The most lofty titles, and the most humb_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)

devotion has applied to the Supreme Being, have been prostituted

by flattery and fear to creatures of the same nature with

ourselves. The mode of adoration, 49 of falling prostrate on the

ground, and kissing the feet of the emperor, was borrowed by

Diocletian from Persian servitude; but it was continued and

aggravated till the last age of the Greek monarchy. Excepting

only on Sundays, when it was waived, from a motive of religious

pride, this humiliating reverence was exacted from all who

entered the royal presence, from the princes invested with the

diadem and purple, and from the ambassadors who represented their

independent sovereigns, the caliphs of Asia, Egypt, or Spain, the

kings of France and Italy, and the Latin emperors of ancient

Rome. In his transactions of business, Liutprand, bishop of

Cremona, 50 asserted the free spirit of a Frank and the dignity

of his master Otho. Yet his sincerity cannot disguise the

abasement of his first audience. When he approached the throne,

the birds of the golden tree began to warble their notes, which

were accompanied by the roarings of the two lions of gold. With

his two companions Liutprand was compelled to bow and to fall

prostrate; and thrice to touch the ground with his forehead. He

arose, but in the short interval, the throne had been hoisted

from the floor to the ceiling, the Imperial figure appeared in

new and more gorgeous apparel, and the interview was concluded in

haughty and majestic silence. In this honest and curious

narrative, the Bishop of Cremona represents the ceremonies of the

Byzantine court, which are still practised in the Sublime Porte,

and which were preserved in the last age by the dukes of Muscovy

or Russia. After a long journey by sea and land, from Venice to

Constantinople, the ambassador halted at the golden gate, till he

was conducted by the formal officers to the hospitable palace

prepared for his reception; but this palace was a prison, and his

jealous keepers prohibited all social intercourse either with

strangers or natives. At his first audience, he offered the gifts

of his master, slaves, and golden vases, and costly armor. The

ostentatious payment of the officers and troops displayed before

his eyes the riches of the empire: he was entertained at a royal

banquet, 51 in which the ambassadors of the nations were

marshalled by the esteem or contempt of the Greeks: from his own

table, the emperor, as the most signal favor, sent the plates

which he had tasted; and his favorites were dismissed with a robe

of honor. 52 In the morning and evening of each day, his civil

and military servants attended their duty in the palace; their

labors were repaid by the sight, perhaps by the smile, of their

lord; his commands were signified by a nod or a sign: but all

earthly greatness stood silent and submissive in his presence. In

his regular or extraordinary processions through the capital, he

unveiled his person to the public view: the rites of policy were

connected with those of religion, and his visits to the principal

churches were regulated by the festivals of the Greek calendar.

On the eve of these processions, the gracious or devout intention

of the monarch was proclaimed by the heralds. The streets were

cleared and purified; the pavement was strewed with flowers; the

most precious furniture, the gold and silver plate, and silken

hangings, were displayed from the windows and balconies, and a

severe discipline restrained and silenced the tumult of the

populace. The march was opened by the military officers at the

head of their troops: they were followed in long order by the

magistrates and ministers of the civil government: the person of

the emperor was guarded by his eunuchs and domestics, and at the

church door he was solemnly received by the patriarch and his

clergy. The task of applause was not abandoned to the rude and

spontaneous voices of the crowd. The most convenient stations

were occupied by the bands of the blue and green factions of the

circus; and their furious conflicts, which had shaken the

capital, were insensibly sunk to an emulation of servitude. From

either side they echoed in responsive melody the praises of the

emperor; their poets and musicians directed the choir, and long

life 53 and victory were the burden of every song. The same

acclamations were performed at the audience, the banquet, and the

church; and as an evidence of boundless sway, they were repeated

in the Latin, 54 Gothic, Persian, French, and even English

language, 55 by the mercenaries who sustained the real or

fictitious character of those nations. By the pen of Constantine

Porphyrogenitus, this science of form and flattery has been

reduced into a pompous and trifling volume, 56 which the vanity

of succeeding times might enrich with an ample supplement. Yet

the calmer reflection of a prince would surely suggest that the

same acclamations were applied to every character and every

reign: and if he had risen from a private rank, he might

remember, that his own voice had been the loudest and most eager

in applause, at the very moment when he envied the fortune, or

conspired against the life, of his predecessor. 57

49 (return) [ The respectful salutation of carrying the hand to

the mouth, ad os, is the root of the Latin word adoro, adorare.

See our learned Selden, (vol. iii. p. 143-145, 942,) in his

Titles of Honor. It seems, from the 1st book of Herodotus, to be

of Persian origin.]

50 (return) [ The two embassies of Liutprand to Constantinople,

all that he saw or suffered in the Greek capital, are pleasantly

described by himself (Hist. l. vi. c. 1-4, p. 469-471. Legatio ad

Nicephorum Phocam, p. 479-489.)]

51 (return) [ Among the amusements of the feast, a boy balanced,

on his forehead, a pike, or pole, twenty-four feet long, with a

cross bar of two cubits a little below the top. Two boys, naked,

though cinctured, (campestrati,) together, and singly, climbed,

stood, played, descended, &c., ita me stupidum reddidit: utrum

mirabilius nescio, (p. 470.) At another repast a homily of

Chrysostom on the Acts of the Apostles was read elata voce non

Latine, (p. 483.)]

52 (return) [ Gala is not improbably derived from Cala, or

Caloat, in Arabic a robe of honor, (Reiske, Not. in Ceremon. p.

84.)]

53 (return) [ It is explained, (Codin, c. 7. Ducange, Gloss.

Graec. tom. i. p. 1199.)]

54 (return) [ (Ceremon. c. 75, p. 215.) The want of the Latin ‘V’

obliged the Greeks to employ their ‘beta’; nor do they regard

quantity. Till he recollected the true language, these strange

sentences might puzzle a professor.]

55 (return) [ (Codin.p. 90.) I wish he had preserved the words,

however corrupt, of their English acclamation.]

56 (return) [ For all these ceremonies, see the professed work of

Constantine Porphyrogenitus with the notes, or rather

dissertations, of his German editors, Leich and Reiske. For the

rank of standing courtiers, p. 80, not. 23, 62; for the

adoration, except on Sundays, p. 95, 240, not. 131; the

processions, p. 2, &c., not. p. 3, &c.; the acclamations passim

not. 25 &c.; the factions and Hippodrome, p. 177-214, not. 9, 93,

&c.; the Gothic games, p. 221, not. 111; vintage, p. 217, not

109: much more information is scattered over the work.]

57 (return) [ Et privato Othoni et nuper eadem dicenti nota

adulatio, (Tacit. Hist. 1,85.)]

The princes of the North, of the nations, says Constantine,

without faith or fame, were ambitious of mingling their blood

with the blood of the Caesars, by their marriage with a royal

virgin, or by the nuptials of their daughters with a Roman

prince. 58 The aged monarch, in his instructions to his son,

reveals the secret maxims of policy and pride; and suggests the

most decent reasons for refusing these insolent and unreasonable

demands. Every animal, says the discreet emperor, is prompted by

the distinction of language, religion, and manners. A just regard

to the purity of descent preserves the harmony of public and

private life; but the mixture of foreign blood is the fruitful

source of disorder and discord. Such had ever been the opinion

and practice of the sage Romans: their jurisprudence proscribed

the marriage of a citizen and a stranger: in the days of freedom

and virtue, a senator would have scorned to match his daughter

with a king: the glory of Mark Antony was sullied by an Egyptian

wife: 59 and the emperor Titus was compelled, by popular censure,

to dismiss with reluctance the reluctant Berenice. 60 This

perpetual interdict was ratified by the fabulous sanction of the

great Constantine. The ambassadors of the nations, more

especially of the unbelieving nations, were solemnly admonished,

that such strange alliances had been condemned by the founder of

the church and city. The irrevocable law was inscribed on the

altar of St. Sophia; and the impious prince who should stain the

majesty of the purple was excluded from the civil and

ecclesiastical communion of the Romans. If the ambassadors were

instructed by any false brethren in the Byzantine history, they

might produce three memorable examples of the violation of this

imaginary law: the marriage of Leo, or rather of his father

Constantine the Fourth, with the daughter of the king of the

Chozars, the nuptials of the granddaughter of Romanus with a

Bulgarian prince, and the union of Bertha of France or Italy with

young Romanus, the son of Constantine Porphyrogenitus himself. To

these objections three answers were prepared, which solved the

difficulty and established the law. I.

The deed and the guilt of Constantine Copronymus were

acknowledged. The Isaurian heretic, who sullied the baptismal

font, and declared war against the holy images, had indeed

embraced a Barbarian wife. By this impious alliance he

accomplished the measure of his crimes, and was devoted to the

just censure of the church and of posterity. II. Romanus could

not be alleged as a legitimate emperor; he was a plebeian

usurper, ignorant of the laws, and regardless of the honor, of

the monarchy. His son Christopher, the father of the bride, was

the third in rank in the college of princes, at once the subject

and the accomplice of a rebellious parent. The Bulgarians were

sincere and devout Christians; and the safety of the empire, with

the redemption of many thousand captives, depended on this

preposterous alliance. Yet no consideration could dispense from

the law of Constantine: the clergy, the senate, and the people,

disapproved the conduct of Romanus; and he was reproached, both

in his life and death, as the author of the public disgrace. III.

For the marriage of his own son with the daughter of Hugo, king

of Italy, a more honorable defence is contrived by the wise

Porphyrogenitus. Constantine, the great and holy, esteemed the

fidelity and valor of the Franks; 61 and his prophetic spirit

beheld the vision of their future greatness. They alone were

excepted from the general prohibition: Hugo, king of France, was

the lineal descendant of Charlemagne; 62 and his daughter Bertha

inherited the prerogatives of her family and nation. The voice of

truth and malice insensibly betrayed the fraud or error of the

Imperial court. The patrimonial estate of Hugo was reduced from

the monarchy of France to the simple county of Arles; though it

was not denied, that, in the confusion of the times, he had

usurped the sovereignty of Provence, and invaded the kingdom of

Italy. His father was a private noble; and if Bertha derived her

female descent from the Carlovingian line, every step was

polluted with illegitimacy or vice. The grandmother of Hugo was

the famous Valdrada, the concubine, rather than the wife, of the

second Lothair; whose adultery, divorce, and second nuptials, had

provoked against him the thunders of the Vatican. His mother, as

she was styled, the great Bertha, was successively the wife of

the count of Arles and of the marquis of Tuscany: France and

Italy were scandalized by her gallantries; and, till the age of

threescore, her lovers, of every degree, were the zealous

servants of her ambition. The example of maternal incontinence

was copied by the king of Italy; and the three favorite

concubines of Hugo were decorated with the classic names of

Venus, Juno, and Semele. 63 The daughter of Venus was granted to

the solicitations of the Byzantine court: her name of Bertha was

changed to that of Eudoxia; and she was wedded, or rather

betrothed, to young Romanus, the future heir of the empire of the

East. The consummation of this foreign alliance was suspended by

the tender age of the two parties; and, at the end of five years,

the union was dissolved by the death of the virgin spouse. The

second wife of the emperor Romanus was a maiden of plebeian, but

of Roman, birth; and their two daughters, Theophano and Anne,

were given in marriage to the princes of the earth. The eldest

was bestowed, as the pledge of peace, on the eldest son of the

great Otho, who had solicited this alliance with arms and

embassies. It might legally be questioned how far a Saxon was

entitled to the privilege of the French nation; but every scruple

was silenced by the fame and piety of a hero who had restored the

empire of the West. After the death of her father-in-law and

husband, Theophano governed Rome, Italy, and Germany, during the

minority of her son, the third Otho; and the Latins have praised

the virtues of an empress, who sacrificed to a superior duty the

remembrance of her country. 64 In the nuptials of her sister

Anne, every prejudice was lost, and every consideration of

dignity was superseded, by the stronger argument of necessity and

fear. A Pagan of the North, Wolodomir, great prince of Russia,

aspired to a daughter of the Roman purple; and his claim was

enforced by the threats of war, the promise of conversion, and

the offer of a powerful succor against a domestic rebel. A victim

of her religion and country, the Grecian princess was torn from

the palace of her fathers, and condemned to a savage reign, and a

hopeless exile on the banks of the Borysthenes, or in the

neighborhood of the Polar circle. 65 Yet the marriage of Anne was

fortunate and fruitful: the daughter of her grandson Joroslaus

was recommended by her Imperial descent; and the king of France,

Henry I., sought a wife on the last borders of Europe and

Christendom. 66

58 (return) [ The xiiith chapter, de Administratione Imperii, may

be explained and rectified by the Familiae Byzantinae of

Ducange.]

59 (return) [ Sequiturque nefas Aegyptia conjux, (Virgil, Aeneid,

viii. 688.) Yet this Egyptian wife was the daughter of a long

line of kings. Quid te mutavit (says Antony in a private letter

to Augustus) an quod reginam ineo? Uxor mea est, (Sueton. in

August. c. 69.) Yet I much question (for I cannot stay to

inquire) whether the triumvir ever dared to celebrate his

marriage either with Roman or Egyptian rites.]

60 (return) [ Berenicem invitus invitam dimisit, (Suetonius in

Tito, c. 7.) Have I observed elsewhere, that this Jewish beauty

was at this time above fifty years of age? The judicious Racine

has most discreetly suppressed both her age and her country.]

61 (return) [ Constantine was made to praise the the Franks, with

whom he claimed a private and public alliance. The French writers

(Isaac Casaubon in Dedicat. Polybii) are highly delighted with

these compliments.]

62 (return) [ Constantine Porphyrogenitus (de Administrat. Imp.

c. 36) exhibits a pedigree and life of the illustrious King Hugo.

A more correct idea may be formed from the Criticism of Pagi, the

Annals of Muratori, and the Abridgment of St. Marc, A.D.

925-946.]

63 (return) [ After the mention of the three goddesses, Luitprand

very naturally adds, et quoniam non rex solus iis abutebatur,

earum nati ex incertis patribus originera ducunt, (Hist. l. iv.

c. 6: ) for the marriage of the younger Bertha, see Hist. l. v.

c. 5; for the incontinence of the elder, dulcis exercipio

Hymenaei, l. ii. c. 15; for the virtues and vices of Hugo, l.

iii. c. 5. Yet it must not be forgot, that the bishop of Cremona

was a lover of scandal.]

64 (return) [ Licet illa Imperatrix Graeca sibi et aliis fuisset

satis utilis, et optima, &c., is the preamble of an inimical

writer, apud Pagi, tom. iv. A.D. 989, No. 3. Her marriage and

principal actions may be found in Muratori, Pagi, and St. Marc,

under the proper years.]

65 (return) [ Cedrenus, tom. ii. p. 699. Zonaras, tom. i. p. 221.

Elmacin, Hist. Saracenica, l. iii. c. 6. Nestor apud Levesque,

tom. ii. p. 112 Pagi, Critica, A.D. 987, No. 6: a singular

concourse! Wolodomir and Anne are ranked among the saints of the

Russian church. Yet we know his vices, and are ignorant of her

virtues.]

66 (return) [ Henricus primus duxit uxorem Scythicam, Russam,

filiam regis Jeroslai. An embassy of bishops was sent into

Russia, and the father gratanter filiam cum multis donis misit.

This event happened in the year 1051. See the passages of the

original chronicles in Bouquet’s Historians of France, (tom. xi.

p. 29, 159, 161, 319, 384, 481.) Voltaire might wonder at this

alliance; but he should not have owned his ignorance of the

country, religion, &c., of Jeroslaus—a name so conspicuous in the

Russian annals.]

In the Byzantine palace, the emperor was the first slave of the

ceremonies which he imposed, of the rigid forms which regulated

each word and gesture, besieged him in the palace, and violated

the leisure of his rural solitude. But the lives and fortunes of

millions hung on his arbitrary will; and the firmest minds,

superior to the allurements of pomp and luxury, may be seduced by

the more active pleasure of commanding their equals. The

legislative and executive powers were centred in the person of

the monarch, and the last remains of the authority of the senate

were finally eradicated by Leo the philosopher. 67 A lethargy of

servitude had benumbed the minds of the Greeks: in the wildest

tumults of rebellion they never aspired to the idea of a free

constitution; and the private character of the prince was the

only source and measure of their public happiness. Superstition

rivetted their chains; in the church of St. Sophia he was

solemnly crowned by the patriarch; at the foot of the altar, they

pledged their passive and unconditional obedience to his

government and family. On his side he engaged to abstain as much

as possible from the capital punishments of death and mutilation;

his orthodox creed was subscribed with his own hand, and he

promised to obey the decrees of the seven synods, and the canons

of the holy church. 68 But the assurance of mercy was loose and

indefinite: he swore, not to his people, but to an invisible

judge; and except in the inexpiable guilt of heresy, the

ministers of heaven were always prepared to preach the

indefeasible right, and to absolve the venial transgressions, of

their sovereign. The Greek ecclesiastics were themselves the

subjects of the civil magistrate: at the nod of a tyrant, the

bishops were created, or transferred, or deposed, or punished

with an ignominious death: whatever might be their wealth or

influence, they could never succeed like the Latin clergy in the

establishment of an independent republic; and the patriarch of

Constantinople condemned, what he secretly envied, the temporal

greatness of his Roman brother. Yet the exercise of boundless

despotism is happily checked by the laws of nature and necessity.

In proportion to his wisdom and virtue, the master of an empire

is confined to the path of his sacred and laborious duty. In

proportion to his vice and folly, he drops the sceptre too

weighty for his hands; and the motions of the royal image are

ruled by the imperceptible thread of some minister or favorite,

who undertakes for his private interest to exercise the task of

the public oppression. In some fatal moment, the most absolute

monarch may dread the reason or the caprice of a nation of

slaves; and experience has proved, that whatever is gained in the

extent, is lost in the safety and solidity, of regal power.

67 (return) [ A constitution of Leo the Philosopher (lxxviii.) ne

senatus consulta amplius fiant, speaks the language of naked

despotism.]

68 (return) [ Codinus (de Officiis, c. xvii. p. 120, 121) gives

an idea of this oath so strong to the church, so weak to the

people.]

Whatever titles a despot may assume, whatever claims he may

assert, it is on the sword that he must ultimately depend to

guard him against his foreign and domestic enemies. From the age

of Charlemagne to that of the Crusades, the world (for I overlook

the remote monarchy of China) was occupied and disputed by the

three great empires or nations of the Greeks, the Saracens, and

the Franks. Their military strength may be ascertained by a

comparison of their courage, their arts and riches, and their

obedience to a supreme head, who might call into action all the

energies of the state. The Greeks, far inferior to their rivals

in the first, were superior to the Franks, and at least equal to

the Saracens, in the second and third of these warlike

qualifications.

The wealth of the Greeks enabled them to purchase the service of

the poorer nations, and to maintain a naval power for the

protection of their coasts and the annoyance of their enemies. 69

A commerce of mutual benefit exchanged the gold of Constantinople

for the blood of Sclavonians and Turks, the Bulgarians and

Russians: their valor contributed to the victories of Nicephorus

and Zimisces; and if a hostile people pressed too closely on the

frontier, they were recalled to the defence of their country, and

the desire of peace, by the well-managed attack of a more distant

tribe. 70 The command of the Mediterranean, from the mouth of the

Tanais to the columns of Hercules, was always claimed, and often

possessed, by the successors of Constantine. Their capital was

filled with naval stores and dexterous artificers: the situation

of Greece and Asia, the long coasts, deep gulfs, and numerous

islands, accustomed their subjects to the exercise of navigation;

and the trade of Venice and Amalfi supplied a nursery of seamen

to the Imperial fleet. 71 Since the time of the Peloponnesian and

Punic wars, the sphere of action had not been enlarged; and the

science of naval architecture appears to have declined. The art

of constructing those stupendous machines which displayed three,

or six, or ten, ranges of oars, rising above, or falling behind,

each other, was unknown to the ship-builders of Constantinople,

as well as to the mechanicians of modern days. 72 The Dromones,

73 or light galleys of the Byzantine empire, were content with

two tier of oars; each tier was composed of five-and-twenty

benches; and two rowers were seated on each bench, who plied

their oars on either side of the vessel. To these we must add the

captain or centurion, who, in time of action, stood erect with

his armor-bearer on the poop, two steersmen at the helm, and two

officers at the prow, the one to manage the anchor, the other to

point and play against the enemy the tube of liquid fire. The

whole crew, as in the infancy of the art, performed the double

service of mariners and soldiers; they were provided with

defensive and offensive arms, with bows and arrows, which they

used from the upper deck, with long pikes, which they pushed

through the portholes of the lower tier. Sometimes, indeed, the

ships of war were of a larger and more solid construction; and

the labors of combat and navigation were more regularly divided

between seventy soldiers and two hundred and thirty mariners. But

for the most part they were of the light and manageable size; and

as the Cape of Malea in Peloponnesus was still clothed with its

ancient terrors, an Imperial fleet was transported five miles

over land across the Isthmus of Corinth. 74 The principles of

maritime tactics had not undergone any change since the time of

Thucydides: a squadron of galleys still advanced in a crescent,

charged to the front, and strove to impel their sharp beaks

against the feeble sides of their antagonists. A machine for

casting stones and darts was built of strong timbers, in the

midst of the deck; and the operation of boarding was effected by

a crane that hoisted baskets of armed men. The language of

signals, so clear and copious in the naval grammar of the

moderns, was imperfectly expressed by the various positions and

colors of a commanding flag. In the darkness of the night, the

same orders to chase, to attack, to halt, to retreat, to break,

to form, were conveyed by the lights of the leading galley. By

land, the fire-signals were repeated from one mountain to

another; a chain of eight stations commanded a space of five

hundred miles; and Constantinople in a few hours was apprised of

the hostile motions of the Saracens of Tarsus. 75 Some estimate

may be formed of the power of the Greek emperors, by the curious

and minute detail of the armament which was prepared for the

reduction of Crete. A fleet of one hundred and twelve galleys,

and seventy-five vessels of the Pamphylian style, was equipped in

the capital, the islands of the Aegean Sea, and the seaports of

Asia, Macedonia, and Greece. It carried thirty-four thousand

mariners, seven thousand three hundred and forty soldiers, seven

hundred Russians, and five thousand and eighty-seven Mardaites,

whose fathers had been transplanted from the mountains of

Libanus. Their pay, most probably of a month, was computed at

thirty-four centenaries of gold, about one hundred and thirty-six

thousand pounds sterling. Our fancy is bewildered by the endless

recapitulation of arms and engines, of clothes and linen, of

bread for the men and forage for the horses, and of stores and

utensils of every description, inadequate to the conquest of a

petty island, but amply sufficient for the establishment of a

flourishing colony. 76

69 (return) [ If we listen to the threats of Nicephorus to the

ambassador of Otho, Nec est in mari domino tuo classium numerus.

Navigantium fortitudo mihi soli inest, qui eum classibus

aggrediar, bello maritimas ejus civitates demoliar; et quae

fluminibus sunt vicina redigam in favillam. (Liutprand in Legat.

ad Nicephorum Phocam, in Muratori Scriptores Rerum Italicarum,

tom. ii. pars i. p. 481.) He observes in another place, qui

caeteris praestant Venetici sunt et Amalphitani.]

70 (return) [ Nec ipsa capiet eum (the emperor Otho) in qua ortus

est pauper et pellicea Saxonia: pecunia qua pollemus omnes

nationes super eum invitabimus: et quasi Keramicum confringemus,

(Liutprand in Legat. p. 487.) The two books, de Administrando

Imperio, perpetually inculcate the same policy.]

71 (return) [ The xixth chapter of the Tactics of Leo, (Meurs.

Opera, tom. vi. p. 825-848,) which is given more correct from a

manuscript of Gudius, by the laborious Fabricius, (Bibliot.

Graec. tom. vi. p. 372-379,) relates to the Naumachia, or naval

war.]

72 (return) [ Even of fifteen and sixteen rows of oars, in the

navy of Demetrius Poliorcetes. These were for real use: the forty

rows of Ptolemy Philadelphus were applied to a floating palace,

whose tonnage, according to Dr. Arbuthnot, (Tables of Ancient

Coins, &c., p. 231-236,) is compared as 4 1/2 to 1 with an

English 100 gun ship.]

73 (return) [ The Dromones of Leo, &c., are so clearly described

with two tier of oars, that I must censure the version of

Meursius and Fabricius, who pervert the sense by a blind

attachment to the classic appellation of Triremes. The Byzantine

historians are sometimes guilty of the same inaccuracy.]

74 (return) [ Constantin. Porphyrogen. in Vit. Basil. c. lxi. p.

185. He calmly praises the stratagem; but the sailing round

Peloponnesus is described by his terrified fancy as a

circumnavigation of a thousand miles.]

75 (return) [ The continuator of Theophanes (l. iv. p. 122, 123)

names the successive stations, the castle of Lulum near Tarsus,

Mount Argaeus Isamus, Aegilus, the hill of Mamas, Cyrisus,

Mocilus, the hill of Auxentius, the sun-dial of the Pharus of the

great palace. He affirms that the news were transmitted in an

indivisible moment of time. Miserable amplification, which, by

saying too much, says nothing. How much more forcible and

instructive would have been the definition of three, or six, or

twelve hours!]

76 (return) [ See the Ceremoniale of Constantine Porphyrogenitus,

l. ii. c. 44, p. 176-192. A critical reader will discern some

inconsistencies in different parts of this account; but they are

not more obscure or more stubborn than the establishment and

effectives, the present and fit for duty, the rank and file and

the private, of a modern return, which retain in proper hands the

knowledge of these profitable mysteries.]

The invention of the Greek fire did not, like that of gun powder,

produce a total revolution in the art of war. To these liquid

combustibles the city and empire of Constantine owed their

deliverance; and they were employed in sieges and sea-fights with

terrible effect. But they were either less improved, or less

susceptible of improvement: the engines of antiquity, the

catapultae, balistae, and battering-rams, were still of most

frequent and powerful use in the attack and defence of

fortifications; nor was the decision of battles reduced to the

quick and heavy fire of a line of infantry, whom it were

fruitless to protect with armor against a similar fire of their

enemies. Steel and iron were still the common instruments of

destruction and safety; and the helmets, cuirasses, and shields,

of the tenth century did not, either in form or substance,

essentially differ from those which had covered the companions of

Alexander or Achilles. 77 But instead of accustoming the modern

Greeks, like the legionaries of old, to the constant and easy use

of this salutary weight, their armor was laid aside in light

chariots, which followed the march, till, on the approach of an

enemy, they resumed with haste and reluctance the unusual

encumbrance. Their offensive weapons consisted of swords,

battle-axes, and spears; but the Macedonian pike was shortened a

fourth of its length, and reduced to the more convenient measure

of twelve cubits or feet. The sharpness of the Scythian and

Arabian arrows had been severely felt; and the emperors lament

the decay of archery as a cause of the public misfortunes, and

recommend, as an advice and a command, that the military youth,

till the age of forty, should assiduously practise the exercise

of the bow. 78 The bands, or regiments, were usually three

hundred strong; and, as a medium between the extremes of four and

sixteen, the foot soldiers of Leo and Constantine were formed

eight deep; but the cavalry charged in four ranks, from the

reasonable consideration, that the weight of the front could not

be increased by any pressure of the hindmost horses. If the ranks

of the infantry or cavalry were sometimes doubled, this cautious

array betrayed a secret distrust of the courage of the troops,

whose numbers might swell the appearance of the line, but of whom

only a chosen band would dare to encounter the spears and swords

of the Barbarians. The order of battle must have varied according

to the ground, the object, and the adversary; but their ordinary

disposition, in two lines and a reserve, presented a succession

of hopes and resources most agreeable to the temper as well as

the judgment of the Greeks. 79 In case of a repulse, the first

line fell back into the intervals of the second; and the reserve,

breaking into two divisions, wheeled round the flanks to improve

the victory or cover the retreat. Whatever authority could enact

was accomplished, at least in theory, by the camps and marches,

the exercises and evolutions, the edicts and books, of the

Byzantine monarch. 80 Whatever art could produce from the forge,

the loom, or the laboratory, was abundantly supplied by the

riches of the prince, and the industry of his numerous workmen.

But neither authority nor art could frame the most important

machine, the soldier himself; and if the ceremonies of

Constantine always suppose the safe and triumphal return of the

emperor, 81 his tactics seldom soar above the means of escaping a

defeat, and procrastinating the war. 82 Notwithstanding some

transient success, the Greeks were sunk in their own esteem and

that of their neighbors. A cold hand and a loquacious tongue was

the vulgar description of the nation: the author of the tactics

was besieged in his capital; and the last of the Barbarians, who

trembled at the name of the Saracens, or Franks, could proudly

exhibit the medals of gold and silver which they had extorted

from the feeble sovereign of Constantinople. What spirit their

government and character denied, might have been inspired in some

degree by the influence of religion; but the religion of the

Greeks could only teach them to suffer and to yield. The emperor

Nicephorus, who restored for a moment the discipline and glory of

the Roman name, was desirous of bestowing the honors of martyrdom

on the Christians who lost their lives in a holy war against the

infidels. But this political law was defeated by the opposition

of the patriarch, the bishops, and the principal senators; and

they strenuously urged the canons of St. Basil, that all who were

polluted by the bloody trade of a soldier should be separated,

during three years, from the communion of the faithful. 83

77 (return) [ See the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters, and, in

the Tactics of Leo, with the corresponding passages in those of

Constantine.]

78 (return) [ (Leo, Tactic. p. 581 Constantin. p 1216.) Yet such

were not the maxims of the Greeks and Romans, who despised the

loose and distant practice of archery.]

79 (return) [ Compare the passages of the Tactics, p. 669 and

721, and the xiith with the xviiith chapter.]

80 (return) [ In the preface to his Tactics, Leo very freely

deplores the loss of discipline and the calamities of the times,

and repeats, without scruple, (Proem. p. 537,) the reproaches,

nor does it appear that the same censures were less deserved in

the next generation by the disciples of Constantine.]

81 (return) [ See in the Ceremonial (l. ii. c. 19, p. 353) the

form of the emperor’s trampling on the necks of the captive

Saracens, while the singers chanted, “Thou hast made my enemies

my footstool!” and the people shouted forty times the kyrie

eleison.]

82 (return) [ Leo observes (Tactic. p. 668) that a fair open

battle against any nation whatsoever: the words are strong, and

the remark is true: yet if such had been the opinion of the old

Romans, Leo had never reigned on the shores of the Thracian

Bosphorus.]

83 (return) [ Zonaras (tom. ii. l. xvi. p. 202, 203) and

Cedrenus, (Compend p. 668,) who relate the design of Nicephorus,

most unfortunately apply the epithet to the opposition of the

patriarch.]

These scruples of the Greeks have been compared with the tears of

the primitive Moslems when they were held back from battle; and

this contrast of base superstition and high-spirited enthusiasm,

unfolds to a philosophic eye the history of the rival nations.

The subjects of the last caliphs 84 had undoubtedly degenerated

from the zeal and faith of the companions of the prophet. Yet

their martial creed still represented the Deity as the author of

war: 85 the vital though latent spark of fanaticism still glowed

in the heart of their religion, and among the Saracens, who dwelt

on the Christian borders, it was frequently rekindled to a lively

and active flame. Their regular force was formed of the valiant

slaves who had been educated to guard the person and accompany

the standard of their lord: but the Mussulman people of Syria and

Cilicia, of Africa and Spain, was awakened by the trumpet which

proclaimed a holy war against the infidels. The rich were

ambitious of death or victory in the cause of God; the poor were

allured by the hopes of plunder; and the old, the infirm, and the

women, assumed their share of meritorious service by sending

their substitutes, with arms and horses, into the field. These

offensive and defensive arms were similar in strength and temper

to those of the Romans, whom they far excelled in the management

of the horse and the bow: the massy silver of their belts, their

bridles, and their swords, displayed the magnificence of a

prosperous nation; and except some black archers of the South,

the Arabs disdained the naked bravery of their ancestors. Instead

of wagons, they were attended by a long train of camels, mules,

and asses: the multitude of these animals, whom they bedecked

with flags and streamers, appeared to swell the pomp and

magnitude of their host; and the horses of the enemy were often

disordered by the uncouth figure and odious smell of the camels

of the East. Invincible by their patience of thirst and heat,

their spirits were frozen by a winter’s cold, and the

consciousness of their propensity to sleep exacted the most

rigorous precautions against the surprises of the night. Their

order of battle was a long square of two deep and solid lines;

the first of archers, the second of cavalry. In their engagements

by sea and land, they sustained with patient firmness the fury of

the attack, and seldom advanced to the charge till they could

discern and oppress the lassitude of their foes. But if they were

repulsed and broken, they knew not how to rally or renew the

combat; and their dismay was heightened by the superstitious

prejudice, that God had declared himself on the side of their

enemies. The decline and fall of the caliphs countenanced this

fearful opinion; nor were there wanting, among the Mahometans and

Christians, some obscure prophecies 86 which prognosticated their

alternate defeats. The unity of the Arabian empire was dissolved,

but the independent fragments were equal to populous and powerful

kingdoms; and in their naval and military armaments, an emir of

Aleppo or Tunis might command no despicable fund of skill, and

industry, and treasure. In their transactions of peace and war

with the Saracens, the princes of Constantinople too often felt

that these Barbarians had nothing barbarous in their discipline;

and that if they were destitute of original genius, they had been

endowed with a quick spirit of curiosity and imitation. The model

was indeed more perfect than the copy; their ships, and engines,

and fortifications, were of a less skilful construction; and they

confess, without shame, that the same God who has given a tongue

to the Arabians, had more nicely fashioned the hands of the

Chinese, and the heads of the Greeks. 87

84 (return) [ The xviith chapter of the tactics of the different

nations is the most historical and useful of the whole collection

of Leo. The manners and arms of the Saracens (Tactic. p. 809-817,

and a fragment from the Medicean Ms. in the preface of the vith

volume of Meursius) the Roman emperor was too frequently called

upon to study.]

85 (return) [ Leon. Tactic. p. 809.]

86 (return) [ Liutprand (p. 484, 485) relates and interprets the

oracles of the Greeks and Saracens, in which, after the fashion

of prophecy, the past is clear and historical, the future is

dark, enigmatical, and erroneous. From this boundary of light and

shade an impartial critic may commonly determine the date of the

composition.]

87 (return) [ The sense of this distinction is expressed by

Abulpharagius (Dynast. p. 2, 62, 101;) but I cannot recollect the

passage in which it is conveyed by this lively apothegm.]

Chapter LIII: Fate Of The Eastern Empire.—Part IV.

A name of some German tribes between the Rhine and the Weser had

spread its victorious influence over the greatest part of Gaul,

Germany, and Italy; and the common appellation of Franks 88 was

applied by the Greeks and Arabians to the Christians of the Latin

church, the nations of the West, who stretched beyond their

knowledge to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. The vast body had

been inspired and united by the soul of Charlemagne; but the

division and degeneracy of his race soon annihilated the Imperial

power, which would have rivalled the Caesars of Byzantium, and

revenged the indignities of the Christian name. The enemies no

longer feared, nor could the subjects any longer trust, the

application of a public revenue, the labors of trade and

manufactures in the military service, the mutual aid of provinces

and armies, and the naval squadrons which were regularly

stationed from the mouth of the Elbe to that of the Tyber. In the

beginning of the tenth century, the family of Charlemagne had

almost disappeared; his monarchy was broken into many hostile and

independent states; the regal title was assumed by the most

ambitious chiefs; their revolt was imitated in a long

subordination of anarchy and discord, and the nobles of every

province disobeyed their sovereign, oppressed their vassals, and

exercised perpetual hostilities against their equals and

neighbors. Their private wars, which overturned the fabric of

government, fomented the martial spirit of the nation. In the

system of modern Europe, the power of the sword is possessed, at

least in fact, by five or six mighty potentates; their operations

are conducted on a distant frontier, by an order of men who

devote their lives to the study and practice of the military art:

the rest of the country and community enjoys in the midst of war

the tranquillity of peace, and is only made sensible of the

change by the aggravation or decrease of the public taxes. In the

disorders of the tenth and eleventh centuries, every peasant was

a soldier, and every village a fortification; each wood or valley

was a scene of murder and rapine; and the lords of each castle

were compelled to assume the character of princes and warriors.

To their own courage and policy they boldly trusted for the

safety of their family, the protection of their lands, and the

revenge of their injuries; and, like the conquerors of a larger

size, they were too apt to transgress the privilege of defensive

war. The powers of the mind and body were hardened by the

presence of danger and necessity of resolution: the same spirit

refused to desert a friend and to forgive an enemy; and, instead

of sleeping under the guardian care of a magistrate, they proudly

disdained the authority of the laws. In the days of feudal

anarchy, the instruments of agriculture and art were converted

into the weapons of bloodshed: the peaceful occupations of civil

and ecclesiastical society were abolished or corrupted; and the

bishop who exchanged his mitre for a helmet, was more forcibly

urged by the manners of the times than by the obligation of his

tenure. 89

88 (return) [ Ex Francis, quo nomine tam Latinos quam Teutones

comprehendit, ludum habuit, (Liutprand in Legat ad Imp.

Nicephorum, p. 483, 484.) This extension of the name may be

confirmed from Constantine (de Administrando Imperio, l. 2, c.

27, 28) and Eutychius, (Annal. tom. i. p. 55, 56,) who both lived

before the Crusades. The testimonies of Abulpharagius (Dynast. p.

69) and Abulfeda (Praefat. ad Geograph.) are more recent]

89 (return) [ On this subject of ecclesiastical and beneficiary

discipline, Father Thomassin, (tom. iii. l. i. c. 40, 45, 46, 47)

may be usefully consulted. A general law of Charlemagne exempted

the bishops from personal service; but the opposite practice,

which prevailed from the ixth to the xvth century, is

countenanced by the example or silence of saints and doctors....

You justify your cowardice by the holy canons, says Ratherius of

Verona; the canons likewise forbid you to whore, and yet—]

The love of freedom and of arms was felt, with conscious pride,

by the Franks themselves, and is observed by the Greeks with some

degree of amazement and terror. “The Franks,” says the emperor

Constantine, “are bold and valiant to the verge of temerity; and

their dauntless spirit is supported by the contempt of danger and

death. In the field and in close onset, they press to the front,

and rush headlong against the enemy, without deigning to compute

either his numbers or their own. Their ranks are formed by the

firm connections of consanguinity and friendship; and their

martial deeds are prompted by the desire of saving or revenging

their dearest companions. In their eyes, a retreat is a shameful

flight; and flight is indelible infamy.” 90 A nation endowed with

such high and intrepid spirit, must have been secure of victory

if these advantages had not been counter-balanced by many weighty

defects. The decay of their naval power left the Greeks and

Saracens in possession of the sea, for every purpose of annoyance

and supply. In the age which preceded the institution of

knighthood, the Franks were rude and unskilful in the service of

cavalry; 91 and in all perilous emergencies, their warriors were

so conscious of their ignorance, that they chose to dismount from

their horses and fight on foot. Unpractised in the use of pikes,

or of missile weapons, they were encumbered by the length of

their swords, the weight of their armor, the magnitude of their

shields, and, if I may repeat the satire of the meagre Greeks, by

their unwieldy intemperance. Their independent spirit disdained

the yoke of subordination, and abandoned the standard of their

chief, if he attempted to keep the field beyond the term of their

stipulation or service. On all sides they were open to the snares

of an enemy less brave but more artful than themselves. They

might be bribed, for the Barbarians were venal; or surprised in

the night, for they neglected the precautions of a close

encampment or vigilant sentinels. The fatigues of a summer’s

campaign exhausted their strength and patience, and they sunk in

despair if their voracious appetite was disappointed of a

plentiful supply of wine and of food. This general character of

the Franks was marked with some national and local shades, which

I should ascribe to accident rather than to climate, but which

were visible both to natives and to foreigners. An ambassador of

the great Otho declared, in the palace of Constantinople, that

the Saxons could dispute with swords better than with pens, and

that they preferred inevitable death to the dishonor of turning

their backs to an enemy. 92 It was the glory of the nobles of

France, that, in their humble dwellings, war and rapine were the

only pleasure, the sole occupation, of their lives. They affected

to deride the palaces, the banquets, the polished manner of the

Italians, who in the estimate of the Greeks themselves had

degenerated from the liberty and valor of the ancient Lombards.

90 (return) [ In the xviiith chapter of his Tactics, the emperor

Leo has fairly stated the military vices and virtues of the

Franks (whom Meursius ridiculously translates by Galli) and the

Lombards or Langobards. See likewise the xxvith Dissertation of

Muratori de Antiquitatibus Italiae Medii Aevi.]

91 (return) [ Domini tui milites (says the proud Nicephorus)

equitandi ignari pedestris pugnae sunt inscii: scutorum

magnitudo, loricarum gravitudo, ensium longitudo galearumque

pondus neutra parte pugnare cossinit; ac subridens, impedit,

inquit, et eos gastrimargia, hoc est ventris ingluvies, &c.

Liutprand in Legat. p. 480 481]

92 (return) [ In Saxonia certe scio.... decentius ensibus pugnare

quam calanis, et prius mortem obire quam hostibus terga dare,

(Liutprand, p 482.)]

93 (return) [ Leonis Tactica, c. 18, p. 805. The emperor Leo died

A.D. 911: an historical poem, which ends in 916, and appears to

have been composed in 910, by a native of Venetia, discriminates

in these verses the manners of Italy and France:

—Quid inertia bello

Pectora (Ubertus ait) duris praetenditis armis,

O Itali? Potius vobis sacra pocula cordi;

Saepius et stomachum nitidis laxare saginis

Elatasque domos rutilo fulcire metallo.

Non eadem Gallos similis vel cura remordet:

Vicinas quibus est studium devincere terras,

Depressumque larem spoliis hinc inde coactis

Sustentare—

(Anonym. Carmen Panegyricum de Laudibus Berengarii Augusti, l. n.

in Muratori Script. Rerum Italic. tom. ii. pars i. p. 393.)]

By the well-known edict of Caracalla, his subjects, from Britain

to Egypt, were entitled to the name and privileges of Romans, and

their national sovereign might fix his occasional or permanent

residence in any province of their common country. In the

division of the East and West, an ideal unity was scrupulously

observed, and in their titles, laws, and statutes, the successors

of Arcadius and Honorius announced themselves as the inseparable

colleagues of the same office, as the joint sovereigns of the

Roman world and city, which were bounded by the same limits.

After the fall of the Western monarchy, the majesty of the purple

resided solely in the princes of Constantinople; and of these,

Justinian was the first who, after a divorce of sixty years,

regained the dominion of ancient Rome, and asserted, by the right

of conquest, the august title of Emperor of the Romans. 94 A

motive of vanity or discontent solicited one of his successors,

Constans the Second, to abandon the Thracian Bosphorus, and to

restore the pristine honors of the Tyber: an extravagant project,

(exclaims the malicious Byzantine,) as if he had despoiled a

beautiful and blooming virgin, to enrich, or rather to expose,

the deformity of a wrinkled and decrepit matron. 95 But the sword

of the Lombards opposed his settlement in Italy: he entered Rome

not as a conqueror, but as a fugitive, and, after a visit of

twelve days, he pillaged, and forever deserted, the ancient

capital of the world. 96 The final revolt and separation of Italy

was accomplished about two centuries after the conquests of

Justinian, and from his reign we may date the gradual oblivion of

the Latin tongue. That legislator had composed his Institutes,

his Code, and his Pandects, in a language which he celebrates as

the proper and public style of the Roman government, the

consecrated idiom of the palace and senate of Constantinople, of

the campus and tribunals of the East. 97 But this foreign dialect

was unknown to the people and soldiers of the Asiatic provinces,

it was imperfectly understood by the greater part of the

interpreters of the laws and the ministers of the state. After a

short conflict, nature and habit prevailed over the obsolete

institutions of human power: for the general benefit of his

subjects, Justinian promulgated his novels in the two languages:

the several parts of his voluminous jurisprudence were

successively translated; 98 the original was forgotten, the

version was studied, and the Greek, whose intrinsic merit

deserved indeed the preference, obtained a legal, as well as

popular establishment in the Byzantine monarchy. The birth and

residence of succeeding princes estranged them from the Roman

idiom: Tiberius by the Arabs, 99 and Maurice by the Italians, 100

are distinguished as the first of the Greek Caesars, as the

founders of a new dynasty and empire: the silent revolution was

accomplished before the death of Heraclius; and the ruins of the

Latin speech were darkly preserved in the terms of jurisprudence

and the acclamations of the palace. After the restoration of the

Western empire by Charlemagne and the Othos, the names of Franks

and Latins acquired an equal signification and extent; and these

haughty Barbarians asserted, with some justice, their superior

claim to the language and dominion of Rome. They insulted the

alien of the East who had renounced the dress and idiom of

Romans; and their reasonable practice will justify the frequent

appellation of Greeks. 101 But this contemptuous appellation was

indignantly rejected by the prince and people to whom it was

applied. Whatsoever changes had been introduced by the lapse of

ages, they alleged a lineal and unbroken succession from Augustus

and Constantine; and, in the lowest period of degeneracy and

decay, the name of Romans adhered to the last fragments of the

empire of Constantinople. 102

94 (return) [ Justinian, says the historian Agathias, (l. v. p.

157,). Yet the specific title of Emperor of the Romans was not

used at Constantinople, till it had been claimed by the French

and German emperors of old Rome.]

95 (return) [ Constantine Manasses reprobates this design in his

barbarous verse, and it is confirmed by Theophanes, Zonaras,

Cedrenus, and the Historia Miscella: voluit in urbem Romam

Imperium transferre, (l. xix. p. 157 in tom. i. pars i. of the

Scriptores Rer. Ital. of Muratori.)]

96 (return) [ Paul. Diacon. l. v. c. 11, p. 480. Anastasius in

Vitis Pontificum, in Muratori’s Collection, tom. iii. pars i. p.

141.]

97 (return) [ Consult the preface of Ducange, (ad Gloss, Graec.

Medii Aevi) and the Novels of Justinian, (vii. lxvi.)]

98 (return) [ (Matth. Blastares, Hist. Juris, apud Fabric.

Bibliot. Graec. tom. xii. p. 369.) The Code and Pandects (the

latter by Thalelaeus) were translated in the time of Justinian,

(p. 358, 366.) Theophilus one of the original triumvirs, has left

an elegant, though diffuse, paraphrase of the Institutes. On the

other hand, Julian, antecessor of Constantinople, (A.D. 570,)

cxx. Novellas Graecas eleganti Latinitate donavit (Heineccius,

Hist. J. R. p. 396) for the use of Italy and Africa.]

99 (return) [ Abulpharagius assigns the viith Dynasty to the

Franks or Romans, the viiith to the Greeks, the ixth to the

Arabs. A tempore Augusti Caesaris donec imperaret Tiberius Caesar

spatio circiter annorum 600 fuerunt Imperatores C. P. Patricii,

et praecipua pars exercitus Romani: extra quod, conciliarii,

scribae et populus, omnes Graeci fuerunt: deinde regnum etiam

Graecanicum factum est, (p. 96, vers. Pocock.) The Christian and

ecclesiastical studies of Abulpharagius gave him some advantage

over the more ignorant Moslems.]

100 (return) [ Primus ex Graecorum genere in Imperio confirmatus

est; or according to another Ms. of Paulus Diaconus, (l. iii. c.

15, p. 443,) in Orasorum Imperio.]

101 (return) [ Quia linguam, mores, vestesque mutastis, putavit

Sanctissimus Papa. (an audacious irony,) ita vos (vobis)

displicere Romanorum nomen. His nuncios, rogabant Nicephorum

Imperatorem Graecorum, ut cum Othone Imperatore Romanorum

amicitiam faceret, (Liutprand in Legatione, p. 486.) * Note:

Sicut et vestem. These words follow in the text of Liutprand,

(apud Murat. Script. Ital. tom. ii. p. 486, to which Gibbon

refers.) But with some inaccuracy or confusion, which rarely

occurs in Gibbon’s references, the rest of the quotation, which

as it stands is unintelligible, does not appear—M.]

102 (return) [ By Laonicus Chalcocondyles, who survived the last

siege of Constantinople, the account is thus stated, (l. i. p.

3.) Constantine transplanted his Latins of Italy to a Greek city

of Thrace: they adopted the language and manners of the natives,

who were confounded with them under the name of Romans. The kings

of Constantinople, says the historian.]

While the government of the East was transacted in Latin, the

Greek was the language of literature and philosophy; nor could

the masters of this rich and perfect idiom be tempted to envy the

borrowed learning and imitative taste of their Roman disciples.

After the fall of Paganism, the loss of Syria and Egypt, and the

extinction of the schools of Alexandria and Athens, the studies

of the Greeks insensibly retired to some regular monasteries, and

above all, to the royal college of Constantinople, which was

burnt in the reign of Leo the Isaurian. 103 In the pompous style

of the age, the president of that foundation was named the Sun of

Science: his twelve associates, the professors in the different

arts and faculties, were the twelve signs of the zodiac; a

library of thirty-six thousand five hundred volumes was open to

their inquiries; and they could show an ancient manuscript of

Homer, on a roll of parchment one hundred and twenty feet in

length, the intestines, as it was fabled, of a prodigious

serpent. 104 But the seventh and eight centuries were a period of

discord and darkness: the library was burnt, the college was

abolished, the Iconoclasts are represented as the foes of

antiquity; and a savage ignorance and contempt of letters has

disgraced the princes of the Heraclean and Isaurian dynasties.

105

103 (return) [ See Ducange, (C. P. Christiana, l. ii. p. 150,

151,) who collects the testimonies, not of Theophanes, but at

least of Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xv. p. 104,) Cedrenus, (p. 454,)

Michael Glycas, (p. 281,) Constantine Manasses, (p. 87.) After

refuting the absurd charge against the emperor, Spanheim, (Hist.

Imaginum, p. 99-111,) like a true advocate, proceeds to doubt or

deny the reality of the fire, and almost of the library.]

104 (return) [ According to Malchus, (apud Zonar. l. xiv. p. 53,)

this Homer was burnt in the time of Basiliscus. The Ms. might be

renewed—But on a serpent’s skin? Most strange and incredible!]

105 (return) [ The words of Zonaras, and of Cedrenus, are strong

words, perhaps not ill suited to those reigns.]

In the ninth century we trace the first dawnings of the

restoration of science. 106 After the fanaticism of the Arabs had

subsided, the caliphs aspired to conquer the arts, rather than

the provinces, of the empire: their liberal curiosity rekindled

the emulation of the Greeks, brushed away the dust from their

ancient libraries, and taught them to know and reward the

philosophers, whose labors had been hitherto repaid by the

pleasure of study and the pursuit of truth. The Caesar Bardas,

the uncle of Michael the Third, was the generous protector of

letters, a title which alone has preserved his memory and excused

his ambition. A particle of the treasures of his nephew was

sometimes diverted from the indulgence of vice and folly; a

school was opened in the palace of Magnaura; and the presence of

Bardas excited the emulation of the masters and students. At

their head was the philosopher Leo, archbishop of Thessalonica:

his profound skill in astronomy and the mathematics was admired

by the strangers of the East; and this occult science was

magnified by vulgar credulity, which modestly supposes that all

knowledge superior to its own must be the effect of inspiration

or magic. At the pressing entreaty of the Caesar, his friend, the

celebrated Photius, 107 renounced the freedom of a secular and

studious life, ascended the patriarchal throne, and was

alternately excommunicated and absolved by the synods of the East

and West. By the confession even of priestly hatred, no art or

science, except poetry, was foreign to this universal scholar,

who was deep in thought, indefatigable in reading, and eloquent

in diction. Whilst he exercised the office of protospathaire or

captain of the guards, Photius was sent ambassador to the caliph

of Bagdad. 108 The tedious hours of exile, perhaps of

confinement, were beguiled by the hasty composition of his

Library, a living monument of erudition and criticism. Two

hundred and fourscore writers, historians, orators, philosophers,

theologians, are reviewed without any regular method: he abridges

their narrative or doctrine, appreciates their style and

character, and judges even the fathers of the church with a

discreet freedom, which often breaks through the superstition of

the times. The emperor Basil, who lamented the defects of his own

education, intrusted to the care of Photius his son and

successor, Leo the philosopher; and the reign of that prince and

of his son Constantine Porphyrogenitus forms one of the most

prosperous aeras of the Byzantine literature. By their

munificence the treasures of antiquity were deposited in the

Imperial library; by their pens, or those of their associates,

they were imparted in such extracts and abridgments as might

amuse the curiosity, without oppressing the indolence, of the

public. Besides the Basilics, or code of laws, the arts of

husbandry and war, of feeding or destroying the human species,

were propagated with equal diligence; and the history of Greece

and Rome was digested into fifty-three heads or titles, of which

two only (of embassies, and of virtues and vices) have escaped

the injuries of time. In every station, the reader might

contemplate the image of the past world, apply the lesson or

warning of each page, and learn to admire, perhaps to imitate,

the examples of a brighter period. I shall not expatiate on the

works of the Byzantine Greeks, who, by the assiduous study of the

ancients, have deserved, in some measure, the remembrance and

gratitude of the moderns. The scholars of the present age may

still enjoy the benefit of the philosophical commonplace book of

Stobaeus, the grammatical and historical lexicon of Suidas, the

Chiliads of Tzetzes, which comprise six hundred narratives in

twelve thousand verses, and the commentaries on Homer of

Eustathius, archbishop of Thessalonica, who, from his horn of

plenty, has poured the names and authorities of four hundred

writers. From these originals, and from the numerous tribe of

scholiasts and critics, 109 some estimate may be formed of the

literary wealth of the twelfth century: Constantinople was

enlightened by the genius of Homer and Demosthenes, of Aristotle

and Plato: and in the enjoyment or neglect of our present riches,

we must envy the generation that could still peruse the history

of Theopompus, the orations of Hyperides, the comedies of

Menander, 110 and the odes of Alcaeus and Sappho. The frequent

labor of illustration attests not only the existence, but the

popularity, of the Grecian classics: the general knowledge of the

age may be deduced from the example of two learned females, the

empress Eudocia, and the princess Anna Comnena, who cultivated,

in the purple, the arts of rhetoric and philosophy. 111 The

vulgar dialect of the city was gross and barbarous: a more

correct and elaborate style distinguished the discourse, or at

least the compositions, of the church and palace, which sometimes

affected to copy the purity of the Attic models.

106 (return) [ See Zonaras (l. xvi. p. 160, 161) and Cedrenus,

(p. 549, 550.) Like Friar Bacon, the philosopher Leo has been

transformed by ignorance into a conjurer; yet not so

undeservedly, if he be the author of the oracles more commonly

ascribed to the emperor of the same name. The physics of Leo in

Ms. are in the library of Vienna, (Fabricius, Bibliot. Graec.

tom. vi. p 366, tom. xii. p. 781.) Qui serant!]

107 (return) [ The ecclesiastical and literary character of

Photius is copiously discussed by Hanckius (de Scriptoribus

Byzant. p. 269, 396) and Fabricius.]

108 (return) [ It can only mean Bagdad, the seat of the caliphs

and the relation of his embassy might have been curious and

instructive. But how did he procure his books? A library so

numerous could neither be found at Bagdad, nor transported with

his baggage, nor preserved in his memory. Yet the last, however

incredible, seems to be affirmed by Photius himself. Camusat

(Hist. Critique des Journaux, p. 87-94) gives a good account of

the Myriobiblon.]

109 (return) [ Of these modern Greeks, see the respective

articles in the Bibliotheca Graeca of Fabricius—a laborious work,

yet susceptible of a better method and many improvements; of

Eustathius, (tom. i. p. 289-292, 306-329,) of the Pselli, (a

diatribe of Leo Allatius, ad calcem tom. v., of Constantine

Porphyrogenitus, tom. vi. p. 486-509) of John Stobaeus, (tom.

viii., 665-728,) of Suidas, (tom. ix. p. 620-827,) John Tzetzes,

(tom. xii. p. 245-273.) Mr. Harris, in his Philological

Arrangements, opus senile, has given a sketch of this Byzantine

learning, (p. 287-300.)]

110 (return) [ From the obscure and hearsay evidence, Gerard

Vossius (de Poetis Graecis, c. 6) and Le Clerc (Bibliotheque

Choisie, tom. xix. p. 285) mention a commentary of Michael

Psellus on twenty-four plays of Menander, still extant in Ms. at

Constantinople. Yet such classic studies seem incompatible with

the gravity or dulness of a schoolman, who pored over the

categories, (de Psellis, p. 42;) and Michael has probably been

confounded with Homerus Sellius, who wrote arguments to the

comedies of Menander. In the xth century, Suidas quotes fifty

plays, but he often transcribes the old scholiast of

Aristophanes.]

111 (return) [ Anna Comnena may boast of her Greek style, and

Zonaras her contemporary, but not her flatterer, may add with

truth. The princess was conversant with the artful dialogues of

Plato; and had studied quadrivium of astrology, geometry,

arithmetic, and music, (see he preface to the Alexiad, with

Ducange’s notes)]

In our modern education, the painful though necessary attainment

of two languages, which are no longer living, may consume the

time and damp the ardor of the youthful student. The poets and

orators were long imprisoned in the barbarous dialects of our

Western ancestors, devoid of harmony or grace; and their genius,

without precept or example, was abandoned to the rule and native

powers of their judgment and fancy. But the Greeks of

Constantinople, after purging away the impurities of their vulgar

speech, acquired the free use of their ancient language, the most

happy composition of human art, and a familiar knowledge of the

sublime masters who had pleased or instructed the first of

nations. But these advantages only tend to aggravate the reproach

and shame of a degenerate people. They held in their lifeless

hands the riches of their fathers, without inheriting the spirit

which had created and improved that sacred patrimony: they read,

they praised, they compiled, but their languid souls seemed alike

incapable of thought and action. In the revolution of ten

centuries, not a single discovery was made to exalt the dignity

or promote the happiness of mankind. Not a single idea has been

added to the speculative systems of antiquity, and a succession

of patient disciples became in their turn the dogmatic teachers

of the next servile generation. Not a single composition of

history, philosophy, or literature, has been saved from oblivion

by the intrinsic beauties of style or sentiment, of original

fancy, or even of successful imitation. In prose, the least

offensive of the Byzantine writers are absolved from censure by

their naked and unpresuming simplicity: but the orators, most

eloquent 112 in their own conceit, are the farthest removed from

the models whom they affect to emulate. In every page our taste

and reason are wounded by the choice of gigantic and obsolete

words, a stiff and intricate phraseology, the discord of images,

the childish play of false or unseasonable ornament, and the

painful attempt to elevate themselves, to astonish the reader,

and to involve a trivial meaning in the smoke of obscurity and

exaggeration. Their prose is soaring to the vicious affectation

of poetry: their poetry is sinking below the flatness and

insipidity of prose. The tragic, epic, and lyric muses, were

silent and inglorious: the bards of Constantinople seldom rose

above a riddle or epigram, a panegyric or tale; they forgot even

the rules of prosody; and with the melody of Homer yet sounding

in their ears, they confound all measure of feet and syllables in

the impotent strains which have received the name of political or

city verses. 113 The minds of the Greek were bound in the fetters

of a base and imperious superstition which extends her dominion

round the circle of profane science. Their understandings were

bewildered in metaphysical controversy: in the belief of visions

and miracles, they had lost all principles of moral evidence, and

their taste was vitiated by the homilies of the monks, an absurd

medley of declamation and Scripture. Even these contemptible

studies were no longer dignified by the abuse of superior

talents: the leaders of the Greek church were humbly content to

admire and copy the oracles of antiquity, nor did the schools of

pulpit produce any rivals of the fame of Athanasius and

Chrysostom. 114

112 (return) [ To censure the Byzantine taste. Ducange (Praefat.

Gloss. Graec. p. 17) strings the authorities of Aulus Gellius,

Jerom, Petronius George Hamartolus, Longinus; who give at once

the precept and the example.]

113 (return) [ The versus politici, those common prostitutes, as,

from their easiness, they are styled by Leo Allatius, usually

consist of fifteen syllables. They are used by Constantine

Manasses, John Tzetzes, &c. (Ducange, Gloss. Latin. tom. iii. p.

i. p. 345, 346, edit. Basil, 1762.)]

114 (return) [ As St. Bernard of the Latin, so St. John

Damascenus in the viiith century is revered as the last father of

the Greek, church.]

In all the pursuits of active and speculative life, the emulation

of states and individuals is the most powerful spring of the

efforts and improvements of mankind. The cities of ancient Greece

were cast in the happy mixture of union and independence, which

is repeated on a larger scale, but in a looser form, by the

nations of modern Europe; the union of language, religion, and

manners, which renders them the spectators and judges of each

other’s merit; 115 the independence of government and interest,

which asserts their separate freedom, and excites them to strive

for preeminence in the career of glory. The situation of the

Romans was less favorable; yet in the early ages of the republic,

which fixed the national character, a similar emulation was

kindled among the states of Latium and Italy; and in the arts and

sciences, they aspired to equal or surpass their Grecian masters.

The empire of the Caesars undoubtedly checked the activity and

progress of the human mind; its magnitude might indeed allow some

scope for domestic competition; but when it was gradually

reduced, at first to the East and at last to Greece and

Constantinople, the Byzantine subjects were degraded to an abject

and languid temper, the natural effect of their solitary and

insulated state. From the North they were oppressed by nameless

tribes of Barbarians, to whom they scarcely imparted the

appellation of men. The language and religion of the more

polished Arabs were an insurmountable bar to all social

intercourse. The conquerors of Europe were their brethren in the

Christian faith; but the speech of the Franks or Latins was

unknown, their manners were rude, and they were rarely connected,

in peace or war, with the successors of Heraclius. Alone in the

universe, the self-satisfied pride of the Greeks was not

disturbed by the comparison of foreign merit; and it is no wonder

if they fainted in the race, since they had neither competitors

to urge their speed, nor judges to crown their victory. The

nations of Europe and Asia were mingled by the expeditions to the

Holy Land; and it is under the Comnenian dynasty that a faint

emulation of knowledge and military virtue was rekindled in the

Byzantine empire.

115 (return) [Hume’s Essays, vol. i. p. 125]

Chapter LIV: Origin And Doctrine Of The Paulicians.—Part I.

Origin And Doctrine Of The Paulicians.—Their Persecution By The

Greek Emperors.—Revolt In Armenia &c.—Transplantation Into

Thrace.—Propagation In The West.—The Seeds, Character, And

Consequences Of The Reformation.

In the profession of Christianity, the variety of national

characters may be clearly distinguished. The natives of Syria and

Egypt abandoned their lives to lazy and contemplative devotion:

Rome again aspired to the dominion of the world; and the wit of

the lively and loquacious Greeks was consumed in the disputes of

metaphysical theology. The incomprehensible mysteries of the

Trinity and Incarnation, instead of commanding their silent

submission, were agitated in vehement and subtile controversies,

which enlarged their faith at the expense, perhaps, of their

charity and reason. From the council of Nice to the end of the

seventh century, the peace and unity of the church was invaded by

these spiritual wars; and so deeply did they affect the decline

and fall of the empire, that the historian has too often been

compelled to attend the synods, to explore the creeds, and to

enumerate the sects, of this busy period of ecclesiastical

annals. From the beginning of the eighth century to the last ages

of the Byzantine empire, the sound of controversy was seldom

heard: curiosity was exhausted, zeal was fatigued, and, in the

decrees of six councils, the articles of the Catholic faith had

been irrevocably defined. The spirit of dispute, however vain and

pernicious, requires some energy and exercise of the mental

faculties; and the prostrate Greeks were content to fast, to

pray, and to believe in blind obedience to the patriarch and his

clergy. During a long dream of superstition, the Virgin and the

Saints, their visions and miracles, their relics and images, were

preached by the monks, and worshipped by the people; and the

appellation of people might be extended, without injustice, to

the first ranks of civil society. At an unseasonable moment, the

Isaurian emperors attempted somewhat rudely to awaken their

subjects: under their influence reason might obtain some

proselytes, a far greater number was swayed by interest or fear;

but the Eastern world embraced or deplored their visible deities,

and the restoration of images was celebrated as the feast of

orthodoxy. In this passive and unanimous state the ecclesiastical

rulers were relieved from the toil, or deprived of the pleasure,

of persecution. The Pagans had disappeared; the Jews were silent

and obscure; the disputes with the Latins were rare and remote

hostilities against a national enemy; and the sects of Egypt and

Syria enjoyed a free toleration under the shadow of the Arabian

caliphs. About the middle of the seventh century, a branch of

Manichaeans was selected as the victims of spiritual tyranny;

their patience was at length exasperated to despair and

rebellion; and their exile has scattered over the West the seeds

of reformation. These important events will justify some inquiry

into the doctrine and story of the Paulicians; 1 and, as they

cannot plead for themselves, our candid criticism will magnify

the good, and abate or suspect the evil, that is reported by

their adversaries.

1 (return) [ The errors and virtues of the Paulicians are

weighed, with his usual judgment and candor, by the learned

Mosheim, (Hist. Ecclesiast. seculum ix. p. 311, &c.) He draws his

original intelligence from Photius (contra Manichaeos, l. i.) and

Peter Siculus, (Hist. Manichaeorum.) The first of these accounts

has not fallen into my hands; the second, which Mosheim prefers,

I have read in a Latin version inserted in the Maxima Bibliotheca

Patrum, (tom. xvi. p. 754-764,) from the edition of the Jesuit

Raderus, (Ingolstadii, 1604, in 4to.) * Note: Compare Hallam’s

Middle Ages, p. 461-471. Mr. Hallam justly observes that this

chapter “appears to be accurate as well as luminous, and is at

least far superior to any modern work on the subject.”—M.]

The Gnostics, who had distracted the infancy, were oppressed by

the greatness and authority, of the church. Instead of emulating

or surpassing the wealth, learning, and numbers of the Catholics,

their obscure remnant was driven from the capitals of the East

and West, and confined to the villages and mountains along the

borders of the Euphrates. Some vestige of the Marcionites may be

detected in the fifth century; 2 but the numerous sects were

finally lost in the odious name of the Manichaeans; and these

heretics, who presumed to reconcile the doctrines of Zoroaster

and Christ, were pursued by the two religions with equal and

unrelenting hatred. Under the grandson of Heraclius, in the

neighborhood of Samosata, more famous for the birth of Lucian

than for the title of a Syrian kingdom, a reformer arose,

esteemed by the Paulicians as the chosen messenger of truth. In

his humble dwelling of Mananalis, Constantine entertained a

deacon, who returned from Syrian captivity, and received the

inestimable gift of the New Testament, which was already

concealed from the vulgar by the prudence of the Greek, and

perhaps of the Gnostic, clergy. 3 These books became the measure

of his studies and the rule of his faith; and the Catholics, who

dispute his interpretation, acknowledge that his text was genuine

and sincere. But he attached himself with peculiar devotion to

the writings and character of St. Paul: the name of the

Paulicians is derived by their enemies from some unknown and

domestic teacher; but I am confident that they gloried in their

affinity to the apostle of the Gentiles. His disciples, Titus,

Timothy, Sylvanus, Tychicus, were represented by Constantine and

his fellow-laborers: the names of the apostolic churches were

applied to the congregations which they assembled in Armenia and

Cappadocia; and this innocent allegory revived the example and

memory of the first ages. In the Gospel, and the Epistles of St.

Paul, his faithful follower investigated the Creed of primitive

Christianity; and, whatever might be the success, a Protestant

reader will applaud the spirit, of the inquiry. But if the

Scriptures of the Paulicians were pure, they were not perfect.

Their founders rejected the two Epistles of St. Peter, 4 the

apostle of the circumcision, whose dispute with their favorite

for the observance of the law could not easily be forgiven. 5

They agreed with their Gnostic brethren in the universal contempt

for the Old Testament, the books of Moses and the prophets, which

have been consecrated by the decrees of the Catholic church. With

equal boldness, and doubtless with more reason, Constantine, the

new Sylvanus, disclaimed the visions, which, in so many bulky and

splendid volumes, had been published by the Oriental sects; 6 the

fabulous productions of the Hebrew patriarchs and the sages of

the East; the spurious gospels, epistles, and acts, which in the

first age had overwhelmed the orthodox code; the theology of

Manes, and the authors of the kindred heresies; and the thirty

generations, or aeons, which had been created by the fruitful

fancy of Valentine. The Paulicians sincerely condemned the memory

and opinions of the Manichaean sect, and complained of the

injustice which impressed that invidious name on the simple

votaries of St. Paul and of Christ.

2 (return) [ In the time of Theodoret, the diocese of Cyrrhus, in

Syria, contained eight hundred villages. Of these, two were

inhabited by Arians and Eunomians, and eight by Marcionites, whom

the laborious bishop reconciled to the Catholic church, (Dupin,

Bibliot. Ecclesiastique, tom. iv. p. 81, 82.)]

3 (return) [ Nobis profanis ista (sacra Evangelia) legere non

licet sed sacerdotibus duntaxat, was the first scruple of a

Catholic when he was advised to read the Bible, (Petr. Sicul. p.

761.)]

4 (return) [ In rejecting the second Epistle of St. Peter, the

Paulicians are justified by some of the most respectable of the

ancients and moderns, (see Wetstein ad loc., Simon, Hist.

Critique du Nouveau Testament, c. 17.) They likewise overlooked

the Apocalypse, (Petr. Sicul. p. 756;) but as such neglect is not

imputed as a crime, the Greeks of the ixth century must have been

careless of the credit and honor of the Revelations.]

5 (return) [ This contention, which has not escaped the malice of

Porphyry, supposes some error and passion in one or both of the

apostles. By Chrysostom, Jerome, and Erasmus, it is represented

as a sham quarrel a pious fraud, for the benefit of the Gentiles

and the correction of the Jews, (Middleton’s Works, vol. ii. p.

1-20.)]

6 (return) [ Those who are curious of this heterodox library, may

consult the researches of Beausobre, (Hist. Critique du

Manicheisme, tom. i. p. 305-437.) Even in Africa, St. Austin

could describe the Manichaean books, tam multi, tam grandes, tam

pretiosi codices, (contra Faust. xiii. 14;) but he adds, without

pity, Incendite omnes illas membranas: and his advice had been

rigorously followed.]

Of the ecclesiastical chain, many links had been broken by the

Paulician reformers; and their liberty was enlarged, as they

reduced the number of masters, at whose voice profane reason must

bow to mystery and miracle. The early separation of the Gnostics

had preceded the establishment of the Catholic worship; and

against the gradual innovations of discipline and doctrine they

were as strongly guarded by habit and aversion, as by the silence

of St. Paul and the evangelists. The objects which had been

transformed by the magic of superstition, appeared to the eyes of

the Paulicians in their genuine and naked colors. An image made

without hands was the common workmanship of a mortal artist, to

whose skill alone the wood and canvas must be indebted for their

merit or value. The miraculous relics were a heap of bones and

ashes, destitute of life or virtue, or of any relation, perhaps,

with the person to whom they were ascribed. The true and

vivifying cross was a piece of sound or rotten timber, the body

and blood of Christ, a loaf of bread and a cup of wine, the gifts

of nature and the symbols of grace. The mother of God was

degraded from her celestial honors and immaculate virginity; and

the saints and angels were no longer solicited to exercise the

laborious office of mediation in heaven, and ministry upon earth.

In the practice, or at least in the theory, of the sacraments,

the Paulicians were inclined to abolish all visible objects of

worship, and the words of the gospel were, in their judgment, the

baptism and communion of the faithful. They indulged a convenient

latitude for the interpretation of Scripture: and as often as

they were pressed by the literal sense, they could escape to the

intricate mazes of figure and allegory. Their utmost diligence

must have been employed to dissolve the connection between the

Old and the New Testament; since they adored the latter as the

oracles of God, and abhorred the former as the fabulous and

absurd invention of men or daemons. We cannot be surprised, that

they should have found in the Gospel the orthodox mystery of the

Trinity: but, instead of confessing the human nature and

substantial sufferings of Christ, they amused their fancy with a

celestial body that passed through the virgin like water through

a pipe; with a fantastic crucifixion, that eluded the vain and

important malice of the Jews. A creed thus simple and spiritual

was not adapted to the genius of the times; 7 and the rational

Christian, who might have been contented with the light yoke and

easy burden of Jesus and his apostles, was justly offended, that

the Paulicians should dare to violate the unity of God, the first

article of natural and revealed religion. Their belief and their

trust was in the Father, of Christ, of the human soul, and of the

invisible world.

But they likewise held the eternity of matter; a stubborn and

rebellious substance, the origin of a second principle of an

active being, who has created this visible world, and exercises

his temporal reign till the final consummation of death and sin.

8 The appearances of moral and physical evil had established the

two principles in the ancient philosophy and religion of the

East; from whence this doctrine was transfused to the various

swarms of the Gnostics. A thousand shades may be devised in the

nature and character of Ahriman, from a rival god to a

subordinate daemon, from passion and frailty to pure and perfect

malevolence: but, in spite of our efforts, the goodness, and the

power, of Ormusd are placed at the opposite extremities of the

line; and every step that approaches the one must recede in equal

proportion from the other. 9

7 (return) [ The six capital errors of the Paulicians are defined

by Peter (p. 756,) with much prejudice and passion.]

8 (return) [ Primum illorum axioma est, duo rerum esse principia;

Deum malum et Deum bonum, aliumque hujus mundi conditorem et

princi pem, et alium futuri aevi, (Petr. Sicul. 765.)]

9 (return) [ Two learned critics, Beausobre (Hist. Critique du

Manicheisme, l. i. iv. v. vi.) and Mosheim, (Institut. Hist.

Eccles. and de Rebus Christianis ante Constantinum, sec. i. ii.

iii.,) have labored to explore and discriminate the various

systems of the Gnostics on the subject of the two principles.]

The apostolic labors of Constantine Sylvanus soon multiplied the

number of his disciples, the secret recompense of spiritual

ambition. The remnant of the Gnostic sects, and especially the

Manichaeans of Armenia, were united under his standard; many

Catholics were converted or seduced by his arguments; and he

preached with success in the regions of Pontus 10 and Cappadocia,

which had long since imbibed the religion of Zoroaster. The

Paulician teachers were distinguished only by their Scriptural

names, by the modest title of Fellow-pilgrims, by the austerity

of their lives, their zeal or knowledge, and the credit of some

extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit. But they were incapable

of desiring, or at least of obtaining, the wealth and honors of

the Catholic prelacy; such anti-Christian pride they bitterly

censured; and even the rank of elders or presbyters was condemned

as an institution of the Jewish synagogue. The new sect was

loosely spread over the provinces of Asia Minor to the westward

of the Euphrates; six of their principal congregations

represented the churches to which St. Paul had addressed his

epistles; and their founder chose his residence in the

neighborhood of Colonia, 11 in the same district of Pontus which

had been celebrated by the altars of Bellona 12 and the miracles

of Gregory. 13 After a mission of twenty-seven years, Sylvanus,

who had retired from the tolerating government of the Arabs, fell

a sacrifice to Roman persecution. The laws of the pious emperors,

which seldom touched the lives of less odious heretics,

proscribed without mercy or disguise the tenets, the books, and

the persons of the Montanists and Manichaeans: the books were

delivered to the flames; and all who should presume to secrete

such writings, or to profess such opinions, were devoted to an

ignominious death. 14 A Greek minister, armed with legal and

military powers, appeared at Colonia to strike the shepherd, and

to reclaim, if possible, the lost sheep. By a refinement of

cruelty, Simeon placed the unfortunate Sylvanus before a line of

his disciples, who were commanded, as the price of their pardon

and the proof of their repentance, to massacre their spiritual

father. They turned aside from the impious office; the stones

dropped from their filial hands, and of the whole number, only

one executioner could be found, a new David, as he is styled by

the Catholics, who boldly overthrew the giant of heresy. This

apostate (Justin was his name) again deceived and betrayed his

unsuspecting brethren, and a new conformity to the acts of St.

Paul may be found in the conversion of Simeon: like the apostle,

he embraced the doctrine which he had been sent to persecute,

renounced his honors and fortunes, and required among the

Paulicians the fame of a missionary and a martyr. They were not

ambitious of martyrdom, 15 but in a calamitous period of one

hundred and fifty years, their patience sustained whatever zeal

could inflict; and power was insufficient to eradicate the

obstinate vegetation of fanaticism and reason. From the blood and

ashes of the first victims, a succession of teachers and

congregations repeatedly arose: amidst their foreign hostilities,

they found leisure for domestic quarrels: they preached, they

disputed, they suffered; and the virtues, the apparent virtues,

of Sergius, in a pilgrimage of thirty-three years, are

reluctantly confessed by the orthodox historians. 16 The native

cruelty of Justinian the Second was stimulated by a pious cause;

and he vainly hoped to extinguish, in a single conflagration, the

name and memory of the Paulicians. By their primitive simplicity,

their abhorrence of popular superstition, the Iconoclast princes

might have been reconciled to some erroneous doctrines; but they

themselves were exposed to the calumnies of the monks, and they

chose to be the tyrants, lest they should be accused as the

accomplices, of the Manichaeans. Such a reproach has sullied the

clemency of Nicephorus, who relaxed in their favor the severity

of the penal statutes, nor will his character sustain the honor

of a more liberal motive. The feeble Michael the First, the rigid

Leo the Armenian, were foremost in the race of persecution; but

the prize must doubtless be adjudged to the sanguinary devotion

of Theodora, who restored the images to the Oriental church. Her

inquisitors explored the cities and mountains of the Lesser Asia,

and the flatterers of the empress have affirmed that, in a short

reign, one hundred thousand Paulicians were extirpated by the

sword, the gibbet, or the flames. Her guilt or merit has perhaps

been stretched beyond the measure of truth: but if the account be

allowed, it must be presumed that many simple Iconoclasts were

punished under a more odious name; and that some who were driven

from the church, unwillingly took refuge in the bosom of heresy.

10 (return) [ The countries between the Euphrates and the Halys

were possessed above 350 years by the Medes (Herodot. l. i. c.

103) and Persians; and the kings of Pontus were of the royal race

of the Achaemenides, (Sallust. Fragment. l. iii. with the French

supplement and notes of the president de Brosses.)]

11 (return) [ Most probably founded by Pompey after the conquest

of Pontus. This Colonia, on the Lycus, above Neo-Caesarea, is

named by the Turks Coulei-hisar, or Chonac, a populous town in a

strong country, (D’Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 34.

Tournefort, Voyage du Levant, tom. iii. lettre xxi. p. 293.)]

12 (return) [ The temple of Bellona, at Comana in Pontus was a

powerful and wealthy foundation, and the high priest was

respected as the second person in the kingdom. As the sacerdotal

office had been occupied by his mother’s family, Strabo (l. xii.

p. 809, 835, 836, 837) dwells with peculiar complacency on the

temple, the worship, and festival, which was twice celebrated

every year. But the Bellona of Pontus had the features and

character of the goddess, not of war, but of love.]

13 (return) [ Gregory, bishop of Neo-Caesarea, (A.D. 240-265,)

surnamed Thaumaturgus, or the Wonder-worker. An hundred years

afterwards, the history or romance of his life was composed by

Gregory of Nyssa, his namesake and countryman, the brother of the

great St. Basil.]

14 (return) [ Hoc caeterum ad sua egregia facinora, divini atque

orthodoxi Imperatores addiderunt, ut Manichaeos Montanosque

capitali puniri sententia juberent, eorumque libros, quocunque in

loco inventi essent, flammis tradi; quod siquis uspiam eosdem

occultasse deprehenderetur, hunc eundem mortis poenae addici,

ejusque bona in fiscum inferri, (Petr. Sicul. p. 759.) What more

could bigotry and persecution desire?]

15 (return) [ It should seem, that the Paulicians allowed

themselves some latitude of equivocation and mental reservation;

till the Catholics discovered the pressing questions, which

reduced them to the alternative of apostasy or martyrdom, (Petr.

Sicul. p. 760.)]

16 (return) [ The persecution is told by Petrus Siculus (p.

579-763) with satisfaction and pleasantry. Justus justa

persolvit. See likewise Cedrenus, (p. 432-435.)]

The most furious and desperate of rebels are the sectaries of a

religion long persecuted, and at length provoked. In a holy cause

they are no longer susceptible of fear or remorse: the justice of

their arms hardens them against the feelings of humanity; and

they revenge their fathers’ wrongs on the children of their

tyrants. Such have been the Hussites of Bohemia and the

Calvinists of France, and such, in the ninth century, were the

Paulicians of Armenia and the adjacent provinces. 17 They were

first awakened to the massacre of a governor and bishop, who

exercised the Imperial mandate of converting or destroying the

heretics; and the deepest recesses of Mount Argaeus protected

their independence and revenge. A more dangerous and consuming

flame was kindled by the persecution of Theodora, and the revolt

of Carbeas, a valiant Paulician, who commanded the guards of the

general of the East. His father had been impaled by the Catholic

inquisitors; and religion, or at least nature, might justify his

desertion and revenge. Five thousand of his brethren were united

by the same motives; they renounced the allegiance of

anti-Christian Rome; a Saracen emir introduced Carbeas to the

caliph; and the commander of the faithful extended his sceptre to

the implacable enemy of the Greeks. In the mountains between

Siwas and Trebizond he founded or fortified the city of Tephrice,

18 which is still occupied by a fierce or licentious people, and

the neighboring hills were covered with the Paulician fugitives,

who now reconciled the use of the Bible and the sword. During

more than thirty years, Asia was afflicted by the calamities of

foreign and domestic war; in their hostile inroads, the disciples

of St. Paul were joined with those of Mahomet; and the peaceful

Christians, the aged parent and tender virgin, who were delivered

into barbarous servitude, might justly accuse the intolerant

spirit of their sovereign. So urgent was the mischief, so

intolerable the shame, that even the dissolute Michael, the son

of Theodora, was compelled to march in person against the

Paulicians: he was defeated under the walls of Samosata; and the

Roman emperor fled before the heretics whom his mother had

condemned to the flames. The Saracens fought under the same

banners, but the victory was ascribed to Carbeas; and the captive

generals, with more than a hundred tribunes, were either released

by his avarice, or tortured by his fanaticism. The valor and

ambition of Chrysocheir, 19 his successor, embraced a wider

circle of rapine and revenge. In alliance with his faithful

Moslems, he boldly penetrated into the heart of Asia; the troops

of the frontier and the palace were repeatedly overthrown; the

edicts of persecution were answered by the pillage of Nice and

Nicomedia, of Ancyra and Ephesus; nor could the apostle St. John

protect from violation his city and sepulchre. The cathedral of

Ephesus was turned into a stable for mules and horses; and the

Paulicians vied with the Saracens in their contempt and

abhorrence of images and relics. It is not unpleasing to observe

the triumph of rebellion over the same despotism which had

disdained the prayers of an injured people. The emperor Basil,

the Macedonian, was reduced to sue for peace, to offer a ransom

for the captives, and to request, in the language of moderation

and charity, that Chrysocheir would spare his fellow-Christians,

and content himself with a royal donative of gold and silver and

silk garments. “If the emperor,” replied the insolent fanatic,

“be desirous of peace, let him abdicate the East, and reign

without molestation in the West. If he refuse, the servants of

the Lord will precipitate him from the throne.” The reluctant

Basil suspended the treaty, accepted the defiance, and led his

army into the land of heresy, which he wasted with fire and

sword. The open country of the Paulicians was exposed to the same

calamities which they had inflicted; but when he had explored the

strength of Tephrice, the multitude of the Barbarians, and the

ample magazines of arms and provisions, he desisted with a sigh

from the hopeless siege. On his return to Constantinople, he

labored, by the foundation of convents and churches, to secure

the aid of his celestial patrons, of Michael the archangel and

the prophet Elijah; and it was his daily prayer that he might

live to transpierce, with three arrows, the head of his impious

adversary. Beyond his expectations, the wish was accomplished:

after a successful inroad, Chrysocheir was surprised and slain in

his retreat; and the rebel’s head was triumphantly presented at

the foot of the throne. On the reception of this welcome trophy,

Basil instantly called for his bow, discharged three arrows with

unerring aim, and accepted the applause of the court, who hailed

the victory of the royal archer. With Chrysocheir, the glory of

the Paulicians faded and withered: 20 on the second expedition of

the emperor, the impregnable Tephrice, was deserted by the

heretics, who sued for mercy or escaped to the borders. The city

was ruined, but the spirit of independence survived in the

mountains: the Paulicians defended, above a century, their

religion and liberty, infested the Roman limits, and maintained

their perpetual alliance with the enemies of the empire and the

gospel.

17 (return) [ Petrus Siculus, (p. 763, 764,) the continuator of

Theophanes, (l. iv. c. 4, p. 103, 104,) Cedrenus, (p. 541, 542,

545,) and Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xvi. p. 156,) describe the revolt

and exploits of Carbeas and his Paulicians.]

18 (return) [ Otter (Voyage en Turquie et en Perse, tom. ii.) is

probably the only Frank who has visited the independent

Barbarians of Tephrice now Divrigni, from whom he fortunately

escaped in the train of a Turkish officer.]

19 (return) [ In the history of Chrysocheir, Genesius (Chron. p.

67-70, edit. Venet.) has exposed the nakedness of the empire.

Constantine Porphyrogenitus (in Vit. Basil. c. 37-43, p. 166-171)

has displayed the glory of his grandfather. Cedrenus (p. 570-573)

is without their passions or their knowledge.]

20 (return) [ How elegant is the Greek tongue, even in the mouth

of Cedrenus!]

Chapter LIV: Origin And Doctrine Of The Paulicians.—Part II.

About the middle of the eight century, Constantine, surnamed

Copronymus by the worshippers of images, had made an expedition

into Armenia, and found, in the cities of Melitene and

Theodosiopolis, a great number of Paulicians, his kindred

heretics. As a favor, or punishment, he transplanted them from

the banks of the Euphrates to Constantinople and Thrace; and by

this emigration their doctrine was introduced and diffused in

Europe. 21 If the sectaries of the metropolis were soon mingled

with the promiscuous mass, those of the country struck a deep

root in a foreign soil. The Paulicians of Thrace resisted the

storms of persecution, maintained a secret correspondence with

their Armenian brethren, and gave aid and comfort to their

preachers, who solicited, not without success, the infant faith

of the Bulgarians. 22 In the tenth century, they were restored

and multiplied by a more powerful colony, which John Zimisces 23

transported from the Chalybian hills to the valleys of Mount

Haemus. The Oriental clergy who would have preferred the

destruction, impatiently sighed for the absence, of the

Manichaeans: the warlike emperor had felt and esteemed their

valor: their attachment to the Saracens was pregnant with

mischief; but, on the side of the Danube, against the Barbarians

of Scythia, their service might be useful, and their loss would

be desirable. Their exile in a distant land was softened by a

free toleration: the Paulicians held the city of Philippopolis

and the keys of Thrace; the Catholics were their subjects; the

Jacobite emigrants their associates: they occupied a line of

villages and castles in Macedonia and Epirus; and many native

Bulgarians were associated to the communion of arms and heresy.

As long as they were awed by power and treated with moderation,

their voluntary bands were distinguished in the armies of the

empire; and the courage of these dogs, ever greedy of war, ever

thirsty of human blood, is noticed with astonishment, and almost

with reproach, by the pusillanimous Greeks. The same spirit

rendered them arrogant and contumacious: they were easily

provoked by caprice or injury; and their privileges were often

violated by the faithless bigotry of the government and clergy.

In the midst of the Norman war, two thousand five hundred

Manichaeans deserted the standard of Alexius Comnenus, 24 and

retired to their native homes. He dissembled till the moment of

revenge; invited the chiefs to a friendly conference; and

punished the innocent and guilty by imprisonment, confiscation,

and baptism. In an interval of peace, the emperor undertook the

pious office of reconciling them to the church and state: his

winter quarters were fixed at Philippopolis; and the thirteenth

apostle, as he is styled by his pious daughter, consumed whole

days and nights in theological controversy. His arguments were

fortified, their obstinacy was melted, by the honors and rewards

which he bestowed on the most eminent proselytes; and a new city,

surrounded with gardens, enriched with immunities, and dignified

with his own name, was founded by Alexius for the residence of

his vulgar converts. The important station of Philippopolis was

wrested from their hands; the contumacious leaders were secured

in a dungeon, or banished from their country; and their lives

were spared by the prudence, rather than the mercy, of an

emperor, at whose command a poor and solitary heretic was burnt

alive before the church of St. Sophia. 25 But the proud hope of

eradicating the prejudices of a nation was speedily overturned by

the invincible zeal of the Paulicians, who ceased to dissemble or

refused to obey. After the departure and death of Alexius, they

soon resumed their civil and religious laws. In the beginning of

the thirteenth century, their pope or primate (a manifest

corruption) resided on the confines of Bulgaria, Croatia, and

Dalmatia, and governed, by his vicars, the filial congregations

of Italy and France. 26 From that aera, a minute scrutiny might

prolong and perpetuate the chain of tradition. At the end of the

last age, the sect or colony still inhabited the valleys of Mount

Haemus, where their ignorance and poverty were more frequently

tormented by the Greek clergy than by the Turkish government. The

modern Paulicians have lost all memory of their origin; and their

religion is disgraced by the worship of the cross, and the

practice of bloody sacrifice, which some captives have imported

from the wilds of Tartary. 27

21 (return) [ Copronymus transported his heretics; and thus says

Cedrenus, (p. 463,) who has copied the annals of Theophanes.]

22 (return) [ Petrus Siculus, who resided nine months at Tephrice

(A.D. 870) for the ransom of captives, (p. 764,) was informed of

their intended mission, and addressed his preservative, the

Historia Manichaeorum to the new archbishop of the Bulgarians,

(p. 754.)]

23 (return) [ The colony of Paulicians and Jacobites transplanted

by John Zimisces (A.D. 970) from Armenia to Thrace, is mentioned

by Zonaras (tom. ii. l. xvii. p. 209) and Anna Comnena, (Alexiad,

l. xiv. p. 450, &c.)]

24 (return) [ The Alexiad of Anna Comnena (l. v. p. 131, l. vi.

p. 154, 155, l. xiv. p. 450-457, with the Annotations of Ducange)

records the transactions of her apostolic father with the

Manichaeans, whose abominable heresy she was desirous of

refuting.]

25 (return) [ Basil, a monk, and the author of the Bogomiles, a

sect of Gnostics, who soon vanished, (Anna Comnena, Alexiad, l.

xv. p. 486-494 Mosheim, Hist. Ecclesiastica, p. 420.)]

26 (return) [ Matt. Paris, Hist. Major, p. 267. This passage of

our English historian is alleged by Ducange in an excellent note

on Villehardouin (No. 208,) who found the Paulicians at

Philippopolis the friends of the Bulgarians.]

27 (return) [ See Marsigli, Stato Militare dell’ Imperio

Ottomano, p. 24.]

In the West, the first teachers of the Manichaean theology had

been repulsed by the people, or suppressed by the prince. The

favor and success of the Paulicians in the eleventh and twelfth

centuries must be imputed to the strong, though secret,

discontent which armed the most pious Christians against the

church of Rome. Her avarice was oppressive, her despotism odious;

less degenerate perhaps than the Greeks in the worship of saints

and images, her innovations were more rapid and scandalous: she

had rigorously defined and imposed the doctrine of

transubstantiation: the lives of the Latin clergy were more

corrupt, and the Eastern bishops might pass for the successors of

the apostles, if they were compared with the lordly prelates, who

wielded by turns the crosier, the sceptre, and the sword. Three

different roads might introduce the Paulicians into the heart of

Europe. After the conversion of Hungary, the pilgrims who visited

Jerusalem might safely follow the course of the Danube: in their

journey and return they passed through Philippopolis; and the

sectaries, disguising their name and heresy, might accompany the

French or German caravans to their respective countries. The

trade and dominion of Venice pervaded the coast of the Adriatic,

and the hospitable republic opened her bosom to foreigners of

every climate and religion. Under the Byzantine standard, the

Paulicians were often transported to the Greek provinces of Italy

and Sicily: in peace and war, they freely conversed with

strangers and natives, and their opinions were silently

propagated in Rome, Milan, and the kingdoms beyond the Alps. 28

It was soon discovered, that many thousand Catholics of every

rank, and of either sex, had embraced the Manichaean heresy; and

the flames which consumed twelve canons of Orleans was the first

act and signal of persecution. The Bulgarians, 29 a name so

innocent in its origin, so odious in its application, spread

their branches over the face of Europe. United in common hatred

of idolatry and Rome, they were connected by a form of episcopal

and presbyterian government; their various sects were

discriminated by some fainter or darker shades of theology; but

they generally agreed in the two principles, the contempt of the

Old Testament and the denial of the body of Christ, either on the

cross or in the eucharist. A confession of simple worship and

blameless manners is extorted from their enemies; and so high was

their standard of perfection, that the increasing congregations

were divided into two classes of disciples, of those who

practised, and of those who aspired. It was in the country of the

Albigeois, 30 in the southern provinces of France, that the

Paulicians were most deeply implanted; and the same vicissitudes

of martyrdom and revenge which had been displayed in the

neighborhood of the Euphrates, were repeated in the thirteenth

century on the banks of the Rhone. The laws of the Eastern

emperors were revived by Frederic the Second. The insurgents of

Tephrice were represented by the barons and cities of Languedoc:

Pope Innocent III. surpassed the sanguinary fame of Theodora. It

was in cruelty alone that her soldiers could equal the heroes of

the Crusades, and the cruelty of her priests was far excelled by

the founders of the Inquisition; 31 an office more adapted to

confirm, than to refute, the belief of an evil principle. The

visible assemblies of the Paulicians, or Albigeois, were

extirpated by fire and sword; and the bleeding remnant escaped by

flight, concealment, or Catholic conformity. But the invincible

spirit which they had kindled still lived and breathed in the

Western world. In the state, in the church, and even in the

cloister, a latent succession was preserved of the disciples of

St. Paul; who protested against the tyranny of Rome, embraced the

Bible as the rule of faith, and purified their creed from all the

visions of the Gnostic theology. 3111 The struggles of Wickliff

in England, of Huss in Bohemia, were premature and ineffectual;

but the names of Zuinglius, Luther, and Calvin, are pronounced

with gratitude as the deliverers of nations.

28 (return) [ The introduction of the Paulicians into Italy and

France is amply discussed by Muratori (Antiquitat. Italiae Medii

Aevi, tom. v. dissert. lx. p. 81-152) and Mosheim, (p. 379-382,

419-422.) Yet both have overlooked a curious passage of William

the Apulian, who clearly describes them in a battle between the

Greeks and Normans, A.D. 1040, (in Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital.

tom. v. p. 256:)

Cum Graecis aderant quidam, quos pessimus error

Fecerat amentes, et ab ipso nomen habebant.

But he is so ignorant of their doctrine as to make them a kind of

Sabellians or Patripassians.]

29 (return) [ Bulgari, Boulgres, Bougres, a national appellation,

has been applied by the French as a term of reproach to usurers

and unnatural sinners. The Paterini, or Patelini, has been made

to signify a smooth and flattering hypocrite, such as l’Avocat

Patelin of that original and pleasant farce, (Ducange, Gloss.

Latinitat. Medii et Infimi Aevi.) The Manichaeans were likewise

named Cathari or the pure, by corruption. Gazari, &c.]

30 (return) [ Of the laws, crusade, and persecution against the

Albigeois, a just, though general, idea is expressed by Mosheim,

(p. 477-481.) The detail may be found in the ecclesiastical

historians, ancient and modern, Catholics and Protestants; and

amongst these Fleury is the most impartial and moderate.]

31 (return) [ The Acts (Liber Sententiarum) of the Inquisition of

Tholouse (A.D. 1307-1323) have been published by Limborch,

(Amstelodami, 1692,) with a previous History of the Inquisition

in general. They deserved a more learned and critical editor. As

we must not calumniate even Satan, or the Holy Office, I will

observe, that of a list of criminals which fills nineteen folio

pages, only fifteen men and four women were delivered to the

secular arm.]

3111 (return) [ The popularity of “Milner’s History of the

Church” with some readers, may make it proper to observe, that

his attempt to exculpate the Paulicians from the charge of

Gnosticism or Manicheism is in direct defiance, if not in

ignorance, of all the original authorities. Gibbon himself, it

appears, was not acquainted with the work of Photius, “Contra

Manicheos Repullulantes,” the first book of which was edited by

Montfaucon, Bibliotheca Coisliniana, pars ii. p. 349, 375, the

whole by Wolf, in his Anecdota Graeca. Hamburg 1722. Compare a

very sensible tract. Letter to Rev. S. R. Maitland, by J G.

Dowling, M. A. London, 1835.—M.]

A philosopher, who calculates the degree of their merit and the

value of their reformation, will prudently ask from what articles

of faith, above or against our reason, they have enfranchised the

Christians; for such enfranchisement is doubtless a benefit so

far as it may be compatible with truth and piety. After a fair

discussion, we shall rather be surprised by the timidity, than

scandalized by the freedom, of our first reformers. 32 With the

Jews, they adopted the belief and defence of all the Hebrew

Scriptures, with all their prodigies, from the garden of Eden to

the visions of the prophet Daniel; and they were bound, like the

Catholics, to justify against the Jews the abolition of a divine

law. In the great mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation the

reformers were severely orthodox: they freely adopted the

theology of the four, or the six first councils; and with the

Athanasian creed, they pronounced the eternal damnation of all

who did not believe the Catholic faith. Transubstantiation, the

invisible change of the bread and wine into the body and blood of

Christ, is a tenet that may defy the power of argument and

pleasantry; but instead of consulting the evidence of their

senses, of their sight, their feeling, and their taste, the first

Protestants were entangled in their own scruples, and awed by the

words of Jesus in the institution of the sacrament. Luther

maintained a corporeal, and Calvin a real, presence of Christ in

the eucharist; and the opinion of Zuinglius, that it is no more

than a spiritual communion, a simple memorial, has slowly

prevailed in the reformed churches. 33 But the loss of one

mystery was amply compensated by the stupendous doctrines of

original sin, redemption, faith, grace, and predestination, which

have been strained from the epistles of St. Paul. These subtile

questions had most assuredly been prepared by the fathers and

schoolmen; but the final improvement and popular use may be

attributed to the first reformers, who enforced them as the

absolute and essential terms of salvation. Hitherto the weight of

supernatural belief inclines against the Protestants; and many a

sober Christian would rather admit that a wafer is God, than that

God is a cruel and capricious tyrant.

32 (return) [ The opinions and proceedings of the reformers are

exposed in the second part of the general history of Mosheim; but

the balance, which he has held with so clear an eye, and so

steady a hand, begins to incline in favor of his Lutheran

brethren.]

33 (return) [ Under Edward VI. our reformation was more bold and

perfect, but in the fundamental articles of the church of

England, a strong and explicit declaration against the real

presence was obliterated in the original copy, to please the

people or the Lutherans, or Queen Elizabeth, (Burnet’s History of

the Reformation, vol. ii. p. 82, 128, 302.)]

Yet the services of Luther and his rivals are solid and

important; and the philosopher must own his obligations to these

fearless enthusiasts. 34 I. By their hands the lofty fabric of

superstition, from the abuse of indulgences to the intercesson of

the Virgin, has been levelled with the ground. Myriads of both

sexes of the monastic profession were restored to the liberty and

labors of social life. A hierarchy of saints and angels, of

imperfect and subordinate deities, were stripped of their

temporal power, and reduced to the enjoyment of celestial

happiness; their images and relics were banished from the church;

and the credulity of the people was no longer nourished with the

daily repetition of miracles and visions. The imitation of

Paganism was supplied by a pure and spiritual worship of prayer

and thanksgiving, the most worthy of man, the least unworthy of

the Deity. It only remains to observe, whether such sublime

simplicity be consistent with popular devotion; whether the

vulgar, in the absence of all visible objects, will not be

inflamed by enthusiasm, or insensibly subside in languor and

indifference. II. The chain of authority was broken, which

restrains the bigot from thinking as he pleases, and the slave

from speaking as he thinks: the popes, fathers, and councils,

were no longer the supreme and infallible judges of the world;

and each Christian was taught to acknowledge no law but the

Scriptures, no interpreter but his own conscience. This freedom,

however, was the consequence, rather than the design, of the

Reformation. The patriot reformers were ambitious of succeeding

the tyrants whom they had dethroned. They imposed with equal

rigor their creeds and confessions; they asserted the right of

the magistrate to punish heretics with death. The pious or

personal animosity of Calvin proscribed in Servetus 35 the guilt

of his own rebellion; 36 and the flames of Smithfield, in which

he was afterwards consumed, had been kindled for the Anabaptists

by the zeal of Cranmer. 37 The nature of the tiger wa s the same,

but he was gradually deprived of his teeth and fangs. A spiritual

and temporal kingdom was possessed by the Roman pontiff; the

Protestant doctors were subjects of an humble rank, without

revenue or jurisdiction. His decrees were consecrated by the

antiquity of the Catholic church: their arguments and disputes

were submitted to the people; and their appeal to private

judgment was accepted beyond their wishes, by curiosity and

enthusiasm. Since the days of Luther and Calvin, a secret

reformation has been silently working in the bosom of the

reformed churches; many weeds of prejudice were eradicated; and

the disciples of Erasmus 38 diffused a spirit of freedom and

moderation. The liberty of conscience has been claimed as a

common benefit, an inalienable right: 39 the free governments of

Holland 40 and England 41 introduced the practice of toleration;

and the narrow allowance of the laws has been enlarged by the

prudence and humanity of the times. In the exercise, the mind has

understood the limits of its powers, and the words and shadows

that might amuse the child can no longer satisfy his manly

reason. The volumes of controversy are overspread with cobwebs:

the doctrine of a Protestant church is far removed from the

knowledge or belief of its private members; and the forms of

orthodoxy, the articles of faith, are subscribed with a sigh, or

a smile, by the modern clergy. Yet the friends of Christianity

are alarmed at the boundless impulse of inquiry and scepticism.

The predictions of the Catholics are accomplished: the web of

mystery is unravelled by the Arminians, Arians, and Socinians,

whose number must not be computed from their separate

congregations; and the pillars of Revelation are shaken by those

men who preserve the name without the substance of religion, who

indulge the license without the temper of philosophy. 42 4211

34 (return) [ “Had it not been for such men as Luther and

myself,” said the fanatic Whiston to Halley the philosopher, “you

would now be kneeling before an image of St. Winifred.”]

35 (return) [ The article of Servet in the Dictionnaire Critique

of Chauffepie is the best account which I have seen of this

shameful transaction. See likewise the Abbe d’Artigny, Nouveaux

Memoires d’Histoire, &c., tom. ii. p. 55-154.]

36 (return) [ I am more deeply scandalized at the single

execution of Servetus, than at the hecatombs which have blazed in

the Auto de Fes of Spain and Portugal. 1. The zeal of Calvin

seems to have been envenomed by personal malice, and perhaps

envy. He accused his adversary before their common enemies, the

judges of Vienna, and betrayed, for his destruction, the sacred

trust of a private correspondence. 2. The deed of cruelty was not

varnished by the pretence of danger to the church or state. In

his passage through Geneva, Servetus was a harmless stranger, who

neither preached, nor printed, nor made proselytes. 3. A Catholic

inquisition yields the same obedience which he requires, but

Calvin violated the golden rule of doing as he would be done by;

a rule which I read in a moral treatise of Isocrates (in Nicocle,

tom. i. p. 93, edit. Battie) four hundred years before the

publication of the Gospel. * Note: Gibbon has not accurately

rendered the sense of this passage, which does not contain the

maxim of charity Do unto others as you would they should do unto

you, but simply the maxim of justice, Do not to others the which

would offend you if they should do it to you.—G.]

37 (return) [ See Burnet, vol. ii. p. 84-86. The sense and

humanity of the young king were oppressed by the authority of the

primate.]

38 (return) [ Erasmus may be considered as the father of rational

theology. After a slumber of a hundred years, it was revived by

the Arminians of Holland, Grotius, Limborch, and Le Clerc; in

England by Chillingworth, the latitudinarians of Cambridge,

(Burnet, Hist. of Own Times, vol. i. p. 261-268, octavo edition.)

Tillotson, Clarke, Hoadley, &c.]

39 (return) [ I am sorry to observe, that the three writers of

the last age, by whom the rights of toleration have been so nobly

defended, Bayle, Leibnitz, and Locke, are all laymen and

philosophers.]

40 (return) [ See the excellent chapter of Sir William Temple on

the Religion of the United Provinces. I am not satisfied with

Grotius, (de Rebus Belgicis, Annal. l. i. p. 13, 14, edit. in

12mo.,) who approves the Imperial laws of persecution, and only

condemns the bloody tribunal of the inquisition.]

41 (return) [ Sir William Blackstone (Commentaries, vol. iv. p.

53, 54) explains the law of England as it was fixed at the

Revolution. The exceptions of Papists, and of those who deny the

Trinity, would still have a tolerable scope for persecution if

the national spirit were not more effectual than a hundred

statutes.]

42 (return) [ I shall recommend to public animadversion two

passages in Dr. Priestley, which betray the ultimate tendency of

his opinions. At the first of these (Hist. of the Corruptions of

Christianity, vol. i. p. 275, 276) the priest, at the second

(vol. ii. p. 484) the magistrate, may tremble!]

4211 (return) [ There is something ludicrous, if it were not

offensive, in Gibbon holding up to “public animadversion” the

opinions of any believer in Christianity, however imperfect his

creed. The observations which the whole of this passage on the

effects of the reformation, in which much truth and justice is

mingled with much prejudice, would suggest, could not possibly be

compressed into a note; and would indeed embrace the whole

religious and irreligious history of the time which has elapsed

since Gibbon wrote.—M.]

Chapter LV: The Bulgarians, The Hungarians And The Russians.—Part

The Bulgarians.—Origin, Migrations, And Settlement Of The

Hungarians.—Their Inroads In The East And West.—The Monarchy Of

Russia.—Geography And Trade.—Wars Of The Russians Against The

Greek Empire.—Conversion Of The Barbarians.

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 63 / 79 章

The most lofty titles, and the most humble postures, which