69 (return) [ From his nocturnal expedit_The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes)

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

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

i.)]

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

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

Lectiones Antiquae of Canisius, republished by Basnage, tom.

326.]

The disorders of thirty years at length produced the famous

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

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

the penalty of degradation and exile, if they rejected or

infringed this salutary and fundamental law. The clergy may smile

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

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

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

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

It is in ecclesiastical story, that Zeno appears least

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

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

unworthy of an emperor to persecute the worshippers of Christ and

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

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

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

it accurately represents the Catholic faith of the incarnation,

without adopting or disclaiming the peculiar terms of tenets of

the hostile sects. A solemn anathema is pronounced against

Nestorius and Eutyches; against all heretics by whom Christ is

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

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

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

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

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

contrary doctrines, if any such have been taught either elsewhere

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

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

The most reasonable Christians acquiesced in this mode of

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

obedience was despised as timid and servile by the vehement

spirit of their brethren. On a subject which engrossed the

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

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

of controversy; and the bonds of communion were alternately

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

space between Nestorius and Eutyches was filled by a thousand

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

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

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

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

hundred years from the patriarchs of Alexandria, who had accepted

the communion of Constantinople, without exacting a formal

condemnation of the synod of Chalcedon. For accepting the

communion of Alexandria, without a formal approbation of the same

synod, the patriarchs of Constantinople were anathematized by the

popes. Their inflexible despotism involved the most orthodox of

the Greek churches in this spiritual contagion, denied or doubted

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

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

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

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

precarious truce of Constantinople and Egypt had been violated by

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

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

of Chalcedon, while the successor of Cyril would have purchased

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chalcedonensem ascivit. An adversary would prove that he had

never read the Henoticon.]

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

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

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

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

sacraments, which had failed for want of an episcopal

ordination.]

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

majorum traditione confectam et veram, praecipue religiosae

solicitudini congruam praebemus sine difficultate medicinam,

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

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

perished before the arrival of the Roman physician. Tillemont

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

coelum habentium episcoporum vocabula continentur, (Concil. tom.

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

to the book of life.]

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

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

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

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

which the angels and cherubim eternally repeat before the throne

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

miraculously revealed to the church of Constantinople. The

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

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

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

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

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

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

and the rash innovation had nearly cost the emperor Anastasius

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

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

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

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

without this obnoxious addition, was chanted in the cathedral by

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

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

aggressors were punished by the emperor, and defended by the

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

this momentous quarrel. The streets were instantly crowded with

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

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

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

desert our spiritual father; anathema to the Manichaean tyrant!

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

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

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

the troubled multitude. The triumph of Macedonius was checked by

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

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

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

factions of Constantinople suspended their discord, and the civil

and military powers were annihilated in their presence. The keys

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

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

faithful. Day and night they were incessantly busied either in

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

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

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

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

had been darted against heretical structures, diffused the

undistinguishing flames over the most orthodox buildings. The

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

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

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

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

The Catholics, before his face, rehearsed their genuine

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

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

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

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

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

hesitation, condemned to the lions. These furious but transient

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

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

declared himself the champion of the Catholic faith. In this

pious rebellion he depopulated Thrace, besieged Constantinople,

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

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

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

orthodox treaty, reluctantly signed by the dying Anastasius, and

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

taken up into heaven before the bishop and people of

Constantinople, the song was considerably improved. The boy heard

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

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

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

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

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

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

gathered from the Chronicles of Victor, Marcellinus, and

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

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

correct.]

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

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

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

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

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

series is continued with some disorder in the xvth and xvith

tomes of the Memoires Ecclesiastiques of Tillemont. And here I

must take leave forever of that incomparable guide—whose bigotry

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

and scrupulous minuteness. He was prevented by death from

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

empire.]

Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part IV.

Justinian has been already seen in the various lights of a

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

remains, and it affords an unfavorable prejudice, that his

theology should form a very prominent feature of his portrait.

The sovereign sympathized with his subjects in their

superstitious reverence for living and departed saints: his Code,

and more especially his Novels, confirm and enlarge the

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

recovery from a dangerous disease was ascribed to the miraculous

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

provinces of the East were decorated with the monuments of his

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

structures may be attributed to his taste or ostentation, the

zeal of the royal architect was probably quickened by a genuine

sense of love and gratitude towards his invisible benefactors.

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

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

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

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

defender of the faith. The controversies of the times were

congenial to his temper and understanding and the theological

professors must inwardly deride the diligence of a stranger, who

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

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

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

closet, debating with reverend graybeards, and turning over the

pages of ecclesiastical volumes.” 82 The fruits of these

lucubrations were displayed in many a conference, where Justinian

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

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

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

Barbarians invaded the provinces, while the victorious legion

marched under the banners of Belisarius and Narses, the successor

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

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

and rational spectator, Justinian might have learned, “that

religious controversy is the offspring of arrogance and folly;

that true piety is most laudably expressed by silence and

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

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

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

perfect attributes of the Deity.” 83

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

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

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

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

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

doctus appetit importune...spontaneis quaestionibus ecclesiam

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

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

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

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

character is given with a design to praise Justinian.]

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

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

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

verius haeresium omnium sentinas, prorsusque Atheos—abominable

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

Hist. Arcan. c. 13.)]

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

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

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

is easily provoked to supply the defect of argument by the

plenitude of power, and to chastise without mercy the perverse

blindness of those who wilfully shut their eyes against the light

of demonstration. The reign of Justinian was a uniform yet

various scene of persecution; and he appears to have surpassed

his indolent predecessors, both in the contrivance of his laws

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

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

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

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

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

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

breathed the wild enthusiasm of perfection and prophecy which

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

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

and soldiers, they grasped with alacrity the crown of martyrdom

the conventicle and the congregation perished in the flames, but

these primitive fanatics were not extinguished three hundred

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

their Gothic confederates, the church of the Arians at

Constantinople had braved the severity of the laws: their clergy

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

and silver which were seized by the rapacious hand of Justinian

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

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

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

excited the indignation of the Christians, who were perhaps

unwilling that any strangers should be the witnesses of their

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

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

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

cherished the superstition of the Greeks. They were sternly

informed that they must choose without delay between the

displeasure of Jupiter or Justinian, and that their aversion to

the gospel could no longer be distinguished under the scandalous

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

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

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

tyrant the poor consolation of exposing with ignominy the

lifeless corpse of the fugitive. His weaker brethren submitted to

their earthly monarch, underwent the ceremony of baptism, and

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

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

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

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

thousand Pagans were detected and converted in Asia, Phrygia,

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

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

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

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

immunities, were oppressed by a vexatious law, which compelled

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

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

the more reason, since the Catholics themselves did not agree

with the astronomical calculations of their sovereign: the people

of Constantinople delayed the beginning of their Lent a whole

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

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

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

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

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

idolaters. The abomination of the cross had already been planted

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

Justinian offered only the alternative of baptism or rebellion.

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

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

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

Samaritans were finally subdued by the regular forces of the

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

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

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

hypocrisy. It has been computed that one hundred thousand Roman

subjects were extirpated in the Samaritan war, 90 which converted

the once fruitful province into a desolate and smoking

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

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

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

Christian faith. 91

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

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

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

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

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

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

animadversioni subjiciantur. Baronius copies and applauds this

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

intrusted the patriarch, or rather the astronomers, of

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

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

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

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

opposed, among the Protestants, the reception of the Gregorian

style.]

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

consult Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, a learned and impartial

work.]

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

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

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

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

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

&c.]

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

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

half philosophical. half superstitious, that the province which

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

which the Mahometans penetrated into the empire.]

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

c. 13.]

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

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

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

reconciliation of the Greeks and Latins established the tome of

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

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

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

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

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

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

vices were not incompatible with devotion, had listened to the

Monophysite teachers; and the open or clandestine enemies of the

church revived and multiplied at the smile of their gracious

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

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

consorts, that their seeming disagreement was imputed by many to

a secret and mischievous confederacy against the religion and

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

Chapters, 94 which has filled more volumes than it deserves

lines, is deeply marked with this subtile and disingenuous

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

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

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

were eagerly perused by the monks of Palestine. In these

writings, the piercing eye of Justinian descried more than ten

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

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

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

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

Chalcedon. The fathers had listened without impatience to the

praise of Theodore of Mopsuestia; 96 and their justice or

indulgence had restored both Theodore of Cyrrhus, and Ibas of

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

these Oriental bishops were tainted with the reproach of heresy;

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

of Nestorius; their most suspicious passages were accused under

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

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

pronounced with sincere or affected reverence by the Catholic

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

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

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

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

daemon, their torments could neither be aggravated nor assuaged

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

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

fury of the theological insects who still crawled on the surface

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

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

without discerning the true motives of Theodora and her

ecclesiastical faction. The victims were no longer subject to his

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

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

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

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

general council, of three patriarchs and one hundred and

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

inconsistent struggle, to the despotism of Justinian and the

sophistry of the Greeks. His apostasy provoked the indignation of

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

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

perseverance of the popes insensibly transferred to their

adversaries the appellation of schismatics; the Illyrian,

African, and Italian churches were oppressed by the civil and

ecclesiastical powers, not without some effort of military force;

97 the distant Barbarians transcribed the creed of the Vatican,

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

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

religious discontent of the Italians had already promoted the

conquests of the Lombards, and the Romans themselves were

accustomed to suspect the faith and to detest the government of

their Byzantine tyrant.

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

original evidence of the laws of Justinian. During the first

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

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

his power.]

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

If the ecclesiastical never read the secret historian, their

common suspicion proves at least the general hatred.]

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

acts of the vth general council of Constantinople supply much

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

authority and character of the popes.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

be a charitable allowance. In all the subsequent catalogues of

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

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

to justify the sentence.]

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

exhortations of Pope Pelagius to the conqueror and exarch of

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

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

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

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

would have been curious and impartial.]

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

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

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

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

church of Spain had overlooked the vth general council with

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

vii. p. 487—494.)]

Justinian was neither steady nor consistent in the nice process

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

youth he was offended by the slightest deviation from the

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

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

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

incorruptible, and that his manhood was never subject to any

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

fantastic opinion was announced in the last edicts of Justinian;

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

distinguished by a rare, though fortunate, vacancy in the

ecclesiastical history of the East. 100

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

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

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

separated from the communion of the four patriarchs by his

refusal to condemn the three chapters. Baronius almost pronounces

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

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

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

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

instead of ecclesiastical events.]

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

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

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

sole principle of action, is essential to a rational and

conscious being. When Heraclius returned from the Persian war,

the orthodox hero consulted his bishops, whether the Christ whom

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

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

emperor was encouraged to hope that the Jacobites of Egypt and

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

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

even by the Nestorians themselves. 101 The experiment was tried

without effect, and the timid or vehement Catholics condemned

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

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

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

nature of Christ they speciously applied a proper and distinct

energy; but the difference was no longer visible when they

allowed that the human and the divine will were invariably the

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

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

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

the prince and people. They declared themselves Monothelites

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

new, the questions as superfluous; and recommended a religious

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

gospel. This law of silence was successively imposed by the

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

grandson Constans; 103 and the Imperial edicts were subscribed

with alacrity or reluctance by the four patriarchs of Rome,

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

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

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

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

sovereign was retracted and censured by the bolder ignorance of

his successors. They condemned the execrable and abominable

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

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

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

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

was omitted that could fill the superstitious mind with horror

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

Martin and his Lateran synod anathematized the perfidious and

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

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

reprobate his wicked type, and the impious ecthesis of his

grandfather; and to confound the authors and their adherents with

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

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

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

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

the abbot Maximus, was inhumanly chastised by the amputation of

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

survived in their successors; and the triumph of the Latins

avenged their recent defeat, and obliterated the disgrace of the

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

general council of Constantinople, in the palace and the presence

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

convert converted the Byzantine pontiff and a majority of the

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

Antioch, were condemned to the spiritual and temporal pains of

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

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

every age, that two wills or energies are harmonized in the

person of Christ. The majesty of the pope and the Roman synod was

represented by two priests, one deacon, and three bishops; but

these obscure Latins had neither arms to compel, nor treasures to

bribe, nor language to persuade; and I am ignorant by what arts

they could determine the lofty emperor of the Greeks to abjure

the catechism of his infancy, and to persecute the religion of

his fathers. Perhaps the monks and people of Constantinople 106

were favorable to the Lateran creed, which is indeed the least

reasonable of the two: and the suspicion is countenanced by the

unnatural moderation of the Greek clergy, who appear in this

quarrel to be conscious of their weakness. While the synod

debated, a fanatic proposed a more summary decision, by raising a

dead man to life: the prelates assisted at the trial; but the

acknowledged failure may serve to indicate, that the passions and

prejudices of the multitude were not enlisted on the side of the

Monothelites. In the next generation, when the son of Constantine

was deposed and slain by the disciple of Macarius, they tasted

the feast of revenge and dominion: the image or monument of the

sixth council was defaced, and the original acts were committed

to the flames. But in the second year, their patron was cast

headlong from the throne, the bishops of the East were released

from their occasional conformity, the Roman faith was more firmly

replanted by the orthodox successors of Bardanes, and the fine

problems of the incarnation were forgotten in the more popular

and visible quarrel of the worship of images. 107

101 (return) [ This extraordinary, and perhaps inconsistent,

doctrine of the Nestorians, had been observed by La Croze,

(Christianisme des Indes, tom. i. p. 19, 20,) and is more fully

exposed by Abulpharagius, (Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii. p. 292.

Hist. Dynast. p. 91, vers. Latin. Pocock.) and Asseman himself,

(tom. iv. p. 218.) They seem ignorant that they might allege the

positive authority of the ecthesis. (the common reproach of the

Monophysites) (Concil. tom. vii. p. 205.)]

102 (return) [ See the Orthodox faith in Petavius, (Dogmata

Theolog. tom. v. l. ix. c. 6—10, p. 433—447:) all the depths of

this controversy in the Greek dialogue between Maximus and

Pyrrhus, (acalcem tom. viii. Annal. Baron. p. 755—794,) which

relates a real conference, and produced as short-lived a

conversion.]

103 (return) [ Impiissimam ecthesim.... scelerosum typum (Concil.

tom. vii p. 366) diabolicae operationis genimina, (fors. germina,

or else the Greek in the original. Concil. p. 363, 364,) are the

expressions of the xviiith anathema. The epistle of Pope Martin

to Amandus, Gallican bishop, stigmatizes the Monothelites and

their heresy with equal virulence, (p. 392.)]

104 (return) [ The sufferings of Martin and Maximus are described

with simplicity in their original letters and acts, (Concil. tom.

vii. p. 63—78. Baron. Annal. Eccles. A.D. 656, No. 2, et annos

subsequent.) Yet the chastisement of their disobedience had been

previously announced in the Type of Constans, (Concil. tom. vii.

p. 240.)]

105 (return) [ Eutychius (Annal. tom. ii. p. 368) most

erroneously supposes that the 124 bishops of the Roman synod

transported themselves to Constantinople; and by adding them to

the 168 Greeks, thus composes the sixth council of 292 fathers.]

106 (return) [ The Monothelite Constans was hated by all, (says

Theophanes, Chron. p. 292). When the Monothelite monk failed in

his miracle, the people shouted, (Concil. tom. vii. p. 1032.) But

this was a natural and transient emotion; and I much fear that

the latter is an anticipation of the good people of

Constantinople.]

107 (return) [ The history of Monothelitism may be found in the

Acts of the Synods of Rome (tom. vii. p. 77—395, 601—608) and

Constantinople, (p. 609—1429.) Baronius extracted some original

documents from the Vatican library; and his chronology is

rectified by the diligence of Pagi. Even Dupin (Bibliotheque

Eccles. tom. vi. p. 57—71) and Basnage (Hist. de l’Eglise, tom.

i. p. 451—555) afford a tolerable abridgment.]

Before the end of the seventh century, the creed of the

incarnation, which had been defined at Rome and Constantinople,

was uniformly preached in the remote islands of Britain and

Ireland; 108 the same ideas were entertained, or rather the same

words were repeated, by all the Christians whose liturgy was

performed in the Greek or the Latin tongue. Their numbers, and

visible splendor, bestowed an imperfect claim to the appellation

of Catholics: but in the East, they were marked with the less

honorable name of Melchites, or Royalists; 109 of men, whose

faith, instead of resting on the basis of Scripture, reason, or

tradition, had been established, and was still maintained, by the

arbitrary power of a temporal monarch. Their adversaries might

allege the words of the fathers of Constantinople, who profess

themselves the slaves of the king; and they might relate, with

malicious joy, how the decrees of Chalcedon had been inspired and

reformed by the emperor Marcian and his virgin bride. The

prevailing faction will naturally inculcate the duty of

submission, nor is it less natural that dissenters should feel

and assert the principles of freedom. Under the rod of

persecution, the Nestorians and Monophysites degenerated into

rebels and fugitives; and the most ancient and useful allies of

Rome were taught to consider the emperor not as the chief, but as

the enemy of the Christians. Language, the leading principle

which unites or separates the tribes of mankind, soon

discriminated the sectaries of the East, by a peculiar and

perpetual badge, which abolished the means of intercourse and the

hope of reconciliation. The long dominion of the Greeks, their

colonies, and, above all, their eloquence, had propagated a

language doubtless the most perfect that has been contrived by

the art of man. Yet the body of the people, both in Syria and

Egypt, still persevered in the use of their national idioms; with

this difference, however, that the Coptic was confined to the

rude and illiterate peasants of the Nile, while the Syriac, 110

from the mountains of Assyria to the Red Sea, was adapted to the

higher topics of poetry and argument. Armenia and Abyssinia were

infected by the speech or learning of the Greeks; and their

Barbaric tongues, which have been revived in the studies of

modern Europe, were unintelligible to the inhabitants of the

Roman empire. The Syriac and the Coptic, the Armenian and the

Aethiopic, are consecrated in the service of their respective

churches: and their theology is enriched by domestic versions 111

both of the Scriptures and of the most popular fathers. After a

period of thirteen hundred and sixty years, the spark of

controversy, first kindled by a sermon of Nestorius, still burns

in the bosom of the East, and the hostile communions still

maintain the faith and discipline of their founders. In the most

abject state of ignorance, poverty, and servitude, the Nestorians

and Monophysites reject the spiritual supremacy of Rome, and

cherish the toleration of their Turkish masters, which allows

them to anathematize, on the one hand, St. Cyril and the synod of

Ephesus: on the other, Pope Leo and the council of Chalcedon. The

weight which they cast into the downfall of the Eastern empire

demands our notice, and the reader may be amused with the various

prospect of, I. The Nestorians; II. The Jacobites; 112 III. The

Maronites; IV. The Armenians; V. The Copts; and, VI. The

Abyssinians. To the three former, the Syriac is common; but of

the latter, each is discriminated by the use of a national idiom.

Yet the modern natives of Armenia and Abyssinia would be

incapable of conversing with their ancestors; and the Christians

of Egypt and Syria, who reject the religion, have adopted the

language of the Arabians. The lapse of time has seconded the

sacerdotal arts; and in the East, as well as in the West, the

Deity is addressed in an obsolete tongue, unknown to the majority

of the congregation.

108 (return) [ In the Lateran synod of 679, Wilfred, an

Anglo-Saxon bishop, subscribed pro omni Aquilonari parte

Britanniae et Hiberniae, quae ab Anglorum et Britonum, necnon

Scotorum et Pictorum gentibus colebantur, (Eddius, in Vit. St.

Wilfrid. c. 31, apud Pagi, Critica, tom. iii. p. 88.) Theodore

(magnae insulae Britanniae archiepiscopus et philosophus) was

long expected at Rome, (Concil. tom. vii. p. 714,) but he

contented himself with holding (A.D. 680) his provincial synod of

Hatfield, in which he received the decrees of Pope Martin and the

first Lateran council against the Monothelites, (Concil. tom.

vii. p. 597, &c.) Theodore, a monk of Tarsus in Cilicia, had been

named to the primacy of Britain by Pope Vitalian, (A.D. 688; see

Baronius and Pagi,) whose esteem for his learning and piety was

tainted by some distrust of his national character—ne quid

contrarium veritati fidei, Graecorum more, in ecclesiam cui

praeesset introduceret. The Cilician was sent from Rome to

Canterbury under the tuition of an African guide, (Bedae Hist.

Eccles. Anglorum. l. iv. c. 1.) He adhered to the Roman doctrine;

and the same creed of the incarnation has been uniformly

transmitted from Theodore to the modern primates, whose sound

understanding is perhaps seldom engaged with that abstruse

mystery.]

109 (return) [ This name, unknown till the xth century, appears

to be of Syriac origin. It was invented by the Jacobites, and

eagerly adopted by the Nestorians and Mahometans; but it was

accepted without shame by the Catholics, and is frequently used

in the Annals of Eutychius, (Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii.

p. 507, &c., tom. iii. p. 355. Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch.

Alexandrin. p. 119.), was the acclamation of the fathers of

Constantinople, (Concil. tom. vii. p. 765.)]

110 (return) [ The Syriac, which the natives revere as the

primitive language, was divided into three dialects. 1. The

Aramoean, as it was refined at Edessa and the cities of

Mesopotamia. 2. The Palestine, which was used in Jerusalem,

Damascus, and the rest of Syria. 3. The Nabathoean, the rustic

idiom of the mountains of Assyria and the villages of Irak,

(Gregor, Abulpharag. Hist. Dynast. p. 11.) On the Syriac, sea

Ebed-Jesu, (Asseman. tom. iii. p. 326, &c.,) whose prejudice

alone could prefer it to the Arabic.]

111 (return) [ I shall not enrich my ignorance with the spoils of

Simon, Walton, Mill, Wetstein, Assemannus, Ludolphus, La Croze,

whom I have consulted with some care. It appears, 1. That, of all

the versions which are celebrated by the fathers, it is doubtful

whether any are now extant in their pristine integrity. 2. That

the Syriac has the best claim, and that the consent of the

Oriental sects is a proof that it is more ancient than their

schism.]

112 (return) [ In the account of the Monophysites and Nestorians,

I am deeply indebted to the Bibliotheca Orientalis

Clementino-Vaticana of Joseph Simon Assemannus. That learned

Maronite was despatched, in the year 1715, by Pope Clement XI. to

visit the monasteries of Egypt and Syria, in search of Mss. His

four folio volumes, published at Rome 1719—1728, contain a part

only, though perhaps the most valuable, of his extensive project.

As a native and as a scholar, he possessed the Syriac literature;

and though a dependent of Rome, he wishes to be moderate and

candid.]

Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part V.

I. Both in his native and his episcopal province, the heresy of

the unfortunate Nestorius was speedily obliterated. The Oriental

bishops, who at Ephesus had resisted to his face the arrogance of

Cyril, were mollified by his tardy concessions. The same

prelates, or their successors, subscribed, not without a murmur,

the decrees of Chalcedon; the power of the Monophysites

reconciled them with the Catholics in the conformity of passion,

of interest, and, insensibly, of belief; and their last reluctant

sigh was breathed in the defence of the three chapters. Their

dissenting brethren, less moderate, or more sincere, were crushed

by the penal laws; and, as early as the reign of Justinian, it

became difficult to find a church of Nestorians within the limits

of the Roman empire. Beyond those limits they had discovered a

new world, in which they might hope for liberty, and aspire to

conquest. In Persia, notwithstanding the resistance of the Magi,

Christianity had struck a deep root, and the nations of the East

reposed under its salutary shade. The catholic, or primate,

resided in the capital: in his synods, and in their dioceses, his

metropolitans, bishops, and clergy, represented the pomp and

order of a regular hierarchy: they rejoiced in the increase of

proselytes, who were converted from the Zendavesta to the gospel,

from the secular to the monastic life; and their zeal was

stimulated by the presence of an artful and formidable enemy. The

Persian church had been founded by the missionaries of Syria; and

their language, discipline, and doctrine, were closely interwoven

with its original frame. The catholics were elected and ordained

by their own suffragans; but their filial dependence on the

patriarchs of Antioch is attested by the canons of the Oriental

church. 113 In the Persian school of Edessa, 114 the rising

generations of the faithful imbibed their theological idiom: they

studied in the Syriac version the ten thousand volumes of

Theodore of Mopsuestia; and they revered the apostolic faith and

holy martyrdom of his disciple Nestorius, whose person and

language were equally unknown to the nations beyond the Tigris.

The first indelible lesson of Ibas, bishop of Edessa, taught them

to execrate the Egyptians, who, in the synod of Ephesus, had

impiously confounded the two natures of Christ. The flight of the

masters and scholars, who were twice expelled from the Athens of

Syria, dispersed a crowd of missionaries inflamed by the double

zeal of religion and revenge. And the rigid unity of the

Monophysites, who, under the reigns of Zeno and Anastasius, had

invaded the thrones of the East, provoked their antagonists, in a

land of freedom, to avow a moral, rather than a physical, union

of the two persons of Christ. Since the first preaching of the

gospel, the Sassanian kings beheld with an eye of suspicion a

race of aliens and apostates, who had embraced the religion, and

who might favor the cause, of the hereditary foes of their

country. The royal edicts had often prohibited their dangerous

correspondence with the Syrian clergy: the progress of the schism

was grateful to the jealous pride of Perozes, and he listened to

the eloquence of an artful prelate, who painted Nestorius as the

friend of Persia, and urged him to secure the fidelity of his

Christian subjects, by granting a just preference to the victims

and enemies of the Roman tyrant. The Nestorians composed a large

majority of the clergy and people: they were encouraged by the

smile, and armed with the sword, of despotism; yet many of their

weaker brethren were startled at the thought of breaking loose

from the communion of the Christian world, and the blood of seven

thousand seven hundred Monophysites, or Catholics, confirmed the

uniformity of faith and discipline in the churches of Persia. 115

Their ecclesiastical institutions are distinguished by a liberal

principle of reason, or at least of policy: the austerity of the

cloister was relaxed and gradually forgotten; houses of charity

were endowed for the education of orphans and foundlings; the law

of celibacy, so forcibly recommended to the Greeks and Latins,

was disregarded by the Persian clergy; and the number of the

elect was multiplied by the public and reiterated nuptials of the

priests, the bishops, and even the patriarch himself. To this

standard of natural and religious freedom, myriads of fugitives

resorted from all the provinces of the Eastern empire; the narrow

bigotry of Justinian was punished by the emigration of his most

industrious subjects; they transported into Persia the arts both

of peace and war: and those who deserved the favor, were promoted

in the service, of a discerning monarch. The arms of Nushirvan,

and his fiercer grandson, were assisted with advice, and money,

and troops, by the desperate sectaries who still lurked in their

native cities of the East: their zeal was rewarded with the gift

of the Catholic churches; but when those cities and churches were

recovered by Heraclius, their open profession of treason and

heresy compelled them to seek a refuge in the realm of their

foreign ally. But the seeming tranquillity of the Nestorians was

often endangered, and sometimes overthrown. They were involved in

the common evils of Oriental despotism: their enmity to Rome

could not always atone for their attachment to the gospel: and a

colony of three hundred thousand Jacobites, the captives of

Apamea and Antioch, was permitted to erect a hostile altar in the

face of the catholic, and in the sunshine of the court. In his

last treaty, Justinian introduced some conditions which tended to

enlarge and fortify the toleration of Christianity in Persia. The

emperor, ignorant of the rights of conscience, was incapable of

pity or esteem for the heretics who denied the authority of the

holy synods: but he flattered himself that they would gradually

perceive the temporal benefits of union with the empire and the

church of Rome; and if he failed in exciting their gratitude, he

might hope to provoke the jealousy of their sovereign. In a later

age the Lutherans have been burnt at Paris, and protected in

Germany, by the superstition and policy of the most Christian

king.

113 (return) [ See the Arabic canons of Nice in the translation

of Abraham Ecchelensis, No. 37, 38, 39, 40. Concil. tom. ii. p.

335, 336, edit. Venet. These vulgar titles, Nicene and Arabic,

are both apocryphal. The council of Nice enacted no more than

twenty canons, (Theodoret. Hist. Eccles. l. i. c. 8;) and the

remainder, seventy or eighty, were collected from the synods of

the Greek church. The Syriac edition of Maruthas is no longer

extant, (Asseman. Bibliot. Oriental. tom. i. p. 195, tom. iii. p.

74,) and the Arabic version is marked with many recent

interpolations. Yet this Code contains many curious relics of

ecclesiastical discipline; and since it is equally revered by all

the Eastern communions, it was probably finished before the

schism of the Nestorians and Jacobites, (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec.

tom. xi. p. 363—367.)]

114 (return) [ Theodore the Reader (l. ii. c. 5, 49, ad calcem

Hist. Eccles.) has noticed this Persian school of Edessa. Its

ancient splendor, and the two aeras of its downfall, (A.D. 431

and 489) are clearly discussed by Assemanni, (Biblioth. Orient.

tom. ii. p. 402, iii. p. 376, 378, iv. p. 70, 924.)]

115 (return) [ A dissertation on the state of the Nestorians has

swelled in the bands of Assemanni to a folio volume of 950 pages,

and his learned researches are digested in the most lucid order.

Besides this ivth volume of the Bibliotheca Orientalis, the

extracts in the three preceding tomes (tom. i. p. 203, ii. p.

321-463, iii. 64—70, 378—395, &c., 405—408, 580—589) may be

usefully consulted.]

The desire of gaining souls for God and subjects for the church,

has excited in every age the diligence of the Christian priests.

From the conquest of Persia they carried their spiritual arms to

the north, the east, and the south; and the simplicity of the

gospel was fashioned and painted with the colors of the Syriac

theology. In the sixth century, according to the report of a

Nestorian traveller, 116 Christianity was successfully preached

to the Bactrians, the Huns, the Persians, the Indians, the

Persarmenians, the Medes, and the Elamites: the Barbaric

churches, from the Gulf of Persia to the Caspian Sea, were almost

infinite; and their recent faith was conspicuous in the number

and sanctity of their monks and martyrs. The pepper coast of

Malabar, and the isles of the ocean, Socotora and Ceylon, were

peopled with an increasing multitude of Christians; and the

bishops and clergy of those sequestered regions derived their

ordination from the Catholic of Babylon. In a subsequent age the

zeal of the Nestorians overleaped the limits which had confined

the ambition and curiosity both of the Greeks and Persians. The

missionaries of Balch and Samarcand pursued without fear the

footsteps of the roving Tartar, and insinuated themselves into

the camps of the valleys of Imaus and the banks of the Selinga.

They exposed a metaphysical creed to those illiterate shepherds:

to those sanguinary warriors, they recommended humanity and

repose. Yet a khan, whose power they vainly magnified, is said to

have received at their hands the rites of baptism, and even of

ordination; and the fame of Prester or Presbyter John 117 has

long amused the credulity of Europe. The royal convert was

indulged in the use of a portable altar; but he despatched an

embassy to the patriarch, to inquire how, in the season of Lent,

he should abstain from animal food, and how he might celebrate

the Eucharist in a desert that produced neither corn nor wine. In

their progress by sea and land, the Nestorians entered China by

the port of Canton and the northern residence of Sigan. Unlike

the senators of Rome, who assumed with a smile the characters of

priests and augurs, the mandarins, who affect in public the

reason of philosophers, are devoted in private to every mode of

popular superstition. They cherished and they confounded the gods

of Palestine and of India; but the propagation of Christianity

awakened the jealousy of the state, and, after a short

vicissitude of favor and persecution, the foreign sect expired in

ignorance and oblivion. 118 Under the reign of the caliphs, the

Nestorian church was diffused from China to Jerusalem and Cyrus;

and their numbers, with those of the Jacobites, were computed to

surpass the Greek and Latin communions. 119 Twenty-five

metropolitans or archbishops composed their hierarchy; but

several of these were dispensed, by the distance and danger of

the way, from the duty of personal attendance, on the easy

condition that every six years they should testify their faith

and obedience to the catholic or patriarch of Babylon, a vague

appellation which has been successively applied to the royal

seats of Seleucia, Ctesiphon, and Bagdad. These remote branches

are long since withered; and the old patriarchal trunk 120 is now

divided by the Elijahs of Mosul, the representatives almost on

lineal descent of the genuine and primitive succession; the

Josephs of Amida, who are reconciled to the church of Rome: 121

and the Simeons of Van or Ormia, whose revolt, at the head of

forty thousand families, was promoted in the sixteenth century by

the Sophis of Persia. The number of three hundred thousand is

allowed for the whole body of the Nestorians, who, under the name

of Chaldeans or Assyrians, are confounded with the most learned

or the most powerful nation of Eastern antiquity.

116 (return) [ See the Topographia Christiana of Cosmas, surnamed

Indicopleustes, or the Indian navigator, l. iii. p. 178, 179, l.

xi. p. 337. The entire work, of which some curious extracts may

be found in Photius, (cod. xxxvi. p. 9, 10, edit. Hoeschel,)

Thevenot, (in the 1st part of his Relation des Voyages, &c.,) and

Fabricius, (Bibliot. Graec. l. iii. c. 25, tom. ii. p. 603-617,)

has been published by Father Montfaucon at Paris, 1707, in the

Nova Collectio Patrum, (tom. ii. p. 113—346.) It was the design

of the author to confute the impious heresy of those who

maintained that the earth is a globe, and not a flat, oblong

table, as it is represented in the Scriptures, (l. ii. p. 138.)

But the nonsense of the monk is mingled with the practical

knowledge of the traveller, who performed his voyage A.D. 522,

and published his book at Alexandria, A.D. 547, (l. ii. p. 140,

141. Montfaucon, Praefat. c. 2.) The Nestorianism of Cosmas,

unknown to his learned editor, was detected by La Croze,

(Christianisme des Indes, tom. i. p. 40—55,) and is confirmed by

Assemanni, (Bibliot. Orient. tom. iv. p. 605, 606.)]

117 (return) [ In its long progress to Mosul, Jerusalem, Rome,

&c., the story of Prester John evaporated in a monstrous fable,

of which some features have been borrowed from the Lama of

Thibet, (Hist. Genealogique des Tartares, P. ii. p. 42. Hist. de

Gengiscan, p. 31, &c.,) and were ignorantly transferred by the

Portuguese to the emperor of Abyssinia, (Ludolph. Hist. Aethiop.

Comment. l. ii. c. 1.) Yet it is probable that in the xith and

xiith centuries, Nestorian Christianity was professed in the

horde of the Keraites, (D’Herbelot, p. 256, 915, 959. Assemanni,

tom. iv. p. 468—504.) Note: The extent to which Nestorian

Christianity prevailed among the Tartar tribes is one of the most

curious questions in Oriental history. M. Schmidt (Geschichte der

Ost Mongolen, notes, p. 383) appears to question the Christianity

of Ong Chaghan, and his Keraite subjects.—M.]

118 (return) [ The Christianity of China, between the seventh and

the thirteenth century, is invincibly proved by the consent of

Chinese, Arabian, Syriac, and Latin evidence, (Assemanni,

Biblioth. Orient. tom. iv. p. 502—552. Mem. de l’Academie des

Inscript. tom. xxx. p. 802—819.) The inscription of Siganfu which

describes the fortunes of the Nestorian church, from the first

mission, A.D. 636, to the current year 781, is accused of forgery

by La Croze, Voltaire, &c., who become the dupes of their own

cunning, while they are afraid of a Jesuitical fraud. * Note:

This famous monument, the authenticity of which many have

attempted to impeach, rather from hatred to the Jesuits, by whom

it was made known, than by a candid examination of its contents,

is now generally considered above all suspicion. The Chinese text

and the facts which it relates are equally strong proofs of its

authenticity. This monument was raised as a memorial of the

establishment of Christianity in China. It is dated the year 1092

of the era of the Greeks, or the Seleucidae, A.D. 781, in the

time of the Nestorian patriarch Anan-jesu. It was raised by

Iezdbouzid, priest and chorepiscopus of Chumdan, that is, of the

capital of the Chinese empire, and the son of a priest who came

from Balkh in Tokharistan. Among the various arguments which may

be urged in favor of the authenticity of this monument, and which

has not yet been advanced, may be reckoned the name of the priest

by whom it was raised. The name is Persian, and at the time the

monument was discovered, it would have been impossible to have

imagined it; for there was no work extant from whence the

knowledge of it could be derived. I do not believe that ever

since this period, any book has been published in which it can be

found a second time. It is very celebrated amongst the Armenians,

and is derived from a martyr, a Persian by birth, of the royal

race, who perished towards the middle of the seventh century, and

rendered his name celebrated among the Christian nations of the

East. St. Martin, vol. i. p. 69. M. Remusat has also strongly

expressed his conviction of the authenticity of this monument.

Melanges Asiatiques, P. i. p. 33. Yet M. Schmidt (Geschichte der

Ost Mongolen, p. 384) denies that there is any satisfactory proof

that much a monument was ever found in China, or that it was not

manufactured in Europe. But if the Jesuits had attempted such a

forgery, would it not have been more adapted to further their

peculiar views?—M.]

119 (return) [ Jacobitae et Nestorianae plures quam Graeci et

Latini Jacob a Vitriaco, Hist. Hierosol. l. ii. c. 76, p. 1093,

in the Gesta Dei per Francos. The numbers are given by Thomassin,

Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. i. p. 172.]

120 (return) [ The division of the patriarchate may be traced in

the Bibliotheca Orient. of Assemanni, tom. i. p. 523—549, tom.

ii. p. 457, &c., tom. iii. p. 603, p. 621—623, tom. iv. p.

164-169, p. 423, p. 622—629, &c.]

121 (return) [ The pompous language of Rome on the submission of

a Nestorian patriarch, is elegantly represented in the viith book

of Fra Paola, Babylon, Nineveh, Arbela, and the trophies of

Alexander, Tauris, and Ecbatana, the Tigris and Indus.]

According to the legend of antiquity, the gospel was preached in

India by St. Thomas. 122 At the end of the ninth century, his

shrine, perhaps in the neighborhood of Madras, was devoutly

visited by the ambassadors of Alfred; and their return with a

cargo of pearls and spices rewarded the zeal of the English

monarch, who entertained the largest projects of trade and

discovery. 123 When the Portuguese first opened the navigation of

India, the Christians of St. Thomas had been seated for ages on

the coast of Malabar, and the difference of their character and

color attested the mixture of a foreign race. In arms, in arts,

and possibly in virtue, they excelled the natives of Hindostan;

the husbandmen cultivated the palm-tree, the merchants were

enriched by the pepper trade, the soldiers preceded the nairs or

nobles of Malabar, and their hereditary privileges were respected

by the gratitude or the fear of the king of Cochin and the

Zamorin himself. They acknowledged a Gentoo of sovereign, but

they were governed, even in temporal concerns, by the bishop of

Angamala. He still asserted his ancient title of metropolitan of

India, but his real jurisdiction was exercised in fourteen

hundred churches, and he was intrusted with the care of two

hundred thousand souls. Their religion would have rendered them

the firmest and most cordial allies of the Portuguese; but the

inquisitors soon discerned in the Christians of St. Thomas the

unpardonable guilt of heresy and schism. Instead of owning

themselves the subjects of the Roman pontiff, the spiritual and

temporal monarch of the globe, they adhered, like their

ancestors, to the communion of the Nestorian patriarch; and the

bishops whom he ordained at Mosul, traversed the dangers of the

sea and land to reach their diocese on the coast of Malabar. In

their Syriac liturgy the names of Theodore and Nestorius were

piously commemorated: they united their adoration of the two

persons of Christ; the title of Mother of God was offensive to

their ear, and they measured with scrupulous avarice the honors

of the Virgin Mary, whom the superstition of the Latins had

almost exalted to the rank of a goddess. When her image was first

presented to the disciples of St. Thomas, they indignantly

exclaimed, “We are Christians, not idolaters!” and their simple

devotion was content with the veneration of the cross. Their

separation from the Western world had left them in ignorance of

the improvements, or corruptions, of a thousand years; and their

conformity with the faith and practice of the fifth century would

equally disappoint the prejudices of a Papist or a Protestant. It

was the first care of the ministers of Rome to intercept all

correspondence with the Nestorian patriarch, and several of his

bishops expired in the prisons of the holy office.

The flock, without a shepherd, was assaulted by the power of the

Portuguese, the arts of the Jesuits, and the zeal of Alexis de

Menezes, archbishop of Goa, in his personal visitation of the

coast of Malabar. The synod of Diamper, at which he presided,

consummated the pious work of the reunion; and rigorously imposed

the doctrine and discipline of the Roman church, without

forgetting auricular confession, the strongest engine of

ecclesiastical torture. The memory of Theodore and Nestorius was

condemned, and Malabar was reduced under the dominion of the

pope, of the primate, and of the Jesuits who invaded the see of

Angamala or Cranganor. Sixty years of servitude and hypocrisy

were patiently endured; but as soon as the Portuguese empire was

shaken by the courage and industry of the Dutch, the Nestorians

asserted, with vigor and effect, the religion of their fathers.

The Jesuits were incapable of defending the power which they had

abused; the arms of forty thousand Christians were pointed

against their falling tyrants; and the Indian archdeacon assumed

the character of bishop till a fresh supply of episcopal gifts

and Syriac missionaries could be obtained from the patriarch of

Babylon. Since the expulsion of the Portuguese, the Nestorian

creed is freely professed on the coast of Malabar. The trading

companies of Holland and England are the friends of toleration;

but if oppression be less mortifying than contempt, the

Christians of St. Thomas have reason to complain of the cold and

silent indifference of their brethren of Europe. 124

122 (return) [ The Indian missionary, St. Thomas, an apostle, a

Manichaean, or an Armenian merchant, (La Croze, Christianisme des

Indes, tom. i. p. 57—70,) was famous, however, as early as the

time of Jerom, (ad Marcellam, epist. 148.) Marco-Polo was

informed on the spot that he suffered martyrdom in the city of

Malabar, or Meliapour, a league only from Madras, (D’Anville,

Eclaircissemens sur l’Inde, p. 125,) where the Portuguese founded

an episcopal church under the name of St. Thome, and where the

saint performed an annual miracle, till he was silenced by the

profane neighborhood of the English, (La Croze, tom. ii. p.

7-16.)]

123 (return) [ Neither the author of the Saxon Chronicle (A.D.

833) not William of Malmesbury (de Gestis Regum Angliae, l. ii.

c. 4, p. 44) were capable, in the twelfth century, of inventing

this extraordinary fact; they are incapable of explaining the

motives and measures of Alfred; and their hasty notice serves

only to provoke our curiosity. William of Malmesbury feels the

difficulty of the enterprise, quod quivis in hoc saeculo miretur;

and I almost suspect that the English ambassadors collected their

cargo and legend in Egypt. The royal author has not enriched his

Orosius (see Barrington’s Miscellanies) with an Indian, as well

as a Scandinavian, voyage.]

124 (return) [ Concerning the Christians of St. Thomas, see

Assemann. Bibliot Orient. tom. iv. p. 391—407, 435—451; Geddes’s

Church History of Malabar; and, above all, La Croze, Histoire du

Christianisme des Indes, in 2 vols. 12mo., La Haye, 1758, a

learned and agreeable work. They have drawn from the same source,

the Portuguese and Italian narratives; and the prejudices of the

Jesuits are sufficiently corrected by those of the Protestants.

Note: The St. Thome Christians had excited great interest in the

ancient mind of the admirable Bishop Heber. See his curious and,

to his friends, highly characteristic letter to Mar Athanasius,

Appendix to Journal. The arguments of his friend and coadjutor,

Mr. Robinson, (Last Days of Bishop Heber,) have not convinced me

that the Christianity of India is older than the Nestorian

dispersion.—M]

II. The history of the Monophysites is less copious and

interesting than that of the Nestorians. Under the reigns of Zeno

and Anastasius, their artful leaders surprised the ear of the

prince, usurped the thrones of the East, and crushed on its

native soil the school of the Syrians. The rule of the

Monophysite faith was defined with exquisite discretion by

Severus, patriarch of Antioch: he condemned, in the style of the

Henoticon, the adverse heresies of Nestorius; and Eutyches

maintained against the latter the reality of the body of Christ,

and constrained the Greeks to allow that he was a liar who spoke

truth. 125 But the approximation of ideas could not abate the

vehemence of passion; each party was the more astonished that

their blind antagonist could dispute on so trifling a difference;

the tyrant of Syria enforced the belief of his creed, and his

reign was polluted with the blood of three hundred and fifty

monks, who were slain, not perhaps without provocation or

resistance, under the walls of Apamea. 126 The successor of

Anastasius replanted the orthodox standard in the East; Severus

fled into Egypt; and his friend, the eloquent Xenaias, 127 who

had escaped from the Nestorians of Persia, was suffocated in his

exile by the Melchites of Paphlagonia. Fifty-four bishops were

swept from their thrones, eight hundred ecclesiastics were cast

into prison, 128 and notwithstanding the ambiguous favor of

Theodora, the Oriental flocks, deprived of their shepherds, must

insensibly have been either famished or poisoned. In this

spiritual distress, the expiring faction was revived, and united,

and perpetuated, by the labors of a monk; and the name of James

Baradaeus 129 has been preserved in the appellation of Jacobites,

a familiar sound, which may startle the ear of an English reader.

From the holy confessors in their prison of Constantinople, he

received the powers of bishop of Edessa and apostle of the East,

and the ordination of fourscore thousand bishops, priests, and

deacons, is derived from the same inexhaustible source. The speed

of the zealous missionary was promoted by the fleetest

dromedaries of a devout chief of the Arabs; the doctrine and

discipline of the Jacobites were secretly established in the

dominions of Justinian; and each Jacobite was compelled to

violate the laws and to hate the Roman legislator. The successors

of Severus, while they lurked in convents or villages, while they

sheltered their proscribed heads in the caverns of hermits, or

the tents of the Saracens, still asserted, as they now assert,

their indefeasible right to the title, the rank, and the

prerogatives of patriarch of Antioch: under the milder yoke of

the infidels, they reside about a league from Merdin, in the

pleasant monastery of Zapharan, which they have embellished with

cells, aqueducts, and plantations. The secondary, though

honorable, place is filled by the maphrian, who, in his station

at Mosul itself, defies the Nestorian catholic with whom he

contests the primacy of the East. Under the patriarch and the

maphrian, one hundred and fifty archbishops and bishops have been

counted in the different ages of the Jacobite church; but the

order of the hierarchy is relaxed or dissolved, and the greater

part of their dioceses is confined to the neighborhood of the

Euphrates and the Tigris. The cities of Aleppo and Amida, which

are often visited by the patriarch, contain some wealthy

merchants and industrious mechanics, but the multitude derive

their scanty sustenance from their daily labor: and poverty, as

well as superstition, may impose their excessive fasts: five

annual lents, during which both the clergy and laity abstain not

only from flesh or eggs, but even from the taste of wine, of oil,

and of fish. Their present numbers are esteemed from fifty to

fourscore thousand souls, the remnant of a populous church, which

was gradually decreased under the impression of twelve centuries.

Yet in that long period, some strangers of merit have been

converted to the Monophysite faith, and a Jew was the father of

Abulpharagius, 130 primate of the East, so truly eminent both in

his life and death. In his life he was an elegant writer of the

Syriac and Arabic tongues, a poet, physician, and historian, a

subtile philosopher, and a moderate divine. In his death, his

funeral was attended by his rival the Nestorian patriarch, with a

train of Greeks and Armenians, who forgot their disputes, and

mingled their tears over the grave of an enemy. The sect which

was honored by the virtues of Abulpharagius appears, however, to

sink below the level of their Nestorian brethren. The

superstition of the Jacobites is more abject, their fasts more

rigid, 131 their intestine divisions are more numerous, and their

doctors (as far as I can measure the degrees of nonsense) are

more remote from the precincts of reason. Something may possibly

be allowed for the rigor of the Monophysite theology; much more

for the superior influence of the monastic order. In Syria, in

Egypt, in Ethiopia, the Jacobite monks have ever been

distinguished by the austerity of their penance and the absurdity

of their legends. Alive or dead, they are worshipped as the

favorites of the Deity; the crosier of bishop and patriarch is

reserved for their venerable hands; and they assume the

government of men, while they are yet reeking with the habits and

prejudices of the cloister. 132

125 (return) [ Is the expression of Theodore, in his Treatise of

the Incarnation, p. 245, 247, as he is quoted by La Croze, (Hist.

du Christianisme d’Ethiopie et d’Armenie, p. 35,) who exclaims,

perhaps too hastily, “Quel pitoyable raisonnement!” Renaudot has

touched (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 127—138) the Oriental accounts

of Severus; and his authentic creed may be found in the epistle

of John the Jacobite patriarch of Antioch, in the xth century, to

his brother Mannas of Alexandria, (Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom.

ii. p. 132—141.)]

126 (return) [ Epist. Archimandritarum et Monachorum Syriae

Secundae ad Papam Hormisdam, Concil. tom. v. p. 598—602. The

courage of St. Sabas, ut leo animosus, will justify the suspicion

that the arms of these monks were not always spiritual or

defensive, (Baronius, A.D. 513, No. 7, &c.)]

127 (return) [ Assemanni (Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii. p. 10—46) and

La Croze (Christianisme d’Ethiopie, p. 36—40) will supply the

history of Xenaias, or Philoxenus, bishop of Mabug, or

Hierapolis, in Syria. He was a perfect master of the Syriac

language, and the author or editor of a version of the New

Testament.]

128 (return) [ The names and titles of fifty-four bishops who

were exiled by Justin, are preserved in the Chronicle of

Dionysius, (apud Asseman. tom. ii. p. 54.) Severus was personally

summoned to Constantinople—for his trial, says Liberatus (Brev.

c. 19)—that his tongue might be cut out, says Evagrius, (l. iv.

c. iv.) The prudent patriarch did not stay to examine the

difference. This ecclesiastical revolution is fixed by Pagi to

the month of September of the year 518, (Critica, tom. ii. p.

506.)]

129 (return) [ The obscure history of James or Jacobus Baradaeus,

or Zanzalust may be gathered from Eutychius, (Annal. tom. ii. p.

144, 147,) Renau dot, (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 133,) and

Assemannus, (Bibliot. Orient. tom. i. p. 424, tom. ii. p. 62-69,

324—332, 414, tom. iii. p. 385—388.) He seems to be unknown to

the Greeks. The Jacobites themselves had rather deduce their name

and pedigree from St. James the apostle.]

130 (return) [ The account of his person and writings is perhaps

the most curious article in the Bibliotheca of Assemannus, (tom.

ii. p. 244—321, under the name of Gregorius Bar-Hebroeus.) La

Croze (Christianisme d’Ethiopie, p. 53—63) ridicules the

prejudice of the Spaniards against the Jewish blood which

secretly defiles their church and state.]

131 (return) [ This excessive abstinence is censured by La Croze,

(p. 352,) and even by the Syrian Assemannus, (tom. i. p. 226,

tom. ii. p. 304, 305.)]

132 (return) [ The state of the Monophysites is excellently

illustrated in a dissertation at the beginning of the iid volume

of Assemannus, which contains 142 pages. The Syriac Chronicle of

Gregory Bar-Hebraeus, or Abulpharagius, (Bibliot. Orient. tom.

ii. p. 321—463,) pursues the double series of the Nestorian

Catholics and the Maphrians of the Jacobites.]

III. In the style of the Oriental Christians, the Monothelites of

every age are described under the appellation of Maronites, 133 a

name which has been insensibly transferred from a hermit to a

monastery, from a monastery to a nation. Maron, a saint or savage

of the fifth century, displayed his religious madness in Syria;

the rival cities of Apamea and Emesa disputed his relics, a

stately church was erected on his tomb, and six hundred of his

disciples united their solitary cells on the banks of the

Orontes. In the controversies of the incarnation they nicely

threaded the orthodox line between the sects of Nestorians and

Eutyches; but the unfortunate question of one will or operation

in the two natures of Christ, was generated by their curious

leisure. Their proselyte, the emperor Heraclius, was rejected as

a Maronite from the walls of Emesa, he found a refuge in the

monastery of his brethren; and their theological lessons were

repaid with the gift a spacious and wealthy domain. The name and

doctrine of this venerable school were propagated among the

Greeks and Syrians, and their zeal is expressed by Macarius,

patriarch of Antioch, who declared before the synod of

Constantinople, that sooner than subscribe the two wills of

Christ, he would submit to be hewn piecemeal and cast into the

sea. 134 A similar or a less cruel mode of persecution soon

converted the unresisting subjects of the plain, while the

glorious title of Mardaites, 135 or rebels, was bravely

maintained by the hardy natives of Mount Libanus. John Maron, one

of the most learned and popular of the monks, assumed the

character of patriarch of Antioch; his nephew, Abraham, at the

head of the Maronites, defended their civil and religious freedom

against the tyrants of the East. The son of the orthodox

Constantine pursued with pious hatred a people of soldiers, who

might have stood the bulwark of his empire against the common

foes of Christ and of Rome. An army of Greeks invaded Syria; the

monastery of St. Maron was destroyed with fire; the bravest

chieftains were betrayed and murdered, and twelve thousand of

their followers were transplanted to the distant frontiers of

Armenia and Thrace. Yet the humble nation of the Maronites had

survived the empire of Constantinople, and they still enjoy,

under their Turkish masters, a free religion and a mitigated

servitude. Their domestic governors are chosen among the ancient

nobility: the patriarch, in his monastery of Canobin, still

fancies himself on the throne of Antioch: nine bishops compose

his synod, and one hundred and fifty priests, who retain the

liberty of marriage, are intrusted with the care of one hundred

thousand souls. Their country extends from the ridge of Mount

Libanus to the shores of Tripoli; and the gradual descent

affords, in a narrow space, each variety of soil and climate,

from the Holy Cedars, erect under the weight of snow, 136 to the

vine, the mulberry, and the olive-trees of the fruitful valley.

In the twelfth century, the Maronites, abjuring the Monothelite

error were reconciled to the Latin churches of Antioch and Rome,

137 and the same alliance has been frequently renewed by the

ambition of the popes and the distress of the Syrians. But it may

reasonably be questioned, whether their union has ever been

perfect or sincere; and the learned Maronites of the college of

Rome have vainly labored to absolve their ancestors from the

guilt of heresy and schism. 138

133 (return) [ The synonymous use of the two words may be proved

from Eutychius, (Annal. tom. ii. p. 191, 267, 332,) and many

similar passages which may be found in the methodical table of

Pocock. He was not actuated by any prejudice against the

Maronites of the xth century; and we may believe a Melchite,

whose testimony is confirmed by the Jacobites and Latins.]

134 (return) [ Concil. tom. vii. p. 780. The Monothelite cause

was supported with firmness and subtilty by Constantine, a Syrian

priest of Apamea, (p. 1040, &c.)]

135 (return) [ Theophanes (Chron. p. 295, 296, 300, 302, 306) and

Cedrenus (p. 437, 440) relates the exploits of the Mardaites: the

name (Mard, in Syriac, rebellavit) is explained by La Roque,

(Voyage de la Syrie, tom. ii. p. 53;) and dates are fixed by

Pagi, (A.D. 676, No. 4—14, A.D. 685, No. 3, 4;) and even the

obscure story of the patriarch John Maron (Asseman. Bibliot.

Orient. tom. i. p. 496—520) illustrates from the year 686 to 707,

the troubles of Mount Libanus. * Note: Compare on the Mardaites

Anquetil du Perron, in the fiftieth volume of the Mem. de l’Acad.

des Inscriptions; and Schlosser, Bildersturmendes Kaiser, p.

100.—M]

136 (return) [ In the last century twenty large cedars still

remained, (Voyage de la Roque, tom. i. p. 68—76;) at present they

are reduced to four or five, (Volney, tom. i. p. 264.) These

trees, so famous in Scripture, were guarded by excommunication:

the wood was sparingly borrowed for small crosses, &c.; an annual

mass was chanted under their shade; and they were endowed by the

Syrians with a sensitive power of erecting their branches to

repel the snow, to which Mount Libanus is less faithful than it

is painted by Tacitus: inter ardores opacum fidumque nivibus—a

daring metaphor, (Hist. v. 6.) Note: Of the oldest and best

looking trees, I counted eleven or twelve twenty-five very large

ones; and about fifty of middling size; and more than three

hundred smaller and young ones. Burckhardt’s Travels in Syria p.

19.—M]

137 (return) [ The evidence of William of Tyre (Hist. in Gestis

Dei per Francos, l. xxii. c. 8, p. 1022) is copied or confirmed

by Jacques de Vitra, (Hist. Hierosolym. l. ii. c. 77, p. 1093,

1094.) But this unnatural league expired with the power of the

Franks; and Abulpharagius (who died in 1286) considers the

Maronites as a sect of Monothelites, (Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii.

p. 292.)]

138 (return) [ I find a description and history of the Maronites

in the Voyage de la Syrie et du Mont Liban par la Roque, (2 vols.

in 12mo., Amsterdam, 1723; particularly tom. i. p. 42—47, p.

174—184, tom. ii. p. 10—120.) In the ancient part, he copies the

prejudices of Nairon and the other Maronites of Rome, which

Assemannus is afraid to renounce and ashamed to support.

Jablonski, (Institut. Hist. Christ. tom. iii. p. 186.) Niebuhr,

(Voyage de l’Arabie, &c., tom. ii. p. 346, 370—381,) and, above

all, the judicious Volney, (Voyage en Egypte et en Syrie, tom.

ii. p. 8—31, Paris, 1787,) may be consulted.]

IV. Since the age of Constantine, the Armenians 139 had

signalized their attachment to the religion and empire of the

Christians. 1391 The disorders of their country, and their

ignorance of the Greek tongue, prevented their clergy from

assisting at the synod of Chalcedon, and they floated eighty-four

years 140 in a state of indifference or suspense, till their

vacant faith was finally occupied by the missionaries of Julian

of Halicarnassus, 141 who in Egypt, their common exile, had been

vanquished by the arguments or the influence of his rival

Severus, the Monophysite patriarch of Antioch. The Armenians

alone are the pure disciples of Eutyches, an unfortunate parent,

who has been renounced by the greater part of his spiritual

progeny. They alone persevere in the opinion, that the manhood of

Christ was created, or existed without creation, of a divine and

incorruptible substance. Their adversaries reproach them with the

adoration of a phantom; and they retort the accusation, by

deriding or execrating the blasphemy of the Jacobites, who impute

to the Godhead the vile infirmities of the flesh, even the

natural effects of nutrition and digestion. The religion of

Armenia could not derive much glory from the learning or the

power of its inhabitants. The royalty expired with the origin of

their schism; and their Christian kings, who arose and fell in

the thirteenth century on the confines of Cilicia, were the

clients of the Latins and the vassals of the Turkish sultan of

Iconium. The helpless nation has seldom been permitted to enjoy

the tranquillity of servitude. From the earliest period to the

present hour, Armenia has been the theatre of perpetual war: the

lands between Tauris and Erivan were dispeopled by the cruel

policy of the Sophis; and myriads of Christian families were

transplanted, to perish or to propagate in the distant provinces

of Persia. Under the rod of oppression, the zeal of the Armenians

is fervent and intrepid; they have often preferred the crown of

martyrdom to the white turban of Mahomet; they devoutly hate the

error and idolatry of the Greeks; and their transient union with

the Latins is not less devoid of truth, than the thousand

bishops, whom their patriarch offered at the feet of the Roman

pontiff. 142 The catholic, or patriarch, of the Armenians resides

in the monastery of Ekmiasin, three leagues from Erivan.

Forty-seven archbishops, each of whom may claim the obedience of

four or five suffragans, are consecrated by his hand; but the far

greater part are only titular prelates, who dignify with their

presence and service the simplicity of his court. As soon as they

have performed the liturgy, they cultivate the garden; and our

bishops will hear with surprise, that the austerity of their life

increases in just proportion to the elevation of their rank.

In the fourscore thousand towns or villages of his spiritual

empire, the patriarch receives a small and voluntary tax from

each person above the age of fifteen; but the annual amount of

six hundred thousand crowns is insufficient to supply the

incessant demands of charity and tribute. Since the beginning of

the last century, the Armenians have obtained a large and

lucrative share of the commerce of the East: in their return from

Europe, the caravan usually halts in the neighborhood of Erivan,

the altars are enriched with the fruits of their patient

industry; and the faith of Eutyches is preached in their recent

congregations of Barbary and Poland. 143

139 (return) [ The religion of the Armenians is briefly described

by La Croze, (Hist. du Christ. de l’Ethiopie et de l’Armenie, p.

269—402.) He refers to the great Armenian History of Galanus, (3

vols. in fol. Rome, 1650—1661,) and commends the state of Armenia

in the iiid volume of the Nouveaux Memoires des Missions du

Levant. The work of a Jesuit must have sterling merit when it is

praised by La Croze.]

1391 (return) [ See vol. iii. ch. xx. p. 271.—M.]

140 (return) [ The schism of the Armenians is placed 84 years

after the council of Chalcedon, (Pagi, Critica, ad A.D. 535.) It

was consummated at the end of seventeen years; and it is from the

year of Christ 552 that we date the aera of the Armenians, (L’Art

de verifier les Dates, p. xxxv.)]

141 (return) [ The sentiments and success of Julian of

Halicarnassus may be seen in Liberatus, (Brev. c. 19,) Renaudot,

(Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 132, 303,) and Assemannus, (Bibliot.

Orient. tom. ii. Dissertat. Monophysitis, l. viii. p. 286.)]

142 (return) [ See a remarkable fact of the xiith century in the

History of Nicetas Choniates, (p. 258.) Yet three hundred years

before, Photius (Epistol. ii. p. 49, edit. Montacut.) had gloried

in the conversion of the Armenians.]

143 (return) [ The travelling Armenians are in the way of every

traveller, and their mother church is on the high road between

Constantinople and Ispahan; for their present state, see

Fabricius, (Lux Evangelii, &c., c. xxxviii. p. 40—51,) Olearius,

(l. iv. c. 40,) Chardin, (vol. ii. p. 232,) Teurnefort, (lettre

xx.,) and, above all, Tavernier, (tom. i. p. 28—37, 510-518,)

that rambling jeweller, who had read nothing, but had seen so

much and so well]

V. In the rest of the Roman empire, the despotism of the prince

might eradicate or silence the sectaries of an obnoxious creed.

But the stubborn temper of the Egyptians maintained their

opposition to the synod of Chalcedon, and the policy of Justinian

condescended to expect and to seize the opportunity of discord.

The Monophysite church of Alexandria 144 was torn by the disputes

of the corruptibles and incorruptibles, and on the death of the

patriarch, the two factions upheld their respective candidates.

145 Gaian was the disciple of Julian, Theodosius had been the

pupil of Severus: the claims of the former were supported by the

consent of the monks and senators, the city and the province; the

latter depended on the priority of his ordination, the favor of

the empress Theodora, and the arms of the eunuch Narses, which

might have been used in more honorable warfare. The exile of the

popular candidate to Carthage and Sardinia inflamed the ferment

of Alexandria; and after a schism of one hundred and seventy

years, the Gaianites still revered the memory and doctrine of

their founder. The strength of numbers and of discipline was

tried in a desperate and bloody conflict; the streets were filled

with the dead bodies of citizens and soldiers; the pious women,

ascending the roofs of their houses, showered down every sharp or

ponderous utensil on the heads of the enemy; and the final

victory of Narses was owing to the flames, with which he wasted

the third capital of the Roman world. But the lieutenant of

Justinian had not conquered in the cause of a heretic; Theodosius

himself was speedily, though gently, removed; and Paul of Tanis,

an orthodox monk, was raised to the throne of Athanasius. The

powers of government were strained in his support; he might

appoint or displace the dukes and tribunes of Egypt; the

allowance of bread, which Diocletian had granted, was suppressed,

the churches were shut, and a nation of schismatics was deprived

at once of their spiritual and carnal food. In his turn, the

tyrant was excommunicated by the zeal and revenge of the people:

and none except his servile Melchites would salute him as a man,

a Christian, or a bishop. Yet such is the blindness of ambition,

that, when Paul was expelled on a charge of murder, he solicited,

with a bribe of seven hundred pounds of gold, his restoration to

the same station of hatred and ignominy. His successor

Apollinaris entered the hostile city in military array, alike

qualified for prayer or for battle. His troops, under arms, were

distributed through the streets; the gates of the cathedral were

guarded, and a chosen band was stationed in the choir, to defend

the person of their chief. He stood erect on his throne, and,

throwing aside the upper garment of a warrior, suddenly appeared

before the eyes of the multitude in the robes of patriarch of

Alexandria. Astonishment held them mute; but no sooner had

Apollinaris begun to read the tome of St. Leo, than a volley of

curses, and invectives, and stones, assaulted the odious minister

of the emperor and the synod. A charge was instantly sounded by

the successor of the apostles; the soldiers waded to their knees

in blood; and two hundred thousand Christians are said to have

fallen by the sword: an incredible account, even if it be

extended from the slaughter of a day to the eighteen years of the

reign of Apollinaris. Two succeeding patriarchs, Eulogius 146 and

John, 147 labored in the conversion of heretics, with arms and

arguments more worthy of their evangelical profession. The

theological knowledge of Eulogius was displayed in many a volume,

which magnified the errors of Eutyches and Severus, and attempted

to reconcile the ambiguous language of St. Cyril with the

orthodox creed of Pope Leo and the fathers of Chalcedon. The

bounteous alms of John the eleemosynary were dictated by

superstition, or benevolence, or policy. Seven thousand five

hundred poor were maintained at his expense; on his accession he

found eight thousand pounds of gold in the treasury of the

church; he collected ten thousand from the liberality of the

faithful; yet the primate could boast in his testament, that he

left behind him no more than the third part of the smallest of

the silver coins. The churches of Alexandria were delivered to

the Catholics, the religion of the Monophysites was proscribed in

Egypt, and a law was revived which excluded the natives from the

honors and emoluments of the state.

144 (return) [ The history of the Alexandrian patriarchs, from

Dioscorus to Benjamin, is taken from Renaudot, (p. 114—164,) and

the second tome of the Annals of Eutychius.]

145 (return) [ Liberat. Brev. c. 20, 23. Victor. Chron. p. 329

330. Procop. Anecdot. c. 26, 27.]

146 (return) [ Eulogius, who had been a monk of Antioch, was more

conspicuous for subtilty than eloquence. He proves that the

enemies of the faith, the Gaianites and Theodosians, ought not to

be reconciled; that the same proposition may be orthodox in the

mouth of St. Cyril, heretical in that of Severus; that the

opposite assertions of St. Leo are equally true, &c. His writings

are no longer extant except in the Extracts of Photius, who had

perused them with care and satisfaction, ccviii. ccxxv. ccxxvi.

ccxxvii. ccxxx. cclxxx.]

147 (return) [ See the Life of John the eleemosynary by his

contemporary Leontius, bishop of Neapolis in Cyrus, whose Greek

text, either lost or hidden, is reflected in the Latin version of

Baronius, (A.D. 610, No.9, A.D. 620, No. 8.) Pagi (Critica, tom.

ii. p. 763) and Fabricius (l. v c. 11, tom. vii. p. 454) have

made some critical observations]

Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part VI.

A more important conquest still remained, of the patriarch, the

oracle and leader of the Egyptian church. Theodosius had resisted

the threats and promises of Justinian with the spirit of an

apostle or an enthusiast. “Such,” replied the patriarch, “were

the offers of the tempter when he showed the kingdoms of the

earth. But my soul is far dearer to me than life or dominion. The

churches are in the hands of a prince who can kill the body; but

my conscience is my own; and in exile, poverty, or chains, I will

steadfastly adhere to the faith of my holy predecessors,

Athanasius, Cyril, and Dioscorus. Anathema to the tome of Leo and

the synod of Chalcedon! Anathema to all who embrace their creed!

Anathema to them now and forevermore! Naked came I out of my

mother’s womb, naked shall I descend into the grave. Let those

who love God follow me and seek their salvation.” After

comforting his brethren, he embarked for Constantinople, and

sustained, in six successive interviews, the almost irresistible

weight of the royal presence. His opinions were favorably

entertained in the palace and the city; the influence of Theodora

assured him a safe conduct and honorable dismission; and he ended

his days, though not on the throne, yet in the bosom, of his

native country. On the news of his death, Apollinaris indecently

feasted the nobles and the clergy; but his joy was checked by the

intelligence of a new election; and while he enjoyed the wealth

of Alexandria, his rivals reigned in the monasteries of Thebais,

and were maintained by the voluntary oblations of the people. A

perpetual succession of patriarchs arose from the ashes of

Theodosius; and the Monophysite churches of Syria and Egypt were

united by the name of Jacobites and the communion of the faith.

But the same faith, which has been confined to a narrow sect of

the Syrians, was diffused over the mass of the Egyptian or Coptic

nation; who, almost unanimously, rejected the decrees of the

synod of Chalcedon. A thousand years were now elapsed since Egypt

had ceased to be a kingdom, since the conquerors of Asia and

Europe had trampled on the ready necks of a people, whose ancient

wisdom and power ascend beyond the records of history. The

conflict of zeal and persecution rekindled some sparks of their

national spirit. They abjured, with a foreign heresy, the manners

and language of the Greeks: every Melchite, in their eyes, was a

stranger, every Jacobite a citizen; the alliance of marriage, the

offices of humanity, were condemned as a deadly sin; the natives

renounced all allegiance to the emperor; and his orders, at a

distance from Alexandria, were obeyed only under the pressure of

military force. A generous effort might have redeemed the

religion and liberty of Egypt, and her six hundred monasteries

might have poured forth their myriads of holy warriors, for whom

death should have no terrors, since life had no comfort or

delight. But experience has proved the distinction of active and

passive courage; the fanatic who endures without a groan the

torture of the rack or the stake, would tremble and fly before

the face of an armed enemy. The pusillanimous temper of the

Egyptians could only hope for a change of masters; the arms of

Chosroes depopulated the land, yet under his reign the Jacobites

enjoyed a short and precarious respite. The victory of Heraclius

renewed and aggravated the persecution, and the patriarch again

escaped from Alexandria to the desert. In his flight, Benjamin

was encouraged by a voice, which bade him expect, at the end of

ten years, the aid of a foreign nation, marked, like the

Egyptians themselves, with the ancient rite of circumcision. The

character of these deliverers, and the nature of the deliverance,

will be hereafter explained; and I shall step over the interval

of eleven centuries to observe the present misery of the

Jacobites of Egypt. The populous city of Cairo affords a

residence, or rather a shelter, for their indigent patriarch, and

a remnant of ten bishops; forty monasteries have survived the

inroads of the Arabs; and the progress of servitude and apostasy

has reduced the Coptic nation to the despicable number of

twenty-five or thirty thousand families; 148 a race of illiterate

beggars, whose only consolation is derived from the superior

wretchedness of the Greek patriarch and his diminutive

congregation. 149

148 (return) [ This number is taken from the curious Recherches

sur les Egyptiens et les Chinois, (tom. ii. p. 192, 193,) and

appears more probable than the 600,000 ancient, or 15,000 modern,

Copts of Gemelli Carreri Cyril Lucar, the Protestant patriarch of

Constantinople, laments that those heretics were ten times more

numerous than his orthodox Greeks, ingeniously applying Homer,

(Iliad, ii. 128,) the most perfect expression of contempt,

(Fabric. Lux Evangelii, 740.)]

149 (return) [ The history of the Copts, their religion, manners,

&c., may be found in the Abbe Renaudot’s motley work, neither a

translation nor an original; the Chronicon Orientale of Peter, a

Jacobite; in the two versions of Abraham Ecchellensis, Paris,

1651; and John Simon Asseman, Venet. 1729. These annals descend

no lower than the xiiith century. The more recent accounts must

be searched for in the travellers into Egypt and the Nouveaux

Memoires des Missions du Levant. In the last century, Joseph

Abudacnus, a native of Cairo, published at Oxford, in thirty

pages, a slight Historia Jacobitarum, 147, post p.150]

VI. The Coptic patriarch, a rebel to the Caesars, or a slave to

the khalifs, still gloried in the filial obedience of the kings

of Nubia and Aethiopia. He repaid their homage by magnifying

their greatness; and it was boldly asserted that they could bring

into the field a hundred thousand horse, with an equal number of

camels; 150 that their hand could pour out or restrain the waters

of the Nile; 151 and the peace and plenty of Egypt was obtained,

even in this world, by the intercession of the patriarch. In

exile at Constantinople, Theodosius recommended to his patroness

the conversion of the black nations of Nubia, from the tropic of

Cancer to the confines of Abyssinia. 152 Her design was suspected

and emulated by the more orthodox emperor. The rival

missionaries, a Melchite and a Jacobite, embarked at the same

time; but the empress, from a motive of love or fear, was more

effectually obeyed; and the Catholic priest was detained by the

president of Thebais, while the king of Nubia and his court were

hastily baptized in the faith of Dioscorus. The tardy envoy of

Justinian was received and dismissed with honor: but when he

accused the heresy and treason of the Egyptians, the negro

convert was instructed to reply that he would never abandon his

brethren, the true believers, to the persecuting ministers of the

synod of Chalcedon. 153 During several ages, the bishops of Nubia

were named and consecrated by the Jacobite patriarch of

Alexandria: as late as the twelfth century, Christianity

prevailed; and some rites, some ruins, are still visible in the

savage towns of Sennaar and Dongola. 154 But the Nubians at

length executed their threats of returning to the worship of

idols; the climate required the indulgence of polygamy, and they

have finally preferred the triumph of the Koran to the abasement

of the Cross. A metaphysical religion may appear too refined for

the capacity of the negro race: yet a black or a parrot might be

taught to repeat the words of the Chalcedonian or Monophysite

creed.

150 (return) [ About the year 737. See Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch.

Alex p. 221, 222. Elmacin, Hist. Saracen. p. 99.]

151 (return) [ Ludolph. Hist. Aethiopic. et Comment. l. i. c. 8.

Renaudot Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 480, &c. This opinion,

introduced into Egypt and Europe by the artifice of the Copts,

the pride of the Abyssinians, the fear and ignorance of the Turks

and Arabs, has not even the semblance of truth. The rains of

Aethiopia do not, in the increase of the Nile, consult the will

of the monarch. If the river approaches at Napata within three

days’ journey of the Red Sea (see D’Anville’s Maps,) a canal that

should divert its course would demand, and most probably surpass,

the power of the Caesars.]

152 (return) [ The Abyssinians, who still preserve the features

and olive complexion of the Arabs, afford a proof that two

thousand years are not sufficient to change the color of the

human race. The Nubians, an African race, are pure negroes, as

black as those of Senegal or Congo, with flat noses, thick lips,

and woolly hair, (Buffon, Hist. Naturelle, tom. v. p. 117, 143,

144, 166, 219, edit. in 12mo., Paris, 1769.) The ancients beheld,

without much attention, the extraordinary phenomenon which has

exercised the philosophers and theologians of modern times]

153 (return) [ Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom. i. p. 329.]

154 (return) [ The Christianity of the Nubians (A.D. 1153) is

attested by the sheriff al Edrisi, falsely described under the

name of the Nubian geographer, (p. 18,) who represents them as a

nation of Jacobites. The rays of historical light that twinkle in

the history of Ranaudot (p. 178, 220—224, 281—286, 405, 434, 451,

464) are all previous to this aera. See the modern state in the

Lettres Edifiantes (Recueil, iv.) and Busching, (tom. ix. p.

152—139, par Berenger.)]

Christianity was more deeply rooted in the Abyssinian empire;

and, although the correspondence has been sometimes interrupted

above seventy or a hundred years, the mother-church of Alexandria

retains her colony in a state of perpetual pupilage. Seven

bishops once composed the Aethiopic synod: had their number

amounted to ten, they might have elected an independent primate;

and one of their kings was ambitious of promoting his brother to

the ecclesiastical throne. But the event was foreseen, the

increase was denied: the episcopal office has been gradually

confined to the abuna, 155 the head and author of the Abyssinian

priesthood; the patriarch supplies each vacancy with an Egyptian

monk; and the character of a stranger appears more venerable in

the eyes of the people, less dangerous in those of the monarch.

In the sixth century, when the schism of Egypt was confirmed, the

rival chiefs, with their patrons, Justinian and Theodora, strove

to outstrip each other in the conquest of a remote and

independent province. The industry of the empress was again

victorious, and the pious Theodora has established in that

sequestered church the faith and discipline of the Jacobites. 156

Encompassed on all sides by the enemies of their religion, the

Aethiopians slept near a thousand years, forgetful of the world,

by whom they were forgotten. They were awakened by the

Portuguese, who, turning the southern promontory of Africa,

appeared in India and the Red Sea, as if they had descended

through the air from a distant planet. In the first moments of

their interview, the subjects of Rome and Alexandria observed the

resemblance, rather than the difference, of their faith; and each

nation expected the most important benefits from an alliance with

their Christian brethren. In their lonely situation, the

Aethiopians had almost relapsed into the savage life. Their

vessels, which had traded to Ceylon, scarcely presumed to

navigate the rivers of Africa; the ruins of Axume were deserted,

the nation was scattered in villages, and the emperor, a pompous

name, was content, both in peace and war, with the immovable

residence of a camp. Conscious of their own indigence, the

Abyssinians had formed the rational project of importing the arts

and ingenuity of Europe; 157 and their ambassadors at Rome and

Lisbon were instructed to solicit a colony of smiths, carpenters,

tilers, masons, printers, surgeons, and physicians, for the use

of their country. But the public danger soon called for the

instant and effectual aid of arms and soldiers, to defend an

unwarlike people from the Barbarians who ravaged the inland

country and the Turks and Arabs who advanced from the sea-coast

in more formidable array. Aethiopia was saved by four hundred and

fifty Portuguese, who displayed in the field the native valor of

Europeans, and the artificial power of the musket and cannon. In

a moment of terror, the emperor had promised to reconcile himself

and his subjects to the Catholic faith; a Latin patriarch

represented the supremacy of the pope: 158 the empire, enlarged

in a tenfold proportion, was supposed to contain more gold than

the mines of America; and the wildest hopes of avarice and zeal

were built on the willing submission of the Christians of Africa.

155 (return) [ The abuna is improperly dignified by the Latins

with the title of patriarch. The Abyssinians acknowledge only the

four patriarchs, and their chief is no more than a metropolitan

or national primate, (Ludolph. Hist. Aethiopic. et Comment. l.

iii. c. 7.) The seven bishops of Renaudot, (p. 511,) who existed

A.D. 1131, are unknown to the historian.]

156 (return) [ I know not why Assemannus (Bibliot. Orient. tom.

ii. p. 384) should call in question these probable missions of

Theodora into Nubia and Aethiopia. The slight notices of

Abyssinia till the year 1500 are supplied by Renaudot (p.

336-341, 381, 382, 405, 443, &c., 452, 456, 463, 475, 480, 511,

525, 559—564) from the Coptic writers. The mind of Ludolphus was

a perfect blank.]

157 (return) [ Ludolph. Hist. Aethiop. l. iv. c. 5. The most

necessary arts are now exercised by the Jews, and the foreign

trade is in the hands of the Armenians. What Gregory principally

admired and envied was the industry of Europe—artes et opificia.]

158 (return) [ John Bermudez, whose relation, printed at Lisbon,

1569, was translated into English by Purchas, (Pilgrims, l. vii.

c. 7, p. 1149, &c.,) and from thence into French by La Croze,

(Christianisme d’Ethiopie, p. 92—265.) The piece is curious; but

the author may be suspected of deceiving Abyssinia, Rome, and

Portugal. His title to the rank of patriarch is dark and

doubtful, (Ludolph. Comment. No. 101, p. 473.)]

But the vows which pain had extorted were forsworn on the return

of health. The Abyssinians still adhered with unshaken constancy

to the Monophysite faith; their languid belief was inflamed by

the exercise of dispute; they branded the Latins with the names

of Arians and Nestorians, and imputed the adoration of four gods

to those who separated the two natures of Christ. Fremona, a

place of worship, or rather of exile, was assigned to the Jesuit

missionaries. Their skill in the liberal and mechanic arts, their

theological learning, and the decency of their manners, inspired

a barren esteem; but they were not endowed with the gift of

miracles, 159 and they vainly solicited a reenforcement of

European troops. The patience and dexterity of forty years at

length obtained a more favorable audience, and two emperors of

Abyssinia were persuaded that Rome could insure the temporal and

everlasting happiness of her votaries. The first of these royal

converts lost his crown and his life; and the rebel army was

sanctified by the abuna, who hurled an anathema at the apostate,

and absolved his subjects from their oath of fidelity. The fate

of Zadenghel was revenged by the courage and fortune of Susneus,

who ascended the throne under the name of Segued, and more

vigorously prosecuted the pious enterprise of his kinsman. After

the amusement of some unequal combats between the Jesuits and his

illiterate priests, the emperor declared himself a proselyte to

the synod of Chalcedon, presuming that his clergy and people

would embrace without delay the religion of their prince. The

liberty of choice was succeeded by a law, which imposed, under

pain of death, the belief of the two natures of Christ: the

Abyssinians were enjoined to work and to play on the Sabbath; and

Segued, in the face of Europe and Africa, renounced his

connection with the Alexandrian church. A Jesuit, Alphonso

Mendez, the Catholic patriarch of Aethiopia, accepted, in the

name of Urban VIII., the homage and abjuration of the penitent.

“I confess,” said the emperor on his knees, “I confess that the

pope is the vicar of Christ, the successor of St. Peter, and the

sovereign of the world. To him I swear true obedience, and at his

feet I offer my person and kingdom.” A similar oath was repeated

by his son, his brother, the clergy, the nobles, and even the

ladies of the court: the Latin patriarch was invested with honors

and wealth; and his missionaries erected their churches or

citadels in the most convenient stations of the empire. The

Jesuits themselves deplore the fatal indiscretion of their chief,

who forgot the mildness of the gospel and the policy of his

order, to introduce with hasty violence the liturgy of Rome and

the inquisition of Portugal. He condemned the ancient practice of

circumcision, which health, rather than superstition, had first

invented in the climate of Aethiopia. 160 A new baptism, a new

ordination, was inflicted on the natives; and they trembled with

horror when the most holy of the dead were torn from their

graves, when the most illustrious of the living were

excommunicated by a foreign priest. In the defense of their

religion and liberty, the Abyssinians rose in arms, with

desperate but unsuccessful zeal. Five rebellions were

extinguished in the blood of the insurgents: two abunas were

slain in battle, whole legions were slaughtered in the field, or

suffocated in their caverns; and neither merit, nor rank, nor

sex, could save from an ignominious death the enemies of Rome.

But the victorious monarch was finally subdued by the constancy

of the nation, of his mother, of his son, and of his most

faithful friends. Segued listened to the voice of pity, of

reason, perhaps of fear: and his edict of liberty of conscience

instantly revealed the tyranny and weakness of the Jesuits. On

the death of his father, Basilides expelled the Latin patriarch,

and restored to the wishes of the nation the faith and the

discipline of Egypt. The Monophysite churches resounded with a

song of triumph, “that the sheep of Aethiopia were now delivered

from the hyaenas of the West;” and the gates of that solitary

realm were forever shut against the arts, the science, and the

fanaticism of Europe. 161

159 (return) [ Religio Romana...nec precibus patrum nec miraculis

ab ipsis editis suffulciebatur, is the uncontradicted assurance

of the devout emperor Susneus to his patriarch Mendez, (Ludolph.

Comment. No. 126, p. 529;) and such assurances should be

preciously kept, as an antidote against any marvellous legends.]

160 (return) [ I am aware how tender is the question of

circumcision. Yet I will affirm, 1. That the Aethiopians have a

physical reason for the circumcision of males, and even of

females, (Recherches Philosophiques sur les Americains, tom. ii.)

2. That it was practised in Aethiopia long before the

introduction of Judaism or Christianity, (Herodot. l. ii. c. 104.

Marsham, Canon. Chron. p. 72, 73.) “Infantes circumcidunt ob

consuetudinemn, non ob Judaismum,” says Gregory the Abyssinian

priest, (apud Fabric. Lux Christiana, p. 720.) Yet in the heat of

dispute, the Portuguese were sometimes branded with the name of

uncircumcised, (La Croze, p. 90. Ludolph. Hist. and Comment. l.

iii. c. l.)]

161 (return) [ The three Protestant historians, Ludolphus, (Hist.

Aethiopica, Francofurt. 1681; Commentarius, 1691; Relatio Nova,

&c., 1693, in folio,) Geddes, (Church History of Aethiopia,

London, 1696, in 8vo..) and La Croze, (Hist. du Christianisme

d’Ethiopie et d’Armenie, La Haye, 1739, in 12mo.,) have drawn

their principal materials from the Jesuits, especially from the

General History of Tellez, published in Portuguese at Coimbra,

1660. We might be surprised at their frankness; but their most

flagitious vice, the spirit of persecution, was in their eyes the

most meritorious virtue. Ludolphus possessed some, though a

slight, advantage from the Aethiopic language, and the personal

conversation of Gregory, a free-spirited Abyssinian priest, whom

he invited from Rome to the court of Saxe-Gotha. See the

Theologia Aethiopica of Gregory, in (Fabric. Lux Evangelii, p.

716—734.) * Note: The travels of Bruce, illustrated by those of

Mr. Salt, and the narrative of Nathaniel Pearce, have brought us

again acquainted with this remote region. Whatever may be their

speculative opinions the barbarous manners of the Ethiopians seem

to be gaining more and more the ascendency over the practice of

Christianity.—M.]

Chapter XLVIII: Succession And Characters Of The Greek Emperors.—Part

Plan Of The Two Last Volumes.—Succession And Characters Of The Greek

Emperors Of Constantinople, From The Time Of Heraclius To The Latin

Conquest.

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) · 第 53 / 79 章

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