as a

convenient footstool to the throne of the empire. A conclusion so harsh

and so absolute is not, however, warranted by our knowledge of human

nature, of Constantine, or of Christianity. In an age of religious

fervor, the most artful statesmen are observed to feel some part of the

enthusiasm which they inspire, and the most orthodox saints assume

the dangerous privilege of defending the cause of truth by the arms of

deceit and falsehood. Personal interest is often the standard of our

belief, as well as of our practice; and the same motives of temporal

advantage which might influence the public conduct and professions of

Constantine, would insensibly dispose his mind to embrace a religion

so propitious to his fame and fortunes. His vanity was gratified by the

flattering assurance, that he had been chosen by Heaven to reign over

the earth; success had justified his divine title to the throne, and

that title was founded on the truth of the Christian revelation. As real

virtue is sometimes excited by undeserved applause, the specious piety

of Constantine, if at first it was only specious, might gradually,

by the influence of praise, of habit, and of example, be matured into

serious faith and fervent devotion. The bishops and teachers of the new

sect, whose dress and manners had not qualified them for the residence

of a court, were admitted to the Imperial table; they accompanied the

monarch in his expeditions; and the ascendant which one of them, an

Egyptian or a Spaniard, acquired over his mind, was imputed by the

Pagans to the effect of magic. Lactantius, who has adorned the precepts

of the gospel with the eloquence of Cicero, and Eusebius, who has

consecrated the learning and philosophy of the Greeks to the service

of religion, were both received into the friendship and familiarity of

their sovereign; and those able masters of controversy could patiently

watch the soft and yielding moments of persuasion, and dexterously

apply the arguments which were the best adapted to his character and

understanding. Whatever advantages might be derived from the acquisition

of an Imperial proselyte, he was distinguished by the splendor of his

purple, rather than by the superiority of wisdom, or virtue, from

the many thousands of his subjects who had embraced the doctrines of

Christianity. Nor can it be deemed incredible, that the mind of an

unlettered soldier should have yielded to the weight of evidence, which,

in a more enlightened age, has satisfied or subdued the reason of a

Grotius, a Pascal, or a Locke. In the midst of the incessant labors

of his great office, this soldier employed, or affected to employ, the

hours of the night in the diligent study of the Scriptures, and the

composition of theological discourses; which he afterwards pronounced

in the presence of a numerous and applauding audience. In a very long

discourse, which is still extant, the royal preacher expatiates on

the various proofs still extant, the royal preacher expatiates on the

various proofs of religion; but he dwells with peculiar complacency

on the Sibylline verses, and the fourth eclogue of Virgil. Forty years

before the birth of Christ, the Mantuan bard, as if inspired by the

celestial muse of Isaiah, had celebrated, with all the pomp of oriental

metaphor, the return of the Virgin, the fall of the serpent, the

approaching birth of a godlike child, the offspring of the great

Jupiter, who should expiate the guilt of human kind, and govern

the peaceful universe with the virtues of his father; the rise and

appearance of a heavenly race, primitive nation throughout the world;

and the gradual restoration of the innocence and felicity of the golden

age. The poet was perhaps unconscious of the secret sense and object of

these sublime predictions, which have been so unworthily applied to

the infant son of a consul, or a triumvir; but if a more splendid, and

indeed specious interpretation of the fourth eclogue contributed to

the conversion of the first Christian emperor, Virgil may deserve to be

ranked among the most successful missionaries of the gospel.

Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine.--Part III.

The awful mysteries of the Christian faith and worship were concealed

from the eyes of strangers, and even of catechumens, with an affected

secrecy, which served to excite their wonder and curiosity. But the

severe rules of discipline which the prudence of the bishops had

instituted, were relaxed by the same prudence in favor of an Imperial

proselyte, whom it was so important to allure, by every gentle

condescension, into the pale of the church; and Constantine was

permitted, at least by a tacit dispensation, to enjoy most of the

privileges, before he had contracted any of the obligations, of a

Christian. Instead of retiring from the congregation, when the voice of

the deacon dismissed the profane multitude, he prayed with the faithful,

disputed with the bishops, preached on the most sublime and intricate

subjects of theology, celebrated with sacred rites the vigil of Easter,

and publicly declared himself, not only a partaker, but, in some

measure, a priest and hierophant of the Christian mysteries. The

pride of Constantine might assume, and his services had deserved, some

extraordinary distinction: and ill-timed rigor might have blasted the

unripened fruits of his conversion; and if the doors of the church had

been strictly closed against a prince who had deserted the altars of

the gods, the master of the empire would have been left destitute of

any form of religious worship. In his last visit to Rome, he piously

disclaimed and insulted the superstition of his ancestors, by refusing

to lead the military procession of the equestrian order, and to offer

the public vows to the Jupiter of the Capitoline Hill. Many years before

his baptism and death, Constantine had proclaimed to the world, that

neither his person nor his image should ever more be seen within

the walls of an idolatrous temple; while he distributed through the

provinces a variety of medals and pictures, which represented the

emperor in an humble and suppliant posture of Christian devotion.

The pride of Constantine, who refused the privileges of a catechumen,

cannot easily be explained or excused; but the delay of his baptism may

be justified by the maxims and the practice of ecclesiastical antiquity.

The sacrament of baptism was regularly administered by the bishop

himself, with his assistant clergy, in the cathedral church of the

diocese, during the fifty days between the solemn festivals of Easter

and Pentecost; and this holy term admitted a numerous band of infants

and adult persons into the bosom of the church. The discretion of

parents often suspended the baptism of their children till they could

understand the obligations which they contracted: the severity of

ancient bishops exacted from the new converts a novitiate of two or

three years; and the catechumens themselves, from different motives of

a temporal or a spiritual nature, were seldom impatient to assume the

character of perfect and initiated Christians. The sacrament of baptism

was supposed to contain a full and absolute expiation of sin; and the

soul was instantly restored to its original purity, and entitled to

the promise of eternal salvation. Among the proselytes of Christianity,

there are many who judged it imprudent to precipitate a salutary rite,

which could not be repeated; to throw away an inestimable privilege,

which could never be recovered. By the delay of their baptism, they

could venture freely to indulge their passions in the enjoyments of this

world, while they still retained in their own hands the means of a sure

and easy absolution. The sublime theory of the gospel had made a much

fainter impression on the heart than on the understanding of Constantine

himself. He pursued the great object of his ambition through the dark

and bloody paths of war and policy; and, after the victory, he abandoned

himself, without moderation, to the abuse of his fortune. Instead of

asserting his just superiority above the imperfect heroism and profane

philosophy of Trajan and the Antonines, the mature age of Constantine

forfeited the reputation which he had acquired in his youth. As he

gradually advanced in the knowledge of truth, he proportionally declined

in the practice of virtue; and the same year of his reign in which he

convened the council of Nice, was polluted by the execution, or rather

murder, of his eldest son. This date is alone sufficient to refute the

ignorant and malicious suggestions of Zosimus, who affirms, that,

after the death of Crispus, the remorse of his father accepted from the

ministers of Christianity the expiation which he had vainly solicited

from the Pagan pontiffs. At the time of the death of Crispus, the

emperor could no longer hesitate in the choice of a religion; he could

no longer be ignorant that the church was possessed of an infallible

remedy, though he chose to defer the application of it till the approach

of death had removed the temptation and danger of a relapse. The bishops

whom he summoned, in his last illness, to the palace of Nicomedia, were

edified by the fervor with which he requested and received the sacrament

of baptism, by the solemn protestation that the remainder of his life

should be worthy of a disciple of Christ, and by his humble refusal to

wear the Imperial purple after he had been clothed in the white garment

of a Neophyte. The example and reputation of Constantine seemed to

countenance the delay of baptism. Future tyrants were encouraged to

believe, that the innocent blood which they might shed in a long reign

would instantly be washed away in the waters of regeneration; and

the abuse of religion dangerously undermined the foundations of moral

virtue.

The gratitude of the church has exalted the virtues and excused the

failings of a generous patron, who seated Christianity on the throne

of the Roman world; and the Greeks, who celebrate the festival of the

Imperial saint, seldom mention the name of Constantine without adding

the title of equal to the Apostles. Such a comparison, if it allude

to the character of those divine missionaries, must be imputed to the

extravagance of impious flattery. But if the parallel be confined to

the extent and number of their evangelic victories the success of

Constantine might perhaps equal that of the Apostles themselves. By the

edicts of toleration, he removed the temporal disadvantages which had

hitherto retarded the progress of Christianity; and its active and

numerous ministers received a free permission, a liberal encouragement,

to recommend the salutary truths of revelation by every argument which

could affect the reason or piety of mankind. The exact balance of the

two religions continued but a moment; and the piercing eye of ambition

and avarice soon discovered, that the profession of Christianity might

contribute to the interest of the present, as well as of a future

life. The hopes of wealth and honors, the example of an emperor, his

exhortations, his irresistible smiles, diffused conviction among the

venal and obsequious crowds which usually fill the apartments of a

palace. The cities which signalized a forward zeal by the voluntary

destruction of their temples, were distinguished by municipal

privileges, and rewarded with popular donatives; and the new capital of

the East gloried in the singular advantage that Constantinople was never

profaned by the worship of idols. As the lower ranks of society are

governed by imitation, the conversion of those who possessed any

eminence of birth, of power, or of riches, was soon followed by

dependent multitudes. The salvation of the common people was purchased

at an easy rate, if it be true that, in one year, twelve thousand men

were baptized at Rome, besides a proportionable number of women and

children, and that a white garment, with twenty pieces of gold, had

been promised by the emperor to every convert. The powerful influence of

Constantine was not circumscribed by the narrow limits of his life,

or of his dominions. The education which he bestowed on his sons and

nephews secured to the empire a race of princes, whose faith was still

more lively and sincere, as they imbibed, in their earliest infancy, the

spirit, or at least the doctrine, of Christianity. War and commerce

had spread the knowledge of the gospel beyond the confines of the

Roman provinces; and the Barbarians, who had disdained as humble and

proscribed sect, soon learned to esteem a religion which had been so

lately embraced by the greatest monarch, and the most civilized nation,

of the globe. The Goths and Germans, who enlisted under the standard of

Rome, revered the cross which glittered at the head of the legions, and

their fierce countrymen received at the same time the lessons of faith

and of humanity. The kings of Iberia and Armenia * worshipped the god of

their protector; and their subjects, who have invariably preserved the

name of Christians, soon formed a sacred and perpetual connection with

their Roman brethren. The Christians of Persia were suspected, in time

of war, of preferring their religion to their country; but as long as

peace subsisted between the two empires, the persecuting spirit of the

Magi was effectually restrained by the interposition of Constantine. The

rays of the gospel illuminated the coast of India. The colonies of Jews,

who had penetrated into Arabia and Ethiopia, opposed the progress of

Christianity; but the labor of the missionaries was in some measure

facilitated by a previous knowledge of the Mosaic revelation; and

Abyssinia still reveres the memory of Frumentius, * who, in the time

of Constantine, devoted his life to the conversion of those sequestered

regions. Under the reign of his son Constantius, Theophilus, who was

himself of Indian extraction, was invested with the double character

of ambassador and bishop. He embarked on the Red Sea with two hundred

horses of the purest breed of Cappadocia, which were sent by the emperor

to the prince of the SabÊans, or Homerites. Theophilus was intrusted

with many other useful or curious presents, which might raise the

admiration, and conciliate the friendship, of the Barbarians; and he

successfully employed several years in a pastoral visit to the churches

of the torrid zone.

The irresistible power of the Roman emperors was displayed in the

important and dangerous change of the national religion. The terrors

of a military force silenced the faint and unsupported murmurs of the

Pagans, and there was reason to expect, that the cheerful submission

of the Christian clergy, as well as people, would be the result

of conscience and gratitude. It was long since established, as a

fundamental maxim of the Roman constitution, that every rank of citizens

was alike subject to the laws, and that the care of religion was the

right as well as duty of the civil magistrate. Constantine and his

successors could not easily persuade themselves that they had forfeited,

by their conversion, any branch of the Imperial prerogatives, or

that they were incapable of giving laws to a religion which they had

protected and embraced. The emperors still continued to exercise a

supreme jurisdiction over the ecclesiastical order, and the sixteenth

book of the Theodosian code represents, under a variety of titles, the

authority which they assumed in the government of the Catholic church.

But the distinction of the spiritual and temporal powers, which had

never been imposed on the free spirit of Greece and Rome, was introduced

and confirmed by the legal establishment of Christianity. The office of

supreme pontiff, which, from the time of Numa to that of Augustus, had

always been exercised by one of the most eminent of the senators, was

at length united to the Imperial dignity. The first magistrate of the

state, as often as he was prompted by superstition or policy, performed

with his own hands the sacerdotal functions; nor was there any order of

priests, either at Rome or in the provinces, who claimed a more sacred

character among men, or a more intimate communication with the gods. But

in the Christian church, which intrusts the service of the altar to

a perpetual succession of consecrated ministers, the monarch, whose

spiritual rank is less honorable than that of the meanest deacon, was

seated below the rails of the sanctuary, and confounded with the rest

of the faithful multitude. The emperor might be saluted as the father

of his people, but he owed a filial duty and reverence to the fathers of

the church; and the same marks of respect, which Constantine had paid to

the persons of saints and confessors, were soon exacted by the pride

of the episcopal order. A secret conflict between the civil and

ecclesiastical jurisdictions embarrassed the operation of the Roman

government; and a pious emperor was alarmed by the guilt and danger of

touching with a profane hand the ark of the covenant. The separation

of men into the two orders of the clergy and of the laity was, indeed,

familiar to many nations of antiquity; and the priests of India, of

Persia, of Assyria, of Judea, of ∆thiopia, of Egypt, and of Gaul,

derived from a celestial origin the temporal power and possessions

which they had acquired. These venerable institutions had gradually

assimilated themselves to the manners and government of their respective

countries; but the opposition or contempt of the civil power served to

cement the discipline of the primitive church. The Christians had

been obliged to elect their own magistrates, to raise and distribute a

peculiar revenue, and to regulate the internal policy of their republic

by a code of laws, which were ratified by the consent of the people and

the practice of three hundred years. When Constantine embraced the faith

of the Christians, he seemed to contract a perpetual alliance with

a distinct and independent society; and the privileges granted or

confirmed by that emperor, or by his successors, were accepted, not

as the precarious favors of the court, but as the just and inalienable

rights of the ecclesiastical order.

The Catholic church was administered by the spiritual and legal

jurisdiction of eighteen hundred bishops; of whom one thousand were

seated in the Greek, and eight hundred in the Latin, provinces of the

empire. The extent and boundaries of their respective dioceses had been

variously and accidentally decided by the zeal and success of the first

missionaries, by the wishes of the people, and by the propagation of the

gospel. Episcopal churches were closely planted along the banks of the

Nile, on the sea-coast of Africa, in the proconsular Asia, and through

the southern provinces of Italy. The bishops of Gaul and Spain, of

Thrace and Pontus, reigned over an ample territory, and delegated their

rural suffragans to execute the subordinate duties of the pastoral

office. A Christian diocese might be spread over a province, or reduced

to a village; but all the bishops possessed an equal and indelible

character: they all derived the same powers and privileges from the

apostles, from the people, and from the laws. While the civil and

military professions were separated by the policy of Constantine, a new

and perpetual order of ecclesiastical ministers, always respectable,

sometimes dangerous, was established in the church and state. The

important review of their station and attributes may be distributed

under the following heads: I. Popular Election. II. Ordination of the

Clergy. III. Property. IV. Civil Jurisdiction. V. Spiritual censures.

VI. Exercise of public oratory. VII. Privilege of legislative

assemblies.

I. The freedom of election subsisted long after the legal establishment

of Christianity; and the subjects of Rome enjoyed in the church

the privilege which they had lost in the republic, of choosing the

magistrates whom they were bound to obey. As soon as a bishop had closed

his eyes, the metropolitan issued a commission to one of his suffragans

to administer the vacant see, and prepare, within a limited time, the

future election. The right of voting was vested in the inferior clergy,

who were best qualified to judge of the merit of the candidates; in

the senators or nobles of the city, all those who were distinguished

by their rank or property; and finally in the whole body of the people,

who, on the appointed day, flocked in multitudes from the most remote

parts of the diocese, and sometimes silenced by their tumultuous

acclamations, the voice of reason and the laws of discipline. These

acclamations might accidentally fix on the head of the most deserving

competitor; of some ancient presbyter, some holy monk, or some layman,

conspicuous for his zeal and piety. But the episcopal chair was

solicited, especially in the great and opulent cities of the empire, as

a temporal rather than as a spiritual dignity. The interested views, the

selfish and angry passions, the arts of perfidy and dissimulation, the

secret corruption, the open and even bloody violence which had formerly

disgraced the freedom of election in the commonwealths of Greece and

Rome, too often influenced the choice of the successors of the apostles.

While one of the candidates boasted the honors of his family, a second

allured his judges by the delicacies of a plentiful table, and a third,

more guilty than his rivals, offered to share the plunder of the church

among the accomplices of his sacrilegious hopes The civil as well as

ecclesiastical laws attempted to exclude the populace from this

solemn and important transaction. The canons of ancient discipline,

by requiring several episcopal qualifications, of age, station, &c.,

restrained, in some measure, the indiscriminate caprice of the electors.

The authority of the provincial bishops, who were assembled in the

vacant church to consecrate the choice of the people, was interposed to

moderate their passions and to correct their mistakes. The bishops

could refuse to ordain an unworthy candidate, and the rage of contending

factions sometimes accepted their impartial mediation. The submission,

or the resistance, of the clergy and people, on various occasions,

afforded different precedents, which were insensibly converted into

positive laws and provincial customs; but it was every where admitted,

as a fundamental maxim of religious policy, that no bishop could be

imposed on an orthodox church, without the consent of its members.

The emperors, as the guardians of the public peace, and as the first

citizens of Rome and Constantinople, might effectually declare their

wishes in the choice of a primate; but those absolute monarchs respected

the freedom of ecclesiastical elections; and while they distributed and

resumed the honors of the state and army, they allowed eighteen hundred

perpetual magistrates to receive their important offices from the free

suffrages of the people. It was agreeable to the dictates of justice,

that these magistrates should not desert an honorable station from

which they could not be removed; but the wisdom of councils endeavored,

without much success, to enforce the residence, and to prevent the

translation, of bishops. The discipline of the West was indeed less

relaxed than that of the East; but the same passions which made those

regulations necessary, rendered them ineffectual. The reproaches which

angry prelates have so vehemently urged against each other, serve only

to expose their common guilt, and their mutual indiscretion.

II. The bishops alone possessed the faculty of spiritual generation: and

this extraordinary privilege might compensate, in some degree, for the

painful celibacy which was imposed as a virtue, as a duty, and at length

as a positive obligation. The religions of antiquity, which established

a separate order of priests, dedicated a holy race, a tribe or family,

to the perpetual service of the gods. Such institutions were founded for

possession, rather than conquest. The children of the priests enjoyed,

with proud and indolent security, their sacred inheritance; and the

fiery spirit of enthusiasm was abated by the cares, the pleasures, and

the endearments of domestic life. But the Christian sanctuary was open

to every ambitious candidate, who aspired to its heavenly promises or

temporal possessions. This office of priests, like that of soldiers or

magistrates, was strenuously exercised by those men, whose temper and

abilities had prompted them to embrace the ecclesiastical profession, or

who had been selected by a discerning bishop, as the best qualified

to promote the glory and interest of the church. The bishops (till the

abuse was restrained by the prudence of the laws) might constrain the

reluctant, and protect the distressed; and the imposition of hands

forever bestowed some of the most valuable privileges of civil society.

The whole body of the Catholic clergy, more numerous perhaps than the

legions, was exempted * by the emperors from all service, private or

public, all municipal offices, and all personal taxes and contributions,

which pressed on their fellow-citizens with intolerable weight; and the

duties of their holy profession were accepted as a full discharge of

their obligations to the republic. Each bishop acquired an absolute

and indefeasible right to the perpetual obedience of the clerk whom

he ordained: the clergy of each episcopal church, with its dependent

parishes, formed a regular and permanent society; and the cathedrals of

Constantinople and Carthage maintained their peculiar establishment

of five hundred ecclesiastical ministers. Their ranks and numbers were

insensibly multiplied by the superstition of the times, which introduced

into the church the splendid ceremonies of a Jewish or Pagan temple;

and a long train of priests, deacons, sub-deacons, acolythes, exorcists,

readers, singers, and doorkeepers, contributed, in their respective

stations, to swell the pomp and harmony of religious worship. The

clerical name and privileges were extended to many pious fraternities,

who devoutly supported the ecclesiastical throne. Six hundred

parabolani, or adventurers, visited the sick at Alexandria; eleven

hundred copiat, or grave-diggers, buried the dead at Constantinople; and

the swarms of monks, who arose from the Nile, overspread and darkened

the face of the Christian world.

Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine.--Part IV.

III. The edict of Milan secured the revenue as well as the peace of the

church. The Christians not only recovered the lands and houses of which

they had been stripped by the persecuting laws of Diocletian, but they

acquired a perfect title to all the possessions which they had hitherto

enjoyed by the connivance of the magistrate. As soon as Christianity

became the religion of the emperor and the empire, the national clergy

might claim a decent and honorable maintenance; and the payment of an

annual tax might have delivered the people from the more oppressive

tribute, which superstition imposes on her votaries. But as the

wants and expenses of the church increased with her prosperity, the

ecclesiastical order was still supported and enriched by the voluntary

oblations of the faithful. Eight years after the edict of Milan,

Constantine granted to all his subjects the free and universal

permission of bequeathing their fortunes to the holy Catholic church;

and their devout liberality, which during their lives was checked by

luxury or avarice, flowed with a profuse stream at the hour of their

death. The wealthy Christians were encouraged by the example of their

sovereign. An absolute monarch, who is rich without patrimony, may be

charitable without merit; and Constantine too easily believed that he

should purchase the favor of Heaven, if he maintained the idle at the

expense of the industrious; and distributed among the saints the wealth

of the republic. The same messenger who carried over to Africa the head

of Maxentius, might be intrusted with an epistle to CÊcilian, bishop of

Carthage. The emperor acquaints him, that the treasurers of the province

are directed to pay into his hands the sum of three thousand folles, or

eighteen thousand pounds sterling, and to obey his further requisitions

for the relief of the churches of Africa, Numidia, and Mauritania. The

liberality of Constantine increased in a just proportion to his faith,

and to his vices. He assigned in each city a regular allowance of corn,

to supply the fund of ecclesiastical charity; and the persons of both

sexes who embraced the monastic life became the peculiar favorites

of their sovereign. The Christian temples of Antioch, Alexandria,

Jerusalem, Constantinople &c., displayed the ostentatious piety of a

prince, ambitious in a declining age to equal the perfect labors of

antiquity. The form of these religious edifices was simple and oblong;

though they might sometimes swell into the shape of a dome, and

sometimes branch into the figure of a cross. The timbers were framed

for the most part of cedars of Libanus; the roof was covered with tiles,

perhaps of gilt brass; and the walls, the columns, the pavement, were

encrusted with variegated marbles. The most precious ornaments of gold

and silver, of silk and gems, were profusely dedicated to the service of

the altar; and this specious magnificence was supported on the solid and

perpetual basis of landed property. In the space of two centuries, from

the reign of Constantine to that of Justinian, the eighteen hundred

churches of the empire were enriched by the frequent and unalienable

gifts of the prince and people. An annual income of six hundred pounds

sterling may be reasonably assigned to the bishops, who were placed at

an equal distance between riches and poverty, but the standard of their

wealth insensibly rose with the dignity and opulence of the cities

which they governed. An authentic but imperfect rent-roll specifies some

houses, shops, gardens, and farms, which belonged to the three Basilic

of Rome, St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. John Lateran, in the provinces of

Italy, Africa, and the East. They produce, besides a reserved rent of

oil, linen, paper, aromatics, &c., a clear annual revenue of twenty-two

thousand pieces of gold, or twelve thousand pounds sterling. In the age

of Constantine and Justinian, the bishops no longer possessed, perhaps

they no longer deserved, the unsuspecting confidence of their clergy and

people. The ecclesiastical revenues of each diocese were divided

into four parts for the respective uses of the bishop himself, of his

inferior clergy, of the poor, and of the public worship; and the abuse

of this sacred trust was strictly and repeatedly checked. The patrimony

of the church was still subject to all the public compositions of the

state. The clergy of Rome, Alexandria, Thessalonica, &c., might solicit

and obtain some partial exemptions; but the premature attempt of

the great council of Rimini, which aspired to universal freedom, was

successfully resisted by the son of Constantine.

IV. The Latin clergy, who erected their tribunal on the ruins of

the civil and common law, have modestly accepted, as the gift of

Constantine, the independent jurisdiction, which was the fruit of

time, of accident, and of their own industry. But the liberality of

the Christian emperors had actually endowed them with some legal

prerogatives, which secured and dignified the sacerdotal character. 1.

Under a despotic government, the bishops alone enjoyed and asserted the

inestimable privilege of being tried only by their peers; and even in

a capital accusation, a synod of their brethren were the sole judges

of their guilt or innocence. Such a tribunal, unless it was inflamed by

personal resentment or religious discord, might be favorable, or even

partial, to the sacerdotal order: but Constantine was satisfied, that

secret impunity would be less pernicious than public scandal: and

the Nicene council was edited by his public declaration, that if he

surprised a bishop in the act of adultery, he should cast his Imperial

mantle over the episcopal sinner. 2. The domestic jurisdiction of the

bishops was at once a privilege and a restraint of the ecclesiastical

order, whose civil causes were decently withdrawn from the cognizance of

a secular judge. Their venial offences were not exposed to the shame

of a public trial or punishment; and the gentle correction which the

tenderness of youth may endure from its parents or instructors, was

inflicted by the temperate severity of the bishops. But if the clergy

were guilty of any crime which could not be sufficiently expiated by

their degradation from an honorable and beneficial profession, the

Roman magistrate drew the sword of justice, without any regard to

ecclesiastical immunities. 3. The arbitration of the bishops was

ratified by a positive law; and the judges were instructed to execute,

without appeal or delay, the episcopal decrees, whose validity had

hitherto depended on the consent of the parties. The conversion of the

magistrates themselves, and of the whole empire, might gradually remove

the fears and scruples of the Christians. But they still resorted to the

tribunal of the bishops, whose abilities and integrity they esteemed;

and the venerable Austin enjoyed the satisfaction of complaining that

his spiritual functions were perpetually interrupted by the invidious

labor of deciding the claim or the possession of silver and gold, of

lands and cattle. 4. The ancient privilege of sanctuary was transferred

to the Christian temples, and extended, by the liberal piety of

the younger Theodosius, to the precincts of consecrated ground. The

fugitive, and even guilty, suppliants were permitted to implore either

the justice, or the mercy, of the Deity and his ministers. The rash

violence of despotism was suspended by the mild interposition of the

church; and the lives or fortunes of the most eminent subjects might be

protected by the mediation of the bishop.

V. The bishop was the perpetual censor of the morals of his people

The discipline of penance was digested into a system of canonical

jurisprudence, which accurately defined the duty of private or public

confession, the rules of evidence, the degrees of guilt, and the measure

of punishment. It was impossible to execute this spiritual censure, if

the Christian pontiff, who punished the obscure sins of the multitude,

respected the conspicuous vices and destructive crimes of the

magistrate: but it was impossible to arraign the conduct of the

magistrate, without, controlling the administration of civil government.

Some considerations of religion, or loyalty, or fear, protected the

sacred persons of the emperors from the zeal or resentment of the

bishops; but they boldly censured and excommunicated the subordinate

tyrants, who were not invested with the majesty of the purple. St.

Athanasius excommunicated one of the ministers of Egypt; and the

interdict which he pronounced, of fire and water, was solemnly

transmitted to the churches of Cappadocia. Under the reign of the

younger Theodosius, the polite and eloquent Synesius, one of the

descendants of Hercules, filled the episcopal seat of Ptolemais, near

the ruins of ancient Cyrene, and the philosophic bishop supported

with dignity the character which he had assumed with reluctance. He

vanquished the monster of Libya, the president Andronicus, who abused

the authority of a venal office, invented new modes of rapine and

torture, and aggravated the guilt of oppression by that of sacrilege.

After a fruitless attempt to reclaim the haughty magistrate by mild and

religious admonition, Synesius proceeds to inflict the last sentence of

ecclesiastical justice, which devotes Andronicus, with his associates

and their families, to the abhorrence of earth and heaven. The

impenitent sinners, more cruel than Phalaris or Sennacherib, more

destructive than war, pestilence, or a cloud of locusts, are deprived

of the name and privileges of Christians, of the participation of the

sacraments, and of the hope of Paradise. The bishop exhorts the clergy,

the magistrates, and the people, to renounce all society with the

enemies of Christ; to exclude them from their houses and tables; and to

refuse them the common offices of life, and the decent rites of burial.

The church of Ptolemais, obscure and contemptible as she may appear,

addresses this declaration to all her sister churches of the world; and

the profane who reject her decrees, will be involved in the guilt and

punishment of Andronicus and his impious followers. These spiritual

terrors were enforced by a dexterous application to the Byzantine

court; the trembling president implored the mercy of the church; and the

descendants of Hercules enjoyed the satisfaction of raising a prostrate

tyrant from the ground. Such principles and such examples insensibly

prepared the triumph of the Roman pontiffs, who have trampled on the

necks of kings.

VI. Every popular government has experienced the effects of rude or

artificial eloquence. The coldest nature is animated, the firmest reason

is moved, by the rapid communication of the prevailing impulse; and each

hearer is affected by his own passions, and by those of the surrounding

multitude. The ruin of civil liberty had silenced the demagogues of

Athens, and the tribunes of Rome; the custom of preaching which seems

to constitute a considerable part of Christian devotion, had not been

introduced into the temples of antiquity; and the ears of monarchs were

never invaded by the harsh sound of popular eloquence, till the pulpits

of the empire were filled with sacred orators, who possessed some

advantages unknown to their profane predecessors. The arguments and

rhetoric of the tribune were instantly opposed with equal arms, by

skilful and resolute antagonists; and the cause of truth and reason

might derive an accidental support from the conflict of hostile

passions. The bishop, or some distinguished presbyter, to whom he

cautiously delegated the powers of preaching, harangued, without the

danger of interruption or reply, a submissive multitude, whose minds had

been prepared and subdued by the awful ceremonies of religion. Such was

the strict subordination of the Catholic church, that the same concerted

sounds might issue at once from a hundred pulpits of Italy or Egypt, if

they were tuned by the master hand of the Roman or Alexandrian primate.

The design of this institution was laudable, but the fruits were not

always salutary. The preachers recommended the practice of the social

duties; but they exalted the perfection of monastic virtue, which is

painful to the individual, and useless to mankind. Their charitable

exhortations betrayed a secret wish that the clergy might be permitted

to manage the wealth of the faithful, for the benefit of the poor. The

most sublime representations of the attributes and laws of the Deity

were sullied by an idle mixture of metaphysical subtleties, puerile

rites, and fictitious miracles: and they expatiated, with the most

fervent zeal, on the religious merit of hating the adversaries,

and obeying the ministers of the church. When the public peace was

distracted by heresy and schism, the sacred orators sounded the trumpet

of discord, and, perhaps, of sedition. The understandings of their

congregations were perplexed by mystery, their passions were inflamed

by invectives; and they rushed from the Christian temples of Antioch

or Alexandria, prepared either to suffer or to inflict martyrdom. The

corruption of taste and language is strongly marked in the vehement

declamations of the Latin bishops; but the compositions of Gregory and

Chrysostom have been compared with the most splendid models of Attic, or

at least of Asiatic, eloquence.

VII. The representatives of the Christian republic were regularly

assembled in the spring and autumn of each year; and these synods

diffused the spirit of ecclesiastical discipline and legislation through

the hundred and twenty provinces of the Roman world. The archbishop or

metropolitan was empowered, by the laws, to summon the suffragan bishops

of his province; to revise their conduct, to vindicate their rights,

to declare their faith, and to examine the merits of the candidates who

were elected by the clergy and people to supply the vacancies of the

episcopal college. The primates of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Carthage,

and afterwards Constantinople, who exercised a more ample jurisdiction,

convened the numerous assembly of their dependent bishops. But the

convocation of great and extraordinary synods was the prerogative of

the emperor alone. Whenever the emergencies of the church required this

decisive measure, he despatched a peremptory summons to the bishops, or

the deputies of each province, with an order for the use of post-horses,

and a competent allowance for the expenses of their journey. At an early

period, when Constantine was the protector, rather than the proselyte,

of Christianity, he referred the African controversy to the council

of Arles; in which the bishops of York of Treves, of Milan, and of

Carthage, met as friends and brethren, to debate in their native tongue

on the common interest of the Latin or Western church. Eleven years

afterwards, a more numerous and celebrated assembly was convened at Nice

in Bithynia, to extinguish, by their final sentence, the subtle disputes

which had arisen in Egypt on the subject of the Trinity. Three hundred

and eighteen bishops obeyed the summons of their indulgent master;

the ecclesiastics of every rank, and sect, and denomination, have been

computed at two thousand and forty-eight persons; the Greeks appeared

in person; and the consent of the Latins was expressed by the legates

of the Roman pontiff. The session, which lasted about two months, was

frequently honored by the presence of the emperor. Leaving his guards

at the door, he seated himself (with the permission of the council) on a

low stool in the midst of the hall. Constantine listened with patience,

and spoke with modesty: and while he influenced the debates, he humbly

professed that he was the minister, not the judge, of the successors

of the apostles, who had been established as priests and as gods upon

earth. Such profound reverence of an absolute monarch towards a feeble

and unarmed assembly of his own subjects, can only be compared to the

respect with which the senate had been treated by the Roman princes

who adopted the policy of Augustus. Within the space of fifty years, a

philosophic spectator of the vicissitudes of human affairs might have

contemplated Tacitus in the senate of Rome, and Constantine in the

council of Nice. The fathers of the Capitol and those of the church had

alike degenerated from the virtues of their founders; but as the bishops

were more deeply rooted in the public opinion, they sustained their

dignity with more decent pride, and sometimes opposed with a manly

spirit the wishes of their sovereign. The progress of time and

superstition erased the memory of the weakness, the passion, the

ignorance, which disgraced these ecclesiastical synods; and the Catholic

world has unanimously submitted to the infallible decrees of the general

councils.

Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.--Part I.

Persecution Of Heresy.--The Schism Of The Donatists.--The

Arian Controversy.--Athanasius.--Distracted State Of The

Church And Empire Under Constantine And His Sons.--

Toleration Of Paganism.

The grateful applause of the clergy has consecrated the memory of

a prince who indulged their passions and promoted their interest.

Constantine gave them security, wealth, honors, and revenge; and the

support of the orthodox faith was considered as the most sacred and

important duty of the civil magistrate. The edict of Milan, the great

charter of toleration, had confirmed to each individual of the Roman

world the privilege of choosing and professing his own religion. But

this inestimable privilege was soon violated; with the knowledge of

truth, the emperor imbibed the maxims of persecution; and the sects

which dissented from the Catholic church were afflicted and oppressed

by the triumph of Christianity. Constantine easily believed that

the Heretics, who presumed to dispute his opinions, or to oppose his

commands, were guilty of the most absurd and criminal obstinacy; and

that a seasonable application of moderate severities might save those

unhappy men from the danger of an everlasting condemnation. Not a

moment was lost in excluding the ministers and teachers of the separated

congregations from any share of the rewards and immunities which the

emperor had so liberally bestowed on the orthodox clergy. But as the

sectaries might still exist under the cloud of royal disgrace, the

conquest of the East was immediately followed by an edict which

announced their total destruction. After a preamble filled with passion

and reproach, Constantine absolutely prohibits the assemblies of the

Heretics, and confiscates their public property to the use either of the

revenue or of the Catholic church. The sects against whom the Imperial

severity was directed, appear to have been the adherents of Paul of

Samosata; the Montanists of Phrygia, who maintained an enthusiastic

succession of prophecy; the Novatians, who sternly rejected the temporal

efficacy of repentance; the Marcionites and Valentinians, under whose

leading banners the various Gnostics of Asia and Egypt had insensibly

rallied; and perhaps the ManichÊans, who had recently imported from

Persia a more artful composition of Oriental and Christian theology. The

design of extirpating the name, or at least of restraining the progress,

of these odious Heretics, was prosecuted with vigor and effect. Some

of the penal regulations were copied from the edicts of Diocletian; and

this method of conversion was applauded by the same bishops who had

felt the hand of oppression, and pleaded for the rights of humanity. Two

immaterial circumstances may serve, however, to prove that the mind

of Constantine was not entirely corrupted by the spirit of zeal and

bigotry. Before he condemned the ManichÊans and their kindred sects, he

resolved to make an accurate inquiry into the nature of their religious

principles. As if he distrusted the impartiality of his ecclesiastical

counsellors, this delicate commission was intrusted to a civil

magistrate, whose learning and moderation he justly esteemed, and of

whose venal character he was probably ignorant. The emperor was soon

convinced, that he had too hastily proscribed the orthodox faith and the

exemplary morals of the Novatians, who had dissented from the church

in some articles of discipline which were not perhaps essential to

salvation. By a particular edict, he exempted them from the general

penalties of the law; allowed them to build a church at Constantinople,

respected the miracles of their saints, invited their bishop Acesius to

the council of Nice; and gently ridiculed the narrow tenets of his sect

by a familiar jest; which, from the mouth of a sovereign, must have been

received with applause and gratitude.

The complaints and mutual accusations which assailed the throne of

Constantine, as soon as the death of Maxentius had submitted Africa to

his victorious arms, were ill adapted to edify an imperfect proselyte.

He learned, with surprise, that the provinces of that great country,

from the confines of Cyrene to the columns of Hercules, were distracted

with religious discord. The source of the division was derived from

a double election in the church of Carthage; the second, in rank and

opulence, of the ecclesiastical thrones of the West. CÊcilian and

Majorinus were the two rival prelates of Africa; and the death of the

latter soon made room for Donatus, who, by his superior abilities and

apparent virtues, was the firmest support of his party. The advantage

which CÊcilian might claim from the priority of his ordination, was

destroyed by the illegal, or at least indecent, haste, with which it had

been performed, without expecting the arrival of the bishops of Numidia.

The authority of these bishops, who, to the number of seventy, condemned

CÊcilian, and consecrated Majorinus, is again weakened by the infamy

of some of their personal characters; and by the female intrigues,

sacrilegious bargains, and tumultuous proceedings, which are imputed

to this Numidian council. The bishops of the contending factions

maintained, with equal ardor and obstinacy, that their adversaries were

degraded, or at least dishonored, by the odious crime of delivering

the Holy Scriptures to the officers of Diocletian. From their mutual

reproaches, as well as from the story of this dark transaction, it may

justly be inferred, that the late persecution had imbittered the zeal,

without reforming the manners, of the African Christians. That

divided church was incapable of affording an impartial judicature; the

controversy was solemnly tried in five successive tribunals, which

were appointed by the emperor; and the whole proceeding, from the

first appeal to the final sentence, lasted above three years. A severe

inquisition, which was taken by the PrÊtorian vicar, and the proconsul

of Africa, the report of two episcopal visitors who had been sent to

Carthage, the decrees of the councils of Rome and of Arles, and the

supreme judgment of Constantine himself in his sacred consistory,

were all favorable to the cause of CÊcilian; and he was unanimously

acknowledged by the civil and ecclesiastical powers, as the true and

lawful primate of Africa. The honors and estates of the church were

attributed to his suffragan bishops, and it was not without difficulty,

that Constantine was satisfied with inflicting the punishment of exile

on the principal leaders of the Donatist faction. As their cause was

examined with attention, perhaps it was determined with justice. Perhaps

their complaint was not without foundation, that the credulity of the

emperor had been abused by the insidious arts of his favorite Osius. The

influence of falsehood and corruption might procure the condemnation

of the innocent, or aggravate the sentence of the guilty. Such an act,

however, of injustice, if it concluded an importunate dispute, might be

numbered among the transient evils of a despotic administration, which

are neither felt nor remembered by posterity.

But this incident, so inconsiderable that it scarcely deserves a place

in history, was productive of a memorable schism which afflicted the

provinces of Africa above three hundred years, and was extinguished only

with Christianity itself. The inflexible zeal of freedom and fanaticism

animated the Donatists to refuse obedience to the usurpers, whose

election they disputed, and whose spiritual powers they denied.

Excluded from the civil and religious communion of mankind, they boldly

excommunicated the rest of mankind, who had embraced the impious party

of CÊcilian, and of the Traditors, from which he derived his pretended

ordination. They asserted with confidence, and almost with exultation,

that the Apostolical succession was interrupted; that all the bishops of

Europe and Asia were infected by the contagion of guilt and schism; and

that the prerogatives of the Catholic church were confined to the chosen

portion of the African believers, who alone had preserved inviolate the

integrity of their faith and discipline. This rigid theory was supported

by the most uncharitable conduct. Whenever they acquired a proselyte,

even from the distant provinces of the East, they carefully repeated the

sacred rites of baptism and ordination; as they rejected the validity

of those which he had already received from the hands of heretics or

schismatics. Bishops, virgins, and even spotless infants, were subjected

to the disgrace of a public penance, before they could be admitted to

the communion of the Donatists. If they obtained possession of a church

which had been used by their Catholic adversaries, they purified the

unhallowed building with the same zealous care which a temple of idols

might have required. They washed the pavement, scraped the walls, burnt

the altar, which was commonly of wood, melted the consecrated plate, and

cast the Holy Eucharist to the dogs, with every circumstance of ignominy

which could provoke and perpetuate the animosity of religious factions.

Notwithstanding this irreconcilable aversion, the two parties, who were

mixed and separated in all the cities of Africa, had the same language

and manners, the same zeal and learning, the same faith and worship.

Proscribed by the civil and ecclesiastical powers of the empire, the

Donatists still maintained in some provinces, particularly in Numidia,

their superior numbers; and four hundred bishops acknowledged the

jurisdiction of their primate. But the invincible spirit of the sect

sometimes preyed on its own vitals: and the bosom of their schismatical

church was torn by intestine divisions. A fourth part of the Donatist

bishops followed the independent standard of the Maximianists. The

narrow and solitary path which their first leaders had marked out,

continued to deviate from the great society of mankind. Even the

imperceptible sect of the Rogatians could affirm, without a blush, that

when Christ should descend to judge the earth, he would find his true

religion preserved only in a few nameless villages of the CÊsarean

Mauritania.

The schism of the Donatists was confined to Africa: the more diffusive

mischief of the Trinitarian controversy successively penetrated into

every part of the Christian world. The former was an accidental quarrel,

occasioned by the abuse of freedom; the latter was a high and mysterious

argument, derived from the abuse of philosophy. From the age of

Constantine to that of Clovis and Theodoric, the temporal interests both

of the Romans and Barbarians were deeply involved in the theological

disputes of Arianism. The historian may therefore be permitted

respectfully to withdraw the veil of the sanctuary; and to deduce the

progress of reason and faith, of error and passion from the school of

Plato, to the decline and fall of the empire.

The genius of Plato, informed by his own meditation, or by the

traditional knowledge of the priests of Egypt, had ventured to explore

the mysterious nature of the Deity. When he had elevated his mind to the

sublime contemplation of the first self-existent, necessary cause of the

universe, the Athenian sage was incapable of conceiving how the simple

unity of his essence could admit the infinite variety of distinct and

successive ideas which compose the model of the intellectual world; how

a Being purely incorporeal could execute that perfect model, and mould

with a plastic hand the rude and independent chaos. The vain hope of

extricating himself from these difficulties, which must ever oppress

the feeble powers of the human mind, might induce Plato to consider the

divine nature under the threefold modification--of the first cause, the

reason, or Logos, and the soul or spirit of the universe. His

poetical imagination sometimes fixed and animated these metaphysical

abstractions; the three archical on original principles were represented

in the Platonic system as three Gods, united with each other by a

mysterious and ineffable generation; and the Logos was particularly

considered under the more accessible character of the Son of an Eternal

Father, and the Creator and Governor of the world. Such appear to have

been the secret doctrines which were cautiously whispered in the gardens

of the academy; and which, according to the more recent disciples of

Plato, * could not be perfectly understood, till after an assiduous

study of thirty years.

The arms of the Macedonians diffused over Asia and Egypt the language

and learning of Greece; and the theological system of Plato was taught,

with less reserve, and perhaps with some improvements, in the celebrated

school of Alexandria. A numerous colony of Jews had been invited, by the

favor of the Ptolemies, to settle in their new capital. While the bulk

of the nation practised the legal ceremonies, and pursued the lucrative

occupations of commerce, a few Hebrews, of a more liberal spirit,

devoted their lives to religious and philosophical contemplation. They

cultivated with diligence, and embraced with ardor, the theological

system of the Athenian sage. But their national pride would have been

mortified by a fair confession of their former poverty: and they boldly

marked, as the sacred inheritance of their ancestors, the gold and

jewels which they had so lately stolen from their Egyptian masters.

One hundred years before the birth of Christ, a philosophical treatise,

which manifestly betrays the style and sentiments of the school of

Plato, was produced by the Alexandrian Jews, and unanimously received

as a genuine and valuable relic of the inspired Wisdom of Solomon.

A similar union of the Mosaic faith and the Grecian philosophy,

distinguishes the works of Philo, which were composed, for the most

part, under the reign of Augustus. The material soul of the universe

might offend the piety of the Hebrews: but they applied the character of

the Logos to the Jehovah of Moses and the patriarchs; and the Son of God

was introduced upon earth under a visible, and even human appearance, to

perform those familiar offices which seem incompatible with the nature

and attributes of the Universal Cause.

Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.--Part II.

The eloquence of Plato, the name of Solomon, the authority of the school

of Alexandria, and the consent of the Jews and Greeks, were insufficient

to establish the truth of a mysterious doctrine, which might please, but

could not satisfy, a rational mind. A prophet, or apostle, inspired

by the Deity, can alone exercise a lawful dominion over the faith of

mankind: and the theology of Plato might have been forever confounded

with the philosophical visions of the Academy, the Porch, and the

LycÊum, if the name and divine attributes of the Logos had not been

confirmed by the celestial pen of the last and most sublime of the

Evangelists. The Christian Revelation, which was consummated under the

reign of Nerva, disclosed to the world the amazing secret, that the

Logos, who was with God from the beginning, and was God, who had made

all things, and for whom all things had been made, was incarnate in the

person of Jesus of Nazareth; who had been born of a virgin, and suffered

death on the cross. Besides the genera design of fixing on a perpetual

basis the divine honors of Christ, the most ancient and respectable of

the ecclesiastical writers have ascribed to the evangelic theologian a

particular intention to confute two opposite heresies, which disturbed

the peace of the primitive church. I. The faith of the Ebionites,

perhaps of the Nazarenes, was gross and imperfect. They revered Jesus

as the greatest of the prophets, endowed with supernatural virtue and

power. They ascribed to his person and to his future reign all the

predictions of the Hebrew oracles which relate to the spiritual and

everlasting kingdom of the promised Messiah. Some of them might

confess that he was born of a virgin; but they obstinately rejected the

preceding existence and divine perfections of the Logos, or Son of God,

which are so clearly defined in the Gospel of St. John. About fifty

years afterwards, the Ebionites, whose errors are mentioned by Justin

Martyr with less severity than they seem to deserve, formed a very

inconsiderable portion of the Christian name. II. The Gnostics, who

were distinguished by the epithet of Docetes, deviated into the contrary

extreme; and betrayed the human, while they asserted the divine, nature

of Christ. Educated in the school of Plato, accustomed to the sublime

idea of the Logos, they readily conceived that the brightest ∆on, or

Emanation of the Deity, might assume the outward shape and visible

appearances of a mortal; but they vainly pretended, that the

imperfections of matter are incompatible with the purity of a celestial

substance. While the blood of Christ yet smoked on Mount Calvary, the

Docetes invented the impious and extravagant hypothesis, that, instead

of issuing from the womb of the Virgin, he had descended on the banks

of the Jordan in the form of perfect manhood; that he had imposed on the

senses of his enemies, and of his disciples; and that the ministers of

Pilate had wasted their impotent rage on an airy phantom, who seemed to

expire on the cross, and, after three days, to rise from the dead.

The divine sanction, which the Apostle had bestowed on the fundamental

principle of the theology of Plato, encouraged the learned proselytes of

the second and third centuries to admire and study the writings of the

Athenian sage, who had thus marvellously anticipated one of the most

surprising discoveries of the Christian revelation. The respectable name

of Plato was used by the orthodox, and abused by the heretics, as

the common support of truth and error: the authority of his skilful

commentators, and the science of dialectics, were employed to justify

the remote consequences of his opinions and to supply the discreet

silence of the inspired writers. The same subtle and profound questions

concerning the nature, the generation, the distinction, and the equality

of the three divine persons of the mysterious Triad, or Trinity,

were agitated in the philosophical and in the Christian schools of

Alexandria. An eager spirit of curiosity urged them to explore the

secrets of the abyss; and the pride of the professors, and of their

disciples, was satisfied with the sciences of words. But the most

sagacious of the Christian theologians, the great Athanasius himself,

has candidly confessed, that whenever he forced his understanding to

meditate on the divinity of the Logos, his toilsome and unavailing

efforts recoiled on themselves; that the more he thought, the less

he comprehended; and the more he wrote, the less capable was he of

expressing his thoughts. In every step of the inquiry, we are compelled

to feel and acknowledge the immeasurable disproportion between the

size of the object and the capacity of the human mind. We may strive to

abstract the notions of time, of space, and of matter, which so closely

adhere to all the perceptions of our experimental knowledge. But as soon

as we presume to reason of infinite substance, of spiritual generation;

as often as we deduce any positive conclusions from a negative idea, we

are involved in darkness, perplexity, and inevitable contradiction. As

these difficulties arise from the nature of the subject, they oppress,

with the same insuperable weight, the philosophic and the theological

disputant; but we may observe two essential and peculiar circumstances,

which discriminated the doctrines of the Catholic church from the

opinions of the Platonic school.

I. A chosen society of philosophers, men of a liberal education and

curious disposition, might silently meditate, and temperately discuss

in the gardens of Athens or the library of Alexandria, the abstruse

questions of metaphysical science. The lofty speculations, which

neither convinced the understanding, nor agitated the passions, of the

Platonists themselves, were carelessly overlooked by the idle, the busy,

and even the studious part of mankind. But after the Logos had been

revealed as the sacred object of the faith, the hope, and the religious

worship of the Christians, the mysterious system was embraced by a

numerous and increasing multitude in every province of the Roman world.

Those persons who, from their age, or sex, or occupations, were the

least qualified to judge, who were the least exercised in the habits

of abstract reasoning, aspired to contemplate the economy of the Divine

Nature: and it is the boast of Tertullian, that a Christian mechanic

could readily answer such questions as had perplexed the wisest of

the Grecian sages. Where the subject lies so far beyond our reach, the

difference between the highest and the lowest of human understandings

may indeed be calculated as infinitely small; yet the degree of

weakness may perhaps be measured by the degree of obstinacy and

dogmatic confidence. These speculations, instead of being treated as

the amusement of a vacant hour, became the most serious business of the

present, and the most useful preparation for a future, life. A theology,

which it was incumbent to believe, which it was impious to doubt, and

which it might be dangerous, and even fatal, to mistake, became the

familiar topic of private meditation and popular discourse. The cold

indifference of philosophy was inflamed by the fervent spirit of

devotion; and even the metaphors of common language suggested the

fallacious prejudices of sense and experience. The Christians, who

abhorred the gross and impure generation of the Greek mythology, were

tempted to argue from the familiar analogy of the filial and

paternal relations. The character of Son seemed to imply a perpetual

subordination to the voluntary author of his existence; but as the

act of generation, in the most spiritual and abstracted sense, must be

supposed to transmit the properties of a common nature, they durst not

presume to circumscribe the powers or the duration of the Son of an

eternal and omnipotent Father. Fourscore years after the death of

Christ, the Christians of Bithynia, declared before the tribunal of

Pliny, that they invoked him as a god: and his divine honors have been

perpetuated in every age and country, by the various sects who assume

the name of his disciples. Their tender reverence for the memory of

Christ, and their horror for the profane worship of any created being,

would have engaged them to assert the equal and absolute divinity of the

Logos, if their rapid ascent towards the throne of heaven had not been

imperceptibly checked by the apprehension of violating the unity and

sole supremacy of the great Father of Christ and of the Universe. The

suspense and fluctuation produced in the minds of the Christians by

these opposite tendencies, may be observed in the writings of the

theologians who flourished after the end of the apostolic age, and

before the origin of the Arian controversy. Their suffrage is claimed,

with equal confidence, by the orthodox and by the heretical parties; and

the most inquisitive critics have fairly allowed, that if they had the

good fortune of possessing the Catholic verity, they have delivered

their conceptions in loose, inaccurate, and sometimes contradictory

language.

Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.--Part III.

II. The devotion of individuals was the first circumstance which

distinguished the Christians from the Platonists: the second was the

authority of the church. The disciples of philosophy asserted the rights

of intellectual freedom, and their respect for the sentiments of their

teachers was a liberal and voluntary tribute, which they offered to

superior reason. But the Christians formed a numerous and disciplined

society; and the jurisdiction of their laws and magistrates was strictly

exercised over the minds of the faithful. The loose wanderings of the

imagination were gradually confined by creeds and confessions; the

freedom of private judgment submitted to the public wisdom of synods;

the authority of a theologian was determined by his ecclesiastical rank;

and the episcopal successors of the apostles inflicted the censures of

the church on those who deviated from the orthodox belief. But in an age

of religious controversy, every act of oppression adds new force to

the elastic vigor of the mind; and the zeal or obstinacy of a spiritual

rebel was sometimes stimulated by secret motives of ambition or avarice.

A metaphysical argument became the cause or pretence of political

contests; the subtleties of the Platonic school were used as the badges

of popular factions, and the distance which separated their respective

tenets were enlarged or magnified by the acrimony of dispute. As long

as the dark heresies of Praxeas and Sabellius labored to confound the

Father with the Son, the orthodox party might be excused if they

adhered more strictly and more earnestly to the distinction, than to the

equality, of the divine persons. But as soon as the heat of controversy

had subsided, and the progress of the Sabellians was no longer an object

of terror to the churches of Rome, of Africa, or of Egypt, the tide

of theological opinion began to flow with a gentle but steady motion

towards the contrary extreme; and the most orthodox doctors allowed

themselves the use of the terms and definitions which had been censured

in the mouth of the sectaries. After the edict of toleration had

restored peace and leisure to the Christians, the Trinitarian

controversy was revived in the ancient seat of Platonism, the learned,

the opulent, the tumultuous city of Alexandria; and the flame of

religious discord was rapidly communicated from the schools to the

clergy, the people, the province, and the East. The abstruse question of

the eternity of the Logos was agitated in ecclesiastic conferences and

popular sermons; and the heterodox opinions of Arius were soon made

public by his own zeal, and by that of his adversaries. His most

implacable adversaries have acknowledged the learning and blameless life

of that eminent presbyter, who, in a former election, had declared, and

perhaps generously declined, his pretensions to the episcopal throne.

His competitor Alexander assumed the office of his judge. The important

cause was argued before him; and if at first he seemed to hesitate, he

at length pronounced his final sentence, as an absolute rule of faith.

The undaunted presbyter, who presumed to resist the authority of his

angry bishop, was separated from the community of the church. But the

pride of Arius was supported by the applause of a numerous party. He

reckoned among his immediate followers two bishops of Egypt, seven

presbyters, twelve deacons, and (what may appear almost incredible)

seven hundred virgins. A large majority of the bishops of Asia appeared

to support or favor his cause; and their measures were conducted by

Eusebius of CÊsarea, the most learned of the Christian prelates; and by

Eusebius of Nicomedia, who had acquired the reputation of a statesman

without forfeiting that of a saint. Synods in Palestine and Bithynia

were opposed to the synods of Egypt. The attention of the prince and

people was attracted by this theological dispute; and the decision,

at the end of six years, was referred to the supreme authority of the

general council of Nice.

When the mysteries of the Christian faith were dangerously exposed to

public debate, it might be observed, that the human understanding was

capable of forming three district, though imperfect systems, concerning

the nature of the Divine Trinity; and it was pronounced, that none of

these systems, in a pure and absolute sense, were exempt from heresy

and error. I. According to the first hypothesis, which was maintained

by Arius and his disciples, the Logos was a dependent and spontaneous

production, created from nothing by the will of the father. The Son, by

whom all things were made, had been begotten before all worlds, and the

longest of the astronomical periods could be compared only as a

fleeting moment to the extent of his duration; yet this duration was

not infinite, and there had been a time which preceded the ineffable

generation of the Logos. On this only-begotten Son, the Almighty Father

had transfused his ample spirit, and impressed the effulgence of his

glory. Visible image of invisible perfection, he saw, at an immeasurable

distance beneath his feet, the thrones of the brightest archangels; yet

he shone only with a reflected light, and, like the sons of the Romans

emperors, who were invested with the titles of CÊsar or Augustus,

he governed the universe in obedience to the will of his Father and

Monarch. II. In the second hypothesis, the Logos possessed all the

inherent, incommunicable perfections, which religion and philosophy

appropriate to the Supreme God. Three distinct and infinite minds or

substances, three coÎqual and coÎternal beings, composed the Divine

Essence; and it would have implied contradiction, that any of them

should not have existed, or that they should ever cease to exist.

The advocates of a system which seemed to establish three independent

Deities, attempted to preserve the unity of the First Cause, so

conspicuous in the design and order of the world, by the perpetual

concord of their administration, and the essential agreement of their

will. A faint resemblance of this unity of action may be discovered

in the societies of men, and even of animals. The causes which disturb

their harmony, proceed only from the imperfection and inequality of

their faculties; but the omnipotence which is guided by infinite

wisdom and goodness, cannot fail of choosing the same means for

the accomplishment of the same ends. III. Three beings, who, by the

self-derived necessity of their existence, possess all the divine

attributes in the most perfect degree; who are eternal in duration,

infinite in space, and intimately present to each other, and to the

whole universe; irresistibly force themselves on the astonished mind, as

one and the same being, who, in the economy of grace, as well as in that

of nature, may manifest himself under different forms, and be considered

under different aspects. By this hypothesis, a real substantial trinity

is refined into a trinity of names, and abstract modifications, that

subsist only in the mind which conceives them. The Logos is no longer a

person, but an attribute; and it is only in a figurative sense that the

epithet of Son can be applied to the eternal reason, which was with God

from the beginning, and by which, not by whom, all things were made. The

incarnation of the Logos is reduced to a mere inspiration of the Divine

Wisdom, which filled the soul, and directed all the actions, of the

man Jesus. Thus, after revolving around the theological circle, we are

surprised to find that the Sabellian ends where the Ebionite had begun;

and that the incomprehensible mystery which excites our adoration,

eludes our inquiry.

If the bishops of the council of Nice had been permitted to follow the

unbiased dictates of their conscience, Arius and his associates could

scarcely have flattered themselves with the hopes of obtaining a

majority of votes, in favor of an hypothesis so directly averse to

the two most popular opinions of the Catholic world. The Arians soon

perceived the danger of their situation, and prudently assumed those

modest virtues, which, in the fury of civil and religious dissensions,

are seldom practised, or even praised, except by the weaker party. They

recommended the exercise of Christian charity and moderation; urged the

incomprehensible nature of the controversy, disclaimed the use of any

terms or definitions which could not be found in the Scriptures; and

offered, by very liberal concessions, to satisfy their adversaries

without renouncing the integrity of their own principles. The victorious

faction received all their proposals with haughty suspicion; and

anxiously sought for some irreconcilable mark of distinction,

the rejection of which might involve the Arians in the guilt and

consequences of heresy. A letter was publicly read, and ignominiously

torn, in which their patron, Eusebius of Nicomedia, ingenuously

confessed, that the admission of the Homoousion, or Consubstantial,

a word already familiar to the Platonists, was incompatible with the

principles of their theological system. The fortunate opportunity was

eagerly embraced by the bishops, who governed the resolutions of the

synod; and, according to the lively expression of Ambrose, they used the

sword, which heresy itself had drawn from the scabbard, to cut off the

head of the hated monster. The consubstantiality of the Father and the

Son was established by the council of Nice, and has been unanimously

received as a fundamental article of the Christian faith, by the consent

of the Greek, the Latin, the Oriental, and the Protestant churches. But

if the same word had not served to stigmatize the heretics, and to

unite the Catholics, it would have been inadequate to the purpose of

the majority, by whom it was introduced into the orthodox creed. This

majority was divided into two parties, distinguished by a contrary

tendency to the sentiments of the Tritheists and of the Sabellians. But

as those opposite extremes seemed to overthrow the foundations either of

natural or revealed religion, they mutually agreed to qualify the

rigor of their principles; and to disavow the just, but invidious,

consequences, which might be urged by their antagonists. The interest

of the common cause inclined them to join their numbers, and to conceal

their differences; their animosity was softened by the healing counsels

of toleration, and their disputes were suspended by the use of the

mysterious Homoousion, which either party was free to interpret

according to their peculiar tenets. The Sabellian sense, which, about

fifty years before, had obliged the council of Antioch to prohibit this

celebrated term, had endeared it to those theologians who entertained

a secret but partial affection for a nominal Trinity. But the more

fashionable saints of the Arian times, the intrepid Athanasius, the

learned Gregory Nazianzen, and the other pillars of the church, who

supported with ability and success the Nicene doctrine, appeared to

consider the expression of substance as if it had been synonymous

with that of nature; and they ventured to illustrate their meaning, by

affirming that three men, as they belong to the same common species,

are consubstantial, or homoousian to each other. This pure and distinct

equality was tempered, on the one hand, by the internal connection, and

spiritual penetration which indissolubly unites the divine persons; and,

on the other, by the preeminence of the Father, which was acknowledged

as far as it is compatible with the independence of the Son. Within

these limits, the almost invisible and tremulous ball of orthodoxy was

allowed securely to vibrate. On either side, beyond this consecrated

ground, the heretics and the dÊmons lurked in ambush to surprise and

devour the unhappy wanderer. But as the degrees of theological hatred

depend on the spirit of the war, rather than on the importance of the

controversy, the heretics who degraded, were treated with more

severity than those who annihilated, the person of the Son. The life

of Athanasius was consumed in irreconcilable opposition to the

impious madness of the Arians; but he defended above twenty years the

Sabellianism of Marcellus of Ancyra; and when at last he was compelled

to withdraw himself from his communion, he continued to mention, with an

ambiguous smile, the venial errors of his respectable friend.

The authority of a general council, to which the Arians themselves had

been compelled to submit, inscribed on the banners of the orthodox party

the mysterious characters of the word Homoousion, which essentially

contributed, notwithstanding some obscure disputes, some nocturnal

combats, to maintain and perpetuate the uniformity of faith, or at least

of language. The Consubstantialists, who by their success have deserved

and obtained the title of Catholics, gloried in the simplicity and

steadiness of their own creed, and insulted the repeated variations of

their adversaries, who were destitute of any certain rule of faith. The

sincerity or the cunning of the Arian chiefs, the fear of the laws or of

the people, their reverence for Christ, their hatred of Athanasius, all

the causes, human and divine, that influence and disturb the counsels

of a theological faction, introduced among the sectaries a spirit of

discord and inconstancy, which, in the course of a few years, erected

eighteen different models of religion, and avenged the violated dignity

of the church. The zealous Hilary, who, from the peculiar hardships of

his situation, was inclined to extenuate rather than to aggravate the

errors of the Oriental clergy, declares, that in the wide extent of the

ten provinces of Asia, to which he had been banished, there could be

found very few prelates who had preserved the knowledge of the true

God. The oppression which he had felt, the disorders of which he was the

spectator and the victim, appeased, during a short interval, the angry

passions of his soul; and in the following passage, of which I shall

transcribe a few lines, the bishop of Poitiers unwarily deviates into

the style of a Christian philosopher. "It is a thing," says Hilary,

"equally deplorable and dangerous, that there are as many creeds as

opinions among men, as many doctrines as inclinations, and as many

sources of blasphemy as there are faults among us; because we make

creeds arbitrarily, and explain them as arbitrarily. The Homoousion is

rejected, and received, and explained away by successive synods. The

partial or total resemblance of the Father and of the Son is a subject

of dispute for these unhappy times. Every year, nay, every moon, we make

new creeds to describe invisible mysteries. We repent of what we

have done, we defend those who repent, we anathematize those whom we

defended. We condemn either the doctrine of others in ourselves, or our

own in that of others; and reciprocally tearing one another to pieces,

we have been the cause of each other's ruin."

It will not be expected, it would not perhaps be endured, that I should

swell this theological digression, by a minute examination of the

eighteen creeds, the authors of which, for the most part, disclaimed the

odious name of their parent Arius. It is amusing enough to delineate the

form, and to trace the vegetation, of a singular plant; but the tedious

detail of leaves without flowers, and of branches without fruit,

would soon exhaust the patience, and disappoint the curiosity, of the

laborious student. One question, which gradually arose from the Arian

controversy, may, however, be noticed, as it served to produce and

discriminate the three sects, who were united only by their common

aversion to the Homoousion of the Nicene synod. 1. If they were asked

whether the Son was like unto the Father, the question was resolutely

answered in the negative, by the heretics who adhered to the principles

of Arius, or indeed to those of philosophy; which seem to establish an

infinite difference between the Creator and the most excellent of his

creatures. This obvious consequence was maintained by ∆tius, on whom

the zeal of his adversaries bestowed the surname of the Atheist. His

restless and aspiring spirit urged him to try almost every profession

of human life. He was successively a slave, or at least a husbandman,

a travelling tinker, a goldsmith, a physician, a schoolmaster,

a theologian, and at last the apostle of a new church, which was

propagated by the abilities of his disciple Eunomius. Armed with texts

of Scripture, and with captious syllogisms from the logic of Aristotle,

the subtle ∆tius had acquired the fame of an invincible disputant, whom

it was impossible either to silence or to convince. Such talents engaged

the friendship of the Arian bishops, till they were forced to renounce,

and even to persecute, a dangerous ally, who, by the accuracy of his

reasoning, had prejudiced their cause in the popular opinion, and

offended the piety of their most devoted followers. 2. The omnipotence

of the Creator suggested a specious and respectful solution of the

likeness of the Father and the Son; and faith might humbly receive what

reason could not presume to deny, that the Supreme God might communicate

his infinite perfections, and create a being similar only to himself.

These Arians were powerfully supported by the weight and abilities

of their leaders, who had succeeded to the management of the Eusebian

interest, and who occupied the principal thrones of the East. They

detested, perhaps with some affectation, the impiety of ∆tius; they

professed to believe, either without reserve, or according to the

Scriptures, that the Son was different from all other creatures, and

similar only to the Father. But they denied, the he was either of the

same, or of a similar substance; sometimes boldly justifying their

dissent, and sometimes objecting to the use of the word substance,

which seems to imply an adequate, or at least, a distinct, notion of

the nature of the Deity. 3. The sect which deserted the doctrine of a

similar substance, was the most numerous, at least in the provinces of

Asia; and when the leaders of both parties were assembled in the council

of Seleucia, their opinion would have prevailed by a majority of one

hundred and five to forty-three bishops. The Greek word, which was

chosen to express this mysterious resemblance, bears so close an

affinity to the orthodox symbol, that the profane of every age have

derided the furious contests which the difference of a single diphthong

excited between the Homoousians and the Homoiousians. As it frequently

happens, that the sounds and characters which approach the nearest

to each other accidentally represent the most opposite ideas, the

observation would be itself ridiculous, if it were possible to mark any

real and sensible distinction between the doctrine of the Semi-Arians,

as they were improperly styled, and that of the Catholics themselves.

The bishop of Poitiers, who in his Phrygian exile very wisely aimed at

a coalition of parties, endeavors to prove that by a pious and faithful

interpretation, the Homoiousion may be reduced to a consubstantial

sense. Yet he confesses that the word has a dark and suspicious

aspect; and, as if darkness were congenial to theological disputes, the

Semi-Arians, who advanced to the doors of the church, assailed them with

the most unrelenting fury.

The provinces of Egypt and Asia, which cultivated the language and

manners of the Greeks, had deeply imbibed the venom of the Arian

controversy. The familiar study of the Platonic system, a vain and

argumentative disposition, a copious and flexible idiom, supplied the

clergy and people of the East with an inexhaustible flow of words and

distinctions; and, in the midst of their fierce contentions, they easily

forgot the doubt which is recommended by philosophy, and the submission

which is enjoined by religion. The inhabitants of the West were of a

less inquisitive spirit; their passions were not so forcibly moved by

invisible objects, their minds were less frequently exercised by the

habits of dispute; and such was the happy ignorance of the Gallican

church, that Hilary himself, above thirty years after the first general

council, was still a stranger to the Nicene creed. The Latins had

received the rays of divine knowledge through the dark and doubtful

medium of a translation. The poverty and stubbornness of their native

tongue was not always capable of affording just equivalents for the

Greek terms, for the technical words of the Platonic philosophy, which

had been consecrated, by the gospel or by the church, to express the

mysteries of the Christian faith; and a verbal defect might introduce

into the Latin theology a long train of error or perplexity. But as the

western provincials had the good fortune of deriving their religion from

an orthodox source, they preserved with steadiness the doctrine

which they had accepted with docility; and when the Arian pestilence

approached their frontiers, they were supplied with the seasonable

preservative of the Homoousion, by the paternal care of the Roman

pontiff. Their sentiments and their temper were displayed in the

memorable synod of Rimini, which surpassed in numbers the council of

Nice, since it was composed of above four hundred bishops of Italy,

Africa, Spain, Gaul, Britain, and Illyricum. From the first debates it

appeared, that only fourscore prelates adhered to the party, though

they affected to anathematize the name and memory, of Arius. But this

inferiority was compensated by the advantages of skill, of experience,

and of discipline; and the minority was conducted by Valens and

Ursacius, two bishops of Illyricum, who had spent their lives in the

intrigues of courts and councils, and who had been trained under the

Eusebian banner in the religious wars of the East. By their arguments

and negotiations, they embarrassed, they confounded, they at last

deceived, the honest simplicity of the Latin bishops; who suffered

the palladium of the faith to be extorted from their hand by fraud and

importunity, rather than by open violence. The council of Rimini was

not allowed to separate, till the members had imprudently subscribed a

captious creed, in which some expressions, susceptible of an heretical

sense, were inserted in the room of the Homoousion. It was on this

occasion, that, according to Jerom, the world was surprised to find

itself Arian. But the bishops of the Latin provinces had no sooner

reached their respective dioceses, than they discovered their mistake,

and repented of their weakness. The ignominious capitulation was

rejected with disdain and abhorrence; and the Homoousian standard, which

had been shaken but not overthrown, was more firmly replanted in all the

churches of the West.

Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.--Part IV.

Such was the rise and progress, and such were the natural revolutions

of those theological disputes, which disturbed the peace of Christianity

under the reigns of Constantine and of his sons. But as those princes

presumed to extend their despotism over the faith, as well as over the

lives and fortunes, of their subjects, the weight of their suffrage

sometimes inclined the ecclesiastical balance: and the prerogatives of

the King of Heaven were settled, or changed, or modified, in the cabinet

of an earthly monarch.

The unhappy spirit of discord which pervaded the provinces of the East,

interrupted the triumph of Constantine; but the emperor continued for

some time to view, with cool and careless indifference, the object of

the dispute. As he was yet ignorant of the difficulty of appeasing the

quarrels of theologians, he addressed to the contending parties, to

Alexander and to Arius, a moderating epistle; which may be ascribed,

with far greater reason, to the untutored sense of a soldier and

statesman, than to the dictates of any of his episcopal counsellors. He

attributes the origin of the whole controversy to a trifling and

subtle question, concerning an incomprehensible point of law, which

was foolishly asked by the bishop, and imprudently resolved by the

presbyter. He laments that the Christian people, who had the same God,

the same religion, and the same worship, should be divided by such

inconsiderable distinctions; and he seriously recommend to the clergy

of Alexandria the example of the Greek philosophers; who could maintain

their arguments without losing their temper, and assert their freedom

without violating their friendship. The indifference and contempt of

the sovereign would have been, perhaps, the most effectual method of

silencing the dispute, if the popular current had been less rapid and

impetuous, and if Constantine himself, in the midst of faction and

fanaticism, could have preserved the calm possession of his own

mind. But his ecclesiastical ministers soon contrived to seduce the

impartiality of the magistrate, and to awaken the zeal of the proselyte.

He was provoked by the insults which had been offered to his statues;

he was alarmed by the real, as well as the imaginary magnitude of

the spreading mischief; and he extinguished the hope of peace and

toleration, from the moment that he assembled three hundred bishops

within the walls of the same palace. The presence of the monarch swelled

the importance of the debate; his attention multiplied the arguments;

and he exposed his person with a patient intrepidity, which animated

the valor of the combatants. Notwithstanding the applause which has been

bestowed on the eloquence and sagacity of Constantine, a Roman general,

whose religion might be still a subject of doubt, and whose mind had not

been enlightened either by study or by inspiration, was indifferently

qualified to discuss, in the Greek language, a metaphysical question, or

an article of faith. But the credit of his favorite Osius, who appears

to have presided in the council of Nice, might dispose the emperor in

favor of the orthodox party; and a well-timed insinuation, that the

same Eusebius of Nicomedia, who now protected the heretic, had lately

assisted the tyrant, might exasperate him against their adversaries. The

Nicene creed was ratified by Constantine; and his firm declaration,

that those who resisted the divine judgment of the synod, must prepare

themselves for an immediate exile, annihilated the murmurs of a feeble

opposition; which, from seventeen, was almost instantly reduced to

two, protesting bishops. Eusebius of CÊsarea yielded a reluctant and

ambiguous consent to the Homoousion; and the wavering conduct of the

Nicomedian Eusebius served only to delay, about three months, his

disgrace and exile. The impious Arius was banished into one of the

remote provinces of Illyricum; his person and disciples were branded by

law with the odious name of Porphyrians; his writings were condemned

to the flames, and a capital punishment was denounced against those in

whose possession they should be found. The emperor had now imbibed the

spirit of controversy, and the angry, sarcastic style of his edicts was

designed to inspire his subjects with the hatred which he had conceived

against the enemies of Christ.

But, as if the conduct of the emperor had been guided by passion instead

of principle, three years from the council of Nice were scarcely elapsed

before he discovered some symptoms of mercy, and even of indulgence,

towards the proscribed sect, which was secretly protected by his

favorite sister. The exiles were recalled, and Eusebius, who gradually

resumed his influence over the mind of Constantine, was restored to the

episcopal throne, from which he had been ignominiously degraded. Arius

himself was treated by the whole court with the respect which would have

been due to an innocent and oppressed man. His faith was approved by

the synod of Jerusalem; and the emperor seemed impatient to repair his

injustice, by issuing an absolute command, that he should be solemnly

admitted to the communion in the cathedral of Constantinople. On the

same day, which had been fixed for the triumph of Arius, he expired;

and the strange and horrid circumstances of his death might excite a

suspicion, that the orthodox saints had contributed more efficaciously

than by their prayers, to deliver the church from the most formidable of

her enemies. The three principal leaders of the Catholics, Athanasius

of Alexandria, Eustathius of Antioch, and Paul of Constantinople were

deposed on various f accusations, by the sentence of numerous councils;

and were afterwards banished into distant provinces by the first of the

Christian emperors, who, in the last moments of his life, received the

rites of baptism from the Arian bishop of Nicomedia. The ecclesiastical

government of Constantine cannot be justified from the reproach of

levity and weakness. But the credulous monarch, unskilled in the

stratagems of theological warfare, might be deceived by the modest

and specious professions of the heretics, whose sentiments he never

perfectly understood; and while he protected Arius, and persecuted

Athanasius, he still considered the council of Nice as the bulwark of

the Christian faith, and the peculiar glory of his own reign.

The sons of Constantine must have been admitted from their childhood

into the rank of catechumens; but they imitated, in the delay of

their baptism, the example of their father. Like him they presumed to

pronounce their judgment on mysteries into which they had never been

regularly initiated; and the fate of the Trinitarian controversy

depended, in a great measure, on the sentiments of Constantius; who

inherited the provinces of the East, and acquired the possession of the

whole empire. The Arian presbyter or bishop, who had secreted for

his use the testament of the deceased emperor, improved the fortunate

occasion which had introduced him to the familiarity of a prince,

whose public counsels were always swayed by his domestic favorites. The

eunuchs and slaves diffused the spiritual poison through the palace, and

the dangerous infection was communicated by the female attendants to the

guards, and by the empress to her unsuspicious husband. The partiality

which Constantius always expressed towards the Eusebian faction, was

insensibly fortified by the dexterous management of their leaders; and

his victory over the tyrant Magnentius increased his inclination, as

well as ability, to employ the arms of power in the cause of Arianism.

While the two armies were engaged in the plains of Mursa, and the fate

of the two rivals depended on the chance of war, the son of Constantine

passed the anxious moments in a church of the martyrs under the walls

of the city. His spiritual comforter, Valens, the Arian bishop of the

diocese, employed the most artful precautions to obtain such early

intelligence as might secure either his favor or his escape. A secret

chain of swift and trusty messengers informed him of the vicissitudes

of the battle; and while the courtiers stood trembling round their

affrighted master, Valens assured him that the Gallic legions gave way;

and insinuated with some presence of mind, that the glorious event had

been revealed to him by an angel. The grateful emperor ascribed his

success to the merits and intercession of the bishop of Mursa, whose

faith had deserved the public and miraculous approbation of Heaven.

The Arians, who considered as their own the victory of Constantius,

preferred his glory to that of his father. Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem,

immediately composed the description of a celestial cross, encircled

with a splendid rainbow; which during the festival of Pentecost, about

the third hour of the day, had appeared over the Mount of Olives, to the

edification of the devout pilgrims, and the people of the holy city. The

size of the meteor was gradually magnified; and the Arian historian has

ventured to affirm, that it was conspicuous to the two armies in the

plains of Pannonia; and that the tyrant, who is purposely represented as

an idolater, fled before the auspicious sign of orthodox Christianity.

The sentiments of a judicious stranger, who has impartially considered

the progress of civil or ecclesiastical discord, are always entitled to

our notice; and a short passage of Ammianus, who served in the armies,

and studied the character of Constantius, is perhaps of more value than

many pages of theological invectives. "The Christian religion, which,

in itself," says that moderate historian, "is plain and simple, he

confounded by the dotage of superstition. Instead of reconciling the

parties by the weight of his authority, he cherished and promulgated, by

verbal disputes, the differences which his vain curiosity had excited.

The highways were covered with troops of bishops galloping from every

side to the assemblies, which they call synods; and while they labored

to reduce the whole sect to their own particular opinions, the public

establishment of the posts was almost ruined by their hasty and

repeated journeys." Our more intimate knowledge of the ecclesiastical

transactions of the reign of Constantius would furnish an ample

commentary on this remarkable passage, which justifies the rational

apprehensions of Athanasius, that the restless activity of the clergy,

who wandered round the empire in search of the true faith, would excite

the contempt and laughter of the unbelieving world. As soon as the

emperor was relieved from the terrors of the civil war, he devoted

the leisure of his winter quarters at Arles, Milan, Sirmium, and

Constantinople, to the amusement or toils of controversy: the sword of

the magistrate, and even of the tyrant, was unsheathed, to enforce the

reasons of the theologian; and as he opposed the orthodox faith of Nice,

it is readily confessed that his incapacity and ignorance were equal to

his presumption. The eunuchs, the women, and the bishops, who governed

the vain and feeble mind of the emperor, had inspired him with an

insuperable dislike to the Homoousion; but his timid conscience

was alarmed by the impiety of ∆tius. The guilt of that atheist was

aggravated by the suspicious favor of the unfortunate Gallus; and even

the death of the Imperial ministers, who had been massacred at Antioch,

were imputed to the suggestions of that dangerous sophist. The mind of

Constantius, which could neither be moderated by reason, nor fixed by

faith, was blindly impelled to either side of the dark and empty abyss,

by his horror of the opposite extreme; he alternately embraced and

condemned the sentiments, he successively banished and recalled the

leaders, of the Arian and Semi-Arian factions. During the season of

public business or festivity, he employed whole days, and even nights,

in selecting the words, and weighing the syllables, which composed his

fluctuating creeds. The subject of his meditations still pursued

and occupied his slumbers: the incoherent dreams of the emperor were

received as celestial visions, and he accepted with complacency the

lofty title of bishop of bishops, from those ecclesiastics who forgot

the interest of their order for the gratification of their passions. The

design of establishing a uniformity of doctrine, which had engaged

him to convene so many synods in Gaul, Italy, Illyricum, and Asia, was

repeatedly baffled by his own levity, by the divisions of the Arians,

and by the resistance of the Catholics; and he resolved, as the last

and decisive effort, imperiously to dictate the decrees of a general

council. The destructive earthquake of Nicomedia, the difficulty of

finding a convenient place, and perhaps some secret motives of policy,

produced an alteration in the summons. The bishops of the East were

directed to meet at Seleucia, in Isauria; while those of the West

held their deliberations at Rimini, on the coast of the Hadriatic; and

instead of two or three deputies from each province, the whole episcopal

body was ordered to march. The Eastern council, after consuming four

days in fierce and unavailing debate, separated without any definitive

conclusion. The council of the West was protracted till the seventh

month. Taurus, the PrÊtorian prÊfect was instructed not to dismiss the

prelates till they should all be united in the same opinion; and his

efforts were supported by the power of banishing fifteen of the most

refractory, and a promise of the consulship if he achieved so difficult

an adventure. His prayers and threats, the authority of the sovereign,

the sophistry of Valens and Ursacius, the distress of cold and hunger,

and the tedious melancholy of a hopeless exile, at length extorted the

reluctant consent of the bishops of Rimini. The deputies of the East and

of the West attended the emperor in the palace of Constantinople, and he

enjoyed the satisfaction of imposing on the world a profession of

faith which established the likeness, without expressing the

consubstantiality, of the Son of God. But the triumph of Arianism

had been preceded by the removal of the orthodox clergy, whom it

was impossible either to intimidate or to corrupt; and the reign of

Constantius was disgraced by the unjust and ineffectual persecution of

the great Athanasius.

We have seldom an opportunity of observing, either in active or

speculative life, what effect may be produced, or what obstacles may be

surmounted, by the force of a single mind, when it is inflexibly applied

to the pursuit of a single object. The immortal name of Athanasius will

never be separated from the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity, to whose

defence he consecrated every moment and every faculty of his being.

Educated in the family of Alexander, he had vigorously opposed the early

progress of the Arian heresy: he exercised the important functions of

secretary under the aged prelate; and the fathers of the Nicene council

beheld with surprise and respect the rising virtues of the young deacon.

In a time of public danger, the dull claims of age and of rank are

sometimes superseded; and within five months after his return from Nice,

the deacon Athanasius was seated on the archiepiscopal throne of Egypt.

He filled that eminent station above forty-six years, and his long

administration was spent in a perpetual combat against the powers of

Arianism. Five times was Athanasius expelled from his throne; twenty

years he passed as an exile or a fugitive: and almost every province

of the Roman empire was successively witness to his merit, and his

sufferings in the cause of the Homoousion, which he considered as the

sole pleasure and business, as the duty, and as the glory of his life.

Amidst the storms of persecution, the archbishop of Alexandria was

patient of labor, jealous of fame, careless of safety; and although his

mind was tainted by the contagion of fanaticism, Athanasius displayed a

superiority of character and abilities, which would have qualified him,

far better than the degenerate sons of Constantine, for the government

of a great monarchy. His learning was much less profound and extensive

than that of Eusebius of CÊsarea, and his rude eloquence could not be

compared with the polished oratory of Gregory of Basil; but whenever

the primate of Egypt was called upon to justify his sentiments, or his

conduct, his unpremeditated style, either of speaking or writing, was

clear, forcible, and persuasive. He has always been revered, in the

orthodox school, as one of the most accurate masters of the Christian

theology; and he was supposed to possess two profane sciences, less

adapted to the episcopal character, the knowledge of jurisprudence, and

that of divination. Some fortunate conjectures of future events, which

impartial reasoners might ascribe to the experience and judgment of

Athanasius, were attributed by his friends to heavenly inspiration, and

imputed by his enemies to infernal magic.

But as Athanasius was continually engaged with the prejudices and

passions of every order of men, from the monk to the emperor, the

knowledge of human nature was his first and most important science. He

preserved a distinct and unbroken view of a scene which was incessantly

shifting; and never failed to improve those decisive moments which

are irrecoverably past before they are perceived by a common eye. The

archbishop of Alexandria was capable of distinguishing how far he might

boldly command, and where he must dexterously insinuate; how long he

might contend with power, and when he must withdraw from persecution;

and while he directed the thunders of the church against heresy and

rebellion, he could assume, in the bosom of his own party, the flexible

and indulgent temper of a prudent leader. The election of Athanasius

has not escaped the reproach of irregularity and precipitation; but the

propriety of his behavior conciliated the affections both of the clergy

and of the people. The Alexandrians were impatient to rise in arms for

the defence of an eloquent and liberal pastor. In his distress he always

derived support, or at least consolation, from the faithful attachment

of his parochial clergy; and the hundred bishops of Egypt adhered, with

unshaken zeal, to the cause of Athanasius. In the modest equipage which

pride and policy would affect, he frequently performed the episcopal

visitation of his provinces, from the mouth of the Nile to the confines

of ∆thiopia; familiarly conversing with the meanest of the populace, and

humbly saluting the saints and hermits of the desert. Nor was it only

in ecclesiastical assemblies, among men whose education and manners

were similar to his own, that Athanasius displayed the ascendancy of his

genius. He appeared with easy and respectful firmness in the courts of

princes; and in the various turns of his prosperous and adverse fortune

he never lost the confidence of his friends, or the esteem of his

enemies.