SECTION III._An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine

THE CHURCH OF THE FIFTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES.

The patronage extended by the first Christian Emperors to Arianism, its

adoption by the barbarians who succeeded to their power, the subsequent

expulsion of all heresy beyond the limits of the Empire, and then again

the Monophysite tendencies of Egypt and part of Syria, changed in some

measure the aspect of the Church, and claim our further attention. It

was still a body in possession, or approximating to the possession, of

the _orbis terrarum_; but it was not simply intermixed with sectaries,

as we have been surveying it in the earlier periods, rather it lay

between or over against large schisms. That same vast Association,

which, and which only, had existed from the first, which had been

identified by all parties with Christianity, which had been ever called

Catholic by people and by laws, took a different shape; collected itself

in far greater strength on some points of her extended territory than on

others; possessed whole kingdoms with scarcely a rival; lost others

partially or wholly, temporarily or for good; was stemmed in its course

here or there by external obstacles; and was defied by heresy, in a

substantive shape and in mass, from foreign lands, and with the support

of the temporal power. Thus not to mention the Arianism of the Eastern

Empire in the fourth century, the whole of the West was possessed by the

same heresy in the fifth; and nearly the whole of Asia, east of the

Euphrates, as far as it was Christian, by the Nestorians, in the

centuries which followed; while the Monophysites had almost the

possession of Egypt, and at times of the whole Eastern Church. I think

it no assumption to call Arianism, Nestorianism, and Eutychianism

heresies, or to identify the contemporary Catholic Church with

Christianity. Now, then, let us consider the mutual relation of

Christianity and heresy under these circumstances.

§ 1. _The Arians of the Gothic Race._

No heresy has started with greater violence or more sudden success than

the Arian; and it presents a still more remarkable exhibition of these

characteristics among the barbarians than in the civilized world. Even

among the Greeks it had shown a missionary spirit. Theophilus in the

reign of Constantius had introduced the dominant heresy, not without

some promising results, to the Sabeans of the Arabian peninsula; but

under Valens, Ulphilas became the apostle of a whole race. He taught the

Arian doctrine, which he had unhappily learned in the Imperial Court,

first to the pastoral Moesogoths; who, unlike the other branches of

their family, had multiplied under the Moesian mountains with neither

military nor religious triumphs. The Visigoths were next corrupted; by

whom does not appear. It is one of the singular traits in the history of

this vast family of heathens that they so instinctively caught, and so

impetuously communicated, and so fiercely maintained, a heresy, which

had excited in the Empire, except at Constantinople, little interest in

the body of the people. The Visigoths are said to have been converted by

the influence of Valens; but Valens reigned for only fourteen years, and

the barbarian population which had been admitted to the Empire amounted

to nearly a million of persons. It is as difficult to trace how the

heresy was conveyed from them to the other barbarian tribes. Gibbon

seems to suppose that the Visigoths acted the part of missionaries in

their career of predatory warfare from Thrace to the Pyrenees. But such

is the fact, however it was brought about, that the success in arms and

the conversion to Arianism, of Ostrogoths, Alani, Suevi, Vandals, and

Burgundians stand as concurrent events in the history of the times; and

by the end of the fifth century the heresy had been established by the

Visigoths in France and Spain, in Portugal by the Suevi, in Africa by

the Vandals, and by the Ostrogoths in Italy. For a while the title of

Catholic as applied to the Church seemed a misnomer; for not only was

she buried beneath these populations of heresy, but that heresy was one,

and maintained the same distinctive tenet, whether at Carthage, Seville,

Toulouse, or Ravenna.

It cannot be supposed that these northern warriors had attained to any

high degree of mental cultivation; but they understood their own

religion enough to hate the Catholics, and their bishops were learned

enough to hold disputations for its propagation. They professed to stand

upon the faith of Ariminum, administering Baptism under an altered form

of words, and re-baptizing Catholics whom they gained over to their

sect. It must be added that, whatever was their cruelty or tyranny, both

Goths and Vandals were a moral people, and put to shame the Catholics

whom they dispossessed. "What can the prerogative of a religious name

profit us," says Salvian, "that we call ourselves Catholic, boast of

being the faithful, taunt Goths and Vandals with the reproach of an

heretical appellation, while we live in heretical wickedness?"[276:1]

The barbarians were chaste, temperate, just, and devout; the Visigoth

Theodoric repaired every morning with his domestic officers to his

chapel, where service was performed by the Arian priests; and one

singular instance is on record of the defeat of a Visigoth force by the

Imperial troops on a Sunday, when instead of preparing for battle they

were engaged in the religious services of the day.[276:2] Many of their

princes were men of great ability, as the two Theodorics, Euric and

Leovigild.

Successful warriors, animated by a fanatical spirit of religion, were

not likely to be content with a mere profession of their own creed; they

proceeded to place their own priests in the religious establishments

which they found, and to direct a bitter persecution against the

vanquished Catholics. The savage cruelties of the Vandal Hunneric in

Africa have often been enlarged upon; Spain was the scene of repeated

persecutions; Sicily, too, had its Martyrs. Compared with these

enormities, it was but a little thing to rob the Catholics of their

churches, and the shrines of their treasures. Lands, immunities, and

jurisdictions, which had been given by the Emperors to the African

Church, were made over to the clergy of its conquerors; and by the time

of Belisarius, the Catholic Bishops had been reduced to less than a

third of their original number. In Spain, as in Africa, bishops were

driven from their sees, churches were destroyed, cemeteries profaned,

martyries rifled. When it was possible, the Catholics concealed the

relics in caves, keeping up a perpetual memory of these provisional

hiding-places.[277:1] Repeated spoliations were exercised upon the

property of the Church. Leovigild applied[277:2] its treasures partly to

increasing the splendour of his throne, partly to national works. At

other times, the Arian clergy themselves must have been the recipients

of the plunder: for when Childebert the Frank had been brought into

Spain by the cruelties exercised against the Catholic Queen of the

Goths, who was his sister, he carried away with him from the Arian

churches, as St. Gregory of Tours informs us, sixty chalices, fifteen

patens, twenty cases in which the gospels were kept, all of pure gold

and ornamented with jewels.[277:3]

In France, and especially in Italy, the rule of the heretical power was

much less oppressive; Theodoric, the Ostrogoth, reigned from the Alps to

Sicily, and till the close of a long reign he gave an ample toleration

to his Catholic subjects. He respected their property, suffered their

churches and sacred places to remain in their hands, and had about his

court some of their eminent Bishops, since known as Saints, St. Cæsarius

of Arles, and St. Epiphanius of Pavia. Still he brought into the country

a new population, devoted to Arianism, or, as we now speak, a new

Church. "His march," says Gibbon,[277:4] "must be considered as the

emigration of an entire people; the wives and children of the Goths,

their aged parents, and most precious effects, were carefully

transported; and some idea may be formed of the heavy luggage that now

followed the camp by the loss of two thousand waggons, which had been

sustained in a single action in the war of Epirus." To his soldiers he

assigned a third of the soil of Italy, and the barbarian families

settled down with their slaves and cattle. The original number of the

Vandal conquerors of Africa had only been fifty thousand men, but the

military colonists of Italy soon amounted to the number of two hundred

thousand; which, according to the calculation adopted by the same author

elsewhere, involves a population of a million. The least that could be

expected was, that an Arian ascendency established through the extent of

Italy would provide for the sufficient celebration of the Arian worship,

and we hear of the Arians having a Church even in Rome.[278:1] The rule

of the Lombards in the north of Italy succeeded to that of the

Goths,--Arians, like their predecessors, without their toleration. The

clergy whom they brought with them seem to have claimed their share in

the possession of the Catholic churches;[278:2] and though the Court was

converted at the end of thirty years, many cities in Italy were for some

time afterwards troubled by the presence of heretical bishops.[278:3]

The rule of Arianism in France lasted for eighty years; in Spain for a

hundred and eighty; in Africa for a hundred; for about a hundred in

Italy. These periods were not contemporaneous; but extend altogether

from the beginning of the fifth to the end of the sixth century.

It will be anticipated that the duration of this ascendency of error

had not the faintest tendency to deprive the ancient Church of the West

of the title of Catholic; and it is needless to produce evidence of a

fact which is on the very face of the history. The Arians seem never to

have claimed the Catholic name. It is more remarkable that the Catholics

during this period were denoted by the additional title of "Romans." Of

this there are many proofs in the histories of St. Gregory of Tours,

Victor of Vite, and the Spanish Councils. Thus, St. Gregory speaks of

Theodegisilus, a king of Portugal, expressing his incredulity at a

miracle, by saying, "It is the temper of the Romans, (for," interposes

the author, "they call men of our religion Romans,) and not the power of

God."[279:1] "Heresy is everywhere an enemy to Catholics," says the same

St. Gregory in a subsequent place, and he proceeds to illustrate it by

the story of a "Catholic woman," who had a heretic husband, to whom, he

says, came "a presbyter of our religion very Catholic;" and whom the

husband matched at table with his own Arian presbyter, "that there might

be the priests of each religion" in their house at once. When they were

eating, the husband said to the Arian, "Let us have some sport with this

presbyter of the Romans."[279:2] The Arian Count Gomachar, seized on the

lands of the Church of Agde in France, and was attacked with a fever; on

his recovery, at the prayers of the Bishop, he repented of having asked

for them, observing, "What will these Romans say now? that my fever came

of taking their land."[279:3] When the Vandal Theodoric would have

killed the Catholic Armogastes, after failing to torture him into

heresy, his presbyter dissuaded him, "lest the Romans should begin to

call him a Martyr."[279:4]

This appellation had two meanings; one, which will readily suggest

itself, is its use in contrast to the word "barbarian," as denoting the

faith of the Empire, as "Greek" occurs in St. Paul's Epistles. In this

sense it would more naturally be used by the Romans themselves than by

others. Thus Salvian says, that "nearly all the Romans are greater

sinners than the barbarians;"[280:1] and he speaks of "Roman heretics,

of which there is an innumerable multitude,"[280:2] meaning heretics

within the Empire. And so St. Gregory the Great complains, that he "had

become Bishop of the Lombards rather than of the Romans."[280:3] And

Evagrius, speaking even of the East, contrasts "Romans and

barbarians"[280:4] in his account of St. Simeon; and at a later date,

and even to this day, Thrace and portions of Dacia and of Asia Minor

derive their name from Rome. In like manner, we find Syrian writers

sometimes speaking of the religion of the Romans, sometimes of the

Greeks,[280:5] as synonymes.

But the word certainly contains also an allusion to the faith and

communion of the Roman See. In this sense the Emperor Theodosius, in his

letter to Acacius of Beroea, contrasts it with Nestorianism, which was

within the Empire as well as Catholicism; during the controversy raised

by that heresy, he exhorts him and others to show themselves "approved

priests of the Roman religion."[280:6] Again when the Ligurian nobles

were persuading the Arian Ricimer to come to terms with Anthemius, the

orthodox representative of the Greek Emperor,[280:7] they propose to him

to send St. Epiphanius as ambassador, a man "whose life is venerable to

every Catholic and Roman, and at least amiable in the eyes of a Greek

(_Græculus_) if he deserves the sight of him."[281:1] It must be

recollected, too, that the Spanish and African Churches actually were in

the closest union with the See of Rome at that time, and that that

intercommunion was the visible ecclesiastical distinction between them

and their Arian rivals. The chief ground of the Vandal Hunneric's

persecution of the African Catholics seems to have been their connexion

with their brethren beyond the sea,[281:2] which he looked at with

jealousy, as introducing a foreign power into his territory. Prior to

this he had published an edict calling on the "Homoüsian" Bishops (for

on this occasion he did not call them Catholic), to meet his own bishops

at Carthage and treat concerning the faith, that "their meetings to the

seduction of Christian souls might not be held in the provinces of the

Vandals."[281:3] Upon this invitation, Eugenius of Carthage replied,

that all the transmarine Bishops of the orthodox communion ought to be

summoned, "in particular because it is a matter for the whole world, not

special to the African provinces," that "they could not undertake a

point of faith _sine universitatis assensu_." Hunneric answered that if

Eugenius would make him sovereign of the _orbis terrarum_, he would

comply with his request. This led Eugenius to say that the orthodox

faith was "the only true faith;" that the king ought to write to his

allies abroad, if he wished to know it, and that he himself would write

to his brethren for foreign bishops, "who," he says, "may assist us in

setting before you the true faith, common to them and to us, and

especially the Roman Church, which is the head of all Churches."

Moreover, the African Bishops in their banishment in Sardinia, to the

number of sixty, with St. Fulgentius at their head, quote with

approbation the words of Pope Hormisdas, to the effect that they hold,

"on the point of free will and divine grace, what the Roman, that is,

the Catholic, Church follows and preserves."[282:1] Again, the Spanish

Church was under the superintendence of the Pope's Vicar[282:2] during

the persecutions, whose duty it was to hinder all encroachments upon

"the Apostolical decrees, or the limits of the Holy Fathers," through

the whole of the country.

Nor was the association of Catholicism with the See of Rome an

introduction of that age. The Emperor Gratian, in the fourth century,

had ordered that the Churches which the Arians had usurped should be

restored (not to those who held "the Catholic faith," or "the Nicene

Creed," or were "in communion with the _orbis terrarum_,") but "who

chose the communion of Damasus,"[282:3] the then Pope. It was St.

Jerome's rule, also, in some well-known passages:--Writing against

Ruffinus, who had spoken of "our faith," he says, "What does he mean by

'his faith'? that which is the strength of the Roman Church? or that

which is contained in the volumes of Origen? If he answer, 'The Roman,'

then we are Catholics who have borrowed nothing of Origen's error; but

if Origen's blasphemy be his faith, then, while he is charging me with

inconsistency, he proves himself to be an heretic."[282:4] The other

passage, already quoted, is still more exactly to the point, because it

was written on occasion of a schism. The divisions at Antioch had thrown

the Catholic Church into a remarkable position; there were two Bishops

in the See, one in connexion with the East, the other with Egypt and the

West,--with which then was "Catholic Communion"? St. Jerome has no doubt

on the subject:--Writing to St. Damasus, he says, "Since the East tears

into pieces the Lord's coat, . . . therefore by me is the chair of Peter

to be consulted, and that faith which is praised by the Apostle's

mouth. . . . Though your greatness terrifies me, yet your kindness

invites me. From the Priest I ask the salvation of the victim, from the

Shepherd the protection of the sheep. Let us speak without offence; I

court not the Roman height: I speak with the successor of the Fisherman

and the disciple of the Cross. I, who follow none as my chief but

Christ, am associated in communion with thy blessedness, that is, with

the See of Peter. On that rock the Church is built, I know. Whoso shall

eat the Lamb outside that House is profane . . . . I know not Vitalis"

(the Apollinarian), "Meletius I reject, I am ignorant of Paulinus. Whoso

gathereth not with thee, scattereth; that is, he who is not of Christ is

of Antichrist."[283:1] Again, "The ancient authority of the monks,

dwelling round about, rises against me; I meanwhile cry out, If any be

joined to Peter's chair he is mine."[283:2]

Here was what may be considered a _dignus vindice nodus_, the Church

being divided, and an arbiter wanted. Such a case had also occurred in

Africa in the controversy with the Donatists. Four hundred bishops,

though but in one region, were a fifth part of the whole Episcopate of

Christendom, and might seem too many for a schism, and in themselves too

large a body to be cut off from God's inheritance by a mere majority,

even had it been overwhelming. St. Augustine, then, who so often appeals

to the _orbis terrarum_, sometimes adopts a more prompt criterion. He

tells certain Donatists to whom he writes, that the Catholic Bishop of

Carthage "was able to make light of the thronging multitude of his

enemies, when he found himself by letters of credence joined both to the

Roman Church, in which ever had flourished the principality of the

Apostolical See, and to the other lands whence the gospel came to Africa

itself."[284:1]

There are good reasons then for explaining the Gothic and Arian use of

the word "Roman," when applied to the Catholic Church and faith, of

something beyond its mere connexion with the Empire, which the

barbarians were assaulting; nor would "Roman" surely be the most obvious

word to denote the orthodox faith, in the mouths of a people who had

learned their heresy from a Roman Emperor and Court, and who professed

to direct their belief by the great Latin Council of Ariminum.

10.

As then the fourth century presented to us in its external aspect the

Catholic Church lying in the midst of a multitude of sects, all enemies

to it, so in the fifth and sixth we see the same Church lying in the

West under the oppression of a huge, farspreading, and schismatical

communion. Heresy is no longer a domestic enemy intermingled with the

Church, but it occupies its own ground and is extended over against her,

even though on the same territory, and is more or less organized, and

cannot be so promptly refuted by the simple test of Catholicity.

§ 2. _The Nestorians._

The Churches of Syria and Asia Minor were the most intellectual portion

of early Christendom. Alexandria was but one metropolis in a large

region, and contained the philosophy of the whole Patriarchate; but

Syria abounded in wealthy and luxurious cities, the creation of the

Seleucidæ, where the arts and the schools of Greece had full

opportunities of cultivation. For a time too, for the first two hundred

years, as some think, Alexandria was the only See as well as the only

school of Egypt; while Syria was divided into smaller dioceses, each of

which had at first an authority of its own, and which, even after the

growth of the Patriarchal power, received their respective bishops, not

from the See of Antioch, but from their own metropolitan. In Syria too

the schools were private, a circumstance which would tend both to

diversity in religious opinion, and incaution in the expression of it;

but the sole catechetical school of Egypt was the organ of the Church,

and its Bishop could banish Origen for speculations which developed and

ripened with impunity in Syria.

But the immediate source of that fertility in heresy, which is the

unhappiness of the ancient Syrian Church, was its celebrated Exegetical

School. The history of that School is summed up in the broad

characteristic fact, on the one hand that it devoted itself to the

literal and critical interpretation of Scripture, and on the other that

it gave rise first to the Arian and then to the Nestorian heresy. If

additional evidence be wanted of the connexion of heterodoxy and

biblical criticism in that age, it is found in the fact that, not long

after this coincidence in Syria, they are found combined in the person

of Theodore of Heraclea, so called from the place both of his birth and

his bishoprick, an able commentator and an active enemy of St.

Athanasius, though a Thracian unconnected except by sympathy with the

Patriarchate of Antioch.

The Antiochene School appears to have risen in the middle of the third

century; but there is no evidence to determine whether it was a local

institution, or, as is more probable, a discipline or method

characteristic generally of Syrian teaching. Dorotheus is one of its

earliest luminaries; he is known as a Hebrew scholar, as well as a

commentator on the sacred text, and he was the master of Eusebius of

Cæsarea. Lucian, the friend of the notorious Paul of Samosata, and for

three successive Episcopates after him separated from the Church though

afterwards a martyr in it, was the author of a new edition of the

Septuagint, and master of the chief original teachers of Arianism.

Eusebius of Cæsarea, Asterius called the Sophist, and Eusebius of Emesa,

Arians of the Nicene period, and Diodorus, a zealous opponent of

Arianism, but the master of Theodore of Mopsuestia, have all a place in

the Exegetical School. St. Chrysostom and Theodoret, both Syrians, and

the former the pupil of Diodorus, adopted the literal interpretation,

though preserved from its abuse. But the principal doctor of the School

was that Theodore, the master of Nestorius, who has just above been

mentioned, and who, with his writings, and with the writings of

Theodoret against St. Cyril, and the letter written by Ibas of Edessa to

Maris, was condemned by the fifth Ecumenical Council. Ibas was the

translator into Syriac, and Maris into Persian, of the books of Theodore

and Diodorus;[286:1] and thus they became immediate instruments in the

formation of the great Nestorian school and Church in farther Asia.

As many as ten thousand tracts of Theodore are said in this way to have

been introduced to the knowledge of the Christians of Mesopotamia,

Adiabene, Babylonia, and the neighbouring countries. He was called by

those Churches absolutely "the Interpreter," and it eventually became

the very profession of the Nestorian communion to follow him as such.

"The doctrine of all our Eastern Churches," says their Council under the

Patriarch Marabas, "is founded on the Creed of Nicæa; but in the

exposition of the Scriptures we follow St. Theodore." "We must by all

means remain firm to the commentaries of the great Commentator," says

the Council under Sabarjesus; "whoso shall in any manner oppose them, or

think otherwise, be he anathema."[287:1] No one since the beginning of

Christianity, except Origen and St. Augustine, has had so great literary

influence on his brethren as Theodore.[287:2]

The original Syrian School had possessed very marked characteristics,

which it did not lose when it passed into a new country and into strange

tongues. Its comments on Scripture seem to have been clear, natural,

methodical, apposite, and logically exact. "In all Western Aramæa," says

Lengerke, that is, in Syria, "there was but one mode of treating whether

exegetics or doctrine, the practical."[287:3] Thus Eusebius of Cæsarea,

whether as a disputant or a commentator, is commonly a writer of sense

and judgment; and he is to be referred to the Syrian school, though he

does not enter so far into its temper as to exclude the mystical

interpretation or to deny the verbal inspiration of Scripture. Again, we

see in St. Chrysostom a direct, straightforward treatment of the sacred

text, and a pointed application of it to things and persons; and

Theodoret abounds in modes of thinking and reasoning which without any

great impropriety may be called English. Again, St. Cyril of Jerusalem,

though he does not abstain from allegory, shows the character of his

school by the great stress he lays upon the study of Scripture, and, I

may add, by the peculiar characteristics of his style, which will be

appreciated by a modern reader.

It would have been well, had the genius of the Syrian theology been

ever in the safe keeping of men such as St. Cyril, St. Chrysostom, and

Theodoret; but in Theodore of Mopsuestia, nay in Diodorus before him, it

developed into those errors, of which Paul of Samosata had been the omen

on its rise. As its attention was chiefly directed to the examination of

the Scriptures, in its interpretation of the Scriptures was its

heretical temper discovered; and though allegory can be made an

instrument for evading Scripture doctrine, criticism may more readily be

turned to the destruction of doctrine and Scripture together. Theodore

was bent on ascertaining the literal sense, an object with which no

fault could be found: but, leading him of course to the Hebrew text

instead of the Septuagint, it also led him to Jewish commentators.

Jewish commentators naturally suggested events and objects short of

evangelical as the fulfilment of the prophetical announcements, and,

when it was possible, an ethical sense instead of a prophetical. The

eighth chapter of Proverbs ceased to bear a Christian meaning, because,

as Theodore maintained, the writer of the book had received the gift,

not of prophecy, but of wisdom. The Canticles must be interpreted

literally; and then it was but an easy, or rather a necessary step, to

exclude the book from the Canon. The book of Job too professed to be

historical; yet what was it really but a Gentile drama? He also gave up

the books of Chronicles and Ezra, and, strange to say, the Epistle of

St. James, though it was contained in the Peschito Version of his

Church. He denied that Psalms 22 and 69 [21 and 68] applied to our Lord;

rather he limited the Messianic passages of the whole book to four; of

which the eighth Psalm was one, and the forty-fifth [44] another. The

rest he explained of Hezekiah and Zerubbabel, without denying that they

might be accommodated to an evangelical sense.[288:1] He explained St.

Thomas's words, "My Lord and my God," as an exclamation of joy, and our

Lord's "Receive ye the Holy Ghost," as an anticipation of the day of

Pentecost. As may be expected he denied the verbal inspiration of

Scripture. Also, he held that the deluge did not cover the earth; and,

as others before him, he was heterodox on the doctrine of original sin,

and denied the eternity of punishment.

Maintaining that the real sense of Scripture was, not the scope of a

Divine Intelligence, but the intention of the mere human organ of

inspiration, Theodore was led to hold, not only that that sense was one

in each text, but that it was continuous and single in a context; that

what was the subject of the composition in one verse must be the subject

in the next, and that if a Psalm was historical or prophetical in its

commencement, it was the one or the other to its termination. Even that

fulness, of meaning, refinement of thought, subtle versatility of

feeling, and delicate reserve or reverent suggestiveness, which poets

exemplify, seems to have been excluded from his idea of a sacred

composition. Accordingly, if a Psalm contained passages which could not

be applied to our Lord, it followed that that Psalm did not properly

apply to Him at all, except by accommodation. Such at least is the

doctrine of Cosmas, a writer of Theodore's school, who on this ground

passes over the twenty-second, sixty-ninth, and other Psalms, and limits

the Messianic to the second, the eighth, the forty-fifth, and the

hundred and tenth. "David," he says, "did not make common to the

servants what belongs to the Lord[289:1] Christ, but what was proper to

the Lord he spoke of the Lord, and what was proper to the servants, of

servants."[289:2] Accordingly the twenty-second could not properly

belong to Christ, because in the beginning it spoke of the "_verba

delictorum meorum_." A remarkable consequence would follow from this

doctrine, that as Christ was to be separated from His Saints, so the

Saints were to be separated from Christ; and an opening was made for a

denial of the doctrine of their _cultus_, though this denial in the

event has not been developed among the Nestorians. But a more serious

consequence is latently contained in it, and nothing else than the

Nestorian heresy, viz. that our Lord's manhood is not so intimately

included in His Divine Personality that His brethren according to the

flesh may be associated with the Image of the One Christ. Here St.

Chrysostom pointedly contradicts the doctrine of Theodore, though his

fellow-pupil and friend;[290:1] as does St. Ephrem, though a Syrian

also;[290:2] and St. Basil.[290:3]

One other peculiarity of the Syrian school, viewed as independent of

Nestorius, should be added:--As it tended to the separation of the

Divine Person of Christ from His manhood, so did it tend to explain away

His Divine Presence in the Sacramental elements. Ernesti seems to

consider the school, in modern language, Sacramentarian: and certainly

some of the most cogent testimonies brought by moderns against the

Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist are taken from writers who are

connected with that school; as the author, said to be St. Chrysostom, of

the Epistle to Cæsarius, Theodoret in his Eranistes, and Facundus. Some

countenance too is given to the same view of the Eucharist, at least in

some parts of his works, by Origen, whose language concerning the

Incarnation also leans to what was afterwards Nestorianism. To these may

be added Eusebius,[291:1] who, far removed, as he was, from that

heresy, was a disciple of the Syrian school. The language of the later

Nestorian writers seems to have been of the same character.[291:2] Such

then on the whole is the character of that theology of Theodore which

passed from Cilicia and Antioch to Edessa first, and then to Nisibis.

Edessa, the metropolis of Mesopotamia, had remained an Oriental city

till the third century, when it was made a Roman colony by

Caracalla.[291:3] Its position on the confines of two empires gave it

great ecclesiastical importance, as the channel by which the theology of

Rome and Greece was conveyed to a family of Christians, dwelling in

contempt and persecution amid a still heathen world. It was the seat of

various schools; apparently of a Greek school, where the classics were

studied as well as theology, where Eusebius of Emesa[291:4] had

originally been trained, and where perhaps Protogenes taught.[291:5]

There were also Syrian schools attended by heathen and Christian youths

in common. The cultivation of the native language had been an especial

object of its masters since the time of Vespasian, so that the pure and

refined dialect went by the name of the Edessene.[291:6] At Edessa too

St. Ephrem formed his own Syrian school, which lasted long after him;

and there too was the celebrated Persian Christian school, over which

Maris presided, who has been already mentioned as the translator of

Theodore into Persian.[291:7] Even in the time of the predecessor of

Ibas in the See (before A.D. 435) the Nestorianism of this Persian

School was so notorious that Rabbula the Bishop had expelled its

masters and scholars;[292:1] and they, taking refuge in a country which

might be called their own, had introduced the heresy to the Churches

subject to the Persian King.

Something ought to be said of these Churches; though little is known

except what is revealed by the fact, in itself of no slight value, that

they had sustained two persecutions at the hands of the heathen

government in the fourth and fifth centuries. One testimony is extant as

early as the end of the second century, to the effect that in Parthia,

Media, Persia, and Bactria there were Christians who "were not overcome

by evil laws and customs."[292:2] In the early part of the fourth

century, a bishop of Persia attended the Nicene Council, and about the

same time Christianity is said to have pervaded nearly the whole of

Assyria.[292:3] Monachism had been introduced there before the middle of

the fourth century, and shortly after commenced that fearful persecution

in which sixteen thousand Christians are said to have suffered. It

lasted thirty years, and is said to have recommenced at the end of the

Century. The second persecution lasted for at least another thirty years

of the next, at the very time when the Nestorian troubles were in

progress in the Empire. Trials such as these show the populousness as

well as the faith of the Churches in those parts,--and the number of the

Sees, for the names of twenty-seven Bishops are preserved who suffered

in the former persecution. One of them was apprehended together with

sixteen priests, nine deacons, besides monks and nuns of his diocese;

another with twenty-eight companions, ecclesiastics or regulars; another

with one hundred ecclesiastics of different orders; another with one

hundred and twenty-eight; another with his chorepiscopus and two hundred

and fifty of his clergy. Such was the Church, consecrated by the blood

of so many martyrs, which immediately after its glorious confession fell

a prey to the theology of Theodore; and which through a succession of

ages manifested the energy, when it had lost the pure orthodoxy of

Saints.

The members of the Persian school, who had been driven out of Edessa by

Rabbula, found a wide field open for their exertions under the pagan

government with which they had taken refuge. The Persian monarchs, who

had often prohibited by edict[293:1] the intercommunion of the Church

under their sway with the countries towards the west, readily extended

their protection to exiles, whose very profession was the means of

destroying its Catholicity. Barsumas, the most energetic of them, was

placed in the metropolitan See of Nisibis, where also the fugitive

school was settled under the presidency of another of their party; while

Maris was promoted to the See of Ardaschir. The primacy of the Church

had from an early period belonged to the See of Seleucia in Babylonia.

Catholicus was the title appropriated to its occupant, as well as to the

Persian Primate, as being deputies of the Patriarch of Antioch, and was

derived apparently from the Imperial dignity so called, denoting their

function as Procurators-general, or officers in chief for the regions in

which they were placed. Acacius, another of the Edessene party, was put

into this principal See, and suffered, if he did not further, the

innovations of Barsumas. The mode by which the latter effected those

measures has been left on record by an enemy. "Barsumas accused Babuæus,

the Catholicus, before King Pherozes, whispering, 'These men hold the

faith of the Romans, and are their spies. Give me power against them to

arrest them.'"[294:1] It is said that in this way he obtained the death

of Babuæus, whom Acacius succeeded. When a minority resisted[294:2] the

process of schism, a persecution followed. The death of seven thousand

seven hundred Catholics is said by Monophysite authorities to have been

the price of the severance of the Chaldaic Churches from

Christendom.[294:3] Their loss was compensated in the eyes of the

Government by the multitude of Nestorian fugitives, who flocked into

Persia from the Empire, numbers of them industrious artisans, who sought

a country where their own religion was in the ascendant.

10.

That religion was founded, as we have already seen, in the literal

interpretation of Holy Scripture, of which Theodore was the principal

teacher. The doctrine, in which it formally consisted, is known by the

name of Nestorianism: it lay in the ascription of a human as well as a

Divine Personality to our Lord; and it showed itself in denying the

title of "Mother of God," or +theotokos+, to the Blessed Mary. As to our

Lord's Personality, the question of language came into the controversy,

which always serves to perplex a subject and make a dispute seem a

matter of words. The native Syrians made a distinction between the word

"Person," and "Prosopon," which stands for it in Greek; they allowed

that there was one Prosopon or Parsopa, as they called it, and they

heldthat there were two Persons. If it is asked what they meant by

_parsopa_, the answer seems to be, that they took the word merely in

the sense of _character_ or _aspect_, a sense familiar to the Greek

_prosopon_, and quite irrelevant as a guarantee of their orthodoxy. It

follows moreover that, since the _aspect_ of a thing is its impression

upon the beholder, the personality to which they ascribed unity must

have laid in our Lord's manhood, and not in His Divine Nature. But it is

hardly worth while pursuing the heresy to its limits. Next, as to

the phrase "Mother of God," they rejected it as unscriptural; they

maintained that St. Mary was Mother of the humanity of Christ, not of

the Word, and they fortified themselves by the Nicene Creed, in which no

such title is ascribed to her.

11.

Whatever might be the obscurity or the plausibility of their original

dogma, there is nothing obscure or attractive in the developments,

whether of doctrine or of practice, in which it issued. The first act of

the exiles of Edessa, on their obtaining power in the Chaldean

communion, was to abolish the celibacy of the clergy, or, in Gibbon's

forcible words, to allow "the public and reiterated nuptials of the

priests, the bishops, and even the patriarch himself." Barsumas, the

great instrument of the change of religion, was the first to set an

example of the new usage, and is even said by a Nestorian writer to have

married a nun.[295:1] He passed a Canon at Councils, held at Seleucia

and elsewhere, that bishops and priests might marry, and might renew

their wives as often as they lost them. The Catholicus who followed

Acacius went so far as to extend the benefit of the Canon to Monks, that

is, to destroy the Monastic order; and his two successors availed

themselves of this liberty, and are recorded to have been fathers. A

restriction, however, was afterwards placed upon the Catholicus, and

upon the Episcopal order.

12.

Such were the circumstances, and such the principles, under which the

See of Seleucia became the Rome of the East. In the course of time the

Catholicus took on himself the loftier and independent title of

Patriarch of Babylon; and though Seleucia was changed for Ctesiphon and

for Bagdad,[296:1] still the name of Babylon was preserved from first to

last as a formal or ideal Metropolis. In the time of the Caliphs, it was

at the head of as many as twenty-five Archbishops; its Communion

extended from China to Jerusalem; and its numbers, with those of the

Monophysites, are said to have surpassed those of the Greek and Latin

Churches together. The Nestorians seem to have been unwilling, like the

Novatians, to be called by the name of their founder,[296:2] though they

confessed it had adhered to them; one instance may be specified of their

assuming the name of Catholic,[296:3] but there is nothing to show it

was given them by others.

"From the conquest of Persia," says Gibbon, "they carried their

spiritual arms to the North, the East, and the South; and the simplicity

of the Gospel was fashioned and painted with the colours of the Syriac

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

traveller, Christianity was successfully preached to the Bactrians, the

Huns, the Persians, the Indians, the Persarmenians, the Medes, and the

Elamites: the Barbaric Churches from the gulf of Persia to the Caspian

Sea were almost infinite; and their recent faith was conspicuous in the

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

Malabar and the isles of the ocean, Socotra and Ceylon, were peopled

with an increasing multitude of Christians, and the bishops and clergy

of those sequestered regions derived their ordination from the

Catholicus of Babylon. In a subsequent age, the zeal of the Nestorians

overleaped the limits which had confined the ambition and curiosity both

of the Greeks and Persians. The missionaries of Balch and Samarcand

pursued without fear the footsteps of the roving Tartar, and insinuated

themselves into the camps of the valleys of Imaus and the banks of the

Selinga."[297:1]

§ 3. _The Monophysites._

Eutyches was Archimandrite, or Abbot, of a Monastery in the suburbs of

Constantinople; he was a man of unexceptionable character, and was of

the age of seventy years, and had been Abbot for thirty, at the date of

his unhappy introduction into ecclesiastical history. He had been the

friend and assistant of St. Cyril of Alexandria, and had lately taken

part against Ibas, Bishop of Edessa, whose name has occurred in the

above account of the Nestorians. For some time he had been engaged in

teaching a doctrine concerning the Incarnation, which he maintained

indeed to be none other than that of St. Cyril's in his controversy with

Nestorius, but which others denounced as a heresy in the opposite

extreme, and substantially a reassertion of Apollinarianism. The subject

was brought before a Council of Constantinople, under the presidency of

Flavian, the Patriarch, in the year 448; and Eutyches was condemned by

the assembled Bishops of holding the doctrine of One, instead of Two

Natures in Christ.

It is scarcely necessary for our present purpose to ascertain accurately

what he held, and there has been a great deal of controversy on the

subject; partly from confusion between him and his successors, partly

from the indecision or the ambiguity which commonly attaches to the

professions of heretics. If a statement must here be made of the

doctrine of Eutyches himself, in whom the controversy began, let it be

said to consist in these two tenets:--in maintaining first, that "before

the Incarnation there were two natures, after their union one," or that

our Lord was of or from two natures, but not in two;--and, secondly,

that His flesh was not of one substance with ours, that is, not of the

substance of the Blessed Virgin. Of these two points, he seemed willing

to abandon the second, but was firm in his maintenance of the first. But

let us return to the Council of Constantinople.

In his examination Eutyches allowed that the Holy Virgin was

consubstantial with us, and that "our God was incarnate of her;" but he

would not allow that He was therefore, as man, consubstantial with us,

his notion apparently being that union with the Divinity had changed

what otherwise would have been human nature. However, when pressed, he

said, that, though up to that day he had not permitted himself to

discuss the nature of Christ, or to affirm that "God's body is man's

body though it was human," yet he would allow, if commanded, our Lord's

consubstantiality with us. Upon this Flavian observed that "the Council

was introducing no innovation, but declaring the faith of the Fathers."

To his other position, however, that our Lord had but one nature after

the Incarnation, he adhered: when the Catholic doctrine was put before

him, he answered, "Let St. Athanasius be read; you will find nothing of

the kind in him."

His condemnation followed: it was signed by twenty-two Bishops and

twenty-three Abbots;[298:1] among the former were Flavian of

Constantinople, Basil metropolitan of Seleucia in Isauria, the

metropolitans of Amasea in Pontus, and Marcianopolis in Moesia, and

the Bishop of Cos, the Pope's minister at Constantinople.

Eutyches appealed to the Pope of the day, St. Leo, who at first hearing

took his part. He wrote to Flavian that, "judging by the statement of

Eutyches, he did not see with what justice he had been separated from

the communion of the Church." "Send therefore," he continued, "some

suitable person to give us a full account of what has occurred, and let

us know what the new error is." St. Flavian, who had behaved with great

forbearance throughout the proceedings, had not much difficulty in

setting the controversy before the Pope in its true light.

Eutyches was supported by the Imperial Court, and by Dioscorus the

Patriarch of Alexandria; the proceedings therefore at Constantinople

were not allowed to settle the question. A general Council was summoned

for the ensuing summer at Ephesus, where the third Ecumenical Council

had been held twenty years before against Nestorius. It was attended by

sixty metropolitans, ten from each of the great divisions of the East;

the whole number of bishops assembled amounted to one hundred and

thirty-five.[299:1] Dioscorus was appointed President by the Emperor,

and the object of the assembly was said to be the settlement of a

question of faith which had arisen between Flavian and Eutyches. St.

Leo, dissatisfied with the measure altogether, nevertheless sent his

legates, but with the object, as their commission stated, and a letter

he addressed to the Council, of "condemning the heresy, and reinstating

Eutyches if he retracted." His legates took precedence after Dioscorus

and before the other Patriarchs. He also published at this time his

celebrated Tome on the Incarnation, in a letter addressed to Flavian.

The proceedings which followed were of so violent a character, that the

Council has gone down to posterity under the name of the Latrocinium or

"Gang of Robbers." Eutyches was honourably acquitted, and his doctrine

received; but the assembled Fathers showed some backwardness to depose

St. Flavian. Dioscorus had been attended by a multitude of monks,

furious zealots for the Monophysite doctrine from Syria and Egypt, and

by an armed force. These broke into the Church at his call; Flavian was

thrown down and trampled on, and received injuries of which he died the

third day after. The Pope's legates escaped as they could; and the

Bishops were compelled to sign a blank paper, which was afterwards

filled up with the condemnation of Flavian. These outrages, however,

were subsequent to the Synodical acceptance of the Creed of Eutyches,

which seems to have been the spontaneous act of the assembled Fathers.

The proceedings ended by Dioscorus excommunicating the Pope, and the

Emperor issuing an edict in approval of the decision of the Council.

Before continuing the narrative, let us pause awhile to consider what it

has already brought before us. An aged and blameless man, the friend of

a Saint, and him the great champion of the faith against the heresy of

his day, is found in the belief and maintenance of a doctrine, which he

declares to be the very doctrine which that Saint taught in opposition

to that heresy. To prove it, he and his friends refer to the very words

of St. Cyril; Eustathius of Berytus quoting from him at Ephesus as

follows: "We must not then conceive two natures, but one nature of the

Word incarnate."[300:1] Moreover, it seems that St. Cyril had been

called to account for this very phrase, and had appealed more than once

to a passage, which is extant as he quoted it, in a work by St.

Athanasius.[301:1] Whether the passage in question is genuine is very

doubtful, but that is not to the purpose; for the phrase which it

contains is also attributed by St. Cyril to other Fathers, and was

admitted by Catholics generally, as by St. Flavian, who deposed

Eutyches, nay was indirectly adopted by the Council of Chalcedon itself.

But Eutyches did not merely insist upon a phrase; he appealed for his

doctrine to the Fathers generally; "I have read the blessed Cyril, and

the holy Fathers, and the holy Athanasius," he says at Constantinople,

"that they said, 'Of two natures before the union,' but that 'after the

union' they said 'but one.'"[301:2] In his letter to St. Leo, he appeals

in particular to Pope Julius, Pope Felix, St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, St.

Gregory Nazianzen, St. Basil, Atticus, and St. Proclus. He did not

appeal to them unreservedly certainly, as shall be presently noticed; he

allowed that they might err, and perhaps had erred, in their

expressions: but it is plain, even from what has been said, that there

could be no _consensus_ against him, as the word is now commonly

understood. It is also undeniable that, though the word "nature" is

applied to our Lord's manhood by St. Ambrose, St. Gregory Nazianzen and

others, yet on the whole it is for whatever reason avoided by the

previous Fathers; certainly by St. Athanasius, who uses the words

"manhood," "flesh," "the man," "economy," where a later writer would

have used "nature:" and the same is true of St. Hilary.[301:3] In like

manner, the Athanasian Creed, written, as it is supposed, some twenty

years before the date of Eutyches, does not contain the word "nature."

Much might be said on the plausibility of the defence, which Eutyches

might have made for his doctrine from the history and documents of the

Church before his time.

Further, Eutyches professed to subscribe heartily the decrees of the

Council of Nicæa and Ephesus, and his friends appealed to the latter of

these Councils and to previous Fathers, in proof that nothing could be

added to the Creed of the Church. "I," he says to St. Leo, "even from my

elders have so understood, and from my childhood have so been

instructed, as the holy and Ecumenical Council at Nicæa of the three

hundred and eighteen most blessed Bishops settled the faith, and which

the holy Council held at Ephesus maintained and defined anew as the only

faith; and I have never understood otherwise than as the right or only

true orthodox faith hath enjoined." He says at the Latrocinium, "When I

declared that my faith was conformable to the decision of Nicæa,

confirmed at Ephesus, they demanded that I should add some words to it;

and I, fearing to act contrary to the decrees of the First Council of

Ephesus and of the Council of Nicæa, desired that your holy Council

might be made acquainted with it, since I was ready to submit to

whatever you should approve."[302:1] Dioscorus states the matter more

strongly: "We have heard," he says, "what this Council" of Ephesus

"decreed, that if any one affirm or opine anything, or raise any

question, beyond the Creed aforesaid" of Nicæa, "he is to be

condemned."[302:2] It is remarkable that the Council of Ephesus, which

laid down this rule, had itself sanctioned the Theotocos, an addition,

greater perhaps than any before or since, to the letter of the primitive

faith.

Further, Eutyches appealed to Scripture, and denied that a human nature

was there given to our Lord; and this appeal obliged him in consequence

to refuse an unconditional assent to the Councils and Fathers, though he

so confidently spoke about them at other times. It was urged against him

that the Nicene Council itself had introduced into the Creed

extra-scriptural terms. "'I have never found in Scripture,' he said,"

according to one of the Priests who were sent to him, "'that there are

two natures.' I replied, 'Neither is the Consubstantiality,'" (the

Homoüsion of Nicæa,) "'to be found in the Scriptures, but in the Holy

Fathers who well understood them and faithfully expounded them.'"[303:1]

Accordingly, on another occasion, a report was made of him, that "he

professed himself ready to assent to the Exposition of Faith made by the

Holy Fathers of the Nicene and Ephesine Councils and he engaged to

subscribe their interpretations. However, if there were any accidental

fault or error in any expressions which they made, this he would neither

blame nor accept; but only search the Scriptures, as being surer than

the expositions of the Fathers; that since the time of the Incarnation

of God the Word . . he worshipped one Nature . . . that the doctrine

that our Lord Jesus Christ came of Two Natures personally united, this

it was that he had learned from the expositions of the Holy Fathers; nor

did he accept, if ought was read to him from any author to [another]

effect, because the Holy Scriptures, as he said, were better than the

teaching of the Fathers."[304:1] This appeal to the Scriptures will

remind us of what has lately been said of the school of Theodore

in the history of Nestorianism, and of the challenge of the Arians

to St. Avitus before the Gothic King.[304:2] It had also been the

characteristic of heresy in the antecedent period. St. Hilary brings

together a number of instances in point, from the history of Marcellus,

Photinus, Sabellius, Montanus, and Manes; then he adds, "They all speak

Scripture without the sense of Scripture, and profess a faith without

faith."[304:3]

Once more; the Council of the Latrocinium, however, tyrannized over by

Dioscorus in the matter of St. Flavian, certainly did acquit Eutyches

and accept his doctrine canonically, and, as it would appear, cordially;

though their change at Chalcedon, and the subsequent variations of the

East, make it a matter of little moment how they decided. The Acts of

Constantinople were read to the Fathers of the Latrocinium; when they

came to the part where Eusebius of Dorylæum, the accuser of Eutyches,

asked him, whether he confessed Two Natures after the Incarnation, and

the Consubstantiality according to the flesh, the Fathers broke in upon

the reading:--"Away with Eusebius; burn him; burn him alive; cut him in

two; as he divided, so let him be divided."[305:1] The Council seems to

have been unanimous, with the exception of the Pope's Legates, in the

restoration of Eutyches; a more complete decision can hardly be

imagined.

It is true the whole number of signatures now extant, one hundred and

eight, may seem small out of a thousand, the number of Sees in the East;

but the attendance of Councils always bore a representative character.

The whole number of East and West was about eighteen hundred, yet the

second Ecumenical Council was attended by only one hundred and fifty,

which is but a twelfth part of the whole number; the Third Council by

about two hundred, or a ninth; the Council of Nicæa itself numbered only

three hundred and eighteen Bishops. Moreover, when we look through the

names subscribed to the Synodal decision, we find that the misbelief, or

misapprehension, or weakness, to which this great offence must be

attributed, was no local phenomenon, but the unanimous sin of Bishops in

every patriarchate and of every school of the East. Three out of the

four patriarchs were in favour of the heresiarch, the fourth being on

his trial. Of these Domnus of Antioch and Juvenal of Jerusalem acquitted

him, on the ground of his confessing the faith of Nicæa and Ephesus: and

Domnus was a man of the fairest and purest character, and originally a

disciple of St. Euthemius, however inconsistent on this occasion, and

ill-advised in former steps of his career. Dioscorus, violent and bad

man as he showed himself, had been Archdeacon to St. Cyril, whom he

attended at the Council of Ephesus; and was on this occasion supported

by those Churches which had so nobly stood by their patriarch Athanasius

in the great Arian conflict. These three Patriarchs were supported by

the Exarchs of Ephesus and Cæsarea in Cappadocia; and both of these as

well as Domnus and Juvenal, were supported in turn by their subordinate

Metropolitans. Even the Sees under the influence of Constantinople,

which was the remaining sixth division of the East, took part with

Eutyches. We find among the signatures to his acquittal the Bishops of

Dyrrachium, of Heraclea in Macedonia, of Messene in the Peloponese, of

Sebaste in Armenia, of Tarsus, of Damascus, of Berytus, of Bostra in

Arabia, of Amida in Mesopotamia, of Himeria in Osrhoene, of Babylon, of

Arsinoe in Egypt, and of Cyrene. The Bishops of Palestine, of Macedonia,

and of Achaia, where the keen eye of St. Athanasius had detected the

doctrine in its germ, while Apollinarianism was but growing into form,

were his actual partisans. Another Barsumas, a Syrian Abbot, ignorant of

Greek, attended the Latrocinium, as the representative of the monks of

his nation, whom he formed into a force, material or moral, of a

thousand strong, and whom at that infamous assembly he cheered on to the

murder of St. Flavian.

Such was the state of Eastern Christendom in the year 449; a heresy,

appealing to the Fathers, to the Creed, and, above all, to Scripture,

was by a general Council, professing to be Ecumenical, received as true

in the person of its promulgator. If the East could determine a matter

of faith independently of the West, certainly the Monophysite heresy was

established as Apostolic truth in all its provinces from Macedonia to

Egypt.

There has been a time in the history of Christianity, when it had been

Athanasius against the world, and the world against Athanasius. The need

and straitness of the Church had been great, and one man was raised up

for her deliverance. In this second necessity, who was the destined

champion of her who cannot fail? Whence did he come, and what was his

name? He came with an augury of victory upon him, which even Athanasius

could not show; it was Leo, Bishop of Rome.

10.

Leo's augury of success, which even Athanasius had not, was this, that

he was seated in the chair of St. Peter and the heir of his

prerogatives. In the very beginning of the controversy, St. Peter

Chrysologus had urged this grave consideration upon Eutyches himself, in

words which have already been cited: "I exhort you, my venerable

brother," he had said, "to submit yourself in everything to what has

been written by the blessed Pope of Rome; for St. Peter, who lives and

presides in his own See, gives the true faith to those who seek

it."[307:1] This voice had come from Ravenna, and now after the

Latrocinium it was echoed back from the depths of Syria by the learned

Theodoret. "That all-holy See," he says in a letter to one of the Pope's

Legates, "has the office of heading (+hêgemonian+) the whole world's

Churches for many reasons; and above all others, because it has remained

free of the communion of heretical taint, and no one of heterodox

sentiments hath sat in it, but it hath preserved the Apostolic grace

unsullied."[307:2] And a third testimony in encouragement of the

faithful at the same dark moment issued from the Imperial court of the

West. "We are bound," says Valentinian to the Emperor of the East, "to

preserve inviolate in our times the prerogative of particular reverence

to the blessed Apostle Peter; that the most blessed Bishop of Rome, to

whom Antiquity assigned the priesthood over all (+kata pantôn+) may

have place and opportunity of judging concerning the faith and the

priests."[307:3] Nor had Leo himself been wanting at the same time in

"the confidence" he had "obtained from the most blessed Peter and head

of the Apostles, that he had authority to defend the truth for the peace

of the Church."[308:1] Thus Leo introduces us to the Council of

Chalcedon, by which he rescued the East from a grave heresy.

11.

The Council met on the 8th of October, 451, and was attended by the

largest number of Bishops of any Council before or since; some say by as

many as six hundred and thirty. Of these, only four came from the West,

two Roman Legates and two Africans.[308:2]

Its proceedings were opened by the Pope's Legates, who said that they

had it in charge from the Bishop of Rome, "which is the head of all the

Churches," to demand that Dioscorus should not sit, on the ground that

"he had presumed to hold a Council without the authority of the

Apostolic See, which had never been done nor was lawful to do."[308:3]

This was immediately allowed them.

The next act of the Council was to give admission to Theodoret, who had

been deposed at the Latrocinium. The Imperial officers present urged his

admission, on the ground that "the most holy Archbishop Leo hath

restored him to the Episcopal office, and the most pious Emperor hath

ordered that he should assist at the holy Council."[308:4]

Presently, a charge was brought forward against Dioscorus, that, though

the Legates had presented a letter from the Pope to the Council, it had

not been read. Dioscorus admitted not only the fact, but its relevancy;

but alleged in excuse that he had twice ordered it to be read in vain.

In the course of the reading of the Acts of the Latrocinium and

Constantinople, a number of Bishops moved from the side of Dioscorus

and placed themselves with the opposite party. When Peter, Bishop of

Corinth, crossed over, the Orientals whom he joined shouted, "Peter

thinks as does Peter; orthodox Bishop, welcome."

12.

In the second Session it was the duty of the Fathers to draw up a

confession of faith condemnatory of the heresy. A committee was formed

for the purpose, and the Creed of Nicæa and Constantinople was read;

then some of the Epistles of St. Cyril; lastly, St. Leo's Tome, which

had been passed over in silence at the Latrocinium. Some discussion

followed upon the last of these documents, but at length the Bishops

cried out, "This is the faith of the Fathers; this is the faith of the

Apostles: we all believe thus; the orthodox believe thus; anathema to

him who does not believe thus. Peter has thus spoken through Leo; the

Apostles taught thus." Readings from the other Fathers followed; and

then some days were allowed for private discussion, before drawing up

the confession of faith which was to set right the heterodoxy of the

Latrocinium.

During the interval, Dioscorus was tried and condemned; sentence was

pronounced against him by the Pope's Legates, and ran thus: "The most

holy Archbishop of Rome, Leo, through us and this present Council, with

the Apostle St. Peter, who is the rock and foundation of the Catholic

Church and of the orthodox faith, deprives him of the Episcopal dignity

and every sacerdotal ministry."

In the fourth Session the question of the definition of faith came on

again, but the Council got no further than this, that it received the

definitions of the three previous Ecumenical Councils; it would not add

to them what Leo required. One hundred and sixty Bishops however

subscribed his Tome.

13.

In the fifth Session the question came on once more; some sort of

definition of faith was the result of the labours of the committee, and

was accepted by the great majority of the Council. The Bishops cried

out, "We are all satisfied with the definition; it is the faith of the

Fathers: anathema to him who thinks otherwise: drive out the

Nestorians." When objectors appeared, Anatolius, the new Patriarch of

Constantinople, asked "Did not every one yesterday consent to the

definition of faith?" on which the Bishops answered, "Every one

consented; we do not believe otherwise; it is the Faith of the Fathers;

let it be set down that Holy Mary is the Mother of God: let this be

added to the Creed; put out the Nestorians."[310:1] The objectors were

the Pope's Legates, supported by a certain number of Orientals: those

clear-sighted, firm-minded Latins understood full well what and what

alone was the true expression of orthodox doctrine under the emergency

of the existing heresy. They had been instructed to induce the Council

to pass a declaration to the effect, that Christ was not only "of," but

"in" two natures. However, they did not enter upon disputation on the

point, but they used a more intelligible argument: If the Fathers did

not consent to the letter of the blessed Bishop Leo, they would leave

the Council and go home. The Imperial officers took the part of the

Legates. The Council however persisted: "Every one approved the

definition; let it be subscribed: he who refuses to subscribe it is a

heretic." They even proceeded to refer it to Divine inspiration. The

officers asked if they received St. Leo's Tome; they answered that they

had subscribed it, but that they would not introduce its contents into

their definition of faith. "We are for no other definition," they said;

"nothing is wanting in this."

14.

Notwithstanding, the Pope's Legates gained their point through the

support of the Emperor Marcian, who had succeeded Theodosius. A fresh

committee was obtained under the threat that, if they resisted, the

Council should be transferred to the West. Some voices were raised

against this measure; the cries were repeated against the Roman party,

"They are Nestorians; let them go to Rome." The Imperial officers

remonstrated, "Dioscorus said, 'Of two natures;' Leo says, 'Two

natures:' which will you follow, Leo or Dioscorus?" On their answering

"Leo," they continued, "Well then, add to the definition, according to

the judgment of our most holy Leo." Nothing more was to be said. The

committee immediately proceeded to their work, and in a short time

returned to the assembly with such a definition as the Pope required.

After reciting the Creed of Nicæa and Constantinople, it observes, "This

Creed were sufficient for the perfect knowledge of religion, but the

enemies of the truth have invented novel expressions;" and therefore it

proceeds to state the faith more explicitly. When this was read through,

the Bishops all exclaimed, "This is the faith of the Fathers; we all

follow it." And thus ended the controversy once for all.

The Council, after its termination, addressed a letter to St. Leo; in it

the Fathers acknowledge him as "constituted interpreter of the voice of

Blessed Peter,"[311:1] (with an allusion to St. Peter's Confession in

Matthew xvi.,) and speak of him as "the very one commissioned with the

guardianship of the Vine by the Saviour."

15.

Such is the external aspect of those proceedings by which the Catholic

faith has been established in Christendom against the Monophysites. That

the definition passed at Chalcedon is the Apostolic Truth once delivered

to the Saints is most firmly to be received, from faith in that

overruling Providence which is by special promise extended over the acts

of the Church; moreover, that it is in simple accordance with the faith

of St. Athanasius, St. Gregory Nazianzen, and all the other Fathers,

will be evident to the theological student in proportion as he becomes

familiar with their works: but the historical account of the Council is

this, that a formula which the Creed did not contain, which the Fathers

did not unanimously witness, and which some eminent Saints had almost in

set terms opposed, which the whole East refused as a symbol, not once,

but twice, patriarch by patriarch, metropolitan by metropolitan, first

by the mouth of above a hundred, then by the mouth of above six hundred

of its Bishops, and refused upon the grounds of its being an addition to

the Creed, was forced upon the Council, not indeed as being such an

addition, yet, on the other hand, not for subscription merely, but for

acceptance as a definition of faith under the sanction of an

anathema,--forced on the Council by the resolution of the Pope of the

day, acting through his Legates and supported by the civil power.[312:1]

16.

It cannot be supposed that such a transaction would approve itself to

the Churches of Egypt, and the event showed it: they disowned the

authority of the Council, and called its adherents Chalcedonians,[313:1]

and Synodites.[313:2] For here was the West tyrannizing over the East,

forcing it into agreement with itself, resolved to have one and one only

form of words, rejecting the definition of faith which the East had

drawn up in Council, bidding it and making it frame another, dealing

peremptorily and sternly with the assembled Bishops, and casting

contempt on the most sacred traditions of Egypt! What was Eutyches to

them? He might be guilty or innocent; they gave him up: Dioscorus had

given him up at Chalcedon;[313:3] they did not agree with him:[313:4] he

was an extreme man; they would not call themselves by human titles; they

were not Eutychians; Eutyches was not their master, but Athanasius and

Cyril were their doctors.[313:5] The two great lights of their Church,

the two greatest and most successful polemical Fathers that Christianity

had seen, had both pronounced "One Nature Incarnate," though allowing

Two before the Incarnation; and though Leo and his Council had not gone

so far as to deny this phrase, they had proceeded to say what was the

contrary to it, to explain away, to overlay the truth, by defining that

the Incarnate Saviour was "in Two Natures." At Ephesus it had been

declared that the Creed should not be touched; the Chalcedonian Fathers

had, not literally, but virtually added to it: by subscribing Leo's

Tome, and promulgating their definition of faith, they had added what

might be called, "The Creed of Pope Leo."

17.

It is remarkable, as has been just stated, that Dioscorus, wicked man

as he was in act, was of the moderate or middle school in doctrine, as

the violent and able Severus after him; and from the first the great

body of the protesting party disowned Eutyches, whose form of the heresy

took refuge in Armenia, where it remains to this day. The Armenians

alone were pure Eutychians, and so zealously such that they innovated on

the ancient and recognized custom of mixing water with the wine in the

Holy Eucharist, and consecrated the wine by itself in token of the one

nature, as they considered, of the Christ. Elsewhere both name and

doctrine of Eutyches were abjured; the heretical bodies in Egypt and

Syria took a title from their special tenet, and formed the Monophysite

communion. Their theology was at once simple and specious. They based it

upon the illustration which is familiar to us in the Athanasian Creed,

and which had been used by St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Cyril, St.

Augustine, Vincent of Lerins, not to say St. Leo himself. They argued

that as body and soul made up one man, so God and man made up but one,

though one compound Nature, in Christ. It might have been charitably

hoped that their difference from the Catholics had been a simple matter

of words, as it is allowed by Vigilius of Thapsus really to have been in

many cases; but their refusal to obey the voice of the Church was a

token of real error in their faith, and their implicit heterodoxy is

proved by their connexion, in spite of themselves, with the extreme or

ultra party whom they so vehemently disowned.

It is very observable that, ingenious as is their theory and sometimes

perplexing to a disputant, the Monophysites never could shake themselves

free of the Eutychians; and though they could draw intelligible lines on

paper between the two doctrines, yet in fact by a hidden fatality their

partisans were ever running into or forming alliance with the

anathematized extreme. Thus Peter the Fuller the Theopaschite

(Eutychian), is at one time in alliance with Peter the Stammerer, who

advocated the Henoticon (which was Monophysite). The Acephali, though

separating from the latter Peter for that advocacy, and accused by

Leontius of being Gaianites[315:1] (Eutychians), are considered by

Facundus as Monophysites.[315:2] Timothy the Cat, who is said to have

agreed with Dioscorus and Peter the Stammerer, who signed the Henoticon,

that is, with two Monophysite Patriarchs, is said nevertheless,

according to Anastasius, to have maintained the extreme tenet, that "the

Divinity is the sole nature of Christ."[315:3] Severus, according to

Anastasius,[315:3] symbolized with the Phantasiasts (Eutychians), yet he

is more truly, according to Leontius, the chief doctor and leader of the

Monophysites. And at one time there was an union, though temporary,

between the Theodosians (Monophysites) and the Gaianites.

18.

Such a division of an heretical party, into the maintainers, of an

extreme and a moderate view, perspicuous and plausible on paper, yet in

fact unreal, impracticable, and hopeless, was no new phenomenon in the

history of the Church. As Eutyches put forward an extravagant tenet,

which was first corrected into the Monophysite, and then relapsed

hopelessly into the doctrine of the Phantasiasts and the Theopaschites,

so had Arius been superseded by the Eusebians and had revived in

Eunomius; and as the moderate Eusebians had formed the great body of the

dissentients from the Nicene Council, so did the Monophysites include

the mass of those who protested against Chalcedon; and as the Eusebians

had been moderate in creed, yet unscrupulous in act, so were the

Monophysites. And as the Eusebians were ever running individually into

pure Arianism, so did the Monophysites run into pure Eutychianism. And

as the Monophysites set themselves against Pope Leo, so had the

Eusebians, with even less provocation, withstood and complained of Pope

Julius. In like manner, the Apollinarians had divided into two sects;

one, with Timotheus, going the whole length of the inferences which the

tenet of their master involved, and the more cautious or timid party

making an unintelligible stand with Valentinus. Again, in the history of

Nestorianism, though it admitted less opportunity for division of

opinion, the See of Rome was with St. Cyril in one extreme, Nestorius in

the other, and between them the great Eastern party, headed by John of

Antioch and Theodoret, not heretical, but for a time dissatisfied with

the Council of Ephesus.

19.

The Nestorian heresy, I have said, gave less opportunity for doctrinal

varieties than the heresy of Eutyches. Its spirit was rationalizing, and

had the qualities which go with rationalism. When cast out of the Roman

Empire, it addressed itself, as we have seen, to a new and rich field of

exertion, got possession of an Established Church, co-operated with the

civil government, adopted secular fashions, and, by whatever means,

pushed itself out into an Empire. Apparently, though it requires a very

intimate knowledge of its history to speak except conjecturally, it was

a political power rather than a dogma, and despised the science of

theology. Eutychianism, on the other hand, was mystical, severe,

enthusiastic; with the exception of Severus, and one or two more, it was

supported by little polemical skill; it had little hold upon the

intellectual Greeks of Syria and Asia Minor, but flourished in Egypt,

which was far behind the East in civilization, and among the native

Syrians. Nestorianism, like Arianism[317:1] before it, was a cold

religion, and more fitted for the schools than for the many; but the

Monophysites carried the people with them. Like modern Jansenism, and

unlike Nestorianism, the Monophysites were famous for their austerities.

They have, or had, five Lents in the year, during which laity as well as

clergy abstain not only from flesh and eggs, but from wine, oil, and

fish.[317:2] Monachism was a characteristic part of their ecclesiastical

system: their Bishops, and Maphrian or Patriarch, were always taken from

the Monks, who are even said to have worn an iron shirt or breastplate

as a part of their monastic habit.[317:3]

20.

Severus, Patriarch of Antioch at the end of the fifth century, has

already been mentioned as an exception to the general character of the

Monophysites, and, by his learning and ability, may be accounted the

founder of its theology. Their cause, however, had been undertaken by

the Emperors themselves before him. For the first thirty years after the

Council of Chalcedon, the protesting Church of Egypt had been the scene

of continued tumult and bloodshed. Dioscorus had been popular with the

people for his munificence, in spite of the extreme laxity of his

morals, and for a while the Imperial Government failed in obtaining the

election of a Catholic successor. At length Proterius, a man of fair

character, and the Vicar-general of Dioscorus on his absence at

Chalcedon, was chosen, consecrated, and enthroned; but the people rose

against the civil authorities, and the military, coming to their

defence, were attacked with stones, and pursued into a church, where

they were burned alive by the mob. Next, the popular leaders prepared to

intercept the supplies of grain which were destined for Constantinople;

and, a defensive retaliation taking place, Alexandria was starved. Then

a force of two thousand men was sent for the restoration of order, who

permitted themselves in scandalous excesses towards the women of

Alexandria. Proterius's life was attempted, and he was obliged to be

attended by a guard. The Bishops of Egypt would not submit to him; two

of his own clergy, who afterward succeeded him, Timothy and Peter,

seceded, and were joined by four or five of the Bishops and by the mass

of the population;[318:1] and the Catholic Patriarch was left without a

communion in Alexandria. He held a council, and condemned the

schismatics; and the Emperor, seconding his efforts, sent them out of

the country, and enforced the laws against the Eutychians. An external

quiet succeeded; then Marcian died; and then forthwith Timothy (the Cat)

made his appearance again, first in Egypt, then in Alexandria. The

people rose in his favour, and carried in triumph their persecuted

champion to the great Cæsarean Church, where he was consecrated

Patriarch by two deprived Bishops, who had been put out of their sees,

whether by a Council of Egypt or of Palestine.[318:2] Timothy, now

raised to the Episcopal rank, began to create a new succession; he

ordained Bishops for the Churches of Egypt, and drove into exile those

who were in possession. The Imperial troops, who had been stationed in

Upper Egypt, returned to Alexandria; the mob rose again, broke into the

Church, where St. Proterius was in prayer, and murdered him. A general

ejectment of the Catholic clergy throughout Egypt followed. On their

betaking themselves to Constantinople to the new Emperor, Timothy and

his party addressed him also. They quoted the Fathers, and demanded the

abrogation of the Council of Chalcedon. Next they demanded a conference;

the Catholics said that what was once done could not be undone; their

opponents agreed to this and urged it, as their very argument against

Chalcedon, that it added to the faith, and reversed former

decisions.[319:1] After a rule of three years, Timothy was driven out

and Catholicism restored; but then in turn the Monophysites rallied, and

this state of warfare and alternate success continued for thirty years.

21.

At length the Imperial Government, wearied out with a dispute which was

interminable, came to the conclusion that the only way of restoring

peace to the Church was to abandon the Council of Chalcedon. In the year

482 was published the famous _Henoticon_ or Pacification of Zeno, in

which the Emperor took upon himself to determine a matter of faith. The

Henoticon declared that no symbol of faith but that of the Nicene Creed,

commonly so called, should be received in the Churches; it anathematized

the opposite heresies of Nestorius and Eutyches, and it was silent on

the question of the "One" or "Two Natures" after the Incarnation. This

middle measure had the various effects which might be anticipated. It

united the great body of the Eastern Bishops, who readily relaxed into

the vague profession of doctrine from which they had been roused by the

authority of St. Leo. All the Eastern Bishops signed this Imperial

formulary. But this unanimity of the East was purchased by a breach with

the West; for the Popes cut off the communication between Greeks and

Latins for thirty-five years. On the other hand, the more zealous

Monophysites, disgusted at their leaders for accepting what they

considered an unjustifiable compromise, split off from the Eastern

Churches, and formed a sect by themselves, which remained without

Bishops (_acephali_) for three hundred years, when at length they were

received back into the communion of the Catholic Church.

22.

Dreary and waste was the condition of the Church, and forlorn her

prospects, at the period which we have been reviewing. After the brief

triumph which attended the conversion of Constantine, trouble and trial

had returned upon her. Her imperial protectors were failing in power or

in faith. Strange forms of evil were rising in the distance and were

thronging for the conflict. There was but one spot in the whole of

Christendom, one voice in the whole Episcopate, to which the faithful

turned in hope in that miserable day. In the year 493, in the

Pontificate of Gelasius, the whole of the East was in the hands of

traitors to Chalcedon, and the whole of the West under the tyranny of

the open enemies of Nicæa. Italy was the prey of robbers; mercenary

bands had overrun its territory, and barbarians were seizing on its

farms and settling in its villas. The peasants were thinned by famine

and pestilence; Tuscany might be even said, as Gelasius words it, to

contain scarcely a single inhabitant.[320:1] Odoacer was sinking before

Theodoric, and the Pope was changing one Arian master for another. And

as if one heresy were not enough, Pelagianism was spreading with the

connivance of the Bishops in the territory of Picenum. In the North of

the dismembered Empire, the Britons had first been infected by

Pelagianism, and now were dispossessed by the heathen Saxons. The

Armoricans still preserved a witness of Catholicism in the West of Gaul;

but Picardy, Champagne, and the neighbouring provinces, where some

remnant of its supremacy had been found, had lately submitted to the

yet heathen Clovis. The Arian kingdoms of Burgundy in France, and of the

Visigoths in Aquitaine and Spain, oppressed a zealous and Catholic

clergy, Africa was in still more deplorable condition under the cruel

sway of the Vandal Gundamond: the people indeed uncorrupted by the

heresy,[321:1] but their clergy in exile and their worship suspended.

While such was the state of the Latins, what had happened in the East?

Acacius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, had secretly taken part

against the Council of Chalcedon and was under Papal excommunication.

Nearly the whole East had sided with Acacius, and a schism had begun

between East and West, which lasted, as I have above stated, for

thirty-five years. The Henoticon was in force, and at the Imperial

command had been signed by all the Patriarchs and Bishops throughout the

Eastern Empire.[321:2] In Armenia the Churches were ripening for the

pure Eutychianism which they adopted in the following century; and in

Egypt the Acephali, already separated from the Monophysite Patriarch,

were extending in the east and west of the country, and preferred the

loss of the Episcopal Succession to the reception of the Council of

Chalcedon. And while Monophysites or their favourers occupied the

Churches of the Eastern Empire, Nestorianism was making progress in the

territories beyond it. Barsumas had held the See of Nisibis, Theodore

was read in the schools of Persia, and the successive Catholici of

Seleucia had abolished Monachism and were secularizing the clergy.

23.

If then there is now a form of Christianity such, that it extends

throughout the world, though with varying measures of prominence or

prosperity in separate places;--that it lies under the power of

sovereigns and magistrates, in various ways alien to its faith;--that

flourishing nations and great empires, professing or tolerating the

Christian name, lie over against it as antagonists;--that schools of

philosophy and learning are supporting theories, and following out

conclusions, hostile to it, and establishing an exegetical system

subversive of its Scriptures;--that it has lost whole Churches by

schism, and is now opposed by powerful communions once part of

itself;--that it has been altogether or almost driven from some

countries;--that in others its line of teachers is overlaid, its flocks

oppressed, its Churches occupied, its property held by what may be

called a duplicate succession;--that in others its members are

degenerate and corrupt, and are surpassed in conscientiousness and in

virtue, as in gifts of intellect, by the very heretics whom it

condemns;--that heresies are rife and bishops negligent within its own

pale;--and that amid its disorders and its fears there is but one Voice

for whose decisions the peoples wait with trust, one Name and one See to

which they look with hope, and that name Peter, and that see Rome;--such

a religion is not unlike the Christianity of the fifth and sixth

Centuries.[322:1]

FOOTNOTES:

[208:1] [This juxtaposition of names has been strangely distorted by

critics. In the intention of the author, Guizot matched with Pliny, not

with Frederick.]

[213:1] Vid. Muller de Hierarch. et Ascetic. Warburton, Div. Leg. ii. 4.

Selden de Diis Syr. Acad. des Inscript. t. 3, hist. p. 296, t. 5, mem.

p. 63, t. 16, mem. p. 267. Lucian. Pseudomant. Cod. Theod. ix. 16.

[214:1] Acad. t. 16. mem. p. 274.

[215:1] Apol. 25. Vid. also Prudent. in hon. Romani, circ. fin. and

Lucian de Deo Syr. 50.

[215:2] Vid. also the scene in Jul. Firm. p. 449.

[216:1] Tac. Ann. ii. 85; Sueton. Tiber. 36.

[216:2] August. 93.

[216:3] De Superst. 3.

[216:4] De Art. Am. i. init.

[217:1] Sat. iii. vi.

[217:2] Tertul. Ap. 5.

[218:1] Vit. Hel. 3.

[219:1] Vid. Tillemont, Mem. and Lardner's Hist. Heretics.

[221:1] Bampton Lect. 2.

[222:1] Burton, Bampton Lect. note 61.

[223:1] Burton, Bampton Lect. note 44.

[223:2] Montfaucon, Antiq. t. ii. part 2, p. 353.

[223:3] Hær. i. 20.

[223:4] De Præscr. 43.

[225:1] Vid. Kortholt, in Plin. et Traj. Epp. p. 152. Comment. in Minuc.

F. &c.

[228:1] "Itaque imposuistis in cervicibus nostris sempiternum dominum,

quem dies et noctes timeremus; quis enim non timeat omnia providentem et

cogitantem et animadvertentem, et omnia ad se pertinere putantem,

curiosum, et plenum negotii Deum?"--_Cic. de Nat. Deor._ i. 20.

[228:2] Min. c. 11. Lact. v. 1, 2, vid. Arnob. ii. 8, &c.

[228:3] Origen, contr. Cels. i. 9, iii. 44, 50, vi. 44.

[229:1] Prudent. in hon. Fruct. 37.

[229:2] Evan. Dem. iii. 3, 4.

[229:3] Mort. Peregr. 13.

[229:4] c. 108.

[229:5] i. e. Philop. 16.

[229:6] De Mort. Pereg. ibid.

[229:7] Ruin. Mart. pp. 100, 594, &c.

[230:1] Prud. in hon. Rom. vv. 404, 868.

[230:2] We have specimens of _carmina_ ascribed to Christians in the

Philopatris.

[230:3] Goth. in Cod. Th. t. 5, p. 120, ed. 1665. Again, "Qui malefici

vulgi consuetudine nuncupantur." Leg. 6. So Lactantius, "Magi et ii quos

verè maleficos vulgus appellat." Inst. ii. 17. "Quos et maleficos vulgus

appellat." August. Civ. Dei, x. 19. "Quos vulgus mathematicos vocat."

Hieron. in Dan. c. ii. Vid. Gothof. in loc. Other laws speak of those

who were "maleficiorum labe polluti," and of the "maleficiorum scabies."

[230:4] Tertullian too mentions the charge of "hostes principum

Romanorum, populi, generis humani, Deorum, Imperatorum, legum, morum,

naturæ totius inimici." Apol. 2, 35, 38, ad. Scap. 4, ad. Nat. i. 17.

[231:1] Evid. part ii. ch. 4.

[232:1] Heathen Test. 9.

[233:1] Gothof. in Cod. Th. t. 5, p. 121.

[233:2] Cic. pro Cluent. 61. Gieseler transl. vol. i. p. 21, note 5.

Acad. Inscr. t. 34, hist. p. 110.

[234:1] De Harusp. Resp. 9.

[234:2] De Legg. ii. 8.

[234:3] Acad. Inscr. ibid.

[234:4] Neander, Eccl. Hist. tr. vol. i. p. 81.

[234:5] Muller, p. 21, 22, 30. Tertull. Ox. tr. p. 12, note _p_.

[235:1] Gibbon, Hist. ch. 16, note 14.

[235:2] Epit. Instit. 55.

[236:1] Gibbon, ibid. Origen admits and defends the violation of the

laws: +ouk alogon synthêkas para ta nenomismena poiein, tas hyper

halêtheias+. c. Cels. i. 1.

[237:1] Hist. p. 418.

[237:2] In hon. Rom. 62. In Act. S. Cypr. 4, Tert. Apol. 10, &c.

[238:1] Apol. i. 3, 39, Oxf. tr.

[241:1] Julian ap. Cyril, pp. 39, 194, 206, 335. Epp. pp. 305, 429, 438,

ed. Spanh.

[242:1] Niebuhr ascribes it to the beginning of the tenth.

[245:1] Sirm. Opp. ii. p. 225, ed. Ven.

[247:1] Proph. Office, p. 132 [Via Media, vol. i. p. 109].

[247:2] [Since the publication of this volume in 1845, a writer in a

Conservative periodical of great name has considered that no happier

designation could be bestowed upon us than that which heathen statesmen

gave to the first Christians, "enemies of the human race." What a

remarkable witness to our identity with the Church of St. Paul ("a

pestilent fellow, and a mover of sedition throughout the world"), of St.

Ignatius, St. Polycarp, and the other Martyrs! In this matter,

Conservative politicians join with Liberals, and with the movement

parties in Great Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, in their view of

our religion.

"The Catholics," says the _Quarterly Review_ for January, 1873, pp.

181-2, "wherever they are numerous and powerful in a Protestant nation,

_compel_ (sic) as it were by a law of their being, that nation to treat

them with stern repression and control. . . . Catholicism, if it be true

to itself, and its mission, _cannot_ (sic) . . . wherever and whenever

the opportunity is afforded it, abstain from claiming, working for, and

grasping that supremacy and paramount influence and control, which it

conscientiously believes to be its inalienable and universal due. . . .

By the force of circumstances, by the inexorable logic of its claims, it

must be the intestine foe or the disturbing element of every state in

which it does not bear sway; and . . . it must now stand out in the

estimate of all Protestants, Patriots and Thinkers" (philosophers and

historians, as Tacitus?) "as the _hostis humani generis_ (sic), &c."]

[254:1] De Præscr. Hær. 41, Oxf. tr.

[254:2] +chronitai.+

[256:1] Cat. xviii. 26.

[257:1] Contr. Ep. Manich. 5.

[257:2] Origen, Opp. t. i. p. 809.

[258:1] Strom. vii. 17.

[258:2] c. Tryph. 35.

[258:3] Instit. 4. 30.

[259:1] Hær. 42, p. 366.

[259:2] In Lucif. fin.

[259:3] The Oxford translation is used.

[263:1] _Rationabilis_; apparently an allusion to the civil officer

called _Catholicus_ or _Rationalis_, receiver-general.

[263:2] Ad. Parm. ii. init.

[264:1] De Unit. Eccles. 6.

[265:1] Contr. Cresc. iv. 75; also iii. 77.

[266:1] Antiq. ii. 4, § 5.

[267:1] Antiq. 5, § 3. [Bingham apparently in this passage is indirectly

replying to the Catholic argument for the Pope's Supremacy drawn from

the titles and acts ascribed to him in antiquity; but that argument is

cumulative in character, being part of a whole body of proof; and there

is moreover a great difference between a rhetorical discourse and a

synodal enunciation as at Chalcedon.]

[268:1] Ad Demetr. 4, &c. Oxf. Tr.

[268:2] Hist. ch. xv.

[269:1] De Unit. 5, 12.

[269:2] Chrys. in Eph. iv.

[269:3] De Baptism. i. 10.

[269:4] c. Ep. Parm. i. 7.

[269:5] De Schism. Donat. i. 10.

[270:1] Cat. xvi. 10.

[270:2] De Fid. ad Petr. 39. [82.]

[270:3] [Of course this solemn truth must not be taken apart from the

words of the present Pope, Pius IX., concerning invincible ignorance:

"Notum nobis vobisque est, eos, qui invincibili circa sanctissimam

nostram religionem ignorantiâ laborant, quique naturalem legem ejusque

præcepta in omnium cordibus a Deo insculpta sedulo servantes, ac Deo

obedire parati, honestam rectamque vitam agunt, posse, divinæ lucis et

gratiæ operante virtute, æternam consequi vitam, cùm Deus, qui omnium

mentes, animos, cogitationes, habitusque planè intuetur, scrutatur et

noscit, pro summâ suâ bonitate et clementia, minimè patiatur quempiam

æternis puniri suppliciis, qui voluntariæ culpæ reatum non habeat."]

[272:1] Epp. 43, 52, 57, 76, 105, 112, 141, 144.

[276:1] De Gubern. Dei, vii. p. 142. Elsewhere, "Apud Aquitanicos quæ

civitas in locupletissimâ ac nobilissimâ sui parte non quasi lupanar

fuit? Quis potentum ac divitum non in luto libidinis vixit? Haud multum

matrona abest à vilitate servarum, ubi paterfamilias ancillarum maritus

est? Quis autem Aquitanorum divitum non hoc fuit?" (pp. 134, 135.)

"Offenduntur barbari ipsi impuritatibus nostris. Esse inter Gothos non

licet scortatorem Gothum; soli inter eos præjudicio nationis ac nominis

permittuntur impuri esse Romani" (p. 137). "Quid? Hispanias nonne vel

eadem vel majora forsitan vitia perdiderunt? . . . Accessit hoc ad

manifestandam illic impudicitiæ damnationem, ut Wandalis potissimum, id

est, pudicis barbaris traderentur" (p. 137). Of Africa and Carthage, "In

urbe Christianâ, in urbe ecclesiasticâ, . . . viri in semetipsis feminas

profitebantur," &c. (p. 152).

[276:2] Dunham, Hist. Spain, vol. i. p. 112.

[277:1] Aguirr. Concil. t. 2, p. 191.

[277:2] Dunham, p. 125.

[277:3] Hist. Franc. iii. 10.

[277:4] Ch. 39.

[278:1] Greg. Dial. iii. 30.

[278:2] Ibid. 20.

[278:3] Gibbon, Hist. ch. 37.

[279:1] De Glor. Mart. i. 25.

[279:2] Ibid. 80.

[279:3] Ibid. 79.

[279:4] Vict. Vit. i. 14.

[280:1] De Gub. D. iv. p. 73.

[280:2] Ibid. v. p. 88.

[280:3] Epp. i. 31.

[280:4] Hist. vi. 23.

[280:5] Cf. Assem. t. i. p. 351, not. 4, t. 3, p. 393.

[280:6] Baron. Ann. 432, 47.

[280:7] Gibbon, Hist. ch. 36.

[281:1] Baron. Ann. 471, 18.

[281:2] Vict. Vit. iv. 4.

[281:3] Vict. Vit. ii. 3-15.

[282:1] Aguirr. Conc. t. 2, p. 262.

[282:2] Aguirr. ibid. p. 232.

[282:3] Theod. Hist. v. 2.

[282:4] c. Ruff. i. 4.

[283:1] Ep. 15.

[283:2] Ep. 16.

[284:1] Aug. Epp. 43. 7.

[286:1] Assem. iii. p. 68.

[287:1] Ibid. t. 3, p. 84, note 3.

[287:2] Wegnern, Proleg. in Theod. Opp. p. ix.

[287:3] De Ephrem Syr. p. 61.

[288:1] Lengerke, de Ephrem Syr. pp. 73-75.

[289:1] +despotou+, vid. La Croze, Thesaur. Ep. t. 3, § 145.

[289:2] Montf. Coll. Nov. t. 2, p. 227.

[290:1] Rosenmuller, Hist. Interpr. t. 3, p. 278.

[290:2] Lengerke, de Ephr. Syr. pp. 165-167.

[290:3] Ernest. de Proph. Mess. p. 462.

[291:1] Eccl. Theol. iii. 12.

[291:2] Professor Lee's Serm. Oct. 1838, pp. 144-152.

[291:3] Noris. Opp. t. 2, p. 112.

[291:4] Augusti. Euseb. Em. Opp.

[291:5] Asseman. Bibl. Or. p. cmxxv.

[291:6] Hoffman, Gram. Syr. Proleg. § 4.

[291:7] The educated Persians were also acquainted with Syriac. Assem.

t. i. p. 351, not.

[292:1] Asseman., p. lxx.

[292:2] Euseb. Præp. vi. 10.

[292:3] Tillemont, Mem. t. 7, p. 77.

[293:1] Gibbon, ch. 47.

[294:1] Asseman. p. lxxviii.

[294:2] Gibbon, ibid.

[294:3] Asseman. t. 2, p. 403, t. 3, p. 393.

[295:1] Asseman. t. 3, p. 67.

[296:1] Gibbon, ibid.

[296:2] Assem. p. lxxvi.

[296:3] Ibid. t. 3, p. 441.

[297:1] Ch. 47.

[298:1] Fleur. Hist. xxvii. 29.

[299:1] Gibbon, ch. 47.

[300:1] Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 127.

[301:1] Petav. de Incarn. iv. 6, § 4.

[301:2] Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 168.

[301:3] Vid. the Author's Athan. trans. [ed. 1881, vol. ii. pp. 331-333,

426-429, and on the general subject his Theol. Tracts, art. v.]

[302:1] Fleury, Oxf. tr. xxvii. 39.

[302:2] Ibid. 41. In like manner, St. Athanasius in the foregoing age

had said, "The faith confessed at Nicæa by the Fathers, according to the

Scriptures, is sufficient for the overthrow of all misbelief." ad Epict.

init. Elsewhere, however, he explains his statement, "The decrees of

Nicæa are right and sufficient for the overthrow of all heresy,

_especially_ the Arian," ad. Max. fin. St. Gregory Nazianzen, in like

manner, appeals to Nicæa; but he "adds an explanation on the doctrine of

the Holy Spirit which was left deficient by the Fathers, because the

question had not then been raised." Ep. 102, init. This exclusive

maintenance, and yet extension of the Creed, according to the exigences

of the times, is instanced in other Fathers. Vid. Athan. tr. [ed. 1881,

vol. ii. p. 82.]

[303:1] Fleury, ibid. 27.

[304:1] Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 141. [A negative is omitted in the Greek,

but inserted in the Latin.]

[304:2] Supr. p. 245.

[304:3] Ad Const. ii. 9. Vid. Athan. tr. [ed. 1881, vol. ii. p. 261.]

[305:1] Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 162.

[307:1] Fleury, Hist. Oxf. tr. xxvii. 37.

[307:2] Ep. 116.

[307:3] Conc. Hard. t. 2, p. 36.

[308:1] Ep. 43.

[308:2] Fleury, Hist. Oxf. tr. xxviii. 17, note _l_.

[308:3] Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 68.

[308:4] Fleury, Oxf. tr. xxviii. 2, 3.

[310:1] Ibid. 20.

[311:1] Conc. Hard. t. 2, p. 656.

[312:1] [Can any so grave an _ex parte_ charge as this be urged against

the recent Vatican Council?]

[313:1] I cannot find my reference for this fact; the sketch is formed

from notes made some years since, though I have now verified them.

[313:2] Leont. de Sect. v. p. 512.

[313:3] Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 99, vid. also p. 418.

[313:4] Renaud. Patr. Alex. p. 115.

[313:5] Assem. t. 2, pp. 133-137.

[315:1] Leont. de Sect. vii. pp. 521, 2.

[315:2] Fac. i. 5, circ. init.

[315:3] Hodeg. 20, p. 319.

[317:1] _i. e._ Arianism in the East: "Sanctiores aures plebis quam

corda sunt sacerdotum." S. Hil. contr. Auxent. 6. It requires some

research to account for its hold on the barbarians. Vid. _supr._ pp.

274, 5.

[317:2] Gibbon, ch. 47.

[317:3] Assem. t. 2, de Monoph. circ. fin.

[318:1] Leont. Sect. v. init.

[318:2] Tillemont, t. 15, p. 784.

[319:1] Tillemont, Mem. t. 15, pp. 790-811.

[320:1] Gibbon, Hist. ch. 36, fin.

[321:1] Gibbon, Hist. ch. 36, fin.

[321:2] Gibbon, Hist. ch. 47.

[322:1] [The above sketch has run to great length, yet it is only part

of what might be set down in evidence of the wonderful identity of type

which characterizes the Catholic Church from first to last. I have

confined myself for the most part to her political aspect; but a

parallel illustration might be drawn simply from her doctrinal, or from

her devotional. As to her devotional aspect, Cardinal Wiseman has shown

its identity in the fifth compared with the nineteenth century, in an

article of the _Dublin Review_, quoted in part in _Via Media_, vol. ii.

p. 378. Indeed it is confessed on all hands, as by Middleton, Gibbon,

&c., that from the time of Constantine to their own, the system and the

phenomena of worship in Christendom, from Moscow to Spain, and from

Ireland to Chili, is one and the same. I have myself paralleled Medieval

Europe with modern Belgium or Italy, in point of ethical character in

"Difficulties of Anglicans," vol. i. Lecture ix., referring the identity

to the operation of a principle, insisted on presently, the Supremacy of

Faith. And so again, as to the system of Catholic doctrine, the type of

the Religion remains the same, because it has developed according to the

"analogy of faith," as is observed in _Apol._, p. 196, "The idea of the

Blessed Virgin was, as it were, _magnified_ in the Church of Rome, as

time went on, but so were _all_ the Christian ideas, as that of the

Blessed Eucharist," &c.]