llpnn {Eotonsenb l^fjite, 2 1 Callistus. 2 3 4 22& 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 1 Urbanus. 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 Pontianus, July 22. 2 3 4 5 6 Anteros (Pontianus died Sept. 28). Anteros died June 13, 236. rus. Maximinus, The 2 Gordians, Pupienus Bal- binus. Pontianus banished to Sardinia. His Martyrdom ( ?). Martyrdom ofHippolytus(?). 36 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK I A.D. Bishop* of Rome. Emperors. Remarkable Events, &c. 236 237 238 1 Fabianus. 2 3 239 240 241 242 243 244 4 6 6 7 8 9 nior. 245 246 247 24S 10 11 12 13 249 14 260 261 262 253 See racant. 1 Corueliu*, J une 4. d. Sept. 14. 1 Lucius. 1 Stephen. Galltu. St. Cyprian. Death of Origen. 254 2 265 266 8 4 lerianuB. > vati;in Anlipope. 257 Sixtos n., Martyr, Heretics. III. Council of Carthage. 268 d. Aug. 2, 258. Vacancy. Martyrdom of Sixtns. Martyr- 259 260 1 Dionysius, July 22 2 dom of Cyprian, Sept. 14. 261 262 263 264 265 266 2-- 268 8 4 6 6 7 8 9 10 269 270 1 Felix. 2 271 272 8 4 273 274 276 276 6 6 1 Eutyehianus. 2 Tacitus, Probua. 277 278 279 280 281 282 8 4 5 6 7 8 283 2-4 1 Caitu. 2 Nuraerianus. 285 286 3 4 287 M i 6 6 7 8 Lactantiu*. 891 BOOK I. CHRONOLOGY OF FIRST FOUR CFJSTTURIES. 37 A.D. Bishops of Rome. Emperors. Remarkable Events, &o. 292 10 293 294 295 296 11 12 13 Constantius, Gale ri us. 297 298 299 300 301 30. 2 3 4 5 6 302 803 304 305 306 7 8 Died Oct. 24. See vacant. Constantius, Galerius. Abdication of Diocletian and Maxiinian. 807 308 809 310 MarceUus, May 19. Maxentius, Licinius. Maximian. Six Emperors. Death of Severus. 311 Death of Galerius. 812 ades, July 2. 813 Maxentius. Edict of Milan, Oct 28 314 315 316 317 318 819 320 821 822 323 1 Sylvester. Jan. 81. 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 324 11 325 12 326 827 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 837 i38 1 Julius I., Feb. 6. 2 Constantino, Cons tans, Constantius. Baptism of Constantino. 339 840 3 4 341 5 by Constans. Death of Eu- sebius of Csesarea. 342 6 against Pagan sacrifices. 38 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK I. A.D. Bishops of Rome. Emperors. Remarkable Events, &o. 843 844 7 8 Athanasius at Milan, in Gaul. 845 846 847 9 10 11 Council of Sordica. 848 12 849 13 850 14 851 852 853 15 1 Julius died April 5 ; Liberius, May 22. 2 Magnentiua. Battle of Mursa. Death of 854 8 alone. Magnentius. 855 4 856 5 (Felix Antipope ) of Milan. Banishment of Liberius. 857 6 Athanasius exiled from Al- exandria. 358 Recall of Liberius. 859 8 Council of Kimini. Council of 860 861 9 10 Seleucia. 862 11 868 12 dria again expelled. 864 18 Death of Julian, June 26. 865 m 867 868 an 870 371 872 373 14 15 died Sept. 29. 1 Damasus. 2 3 4 5 6 7 Valens. Gratian. Tumults at Rome on the con- tested election of Damasiu and Ursicinus. Death of Athanasius, May 2. 874 875 8 9 Talentinian II Ambrow, Bishop of Milnn. 876 877 878 10 11 12 Death of Talens. 879 13 Tbeodosius, Theodosius expels the Arians. 880 14 . Kmp. of the East. Synod against Priscillian. Council of Constantinople. Ad- 881 Hi 883 884 15 16 17 dress of Symmachus on Stat- ute of Theodosius de lleret- icis. Jerome retires to Bethlehem. 885 886 887 11. 1 Siricius. 2 8 Chrysostom ad Antiochenos. 888 889 890 4 5 6 Temple of Serapis destroyed. 891 892 7 8 BOOK I. CHRONOLOGY OF FIRST FOUE CEXTUKIES. 39 A.D. Bishops of Borne. Emperors. Remarkable Brents, &e. 393 9 394 395 10 11 Honorius, Ax~ 396 897 398 12 13 14 died Xov. 26. cadi us. 399 400 tinople. Cn.vr. I. HISTORIC PEKIOES. 41 BOOK I CHAPTER I. BEGINNING OF ROMAN CHRISTIANITY. LATIN Christianity, from its commencement, iu its character, and in all the circumstances of its Roman p on af- development, had an irresistible tendency to tre'o/Latu? 11 " monarchy. Its capital had for ages been the Christiail5t y- capital of the world, and it still remained that of Western Europe. This monarchy reached its height under Hilde- brand and Innocent III. ; the history of the Roman Pontificate thus becomes the centre of Latin Christian History. The controversies of the East, in which Occi- dental or Roman Christianity mingled with a lofty dic- tation, sometimes so unimpassioned, that it might seem as though the establishment of its own supremacy was its ultimate aim the conversion of the different races of Barbarians, who constituted the world of Latin Christendom Monasticism, with the forms which it assumed in its successive Orders the rise and con- quests of Mohammedanism, with which Latin religion came at length into direct conflict, at first in Spain and Gaul, in Sicily and Italy ; afterwards when the Popes placed themselves at the head of the Crusades, and Islam and Latin Christianity might seem to contest the dominion of the human race the restoration of the 42 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK L Western empire beyond the Alps the feudal system of which the Pope aspired to be as it were the spiritual Suzerain the long and obstinate conflicts with the temporal power the origin and tenets of the sects which attempted to withdraw from the unity of the church, and to retire into independent communities the first struggles of the human mind for freedom within Latin Christendom the gradual growth of Cliristian literature, Christian art, and Christian philosophy all these momentous subjects range themselves as episodes in the chronicle of the Roman bishops. Hence our history obtains that unity which impresses itself upon the attention, and presents the vicissitudes of centuries as a vast, continuous, harmonious whole ; wliile at the same time it breaks up and separates itself into distinct periods, each with its marked events, peculiar character, and commanding men. And so the plan of our work may, at least, attempt to fulfil the two great functions of history, to arrest the mind and carry it on with unflagging interest, to infix its whole course of events on the imagination and the memory, as well -by its broad and definite landmarks, as by the life and reality of its details in each separate period. The writer is unfeignedly conscious how far his own powers fall below the dignity of his subject, below the accomplishment of his own conceptions. I. The first of these periods in the history of Latin A. . 866-401. Christianity closes with Pope Damasus and his two successors. 1 Its age of total obscurity is passed, its indistinct twilight is brightening into open day. The i There is another advantage in this division ; the first authentic decretal is that of Pope Siricius, the successor of Damasus. CHAP. I. HISTORIC PERIODS. 43 Christian bishop is become so important a personage in Rome, as to be the subject of profane history. His election is a cause of civil strife. Christianity more than equally divides the Patriciate, still more the peo- ple ; it has already ascended the Imperial throne. Noble matrons and virgins are becoming the vestals of Christian Monasticism. The bitterness of the Heathen party betrays a galling sense of inferiority. Paganism is writhing, struggling, languishing in its death pangs, Christianity growing haughty and wanton in its tri- umph. II. The second ends with Pope Leo the Great. Paganism has made its last vain effort, not A. . 461. now for equality, for toleration. It has been buried under the ruins of the conquered capital. Alaric tramples out its last embers. Rome emerges from its destruction by the Goths a Christian city. The East has wrought out, after the strife of two centuries, the dogmatic system of the church, which Rome receives with haughty condescension, as if she had imposed it on the world. The great Western controversy, Pela- gianism, has been agitated and has passed away. Pre- tensions to the successorship of St. Peter are A. D. 402-417 already heard from Innocent I. Claims are made at least to the authority of a Western Patriarch. In Leo the Great, half a century later, the pope is A. D. 440-461. not merely the greatest personage in Rome, but even in Italy ; he takes the lead as a pacific protector against the Barbarians. Leo the Great is likewise the first distinguished writer among the popes. III. To the death of Gregory I. (the Great). 44 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK L A. D. 604. Christianity is not only the religion of the Roman or Italian, but in part of the barbarian world. Now takes place the league of Christianity with Bar- barism. The old Roman letters and arts die away into almost total extinction. So fallen is Roman literature, that Boethius is a great philosopher, Cassiodorus a great historian, Prudentius, Fortunatus, Juvencus great poets. The East has made its last effort to unite the Christian world under one dominion. Justinian has aspired to legislate for Christendom. Monastic Chris- tianity, having received a strong impulse from St. Ben- edict, is in the ascendant. Gregory I. as a Pope, and as a writer, offers himself as a model of its excellencies and defects. IV. To the coronation of Charlemagne as Em- A. D. 800. peror of the West. Mohammed and Mo- hammedanism arise. The East and Egypt are severed from Greek, Africa and Spain from Latin Christianity. Anglo-Saxon Britain, Western and Southern Ger- many are Christian. Iconoclasm in the East finally separates Greek and Latin Christianity. The Pope has become the great power in Italy. The Gothic kingdom, the Greek dominion of Justinian have passed away. The Pope seeks an alliance against the Lom- bards with the Transalpine lungs. Charlemagne is Patrician of Rome and Emperor of the West. V. The Empire of Charlemagne. The mingled Temporal and Ecclesiastical supremacy of Charle- magne breaks up at his death. Under his successors the spiritual supremacy, in part the temporal, falls to the clergy. Growth of the Transalpine hierarchy. CHAP. I. HISTORIC PERIODS. 45 Pope Nicholas the First accepts the false decretals. Invasion of the Northmen. The dark ages A. . 996. of the Papacy lower and terminate in the degradation of the Popes into slaves of the lawless Barons of the Romagna. VI. The line of German Pontiffs. The Transal- pine powers interpose, rescue the Papacy A. D.996-1061. from its threatened dissolution, from the hatred and contempt of mankind. For great part of a century foreign ecclesiastics are seated on the Papal throne. VII. The restoration of the Italian Papacy under Gregory VII. (Hildebrand). The Pontifi- A D 1061 _ cates of his immediate predecessors and sue- 10<3< cessors. Now commences the complete organization of the sacerdotal caste as independent of, and claiming superiority to, all temporal powers. The strife of cen- turies ends in the enforced celibacy of the clergy. Ber- engar disputes Transubstantiation. Urban II. places himself at the head of Christendom on the * D. 1095. occasion of the first Crusade. VIII. Continuation of contest about Investitures. Intellectual movement. Erigena. Gotschalk. An- selm. Abelard. Arnold of Brescia. Strong revival of Monasticism. Stephen Harding. St. Ber- The 12t h C en- nard. Strife in England for immunities of tury ' o the clergy. Thomas a Becket. Rise of the Emperors of the line of Hohenstaufen. Frederick Barbarossa. IX. Meridian of the Papal power under Innocent III. Innocent aspires to rule all the king- From 1193. 46 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK I doms of the West. Latin conquest of Constantinople. Wars of the Albigenses. St. Dominic. St. Francis. X. The successors of Innocent III. wan-e an inter- O necine conflict with the Emperors. Fruitless and pre- mature attempt at emancipation under Frederick II. TV The Decretals, the Palladium of the Papal Uregory IJL. * * 122&-1238. power, are collected, completed, promulgated as the law of Christendom by Gregory' IX. Con- tinued conflict of the Papal and Sacerdotal against the innocent rv. Imperial and Secular power. Innocent IV. dies 1254. Fall of t h e House of Hohenstaufen. XI. The Empire is crushed, and withdraws into its Teutonic sphere. The French descend into Italy. In the King of France arises a new adversary to the Bomfcce ^ Pope. Philip the Fan* and Boniface VIII. close the open strife of the temporal and spiritual power. XII. The Popes are become the slaves of France at Avignon. What is called the Babylonian cap- A. D. 1305 to tivity of seventy years. Clement V. abol- ishes the Templars. The Em j tire resumes its claims on Italy. Henry of Luxemburg. Louis of Bavaria. John XXII. and the Fraticelli. Rienzi. XIII. Restoration to Rome. The great Schism. Councils of Pisa, of Constance, of Basil, of Florence, the Councils advance a claim to supivinucy over the Popes. Last attempt to reconcile Greek and Latin Christianity. Popes begin to be patrons of Letters and Arts. CHAP. I. FIRST PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY IN ROME. 47 XIV. Retrospect of Mediaeval Letters and Arts. Revival of Greek Letters. CONCLUSION. Advance of the Reformation. Teu- tonic Christianity aspires and begins to divide the world with Latin Christianity. Like almost all the great works of nature and of human power in the material world and in the world of man, the Papacy grew up in silence and obscurity. The names of the earlier Bishops of Rome are known only by barren lists, 1 by spurious decrees and epistles inscribed, centuries later, with their names ; by their collision with the teachers of heretical opinions, almost all of whom found their way to Rome ; by martyrdoms ascribed with the same lavish reverence to those who lived under the mildest of the Roman emperors, as well as those under the most merciless persecutors. 2 Yet the mythic or imaginative spirit of early Chris- tianity has either respected, or was not tempted to 1 The catalogue published by Bucherius, called also Liberianus, is gen- erally the most accredited. M. Bunsen promises a revision of the whole question. (Hippolytus, i. 279.) Historically the chronological discrepan- cies in these lists are of no great importance. But it is remarkable that almost all the earlier names are Greek ; Clemens, Pius, Victor, Caius, are among the very few genuine Roman. 2 In a list of Popes, published by Fabricius (Bibliotheca Graeca, xi. p. 794), from St. Peter to Sylvester, two unhappy pontiffs alone (who are ac- knowledged to be Greeks) are excluded from the honors of martyrdom, Dionysius and Eusebius. It might seem that this list was composed after Greek and Latin Christianity had become hostile. As an illustration of the worthlessness of these traditions, Telesphorus is reckoned as a martyr on the authority of Irenaeus (1. ii. c. 3; compare note of Feuardentius). But Telesphorus was bishop of Rome during the reign of Hadrian ; his martyr- dom is ascribed to the first year of Antoninus Pius. Their character, as well as the general voice of Christian history (see Hist, of Christianity, vol. i. p. 151, 156), absolves these emperors from the charge of persecution. 48 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK. I. indulge its creative fertility by the primitive annals of Rome. After the embellishment, if not the invention, of St. Peter's Pontificate, his conflict with Simon Magus in the presence of the Emperor, and the cir- cumstance of his martyrdom, it was content with raising the successive bishops to the rank of martyrs without any peculiar richness or fulness of legend. 1 It would be singularly curious and instructive to trace, if it were possible, the rise and growth of any single Christian community, more especially that of Rome, at once in the whole church, and in the lives of the bishops ; the first initiatory movements in the con- quest of the world, and of the mistress of the world, by the religion of Christ. How did the Church enlarge her sphere in Rome? how, out of the popu- lation (from a million to a million and a half), 2 slowly gather in her tens, her hundreds, her thousands of converts ? By what processes, by what influences, 1 Two remarkable passages greatly weaken, or rather utterly destroy the authority of all the older Roman martyrologies. In the book, De libris recipiendis, ascribed to the pontificate of Damasus, of Honnisdas, more probably to that of Gelasius, the caution of the Roman Church, in not publicly reading the martyrologies is highly praised, their writers being unknown and without authority. Singular! cautela a S. Rom. Ecclesia- non leguntur, quia et eorum qui conscripserint nomina penittis ignorantur, et ab infidelibus vel idiotis superflua aut minus apta quam rei ordo fuerit esse putantur .... The authors " Deo magis quam hominibus noti sunt." Apud Mansi, sub Pont. Gelasii, A.D. 492, 496. Gregory I. makes even a more ingenuous confession, that excepting one small volume (a calendar, it should seem, of the names and days on which they were honored) there were no Acts of Martyrs in the archives of the Roman See or in the libraries of Rome. Prater ilia, quse in ejusdem Eusebii libris (doubtless the de Martyr. Falsest, of the historian), de gestis sanctorum marty- rum continentur, nulla in archivis hujus nostrae Ecclesiae vel in Romanae nrbis bibliothecis esse cognovi, nisi pauca quaedam in unius codicis volu- mine collecta, et seqq. Greg. M. Epist. viii. 29. 2 Notwithstanding the arguments of M. Bureau de la Malle, Mr. Meri- vale, and other learned writers who have also investigated this subject, I Btill think the estimate of Gibbon the most probable. CHAP. I. FIKST PEOGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY IN ROME. 49 by what degrees did the Christians creep onward towards dangerous, towards equal, towards obscurity of superior numbers? How did they find ac- *p S e s ^oS cess to the public ear, the public mind, the tianit y- public heart? How were they looked upon by the government (after the Neronian persecution), with what gradations, or alternations of contempt, of indif- ference, of suspicion, of animosity? When were they entirely separated and distinguished in general opinion from the Jewish communities ? When did they alto- gether cease to Judaize ? From what order, from what class, from what race did they chiefly make their pros- elytes ? Where and by what channels did they wage their strife with the religion, where with the philoso- phy of the times? To what extent were they per- mitted or disposed to hold public discussion? or did the work of conversion spread in secret from man to man ? When did their worship emerge from the obscurity of a private dwelling; or have its edifices, like the Jewish synagogues, recognized as sacred fanes ? Were they, to what extent, and how long, a people dwelling apart within their own usages, and retiring from social communion with their kindred, and with the rest of mankind ? Rome must be imagined in the vastness and multi- formity of its social condition, the mingling and con- fusion of races, languages, conditions, in order to conceive the slow, imperceptible, yet continuous ag- gression of Christianity. Amid the affairs of the universal empire, the perpetual revolutions, which were constantly calling up new dynasties or new masters over the world, the pomp and state of the Imperial palace, the commerce, the business flowing in from all VOL. I. 4 50 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK L parts of the world, the bustle of the Basilicas or courts of law, the ordinary religious ceremonies, or the more splendid rites on signal occasions, which still went on, if with diminishing concourse of worshippers, ^ith their old sumptuousness, magnificence, and frequency, the public games, the theatres, the gladiatorial shows, the Lucullan or Apician banquets, Christianity was gradually withdrawing from the heterogeneous mass some of all orders, even slaves, out of the vices, the ignorance, the misery of that corrupted social system. It was ever instilling feelings of humanity yet un- known or coldly commended by an impotent philoso- phy, among men and women, whose infant ears had been habituated to the shrieks of dying gladiators ; it was giving dignity to minds prostrated by years, almost centuries, of degrading despotism ; it was nurturing purity and modesty of manners in an unspeakable state of depravation ; it was enshrining the marriage bed in a sanctity long almost entirely lost, and rekindling to a steady warmth the domestic affections ; it was sub- stituting a simple, calm, and rational faith and worship for the worn-out superstitions of heathenism ; gently establishing in the soul of man the sense of immor- tality, till it became a natural and inextinguishable part of his moral being. The dimness and obscurity which veiled the growing Obscurity of church, no doubt threw its modest conceal- the Bishop of . Rome. ment over the person of the Bishop. He was but one man, with no recognized function, in the vast and tumultuous population. He had his un- marked dwelling, perhaps in the distant Transteverine region, or in the then lowly and unfrequented Vatican. By the vulgar, he was beheld as a Jew, or as belonging CHAP. I. OBSCURITY OF THE BISHOPS OF EOME. 51 to one of those countless Eastern religions, which, from the commencement of the Empire, had been flowing, each with its strange rites and mysteries, into Rome. The Emperor, the Imperial family, the court favorites, the military commanders, the Consulars, the Senators, the Patricians by birth, wealth, or favor, the Pontiffs, the great lawyers, even those who ministered to the public pleasures, the distinguished mimes or gladiators, when they appeared in the streets, commanded more public attention than the Christian Bishop,' except when sought out for persecution by some politic or fanatic Emperor. Slowly, and at long intervals, did the Bishop of Rome emerge to dangerous eminence. Yet, was there not more real greatness, a more solemn testimony to his faith in Christ, in this calm and steadfast patience which awaited the tardy accomplish- ment of the divine promises, than if, as he is some- times described by the fond reverence of later Roman writers, he had already laid claim to supreme power over expanding Christianity, or had been held of suffi- cient importance to be constantly exposed to death? The Bishop of Rome could not but be conscious that he was chief minister in the capital of the world of a religion which was confronting Paganism in all its power and majesty. His faith was constantly looking forward to the time, when (if not anticipated by the more appalling triumph at the coming of Christ in His glory) that vast fabric of idolatry, in its strength and wealth, hallowed by the veneration of ages, with all its temples, pomps, theatres, priesthood, its crimes and its superstitions, and besides this, all the wisdom of the philosophic aristocracy, would crumble away ; and the successor of the Galilean fisherman or the persecuted 62 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK I Jew be recognized as the religious sovereign of the Christianized city. The peaceful head of a small community (small comparatively with the believers in the old religions or the believers in none,) even though, like the Apostle, he may have had some converts in high places, " in Caesar's household," yet who had no doubt in the future universality of Christianity, and who was content to pursue his noiseless course of beneficence and conversion, is a nobler example of true Christian- ity, than he who, in the excitement of opposition to power, and in the absorbing but brief agony of martyrdom, laid down his life for the Cross. Christianity, indeed, might seem, even from the Persecuyon first* to have disdained obscurity to have sprung up or to have been forced into terri- ble notoriety in the Neronian persecution and the sub- sequent martyrdom of one at least, accoiding to the vulgar tradition, of its two great Apostles. What caprice of cruelty directed the attention of Nero to the Christians, and made him suppose them victims important enough to glut the popular indignation at the burning of Rome, it is impossible to determine : (the author has ventured on a bold conjecture, and OfDomitun. adheres to his own paradox). 1 The cause and extent of the Domitian persecution is equally ob- scure. The son of Vespasian was not likely to be merciful to any connected with the fanatic Jews. Its known victims were of the imperial family, against whom some crime was necessary, and an accusation of Christianity served the end. 2 At the commencement of the second century, under i Hist of Christianity, ii. p. 36. * Ibid., ii. p. 59. CHAP. I. ROMAN CHURCH UNDER TRAJAN. 53 Trajan, persecution against the Christians is Roman ^ T . Church under raging in the .hast. 1 hat, however (1 teel Trajan. increased confidence in the opinion), was a local, or rather Asiatic persecution, arising out of the vigilant and not groundless apprehension of the sullen and brooding preparation for insurrection among the whole Jewish race (with whom Roman terror and hatred still confounded the Christians), which broke out in the bloody massacres of Gyrene and Cyprus, and in the final rebellion, during the reign of Hadrian, under Barchochebas. But while Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, is carried to Rome to suffer martyrdom, the Roman community is in peace, and not without influence. Ignatius entreats his Roman brethren not to interfere with injurious kindness between himself and his glo- rious death. 1 The wealth of the Roman community, and their lavish Christian use of their wealth, by contributing to the wants of foreign churches, at all periods, espec- ially in times of danger and disaster, (an ancient usage which lasted till the time of Eusebius,) testifies at once to their flourishing condition, to their constant communica- tion with more distant parts of the empire, 2 and thus in- TTJIS vpjv ayairriv, fir} aiirfi fie ddwc^crj?, V/MV -yap ioriv b $/leT KOif/aai. p. 41. 'Eyu ypafyu irfraau; raif EKKfajaiaif not TTUOIV on tyu KUV imep BEOV ano&vf/anu, iavnep i>fj.eif ftff (fj.e). HapaKafaj vpetf ^ (EV) evvolg. uKoipu -yEvja&E (Ml ... Corpus Ipnatianum a Cureton, p. 45. I quote Mr. Cureton's Syriac Ignatius, not feeling that the larger copies have equal historical authority. 2 The first notice of this is in the latter half of the second century, during the bishopric of Soter, either 173-177, or 168-176, as appears from the let- ter of Dionysius of Corinth, &; (ipxqc yap i>[uv e$of earl TOVTO. He calls it also Trarpnrapu.6oTov Mo? Euseb. H. E. iv. 23. It continued during the Decian persecution; Syria and Arabia are described as rejoicing in the bounty of Rome. H. E. vii. 5. Eusebius himself speaks of it as lasting to his time. TO pexpl TOV /#' ijfMf dtuynov tyvliaxdEV 'Pu/xuuv thJof . 64 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK L cidentall y, perhaps, to the class, the middle or mercantile class, which formed the greater part of the believers. But the history of Latin Christianity has not begun. For some considerable (it cannot but be an undefinable) Church of P ar * ^ * ne ^^^ three centuries, the Church Borne Greek. Q f R omej an( J most? jf not a U t h e churches of the West, were, if we may so speak, Greek religious colonies. Their language was Greek, their organiza- tion Greek, their writers Greek, their Scriptures Greek ; and many vestiges and traditions show that their ritual, their Liturgy was Greek. Through Greek the communication of the churches of Rome and of the West was constantly kept up with the East ; and through Greek every heresiarch, or his disciples, hav- ing found his way to Rome, propagated, with more or less success, his peculiar doctrines. Greek was the commercial language throughout the empire ; by which the Jews, before the destruction of their city, already so widely disseminated through the world, and alto- gether engaged in commerce, carried on their affairs. 1 1 At the commencement of the second century, from the time of the great peace, which followed the victories of Trajan, and which, with some exceptions, occupied the whole reigns of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, till the Marcotnannic war; when the Csesars had become cosmo- politan sovereigns of the Roman Empire, rather than emperors of Rome; Greek, in letters, appears to have assumed a complete ascendancy. Greek literature has the names of Plutarch, Appian, Arrian, Herodian (the his- torian), Lucian, Pausanias, Dion Cassius, Galen, Sextus Empiricus, Epic- tetus, Ptolemy. The Emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote his philosophy in Greek. The poets, such as they were, chiefly of the didactic class, Oppian, Nicander, are Greeks. (See, in Fynes Clinton's Appendix to Fasti Ro- mani, the catalogue of Greek authors.) Latin literature might seem to have been in a state of suspended animation after Quintilian, the Pliny*, and Tacitus. Not merelv are there no writers of name who have survived, but there hardly seem to have been any. From Juvenal to Claudian there is scarcely a poet. The fragments of Fronto, lately discovered, do not make us wish for more of a writer who had greater fame than most of his day. Apuleius was an African. Jurisprudence alone maintained the dignity and dominion of Latin. The CHAP. I. CHURCH OF BOME GREEK. 55 The Greek Old Testament was read in the synagogues of the foreign Jews. The churches, formed sometimes on the foundation, to a certain extent on the model, of the synagogues, would adhere for some time, no doubt, to their language. The Gospels and the Apostolic writings, so soon as they became part of the public worship, would be read, as the Septuagint was, in their original tongue. All the Christian extant writings which appeared in Rome and in the West are Greek, or were originally Greek, 1 the Epistles of Clement, the Shepherd of Hernias, the Clementine Recognitions and Homilies ; the works of Justin Martyr, down to Caius and Hippolytus the author of the Refutation of All Heresies. The Octavius of Minucius Felix, 2 and the Treatise of Novatian on the Trinity, are the ear- liest known works of Latin Christian literature which came from Rome. So was it too in Gaul : there the first Christians were settled chiefly in the Greek cities, which owned Marseilles as their parent, and which retained the use of Greek as their vernacular tongue. Iren?eus wrote in Greek ; the account of the Martyrs of Lyons and Vienne is in Greek. Vestiges of the old Greek ritual long survived not only in Rome, but also in some of the Gallic churches. The Kyrie eleison still lingers in the Latin service. 3 The singular fact, great lawyers, Ulpian, Paulus, and their colleagues, are the only famous writers. Latin law alone, of Latin letters, was studied in the schools of the East. The Greek writers of the day were many of them ignorant of Latin. 1 Ubrigens war die Griechische Sprache noch fast die einzige Kirchen- gprache. Gieseler, i. p. 203. (Compare the passage.) 2 Some place the Octavius in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, others be- tween Tertullian and Cyprian. Gieseler, note, p. 207. 3 Martene, de Antiquis Ecclesise ritibus, i. p. 102: he quotes the anony- mous Turonius. Nos canimus illud Grace juxta morem antiquum Roma 56 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK L related by the historian Sozomen, that, for the first cen- turies, there was no public preaching in Rome, here finds its explanation. Greek was the ordinary lan- guage of the community, but among the believers and worshippers may have been Latins, who understood nc% or understood imperfectly, the Greek. The Gos- pev or sacred writings were explained according to the capacities of the persons present. Hippolytus indeed composed, probably delivered, homilies in Greek, in imitation of Origen, who, when at Rome, may have preached in Greek ; and this is spoken of as something 4(M6i. new. Pope Leo I. was the first celebrated Latin preacher, and his brief and emphatic sermons read like the first essays of a rude and untried elo- quence, rather than the finished compositions which would imply a long study and cultivation of pulpit oratory. Compare them with Chrysostom. 1 Africa, 2 not Rome, gave birth to Latin Christianity. nse ecclesia?, cui tarn Grseci quam Latini solebant antiquitus deservire, et a Graecis habitabatur maxima pars Italia;, et seqq. This is evidence for the Church of Tours. It is by no means clear when the Latin service began, even in Rome. There is much further illustration of the coexistence of the Latin and Greek service in the West, to a late period. Compare Martene, iii. 35. The Epistle and Gospel were read in both languages to a late period. Mabillon, Iter Italicum, ii. pp. 168 and 453. In Southern Gaul Latin had not entirely dispossessed Greek in the fifth century: Greek was still spoken by part of the population of Aries. (See Fauriel, Gaule Me'ri- dionale, i. p. 432.) A Saint Martial de Limoges on chantait en Grec dans le x. siecle & la Messe du jour de la Pentecote le Gloria, le Sanctus, 1'Ag- nus, &c. Ce fait est ^tabli par un MS. de la Bibliotheque Royale, 4 4458. Jourdain, Traductions d'Aristote, p. 44. 1 In Rome neither the Bishop nor any one else publicly preached to the people, ofJre 6k 6 k-xiatiOKog airs u?^6f TIC tv&ufte tif tKKfa/aiae diAuaKCi. H. E. vii. 19. In Alexandria the bishop alone preached. Compare Bun- Ben's Hippolytus, vol. i. p. 318. 2 Of Africa Greek was the general language no further East than the Cyrenaica; westward the old Punic language prevailed, even where the Boman conquerors had superinduced Latin. Even Tertullian wrote also CHAP. I. AFRICAN ORIGIN OF LATIN CHRISTIANITY. 57 Tertullian was the first Latin writer, at least the first who commanded the public ear ; and there Africa parent -. ofLattn is strong ground tor supposing that, since Christianity. Tertullian quotes the sacred writings perpetually and copiously, the earliest of those many Latin versions, noticed by Augustine, and on which Jerome grounded his Vulgate, were African. 1 Cyprian kept up the tra- dition of ecclesiastical Latin. Arnobius, too, was an African. 2 Thus the Roman church was but one of the confed- eration of Greek religious republics, founded Church of by Christianity. As of Apostolic origin, still * f |KE more as the church of the capital of the dom- world, it was, of course, of paramount dignity and im- portance. It is difficult to exaggerate the height at which Rome, before the foundation of Constantinople, in Greek. Latin e quoque ostendam virgines nostras velari oportere. (De Virgin, veland.) Sed et huic materiae propter suaviludios nostros Graeco quoque stylo satisfecimus. De Coron. Mil. vi. 1 Vetus hsec interpretatio vix dubitari potest quin inter earn gentem quae Graecse linguee minim e perita esset, nata fuerit, hoc est in Africa. Lach- man, Pref. in Nov. Test. Lachman quotes a learned Dissertation of Car- dinal Wiseman as conclusive on this point. In this Dissertation (reprinted in his Essays, London, 1854) the author ventures on the forlorn hope of the vindication of the disputed text in St. John's Epistle. I can only express my surprise that so acute a writer should see any force in such arguments. But the Dissertation on African Latinity appears to me valuable, scholar- like, and sound. The dubious passage of St. Augustine, on which alone rests the tradition of the Versio Itala, I would read, after Bentley, as Bishop Marsh and most of the later biblical scholars, Itta. Marsh's Introduction, note, vol. ii. p. 623. 1 would suggest, as a curious investigation, if it has not yet been executed by any competent scholar (which I presume not to assert), a critical com- parison of the Latinity of the old version, as published by Sabatier, and even of the Vulgate, with the Latin of Tertullian, Cyprian, Apuleius of Madaura, and other African writers. 2 Minucius Felix, Arnobius, Lactantius are to the Greek divines what Cicero was to the Greek philosophers writers of popular abstracts in hat which in his hands was, in theirs aspired to be, elegant Lathi. 58 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK I. stood ^bove the other cities of the earth ; the centre of commerce, the centre of affairs, the centre of empire. The Christians, like the rest of mankind, were constantly ebbing and flowing out of Rome and into Rome. The church of the capital could not but assume something of the dignity of the capital ; it was constantly receiving, as it were, the homage of all the foreign Christians, who, from interest, business, ambi- tion, curiosity, either visited or took up their residence in the Eternal City. The Roman Church, if it had become prematurely Latin, would have been isolated and set apart from the rest of Christendom ; remaining Greek, it became also the natural and inevitable centre of Christianity. The public documents of the Christian world spoke through- out the same language ; no interpretation was neces- sary between the East and the West. 1 To the unity of the Church this was of infinite importance. The Roman Christians and their Bishop were the consti- tuted guardians and protectors of what may be called the public interests of Christianity. In Rome they beheld, or had the earliest intelligence of, every revolu- tion hi the empire ; they had the first cognizance of all the Imperial edicts which might affect the brethren. On them, even if they had no access to the counsels or to the palace of the Emperor, on their influence, on their conduct, might in some degree depend the fate of Christendom. They were in the van, the first to foresee the threatened persecution, the first to suffer. The Bishop of Rome, as long as the Emperor ruled in 1 As late as the middle of the third century, after the Xovatian schism, Pope Cornelius writes in Greek to Fabius of Antioch. Eusebius records as lomething new and extraordinary that letters from Cyprian to the Asiatic bishops are in Latin. H. E. vi. 43. CHAP, I. ROME THE CENTRE OF CONTROVERSIES. 59 Rome, was at once in the post of the greatest distinc- tion, and in that of the greatest difficulty and danger. The Christian world would look with trembling interest on his conduct, as his example might either glorify or disgrace the Church ; on his prudence or his temerity, on his resolution or on his weakness, might depend the orders despatched to every prefect or pro- consul in the Empire. Local oppressions or local per- secutions would be confined to a city or a province ; in Rome might be the signal for general proscription. The eyes of all Christendom must thus have con- stantly been fixed on Rome and on the Roman Bishop. But if Rome, or the Church of Rome, was thus the centre of the more peaceful influences of centre of Christianity, and of the hopes and fears of controversies. the Christian world, it was no less inevitably the chosen battle field of her civil wars ; and Christianity has ever more faithfully recorded her dissensions than her conquests. In Rome every feud which distracted the infant community reached its height ; nowhere do the Judaizing tenets seem to have been more obstinate, or to have held so long and stubborn a conflict with more full and genuine Christianity. In Rome every heresy, almost every heresiarch, found welcome recep- tion. All new opinions, all attempts to harmonize Christianity with the tenets of the Greek philosophers, with the Oriental religions, the Cosmogonies, the Theophanies, and Mysteries of the East, were boldly agitated, either by the authors of the Gnostic About systems or by their disciples. Valentinus the A> D- 140> Alexandrian was himself in Rome, so also was Mar- cion of Sinope. The Phrygian Montanus, with his prophetesses, Priscilla and Maximilla, if not present, 60 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK L had their sect, a powerful sect, in Rome and in Africa, In Rome their convert, for a time at least, was the Pope ; in Africa, Tertullian. Somewhat later, the precursors of the great Trinitarian controversy came from all quarters. Praxeas, an Asiatic ; Theodotus, a Byzantine ; Artemon, an Asiatic ; Noetus, a Smyr- niote, at least his disciples, the Deacon Epigenes and Cleomenes, taught at Rome. Sabellius, from Ptole- mais in Gyrene, appeared in person ; his opinions took their full development in Rome. Not only do all these controversies betray the inexhaustible fertility of the Greek or Eastern imagination, not only were they all drawn from Greek or Oriental doctrines, but they must have been still agitated, discussed, ramified into their parts and divisions, through the versatile and subtile Greek. They were all strangers and foreigners ; not one of all these systems originated in Rome, in Italy, or in Africa. 1 On all these opinions the Bishop of Rome was almost compelled to sit in judgment ; he must receive or reject, authorize or condemn ; he was a proselyte, whom it would be the ambition of all to gain. No one unfamiliar with Greek, no one not to a great extent Greek by birth, by education, or by habit, could in any degree comprehend the conflicting theories. The Judaizing opinions, combated by St. Paul in jtHUMng his Epistle to the Romans, maintained their Christianity. gr Ounc l among some of the Roman Chris- 1 A passage of Aulos Gellius illustrates the conscious inadequacy of the Latin to express, notwithstanding the innovations of Cicero, the finer dis- tinctions of the Greek philosophy: Haec Favorinum dicentem audivi Graecd oratione, cujus sententias, quantum meminisse potui, retuli. Amoenitates vero et copias ubertatesque verboram, Latina omnis facundia vix quidem indipisci potuerit. Xoct. Att. xii. Favorinus, of the time of Hadrian, was a native of Aries in Gaul. CHAP. I. JUDAIZING IN ROME. 61 tians for above a century or more after that Apostle's death. A remarkable monument attests their power and vitality. There can be slight doubt that the author of that singular work, commonly The Clemen . called the Clementina, was a Roman, or tina- rather a Greek domiciled in Rome. 1 Its Roman origin is almost proved by the choice of the hero in this earliest of religious romances. Clement, who sets forth as a heathen philosopher in search of truth, be- comes the companion of St. Peter in the East, the wit- ness of his long and stubborn strife with his great adversary, Simon the Magician ; and if the letter pre- fixed to the work be a genuine part of it, 2 becomes the successor of St. Peter in the see of Rome. It bears hi its front, and throughout, the character of a romance ; it can hardly be considered even as mythic history. Its groundwork is that so common in the latest Greek and in the Latin comedy, and in the Greek novels ; adventures of persons cast away at sea, and sold into slavery ; lost children by strange accidents restored to their parents, husbands to their wives ; amusing scenes in what we may call the middle or mercantile life of the times. It might seem borrowed, in its incidents, from a play of Plautus or Terence, or from their origi- nals ; a kind of type of the JEthiopics of Bishop Heli- odorus, or the Chserea and Callirhoe. The religious interest is still more remarkable, and no doubt faith- 1 This is the unanimous opinion of those who, in later days, have criti- cally investigated the Clementina Schlieman, Neander, Baur, Gieseler. ly& K/U?//77f 'Pi.>/j.aio<; uv, in init. This does not prove much. 2 I entertain some doubt on this point. A good critical edition of this work, in its various forms, is much to be desired.* * There are now two good editions of the Clementina 1. by Schwegler, Stut- gard, 1847 ; 2. The last and best, by Dressel, Oottingen, 1853; besides, 3. The Latin translation of Rufinus, by Gersdorf, Leipsic, 1838. 62 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK L fully represents the views and tenets of a certain sect or class of Christians. It is the work of a Judaizing Christian, according to a very peculiar form of Ebiorr- itism. 1 The scene is chiefly laid in Palestine and its neighborhood, its original language is Greek. The views of the author as to the rank, influence, and rela- tive position of the Apostles, is among its most singu- lar characteristics. So far from ascribing any primacy to St. Peter, though St. Peter is throughout the leading personage, James, Bishop of Jerusalem, is the acknowl- edged head of Christendom, the arbiter of Christian doctrine, the Bishop of Bishops, to whom Peter him- self bows with submissive reverence. Of any earlier visits of Peter to Rome the author is ignorant. Clem- O ent encounters the Apostle in Palestine ; in Palestine or in the East is carried on the whole strife with Simon Magus. Yet Peter is the Apostle of the Gentiles, to Peter the heathens owe their Christianity. More than this, there is a bitter hatred to St. Paul, which betrays itself in brief, covert, sarcastic allusion, not to be mis- taken in its object or aim. 2 The whole purpose of the work is to assert a Petrine, a Judai/in inr&puov uvufidvnva Kai ^A- apuArj irpomjKUfievoi 6iiaano}j.av. If we could doubt that here St. Paul, not Simon Magus is meant, the allusions xi. 35, xvii. 19, and elsewhere, to the very acts and words of St. Paul are conclusive. Compare SthJieman, Die Clementine, 74, 96, 534, &c. CHAP. I. JTJDAIZING IX ROME. 63 Jesus. The whole world is one vast system of Dual- isms, or Antagonisms. The antagonism of Simon Magus to St. Peter is chiefly urged in the Clementine homilies ; but there are manifest hints, more perhaps than hints, of a second antagonism between Peter and Paul, the teacher of Christianity with the Law, and the teacher of Christianity without the Law. Here then is the representative of what can scarcely be sup- posed an insignificant party in Rome (the various forms, reconstructions, and versions in which the Clem- entina appear, whole, or in fragments, attest their wide-spread popularity) who does not scruple to couple fiction with the most sacred names. Of the whole party it must have been the obvious interest to exalt St. Peter, to assert him as the founder, the Bishop of the true Church in Rome ; and it is certainly singular that in all the early traditions, which are more than allusions to St. Peter at Rome, Simon Magus appears as his shadow. Has, then, the myth grown out of the pure fiction, or is the fiction but an expansion of the myth ? l At all events these works are witnesses to the perpe- tuity and strength, to a late period, of these Judaizing opinions in Rome. 2 Their fictitious form in no way invalidates their authority as expressing living opinions, tenets, and sentiments. If not Roman (I have slight doubt on this head), there is an attestation to the wide- spread oppugnancy of a Petrine and a Pauline party ; 1 Strictly speaking the authority for Simon Magus being at Rome a earlier than that for St. Peter. The famous passage of Justin Martyr on the inscription Semoni Sanco, is about twenty years older than the Epistle of Dionysius of Corinth (A. D. 171), the first distinct assertion of St. Peter in Rome. Euseb. H. E. ii. 13, 14. 2 Schlieman assigns the Recognitions to some time between 212 and 230 the Clementina, no doubt, are of an earlier date. p. 327, et seqq. 64 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK I. to strong divergence of opinion as to the relative rank and dignity of the Apostles. Out of the antagonism between Judaic and anti- controTen Commodus epoch in the history of Western Christendom. ISO-MS. The feud between the Judaizing and anti-Judaizing 1 Euseb. H. E. v. 15. 2 The Latin book ascribed to Novatian, against the Jewish distinction of meats, shows Judaism still struggling within the church on its most vital peculiarities. The author of this tract wrote also against circumcision and the Jewish Sabbatb. 66 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Boos I parties in Rome seemed to expire with the controversy about Easter. The older Gnostic systems of Valenti- nus and Marcion had had then* day. Montanism was ^expelled from Rome to find refuge in Africa. In Africa Latin Christianity began to take its proper form in the writings of Tertullian. Rome was absorbed in the inevitable disputes concerning the Divinity of the Saviour, the prelude to the great Trinitarian contro- versy. The Bishops of Rome, Eleutherius, still more Victor, and at the commencement of the third century Zephyrinus and Callistus, before dimly known by scat- tered allusions in Tertullian and Eusebius, and still later writers, have suddenly emerged into light in the contemporary work, justly, to all appearance, attrib- uted to Hippolytus Bishop of Portus. 1 1 The Chevalier Bunsen's very learned work has proved the authorship of Hippolytus to my full satisfaction so likewise Dr. Wordsworth Hip- polytus. I have also read the ' Hippolytus and Kallistus ' (just published), by J. Dollinger, the church historian ; I must say with no conviction but of the author's learning and ingenuity. It appears to me that M. Dollin- ger's arguments against M. Bunsen (e. g. from the ignorance of St. Jerome) are quite as fatal to his own theory. I still think it most probable that Hippolytus was Bishop of Portus, and that these suburbicarian bishops formed or were part of a kind of presbytery or college with the bishops of Rome. I hardly understand how those (seven) bishops (the cardinal- bishops) can have gained their peculiar relation to Rome, in later times, without any earlier tradition in their favor. The loose language of later Greek writers might easily make of a bishop, a member of such a presby- tery, a bishop in Rome, or even of Rome. More than one, at least, of these writers calls Hippolytus Bishop of Portus: and hence, too, he may have been sometimes described as Presbyter. Portus, there can be no doubt, was a very considerable town ; but a new and flourishing haven cannot have grown up at the mouth of the Tiber, after half, at least, of the commerce and concourse of strangers had de- serted Rome, after the foundation of Constantinople, and during the Bar- barian invasions. Birkenhead would not have risen to rival Liverpool excepting in a most prosperous state of English trade. I cannot but regret that M. DiJllinger's book, so able, and in some re- spects so instructive, should be written with such a resolute (no doubt con- scientious) determination to make out a case. It might well be entitled CHAP. I. CONTROVERSY ABOUT EASTER. 67 The Christians from the death of M. Aurelius, throughout the reign of Commodus, en- Marcia. joyed undisturbed peace with the civil government. 1 But many of the victims of the persecution under Aureli'is were pining in the unwholesome mines of Sardinia. Marcia, the favorite concubine of the Emperor Commodus, whom he treated as his wife, and who held the state of an Empress, was favorable to the Chris- tians : how far she herself had embraced the doctrines, how, if herself disposed to Christianity, she reconciled it with her life, does not appear. 2 The Bishop Victor did not scruple (such scruples had been too fastidiously rigorous) to employ her influence for the release of his Apologia pro Callisto; and I must presume to say, in my judgment, a most unfortunate case for his own cause. Were I polemically disposed as to the succession to the Papacy, the authority and supremacy of the Bishop of Rome, or even the unity of the Church, I could hardly hope for so liberal a concession as that twice within thirty years, during the early part of the third century, rival bishops, one a most distinguished theologian, should set themselves up in Rome itself against the acknowledged Pope, and de- clare their own communities to be the true Church. Dcillinger indeed could not but see, that, whoever the author, he writes, from station, from character, or from influence, as quite on a level with the Pope ; he seems altogether unconscious of awe, and even of the respect for that office, which is of a later period. The Abb6 Cruice, in his Histoire de 1'Eglise de Rome sous les Pontificats de St. Victor, St. Zephyrin, et de St. Calliste (Paris, 185G), is bolder and more dutiful. With him the Popes are already in- vested in all their power (of excommunication), in their ex officio wisdom and holiness. They are all, by the magical prefix S, Saints; Victor and Callistus, on the authority of legend, martyrs. This unhistoric history (not nnaniusing), this theology without precision, seems to pass in France for profound learning. 1 Asterius Urbanus apud Eusebium, H. E. v. 16. Compare Moyle's works, ii. p. 265. The peace lasted for thirteen years after the death of Maximilla the Montanist, just the period of the reign of Commo.lus. 2 ov6ev 6e inrelxe ya/zer^f yvvaiKof, u/U,u iruvra iir^p^ev oaa ^J3aary nT^v TOV Trupof. Herodian, i. 50. Her complicity in the murder of Com- modus was but to avert her own. Commodus must have been insane; Marcia strove, even with tears, to dissuade him from the disgrace of ap- pearing in public as a gladiator ; his two ministers joined their strong re- monstrances. Commodus, in revenge, marked down her name, and those 68 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK I. exiled brethren : they all returned to Rome. 1 This Discord in state of peace seemed to quicken into more active life the brooding elements of discord, and to invite the founders of new systems, or their busy proselytes, to Rome. Already had spread to Europe, to Africa, to Rome itself, from the depths of Phrygia, the disciples of Montanus. It is probable Montanism. that these Montanist or kindred prophecies of coming wars, and the approaching Dissolution of the World (a vaticination which involved or rather signified to the jealous Roman ear only the ruin of the Empire), may have aided in exciting the religious ter- ror and indignation of the philosophic Emperor and of the Roman world against the Christians, and so have been one cause of the persecutions under Marcus Au- relius. 2 Montanus himself, and Maximilla, his chief prophetess, seem not to have travelled beyond the con- fines of Phrygia. 3 But their followers swarmed over Christendom. They dispersed or revealed to the initi- ated in countless books, the visions of Montanus, and his no less inspired female followers, Priscilla and Max- imilla. 4 Montanism, strictly speaking, was no heresy ; in their notions of God and of Christ, these sectaries departed not from the received doctrine. But beyond, of Laetus and Eclectus, his faithful counsellors, for death. The fatal tablet fell into the hands of Marcia. They anticipated their own doom by that of Commodus. Herodian, ibid. Marcia afterwards married Kclectus. Dion Cassius, or Xiphylin, Ivii. 4. 1 Refutatio Hseresium, p. 287. 2 This further confirms the author's view of the cause of the persecutions under M. Aurelius. Hist, of Christianity, Book ii. c. 7. 8 Their fate was so obscure, that rumors spread abroad among their ene- mies that they had died like Judas, had hanged themselves. See the un- certain author quoted by Eusebius. H. E. v. 16. * This we learn from the Refutatio Haeresium. uv rtf irfavuvrat, p. 275. CHAP. I. MONTANISM. 69 and as the consummation and completion of the Chris- tian Revelation, the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, dwelt in Montanus and the Prophetesses. At intervals, throughout the annals of Christianity, the Holy Ghost has been summoned by the hopes, felt as present by the kindled imaginations, been proclaimed by the passionate enthusiasm of a few, as accomplishing in them the im- perfect revelation ; as the third revelation which is to supersede and to fulfil the Law and the Gospel. This notion will appear again in the middle ages as the doc- trine of the Abbot Joachim, of John Peter de Oliva and the Fraticelli ; in a milder form it is that of George Fox and Barclay. The land of heathen orgies was the natural birthplace of that wild Christian mysticism ; it was the Phrygian fanaticism speaking a new language ; and as the ancient Phrygian rites of Cybele found wel- come reception in heathen Rome, so also that, which was appropriately called Cataphrygianism, in the Chris- tian Church. 1 A stern intolerant asceticism, which had already begun to harden around the Christian heart, a rigor, a perfection of manners as of creed (so they deemed it) beyond the Law, the Prophets, and the Gospel, distinguished the Montanists, who, by their own asserted superiority, condemned the rest of the Christian world. 2 They had fasts far more long and severe, their own festivals, their own food, chiefly roots ; 3 they held the austerest views on the connection of the sexes ; if they did not absolutely condemn, hardly permitted marriage ; a second marriage was an 1 Compare the Super alta vectus Atys with the extravagancies of Mon- tanism. 2 Tr/loof (5 avruv ^dcvcovref wf fiefcadyKevai, fj K vofiov not Kal TUV EvayyeTduv. Euseb. H. E. p. 275. 8 The author of the Refutatio speaks of their S-rjpoQdyia. 70 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK L inexpiable sin. Their visions enwrapt the imagination, their rigor enthralled minds of congenial tempera- ment. They seized on the African passions, they fell in with the austerity, they satisfied the holy ambition of Tertullian, who would not rest below what seemed the most lofty, self-sacrificing Christianity. In Rome itself (so Tertullian writes, with mingled indignation and contempt) the Bishop had been seized with ad- miration, had acknowledged the inspiration of the Prophets ; he had issued letters of peace in their favor, which had tended to quiet the agitated churches of Asia and of Phrygia. But at the instigation of Prax- eas the Heresiarch, if not the author, among the first teachers of that doctrine, afterwards denounced as Pa- tripassianism, he had revoked his letters, denied their spiritual gifts, and driven out the Prophets in disgrace. 1 The indignation of Tertullian at the rejection of his Montanist opinions urges him to arraign the Pope, with what justice, to what extent we know not, as having embraced the Patripassian opinions of Praxeas. This Monarchianism, or, as it was branded by the more Monarchian- odious name, Patripassianism, was the contro- versy which raged during the episcopate of Victor, Zephyrinus, and Callistus. 2 It called forth the 1 Ita duo negotia Diaboli Praxeas Roma procuravit, prophetiam expulit et hasresim intulit. Paracletum ftigavit, et Patrem crucifixit. Adversus Praxeara, c. i. Who was this bishop of Rome? It has been usually sup- posed Victor. Neander (Anti-Gnosticus, p. 486) argues strongly, I think not conclusively, that it was his predecessor Eleutherius. The spurious passage, at the close of the De Pnescrip. Hsret., which, though not Ter- tullian's, seems ancient, has these words: " Praxeas quidem haeresim in- troduxit, quam Victorinus (the Bishop Victor?) corroborare curavit." * The oppugnancy of the Latin and Greek mind is well illustrated by the contrast of Tertullian with the early Greek writers, e. g. Justin Martyr. In Tertullian there is no courteous respect for the Greek philosophy: he is dead to the beauty of the dying hours of Socrates ; his Damon is a devil. CHAP. I. MONARCHIANISM. 71 4 Refutation of Heresies.' That paramount doctrine of Christianity, the nature of Christ, his relation to the primal and paternal Godhead, which had been con- tested in a vaguer and more imaginative form under the Gnostic systems, must be brought to a direct issue. Rome, though the war was waged by Greek comba- tants in the Greek language, must be the chosen battle- field of the conflict. There was division in the Church. Pope Victor, a stern and haughty Prelate, who had demanded implicit submission to his opinions on the question of Easter, now seemed stunned and bewil- dered by the polemic din and tumult. 1 The feebler Zephyrinus, through his long pontificate, vacillated and wavered to and fro. Callistus, if we are to believe his implacable and uncompromising adversary, not only departed from the true faith, but left a sect, bearing his name, to perpetuate his reprehensible opinions. From Theodotus, a follower of Valentinus, to About Noetus and his disciple Epigonus, there was A-D- 15a " No man comes to God but by Christ ; of these things the heathen knew nothing." T. de Anim. i. 39. Compare Hitter, Gesch. Christ. Philosophic, p. 335. Tertullian cannot conceive immaterial being. Nihil incorporale quod non est. De Cam. Christ. Neander, iii. p. 965. 1 Victor condemned indeed and excommunicated Theodotus, who re- duced the Saviour to his naked manhood ; he was but an image of Melchis- edek. This was asserted fifty years later, when the doctrine of the naked manhood of Christ was taught in its most obnoxious form by Artemas, and afterwards by Paul of Samosata. These teachers appealed to the unbroken tradition of the church, from the Apostles to their own days, in favor of their own tenet. It was answered that Victor had condemned Theodotus, the author of this God-denying apostacy; on. EiKTUp rbv anvrea Qeodorov, rbv apxi]y n 11- P P e - 219 ~ or Zephyrinus, aspired to be his successor ; 223. 76 LATDf CHRISTIANITY. BOOK I as head, it should seem, of one of the contending parties, he attained the object of his ambition. The memory of theologic adversaries is tenacious. His enemies were not likely to forget the early life of Callistus, which must have been public and notorious, at least among the Christians. He had been a slave in the family of Carpophorus, a wealthy Christian, in the Emperor's household. He was set up by his mas- ter in a bank in the quarter called the Piscina Publica. The Christian brethren and widows, on the credit of the name of Carpophorus, deposited their savings in this bank of Callistus. He made away with the funds, was called to account, fled, embarked on board a ship, was pursued, threw himself into the sea was rescued brought back to Rome, and ignominiously con- signed to hard labor in the public workhouse. The merciful Carpophorus cared not for his own losses, but for those of the poor widows ; he released the prisoner on the pretext of collecting moneys, which he pretended to be due to him. Callistus raised a riot in a Jewish synagogue, was carried before the Prefect Fuscianus, scourged and transported to the mines in Sardinia, On the release of the exiles through the intercession of Marcia, Callistus, though not on the list furnished by the Bishop Victor, persuaded Hyacinthus, the Eu- nuch appointed to bear the order for the release of the captives to the governor, to become responsible for his liberation also. 1 He returned to Rome; the Pope Victor, though distressed by the affair, was too l This "gnln- pictnra of Roman and Christian middle life has an air of minute truthfulness, though possibly somewhat darkened by polemic hos- tility. Some hare supposed that they detect a difference in the style from the rest of the treatise. I perceive none but that which is natural in a from polemic or argumentative -writing to simple narrative CHAP. I. THE PATRIPASSIAKS. 77 merciful to expose the fraud ; Callistus was sent to Antium with a monthly allowance for his maintenance. At Antium (for this release of the Sardinian prisoners must have been at the commencement of Victor's episcopate) 1 he remained nine or ten years. Zephy- rinus recalled him from his obscure retreat ; and placed him over the cemetery. 2 By degrees the Pope entirely surrendered himself to the guidance of Callistus. The first act of Callistus on his advancement to the bishopric was the excommunication of Sabellius, an act cordially approved by Hippolytus, and ascribed to the fear of himself. Callistus formed a new scheme, by which he hoped to elude the charge on one side of Patripassianism, on the other of Ditheism. Hippoly- tus denounces his heresy without scruple or reserve. 3 The suggestion that it is a Novatian interpolation is desperate and prepos- terous. Novatian was not heard of till thirty years after, his followers, of course, later. What possible motive could they have for blackening the memory of Zephyrinus and Callistus? Novatian was no enemy of the Bishop of Rome; had no design to invalidate his powers. He was the enemy of Cornelius, his successful rival for the see; he aspired himself to be bishop was, in fact, anti-Pope. The great point on which Novatian made his stand had, indeed, been mooted, but did not become a cause of fatal division till after the persecution of Decius, the treatment of the Lapsi those who in the persecution had denied the faith. Hippolytus, it is true, in the poetic legend of Prudentius (who borrows the circumstances of his martyrdom from the destiny of his namesake in the tragedy of Euripides), is charged with holding the tenets of Novatus, which he recanted, and in his death-agony became a good Catholic. But the author of the Refutation of all Heresies can hardly have been involved in the schism of Novatian, who did not appear till so many years after the death of Callistus. Novatian, with such a partisan, would not have sought out three obscure bishops for his ordination. I cannot but think the Spanish legendary poet of the fourth century utterly without historical authority, possibly he confounded different Hippolyti. 1 The release of the prisoners took place probably in the tenth year of Commodus, the year of Victor's accession, A.D. 190. 2 We are naturally reminded of the cemetery called of Callistus. Arin- ghi supposes this cemetery older than the time of Callistus. 8 Callistianism differed but slightly from Noetism. God and his divine 78 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK 1. Christian doctrine, the profound mystery of the Saviour's Godhead, was not the only subject of col- lision between the adverse parties in the Church of Rome. The difficult reconciliation of Christian ten- derness and Christian holiness could hardly fail to produce a milder and more austere party throughout Christendom. The first young influences of Mona- chism, the perfection claimed by celibacy over the less ostentatious virtue of domestic purity, the notion of the heroism of self-mortification, led to inevitable dif- ferences. Montanism, with its fanatic rigor, had wrought up this strife to a great height. The more severe, who did not embrace the Montanist Christum . EI - - tenets, would not be surpassed by heretics in self-abnegation. The lenity to be shown to penitents, the condescension to the weaknesses of flesh and blood, raised perpetual disputes. Callistus throughout, un- like those whose early lives demand indulgence, who are usually the most severe, was himself indulgent to others ; and this was the dominant tone at the time in the Roman Church. The author of the Refutation, though uninfected by Montanist tenets, inveighs against the leniency of Callistus, as asserting that even a bishop, guilty of a deadly sin, was not to be deposed. The nature of this, according to Hippolvtus. deadly cm. which Callistus treated with such offensive ten- derness, appears from the next sentence: 1 it related Word were one : together they were the Spirit, the one Spiritual Being. This Spirit took flesh of the Virgin; ao the Father was in the Son, but he suffered not as the Son, bat with the Son. 1 Oirof Uoyftanatv Siruf d hrieanrof oftaprot TI, d tat xpdf flavarov, IB) 6dv Kararideadac T TI rotrro* jpfarTO bcioiunroi a2 vpeojSvrcptx cat Stdfovoi fcyofioi Kai rpifafioi fadiaraa&tu c */-r,fX/i?. El & a2 rif tv K&jpy " 7 pivav TO* rotovrov b> TU Kftqpu u$ p) Tjpaprijiurra. ix. 12. p. 290. CHAP. I. CONTROVERSY ON CHRISTIAN MORALS. 79 to that grave question which had begun to absorb the Christian mind the marriage of the clergy. That usage, which has always prevailed, and still prevails, in the Greek Church, as yet seems to have satisfied the more rigorous at Rome. Those who were already married when ordained, retained their wives. But a second marriage, or marriage after ordination, was revolting to the incipient monkery of the Church. But Callistus, according to his implacable adversary, went further, he admitted men who had been twice, even thrice married, to holy orders ; he allowed those already in orders to marry. His more indulgent party appealed to the evangelical argument, 1 " Who art thou that judgest another man's servant ? " They alleged the parables of the tares and wheat, the clean and unclean beasts in the ark. This the more austere denounced as criminal flattery of the passions of the multitude ; as the sanction of voluptuousness pro- scribed by Christ, with the base design of courting popularity, and swelling the ranks of their faction. There is a heavier charge behind. The widows, if they could not contain, were not only allowed to many, but to take a slave or freedman, below their own rank, who could not be their legal husband. 2 Hence abortions, and child murders, to conceal these disgraceful connections. Callistus, therefore, is sanc- tioning adultery and murder. But even this is not the height of his offence, he had dared to administer a second baptism. So already had ecclesiastical offences become worse in the estimation of vehement religious i R. H. p. 290. * The widow?, who had taken on themselves the office of deaconesses, nd who, though not bound by vow, were under a kind of virtual en- gagement against second marriage. 80 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK I. partisans than moral enormities. Here, at least, it is fair to mistrust the angry adversary. But this con- flict between a more indulgent and a more austere party in Rome, and some declaration of the Pope Zephyrinus, probably, rather than Callistus, but Zephyrinus acting under the influence of Callistus on the connection between the sexes, had already ex- cited the indignation of Tertullian in Africa, now still more hardened by his Montanist tenets. " The Bishop of Bishops had promulgated an edict, that he would remit to penitents even the sins of adultery and for- nication. This license to lust is issued in the strong- hold of all wicked and shameless lusts." l Persecution restored that peace to the Roman Church, which had been so much disturbed through- out her uninvaded prosperity, during the tolerant rule of Alexander Severus. In the sudden outburst of hostility, during the short reign of the brutal Thracian Maximin, Pontianus, who had followed Urban I., the A.D.235. successor of Callistus, and with him a pres- byter, Hippolytus, suffered sentence of deportation to the usual place of exile Sardinia. There Pontianus is said (nor is there much reason to doubt the tradi- tion) to have endured martyrdom. Hippolytus, 2 ac- cording to the poetic legend in Prudentius of two centuries later, suffered in the suburbs of Rome. 3 3 De Pudicitia. Did the title Episcopus Episcoporum, which I think cannot but mean Rome, arise from his superiority to the suburbicarian bishops? See, however, on this title the note of Baluzius on the vii. Con- cil. Carthag. or in Routh, ii. 153. 2 Compare Bunsen. The title of Presbyter assigned to Hippolytus, if, as is most probable, the same with the author of the Refutation and other works, even if he were Bishop of Portus, raises no difficulty. These bishops were members of the Roman Presbytery. 8 At this time, more likely than fifteen years afterwards, in the Decian persecution. Legend respects not dates. CHAP. I. DECIAN PERSECUTION. 81 The Decian persecution, about thirty years after the death of Callistus, was the birth epoch of Dedan perge _ Latin Christianity ; Cyprian its true parent. cutioa - Rome, the recognized metropolis of the West, Car- thage, the metropolis of the African churches, are in constant and regular intercourse. 1 There is first a Punic league, afterwards at least a threatened Punic war. In the persecution the churches are brought into close alliance by common sympathies, common perils, common sufferings, singularly enough by common schisms ; slowly, but no doubt at length, by their common language. The same Imperial edict endan- gers the life of the Roman and of the Carthaginian Bishop ; malcontents from Rome find their way to Carthage, from Carthage to Rome. The same man, Novatus, stirs up rebellion against episcopal authority in Rome and in Carthage ; the letters of the churches to each other are promulgated in Latin, though at a period somewhat later those from the African churches sent into the East are distinguished from those which came from Rome, as written in the Roman tongue. 2 So too in Rome and in Carthage (in Carthage in the most mature and perfect form, from the master mind of Cyprian) appear the Roman strength and the Roman respect for law, the imperious assertion of hierarchical despotism. In the community there is trembling deference for hierarchical authority, though at first with a bold but short resistance. There is an anti-Bishop in Rome and in Carthage. But 1 The intercourse between Carthage and Rome, on account of the corn trade alone, was probably more regular and rapid than in any other part of the empire mutatis mutandis like that between Marseilles and Algeria. 2 Euseb. H. E. See above, p. 58, note. 82 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK I in both Churches discipline becomes of equal im- portance with doctrine ; the unity of the Church is made to depend on obedience to its outward polity ; rebellion to episcopal authority becomes as great a crime as erroneous opinion ; schism as hateful as heresy. Fabianus, under Deems, is the first martyr Bishop Fibunus of of Rome, whose death rests on certaiii A.B.249. mony. 1 The papal chair remained vacant for a short time ; either the Christians dared not choose, Cyprian of or no one dared to assume the perilous rank. c ** Uuge ' Cyprian of Carthage on the same occasion, not from timidity, but from prudent and parental re- gard for his flock, retired into a safe retreat There were already divisions in the Church of Carthage. NoTtus. Novatus, a turbulent presbyter, with five others, 2 had been jealous of the elevation of Cvprian. Novatus, whose character is darkly drawn by Cyprian, had presumed to interfere with the bishop's prerogative (a crime hardly less heinous than peculation and licen- tiousness) and himself ordained a deacon, Felicissimus. This hostile party would no doubt heap contempt on the base flight of Cyprian ; while they, less in danger, seemed to have remained to brave the persecutor. The party took upon themselves the episcopal func- tions. 8 On their own authority, too, the faction of Novatus determined, in the more lenient way, the great question, the reception of the fallen, those who 1 Perhaps that of Pontianus may be above suspicion. (See above.) * It is doubtful whether Novatus was one of these five. * Cvprian, from his retreat, sent two bishops to collect and administer the alms, probably of great amount, in Carthage. Walch conjectures, with much probability, that Felicissimus may have resented this intrusion on hit province as Deacon. CHAP. I. NOVATUS AND NOVATIAN. 83 had denied the faith and offered sacrifice, and those who, with more pardonable weakness, had bought cer- tificates of submission from the venal officers. 1 Cyp- rian in vain remonstrated from his retreat : he too had somewhat departed from his old sternness, when he had shut the doors of the Church against the rene- gades. He was not now for inflexible and peremptory rejection of those weak brethren, for whom he may have learned some sympathy ; he insisted only on their less hasty, more formal reception, after penance, confession, imposition of hands by the bishop. Each case was to be separately considered before an assembly of the bishops, presbyters, deacons, the faithful who had stood, 2 and the laity ; so popular still was Cyprian's view of episcopal authority. Cornelius, in Rome, Cornelius had been elected bishop on the return of Rome? peace. The same question distracted his Church, bi.* with more disastrous results. The same Novatus was now in Rome : true only to his own restlessness, he here embraced the severer party, at the head of which stood a leader, by some strange coincidence, almost of the same name with his own, Novatian. 3 This Novatian. man had been a Stoic philosopher. His hard nature, in the agony of wrestling after truth, before he had found peace in Christianity, broke down both body and mind. His enemies afterwards declared that he had 1 They were called Libellatici. Compare Mosheim de Reb. Christian, ante Constant. M., pp. 482, 489. 2 Throughout this is his language Viderint laici, hoc quomodo curent. Ep. liii., also xi. xxix. xxxi. Compare Concil. Carthag. iii., where it is among the objections that a fallen had been received sine petitu et con- jcientia plebis. Mansi sub ann. 252, or Routh, vol. ii. p. 74. 8 The Greek writers all called Novatian, Novatus. We are on historical ground, or what a myth might be made out of these two Innovators! Novatus and Novatian. 84 LATIN CHRISTIANTir. BOOK L been possessed ; the demon was not completely exor- cised. He had only received what was called Clinic baptism (an imperfect rite) on what was supposed his death-bed. The Stoic remained within the Christian ; he became a rigid ascetic. Novatian sternly declared that no mercy but that of God (from that he did not exclude the fallen) could absolve from the inexpiable sin of apostacy : the Church, which received such un- absolvable sinners into its bosom, was unclean, and ceased to be the Church. Novatian might have con- tented himself, like the Thraseas of old, with protest- ing against the abuse of episcopal despotism, no less abuse because it erred on the side of leniency. When charged with ambitious designs on the Bishopric of Rome, of having been the rival, and therefore having become the enemy, of Cornelius, he solemnly declared tf.at he preferred the solitary virtue and dignity of the ascetic ; it was only by compulsion that he took upon himself the function of an Antipope. Cyprian attrib- utes the schism to the malignant influence of Novatus : " In proportion as Rome is greater than Carthage, so was the sin of Novatus in Rome more heinous than that in Carthage. In Carthage he had ordained a dea- con, in Rome he had made a bishop." 1 Novatian was publicly but hastily and irregularly consecrated, as Bishop of Rome, by three bishops, it is said, of obscure towns in Italy. Novatian was in doctrine rigidly or- thodox ; but in Cyprian's view (who makes common cause with the Bishop of Rome against the common enemy) what avails orthodoxy of doctrine in one out 1 Plane quoniam pro magnitudine sua debeat Carthaginem Roma prae- cedere, illic majora et graviora commisit. Qui istic adversus ecclesiam di- aconum fecerat illic episcopum fecit. Epist. xlix. The preeminence of the Bishop of Rome arises out of the preeminent greatness of Rome. CHAP. I. NOVATUS AND NOVATIAN. 85 of the Church ? 1 He is self-excluded from the pale of salvation. Cyprian had grounds, if not for his ab- horrence, for his fears of Novatianism. It aspired itself to be the Church, to set up rival bishops through- out Christendom ; the test of that Church was this un- compromising, inflexible severity. Even in Carthage arose another bishop, Fortunatus, who asserted himself to have been consecrated by twenty-three Numidian bishops. Cyprian, not without bitterness, while he ad- mits that Cornelius had rejected his rebellious Deacon Felicissimus from communion, complains that he had been weakly shaken, and induced to waver, by the false representations of the partisans of Fortunatus. 2 This transient difference was soon lost in Cyprian's generous admiration for the intrepidity of Cornelius, in whose glorious Confession the whole Church of Rome, even the fallen, who had been admitted as peni- tents, now nobly joined. Cornelius was banished, it is said, by the Emperor Gallus, to Civita Vecchia ; he was followed by vast numbers of believers, who shared his exile, and his danger. The Church returned from banishment, but under a new bishop, Lucius ; Cornelius had died, the words of Cyprian hardly assert by a violent death. 3 The Novatians alone, during this 1 Quod vero ad Novatiani personam pertinet, pater carissime, desiderasti tibi scribi quam hseresin introduxisset, scias nos primo in loco non curiosos esse debere quid ille doceat, cum foris doceat. Quisquis ille est, et quails* cunque est, Christianus non est, qui in Christi ecclesia non est. Ad Anton. Epist. lii. 2 Read the whole remarkable letter, Iv. ad Cornelium the strongest revelation of the views, reasonings, passions, fears, hatreds of Cyprian. I cannot consent, with a late writer, to the abandonment of all these docu- ments as spurious. Forgery would not have left the argument so doubtful, 9r rather so decisive against the object imputed to the forgers. 8 Epist. ad Lucium P. R. reversum ab exilio Iviii. See, however, Epist. Ixviii. He is described as martyrio quoque dignatione Domini honoratus. Compare Routh's note, ii. 132. 86 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK L new trial of the faith, stood aloof in sullen hostility. 4.B. 263. They were too obscure, Cyprian suggests, to provoke the jealousy of the rulers. But Cyprian mis- calculated that strength and vitality of Novatianism. It spread throughout Christendom : even in the East, Fabius, Bishop of Antioch, was hardly restrained from joining the party. Dionysius of Alexandria treated their advances with greater wisdom ; he earnestly urged Novatian, now that Cornelius was dead and the question laid almost at rest by the cessation of perse- cution, to return into the bosom of the Church. On Novatian's stubborn refusal, he condemned in strong terms his harsh Christianity, as depriving the Saviour of his sacred attribute of mercy. But Novatianism endured for above two centuries ; it had its bishops in Constantinople, Nicea, Nicomedia, Citiaeus in Phrygia, in Cyzicum and Bithynia ; even in Alexandria, in Italy, in Gaul, in Spain. It had its saints, its hermits, its monks. St. Ambrose in Italy, Pacianus, Bishop of Barcelona, and towards the end of the fourth cen- tury Leo the Great, thought it necessary to condemn or to refute the doctrines of Novatian. The two Byzantine ecclesiastical historians, Socrates and his follower Sozomen, have been accused of leaning to Novatianism. 1 Novatianism, like all unsuccessful opposition, added Cyprian's strength to its triumphant adversary. It was unity of the . l . . . J .... Church. not so much by its rigor, as by its collision with the Hierarchical system, that it lost its hold on the Christian mind. It declared that there were sins be- 1 Compare Walch Ketzer-Geschichte. Walch has collected every pas- sage relating to Novatianism with his usual industry, accuracy and fair- ness, ii. pp. 185, 288. CHAP. I. CYPRIAN'S UNITY. 87 yond the aosolving power of the clergy. By setting up rival bishops in Rome, Carthage, and other cities, it only evoked more commandingly the growing theory of Christian unity, and caused it to be asserted in a still more rigid and exclusive form. Within the pale of the Church, under the lawful Bishop, were Christ anl salvation ; without it, the realm of the Devil, the wojld of perdition. The faith of the heretic and schis- matic was no faith, his holiness no holiness, his martyr- dom no martyrdom. 1 Latin Christianity, in the mind of Cyprian, if not its founder, its chief hierophant, had soared to the ideal height of this unity. This Utopia of Cyprian placed St. Peter at the head of the College of coequal Apostles, from whom the Bishops inherited coequal dignity. The succession of the Bishop of Rome from St. Peter was now, near 200 years after his death, an accredited tradition. Nor, so long as Carthage and Rome were in amity and alliance, did Cyprian scruple to admit (as Carthage could not but own her inferiority to Imperial Rome) a kind of pri- macy, of dignity at least, in the Metropolitan Bishop. 2 1 The second Council of Carthage touches on this absolving power of the priesthood "Quando permiserit ipse, qui legem dedit ut ligati in terris etiam incoelis ligati essent, solvi autem possent illaquae hie prius inecclesia golverentur." The decree of this Council anticipates another instant per- secution, and urges, with great force and beauty, the necessity of strength- ening all disciples against the coming trial quos excitamus et hortamur ad prcelium non inermes et nudos relinquamus, sed protectione corporis et sanguinis Christi muniamus. Mansi, sub ann. 252, or Routh, Rel. Sacrse, v. iii. p. 70. 2 Hoc erant utique et caeteri Apostoli, quod fuit Petrus, pari consortio praediti et honoris et potestatis : sed exordium ab unitate proficiscitur, et primatus Petro datur, ut una Christi ecclesia et cathedra una monstretur. De unit. Eccles. There is little doubt that this famous passage is an inter- polation; it is not found in the best manuscripts. The whole passage with- out these words seems to me to bear out the guarded assertion of the text 88 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK I. The Punic league suddenly gives place to a Punic Dispute war. A new controversy has sprung up in Ro^rLd the interval between the Decian and Vale- Cartha * e ' rian persecutions, on the rebaptism of here- tics. Africa, the East, Alexandria with less decision, declared the baptism by heretics an idle ceremony, and even an impious mimicry of that holy rite, which could only be valid from the consecrated hands of the lawful A.D. 255. clergy. Lucius of Rome had ruled but a few months: he was succeeded by Stephen. This pope adopted a milder rule. Every baptism in the name of Christ admitted to Christian privileges. He enforced this rule, according to his adversaries (his own letters are lost), with imperious dictation. At length he broke off communion with all the churches of the East and of Africa, which adhered to the more rigorous practice. 1 But the Eastern hatred of heresy conspired with the hierarchical spirit of Africa, which could endure no intrusion on the prerogatives of the clergy. Cyprian confronts Stephen not only as an equal, but, strong in the concurrence of the East and of Alexandria, as his superior. The primacy of Peter has lost its authority. He condemns the perverseness, obstinacy, contumacy of Stephen. He promulgates, in Latin, a letter of Firmilian, Bishop of the Cappado- cian Caesarea, still more unmeasured in its censures. Firmilian denounces the audacity, the insolence of Stephen ; scoffs at his boasted descent from St. Peter ; declares that, by his sin, he has excommunicated him- self: he is the schismatic, the apostate from the unity 1 He denounced Cyprian, according to Firmilian, as a false Christ, a false apostle, a deceitful workman. Finn. Epist. apud Cyprian. Opera. CHAP. I. SEPARATE UNITY OF LATIN CHRISTENDOM. 89 of the Church. 1 A solemn Council of eighty-seven bishops, assembled at Carthage under Cyprian, asserted the independent judgment of the African Churches, repudiated the assumption of the title, Bishop of Bishops, or the arbitrary dictation of one bishop to Christendom. Yet even during this internal feud, Latin Chris- tendom was gathering into a separate unity. The Churches of Gaul and Spain appeal at once to Rome and to Carthage ; Aries, indeed, in southern Gaul, may still have been Greek. But the high character of Cyprian, and the flourishing state of the African Churches, combined with their Latinity to endow them with this concurrent primacy in the West. Martia- nus, Bishop of Aries, had embraced Novatianism in all its rigor. The oppressed anti-No vatian party sent to Carthage as well as to Rome, to entreat their aid. Cyprian appears to acknowledge the superior right in the Bishop of Rome to appoint a substitute for the re- bellious Novatianist. He urges Pope Stephen, by the memory of his martyred predecessors Cornelius and Lucius, not to shrink from this act of necessary rigor. 2 This, however, was but a letter from one bishop to another, from Cyprian of Carthage to Stephen of Rome. 3 The answer to the Bishops of Spain is the formal act of a synod of African Bishops, assembled 1 Excidisti enim temet ipsum ; noli te fallere. Siquidem ille est vere Bchismaticus, qui se a communione Ecclesiasticse unitatis apostatam fecerit. Firm, ad Cyprian. I see no ground to question, with some Roman Catho- lic writers, the authenticity of this letter. No doubt it is a translation from the Greek ; if by Cyprian himself, it accounts for the sameness of style. A Donatist forgery would have been in a different tone, and directed against different persons. Compare Walch Ketzer-Geschichte, ii. 323, et seqq. Eouth, note ii. p. 151. 2 A.D. 256. Apud Mansi, sub ann. or Routh, Rel. Sac. iii. p. 91. 8 Cypriani Epist. bcvii. 90 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK I under the presidency of the Bishop of Carthage. It is a Latin religious state paper, addressed by one part of Latin Christendom to the rest. 1 The Spanish Bishops, Basilides and Martian's, of Leon and Astorga, had, during the Decian persecution, denied the faith, offered sacrifice, according to the language of the day, returned to wallow in the mire of paganism. Yet they had dared to resume, not merely their privileges as Christians, but the holy office of bishops. Whatever leniency might be shown to humbler penitents, that the immaculate priesthood should not be irrevocably for- feited by such defilement, revolted not only the more severe, but the general sentiment. Two other bishops, Felix and Sabinus, were consecrated in their place. Basilides found his way to Rome, and imposed by his arts on the unsuspecting Stephen, who commanded his reinstatement in his high office. Appeal was made to Carthage against Rome. Cyprian would strengthen his own authority by that of a synod. At the head of his thirty-five bishops, Cyprian approves the acts of the Presbyters and people of Leon and Astorga in reject- ing such unworthy bishops ; treats with a kind of re- spectful compassion the weakness of Stephen of Rome, who had been so easily abused ; and exhorts the Span- iards to adhere to their rightful prelates, Felix and Sabinus. 2 The persecution of Valerian joined the Bishops of Rome and of Carthage, Sixtus, the successor of Stephen, and the famous Cyprian, in the same glori- ous martyrdom. 3 1 The Decrees of the Council of Carthage are the earliest Latin public documents. 8 Cyprian. Epist. Ixvii. * On the martyrdom of Cyprian, Hist, of Christ ii. 251. CHAP. I. MARCELLINUS AND MARCELLUS. 91 Dionysius, a Calabrian, is again a Greek Bishop of Rome, mingling with something of congenial A.D. 259. zeal, and in the Greek language, in the controversies of Greek Alexandria, and condemning the errors of the Bishop of the same name, who had the evil report of having been the predecessor of Arius in doctrine. Dionysius, of Alexandria, however, a prelate of great virtue, it should seem, was but incautiously betrayed into these doubtful expressions ; at all events, he repu- diated the conclusions drawn from his words. With all the more candid and charitable, he soon resumed his fame for orthodoxy. When the Emperor Aurelian 1 transferred the ecclesiastical judgment over A.D. 270. Paul of Samosata, a rebel against the Empire as against the Church, from the Bishops of Syria to those of Rome and Italy, a subtle Greek heresy, maintained by Syrian Greeks, could not have been adjudicated but by Greeks or by Latins perfect masters of Greek. Dio- nysius, as Bishop of Rome, passed sentence in this important controversy. Towards the close of this third century, throughout the persecution of Diocletian, darkness settles again over the Bishops of Rome. The apostacy of Ma rcemmis, Marcellinus is but a late and discarded fable, A-Dl 296- adopted as favoring the Papal supremacy. Legend assembles three hundred Bishops at Sinuessa, three hundred Bishops peaceably debating at such times in a small Neapolitan town. This synod refused to take cognizance of the crime of St. Peter's successor. Mar- cellinus was forced to degrade himself. The legend, that his successor, Marcellus, was re- 1 Compare, on the act of Aurelianus, Hist, of Christ, ii. p. 257. 92 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK L duced to the servile office of a groom, rests on Man*iin, no better authority. Had it any claim to A-I> - ^ truth, the successors of Marcellus had full and ample revenge, when kings and emperors submitted to the same menial service, and held the stirrup for the Popes to mount their horses. n. CONVERSION OF CONSTANTINE. 93 CHAPTER H. ROME AFTER THE CONVERSION OF CONSTANTINE. THUS, down to the conversion of Constantine, the biography of the Roman Bishops, and the Conversion t i. i -r, T-I ofConstan- history or the Koman Episcopate, are one ; " the acts and peculiar character of the Pontiffs, the in- fluence and fortunes of the See, excepting in the doubt- ful and occasional gleams of light which have brought out Victor, Zephyrinus, Callistus, Cornelius, Stephen, into more distinct personality, are involved in a dim and vague twilight. On the establishment of Chris- tianity, as the religion if not of the Empire, of the Emperor, the Bishop of Rome rises at once to the rank of a great accredited functionary ; the Bishops gradu- ally, though still slowly, assume the life of individual character. The Bishop is the first Christian in the first city of the world, and that city is legally Christian. The Supreme Pontificate of heathenism might still linger from ancient usage among the numerous titles of the Emperor ; but so long as Constantine was in Rome, the Bishop of Rome, the head of the Emperor's religion, became in public estimation the equal, in au- thority and influence immeasurably the superior, to all of sacerdotal rank. The schisms and factions of Christianity now become affairs of state. As long as Rome is the imperial residence, an appeal to the Em- peror is an appeal to the Bishop of Rome. The 94 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK L Bishop of Rome sits, by the imperial authority, at the head of a synod of Italian prelates, to judge the dis- putes with the African Donatists. Melchiades held the See of Rome at the time of Constantino's conversion, but soon made room for Silvester, whose name is more in- aiveuter. separably connected with that great event. Silvester has become a kind of hero of religious fable. But it was not so much the genuine mythical spirit which unconsciously transmutes history into legend ; it was rather deliberate invention, with a specific aim and design, which, in direct defiance of history, accel- erated the baptism of Constantine, and sanctified a porphyry vessel as appropriated to, or connected with, Meichiades, that holy use : and at a later period pro- Silvester. A.D. 312-814. duced the monstrous fable of the Donation. 1 Jan. 31. 1 This document the Imperial Edict of Donation a forgery as clumsy as audacious, ought to be inspected by those who would judge of the igno- rance which could impose, or the credulity which would receive it, as the title-deed to enormous rights and possessions. (Muratnri ascribes the forg- ery of the act to the period between 755 and 760.) Palatium nostrum .... et urbem Romam, et totius Italiac, etoccidcntalium regionum provin- cias, loca, civitates .... pnedicto beatissimo patri m^tro Silvestro Cathol- ico Papse tradentes et cedentes hujus et successoribus. ejus Pmititicatus po- testate .... divino nostro hoc pragmatico dccretoadniinistrari diffinimus, juri sanctic Romanorum ecclesise subjicienda et in eo pcrinan*ura exhibe- mus. The Donation may be found, prefixed to I.aun-ntius Valla's famous refutation. Read, too, the more guarded and reluctant surrender of Nicho- las of Cusa, the feeble murmur of defence from Antoninus, archbishop of Florence, apud Brown, Fasciculus, pp. 124, 161. Ik-tore the Reformation, the Donation had fallen the first victim of awakening religions inquiry. Dante, while he denounces, does not venture to question the truth of Con- stantino's gift. By the time of Ariosto it had become the object of unre- buked satire, even in Italy. Astolpho finds it among the chimaeras of earth in the moon, " or puzza forte. Questo era il don (re perd dir lice) Che Constantino al buon Silvestro fore." Orl. Fur. xxxiv. 80. CHAP. II. OBSCURITY OF ROMAN BISHOPS. 95 But that with which Constantine actually did invest the Church, the right of holding landed Qrant of Con . property, and receiving it by bequest, was 8ti far more valuable to the Christian Hierarchy, and not least to the Bishop of Rome, than a premature and prodigal endowment, which would at once have plunged them in civil affairs ; and, before they had attained their strength, made them objects of jealousy or of rapacity to the temporal Sovereign. Had it been possible, a precipitate seizure, or a hasty acceptance of large territorial possessions would have been fatal to the dominion of the Church. It was the slow and imperceptible accumulation of wealth, the unmarked ascent to power and sovereignty, which enabled the Papacy to endure for centuries. The obscurity of the Bishops of Rome was not in this alone their strength. The earlier Pontiffs (Cle- ment is hardly an exception) were men, who of them- selves commanded no great authority, and awoke no jealousy. Rome had no Origen, no Athana- Roman B ish- sius, no Ambrose, no Augustine, no Jerome. ops Ol The power of the Hierarchy was established by other master-minds : by the Carthaginian Cyprian, by the Italian Ambrose, the Prelate of political weight as well as of austere piety, by the eloquent Chrysostom. 1 The names of none of the Popes, down to Leo and Gregory the Great, appear among the distinguished writers of Christendom. 2 This more cautious and retired dignity was no less favorable to their earlier 1 Chrysostom's book on the Priesthood throughout. 2 Early Christianity, it may be observed, cannot be justly estimated from its writers. The Greeks were mostly trained in the schools of philosophy the Latin in the schools of rhetoric; and polemic treatises could not but form a great part of the earliest Christian literature. 96 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK I. power, than to their later claim of infallibility. If more stirring and ambitious men, they might have betrayed to the civil power the secret of their aspiring hopes; if they had been voluminous writers, in the more speculative times, before the Christian creed had assumed its definite and coherent form, it might have been more difficult to assert their unimpeachable ortho- doxy. The removal of the seat of empire to Constanti- Fonndatson nople consummated the separation of Greek f Constan- tinople, and Latin Christianity; one took the do- minion of the East, the other of the West. Greek Christianity has now another centre in the new capi- tal ; and the new capital has entered into those close relations with the great cities of the East, which had before belonged exclusively to Rome. Alexandria has become the granary of Constantinople ; her Christian- ity and her commerce, instead of floating along the Mediterranean to Italy, pours up the .JSgean to the city on the Bosphorus. The Syrian capitals, Antioch, Jerusalem, the cities of Asia Minor and Bithynia, Ephesus, Nicea, Nicomedia, own another mistress. The tide of Greek trade has ebbed away from the West, and found a nearer mart ; political and religious ambition and adventure crowd to the new Eastern Court. That Court becomes the chosen scene of Christian controversy ; the Emperor is the proselyte to gain whom contending parties employ argument, in- fluence, intrigue. That which was begun by the foundation of Con- WrWonof stantinople, was completed by the partition of the empire between the sons of Constan- tine. There are now two Roman worlds, a Greek, CHAP. II. APOSTOLICAL ANTIQUITY OF ROME. 9T and a Latin. In one respect, Rome lost in dignity, she was no longer the sole Metropolis of the empire ; the East no longer treated her with the deference of a subject. On the other hand, she was the uncontested, unrivalled head of her own hemisphere ; she had no rival in those provinces, which yet held her allegiance, either as to civil or religious supremacy. The separa- tion of the empire was not more complete between the sons of Constantine or Theodosius, than between Greek and Latin Christianity. In Rome itself Latin Christianity had long been in the ascendant. Greek had slowly and im- I^MH Chris J . tianity that perceptibly withdrawn from her services, her of Rome. Scriptures, her controversial writings, the spirit of her Christianity. It is now in the person of Athanasius, a stranger hospitably welcomed, not a member at once received into her community. Great part of the three years, during which Athanasius resided in Rome, must be devoted to learning Latin, before he can obtain his full mastery over the mind of the Roman Pontiff, perhaps before he can fully initiate the Romans in the subtle distinctions of that great controversy. 1 The whole West, Africa, Gaul, in which so soon as the religion spread beyond the Greek settle- or the west, ments, it found Latin, if not the vernacular, the dominant language (the native Celtic had been driven back into obscurity), Spain, what remained of Britain, formed a religious as well as a civil realm. In her Apostolical antiquity, in the dignity therefore of her Church, Rome stood as much alone and unapproach- able among the young and undistinguished cities of the West, as in her civil majesty. After Cyprian, i Gibbon, c. xxi. p. 360. VOL. i. 7 98 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK I Carthage, until the days of Augustine, had sunk back into her secondary rank : Africa had been long rent to pieces by the Donatist schisms. Rome, therefore, might gather up her strength in quiet, before she committed herself in strife with any of her more for- midable adversaries ; and those adversaries were still weakening each other in the turmoils of unending controversy ; so as to leave the almost undivided Unity of the West an object of admiration and envy to the rest of Christendom. For throughout the religious and civil wars, which Trinitarian almost simultaneously with the conversion of controrersy. c onstant i ne distracted the Christian world, the Bishops of Rome and the West stood aloof in ummpassioued equanimity ; they were drawn into the Trinitarian controversy, rather than embarked in it by their own ardent zeal. So long as Greek Christianity predominated in Rome, so long had the Church been divided by Greek doctrinal controversy. There the earliest disputes about the divinity of the Saviour had found ready audience. But Latin Christianity, as it grew to predominance in Rome, seemed to shrink from these foreign questions, or rather to abandon them for others more congenial. The Quarto Deciman contro- versy related to the establishment of a common law of Christendom, as to the time of keeping her great Festival. So in Novatianism, the readmission of apos- tates into the outward privileges of the Church, the kindred dispute concerning the rebaptism of heretics, were constitutional points, which related to the eccle- siastical polity. Donatism turned on the legitimate succession of the African Bishops. The Trinitarian controversy was an Eastern ques- CHAP. H. ORTHODOXY OF THE WEST. 99 tion. It began in Alexandria, invaded the Syrian cities, was ready, from its foundation, to disturb the churches, and people the streets of Constantinople with contending factions. Until taken up by the fierce and busy heterodoxy of Constantius when sole Emperor, it chiefly agitated the East. The Asiatic Nicea was the seat of the Council ; all but a very few of the three hundred and twenty Bishops, who formed the Council, were from Asiatic or Egyptian sees. There were two Presbyters only to represent the Bishop of Rome ; 1 the Bishop by his absence hap- pily escaped the dangerous precedent, which might have been raised by his appearance in any rank inferior to the Presidency. Besides these Presbyters, there were not above seven or eight Western Prelates. Hosius of Cordova, if, as some accounts state, he presided, did so as the favorite of the Emperor ; if it may be so expressed, as the Court divine. 2 During the second period of the Trinitarian contro- versy, when the Arian Emperor of the East, 2nd period. Constantius, had made it a question which involved the whole world in strife ; and, though it was not the cause of the fratricidal war between the sons of Con- stantine, yet no doubt it aggravated the hostility ; Rome alone, except for a short time of compulsory 1 TT/C (5e ys BacrtAevotJOT/f TO/teuf 6 /jh> Ttpoiarug did, yripag vctTsper irpea3vTpoi 6s avrov Trapovrec rrfv avrov rd^iv inTJrjpuaav. The expres- sion "the royal city " is significant. Socrat. H. E., i. 8. The presbyters' names are reported, Vitus and Vincentius. 2 Hosius is named by writers of the fifth century as the first among the bishops at Nicea to sign the decrees. (Gelas. Cyzicen. Act. Concil. sub ann. 325.) Theodore! assigns a kind of presidency to Eustathius ot Antioch. In all the earlier accounts it is impossible to discern any presi- dent, certainly none when the emperor is present. Hosius, in later times, was taken up as the representative of the Bishop of Koine. Compare Shroeck. C. K. v. p. 335. 100 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK I. submission, remained faithful to the cause of Athana- sius. The great Athanasius himself, a second time an exile from the East, 1 the object of the Eastern Emper- or's inveterate animosity, had found a hospitable recep- tion at Rome. There, having acquired the knowledge of Latin, he laid the spells of his master-mind on the Pope Julius, and received the deferential homage of Latin Christianity, which accepted the creed, which its narrow and barren vocabulary could hardly express in adequate terms. Yet throughout, the adhesion of Rome and of the West was a passive acquiescence in the dogmatic system, which had been wrought out by the profounder theology of the Eastern divines, rather than a vigorous and original examination on her part of those mysteries. The Latin Church was the scholar, as well as the loyal partisan of Athanasius. New and unexpected power grew out of this firmness in the head of Latin Christianity, when so large a part of Eastern Christendom had fallen away into what was deemed apostacy. The orthodoxy of the W.-t stood out in bold relief at the Council of Sardica. 2 i On his first exile he had been received by the Emperor Constans at Treves. * Even those Latin writers (for Latin Christianity could not altogether be silent on the controversy) who treated on the Trinity, rather set forth or explained to their flocks the orthodox doctrines determined in the East, than refuted native heresies, or proposed their own irrefragable judgment. Nor were the more important treatises written in the capital, or in the less barbarized Latin of Rome, but by Hilary, the Gallic bishop of Poitiers, in the rude and harsh Roman dialect of that province; and Hilary had been banished to the East, where he had become impregnated with the spirit, to his praise be it said, by no means with the acrimony of the strife. At the close of the controversy a Latin creed embodied the doctrines of Athana- sius and of the anti-Nestorian writers; but even thi was not so much a work of controversy, as a final summary of Latin Christianity, as to the ultimate result of the whole. It is the creed commonly called that of St CHAP. II. COUNCIL OF SARDICA. 101 At this Council, held under the protection, and within the realm of the orthodox Constans, the oc- cupation of all the greater sees in the East by Arian or semi-Arian prelates, the secession of the Eastern minority from the Council, left Latin Christianity, as it were, the representative of Christendom. It assumed to itself the dignity and authority of a General A.D. 347. Council, and it might seem that the suffrage of that Council awed the reluctant Constantius, and enforced the restoration of Athanasius to his see. By some happy fortune, by some policy prescient of future advantage, it might be unwillingness to risk his dignity at so great a distance from his own city, the trouble or expense of long journeys, or more important avocations at home, or the uncertainty that he would be allowed the place of honor, the Bishop of Rome (Julius I.) was absent from Sardica as from Nicea. Councilof Hosius of Cordova again presided in that Sardica - assembly. Three Italian bishops appended their sig- natures after that of Hosius, as representing the Roman Pontiff. Unconsciously the representatives of these times prepared the way for the Legates of future ages. Western Christendom might seem disposed to show its gratitude to Rome for its pure and consistent orthodoxy, by acknowledging at Sar- dica a certain right of appeal to the Bishop of Rome from Illyricum and Macedonia. These provinces were still part of the empire of the West, and the decree might seem as if the Primacy of Rome was to be coextensive with the Western Empire. The metropolitan power of Latin Christianity thus gath- ered two large provinces, mostly Greek in race and in language, under its jurisdiction. The bishops of i',2 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK I. Illyricum and Macedonia, in seeking a temporary protector (no doubt their immediate object) from the lawless tyranny of their Eastern and heterodox su- periors, foresaw not that they were imposing on them- selves a master who would never relax his claim to their implicit obedience. Liberius, the successor of Julius I., had to endure popeLibe- the fiercer period of conflict with the Arian rius. A.D. .>... , 852, May 22. .bniperor. Lonstantius was now sole i: of the Roman world. From the councils of Aries and councilor of Milan had been extorted by bribes, by Arlea. A.D. 3oo. threats, and by force, the condemnation of Council of Athanasius. Liberius had commenced his A.D 355. pontificate with an act of declared hostility to Athanasius. He had summoned the Prelate of Alexandria to Rome : he had declared him cut off from the communion of the West. 1 But if, from fear of Constantius, he had rejected Athanasius, he soon threw off his timidity : he as suddenly changed his policy as his opinions. He disclaimed his feeble Leg- ate, the Bishop of Capua, who in his name had subscribed at Aries the sentence against the great Trinitarian. Himself, at length, after suffering men- ace, persecution, exile, was reduced so far to com- promise his principles as to assent to that condem- nation. Yet nothing could show more strongly the different place now occupied by the Bishop of Rome, in the estimation of Rome and of the world. Libe- rius is no martyr, calmly hiving down his life for Christianity, inflexibly refusing to sacrifice on an heathen altar. He is a prelate, rejecting the sum- mary commands of an heretical sovereign, treating 1 Liberii Epistol. apud Hilar. Fragm. v. CHAP. H. PONTIFICATE OF LIBERIUS. 103 his messages, his blandishments, his presents, with lofty disdain. The Arian Emperor of the world discerns the importance of attaching the Bishop of Rome to his party, in his mortal strife with Athana- sius. His chief minister, the Eunuch Eusebius, ap- pears ii Rome to negotiate the alliance, bears with him rich presents, and a letter from the Emperor. 1 Libe- rius coldly answers that the Church of Rome A.D. 356. having solemnly declared Athanasius guiltless, he could not condemn him. Nothing less than a Coun- cil of the Church, from which the Emperor, his offi- cers, and all the Arian prelates shall be excluded, can reverse the decree. Eusebius threatens, but in vain ; he lays down the Emperor's gifts in the Church of St. Peter. Liberius orders the infected offerings to be o cast out of the sanctuary. He proceeds to utter a solemn anathema against ah 1 Arian heretics. Thus Roman liberty has found a new champion. The Bish- op stands on what he holds to be the law of the Church ; he is faithful to the Prelate, whose creed has been recognized as exclusive Christian truth by the Senate of Christendom. He disfranchises all, even the Emperor himself, from the privileges of the Chris- tian polity. Constantius, in his wrath, orders the seiz- ure cf his rebellious subject ; but the Bishop of Rome is no longer at the head of a feeble community ; he is respected, beloved by the whole city. All Rome is in commotion in defence of the Christian prelate. The city must be surrounded, and even then it is thought more prudent to apprehend Liberius by night, and to convey him secretly out of the city. He is sent 1 Athanas. Hist. Arian. ad Monach. p. 764, et seqq. Theodoret, H. E. U. c. 15, 16. Sozomen, iv. c. 11. Ammian. Marcell. xv. c. 7. 104 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK. I ubriuBt to tne Emperor at Milan. He appears be- fore Constantius, with the aged Hosius of Cordova, and all the more distinguished orthodox prelates of the west, Eusebius of Vercelli, Lucifer of Cagliari, Hilary of Poitiers. He maintains the .-ame lofty tone. Constantius declares that Athanasius has been condemned by a Council of the Church ; he insists on the treason of Athanasius in corresponding with the enemies of the Emperor. Liberius is un- shaken: "If he were the only friend of Athanasiu.s, he would adhere to the righteous cause." The Bishop of Rome is banished to cold and inhospitable Thrace. He scornfully rejects offers of money, made by the Emperor for his expenses on the way. " Let him keep it to pay his soldiers." To the eunuch who made the like offer, he spoke with more bitter sarcasm. " Do you, who have wasted all the churches of the world, presume to offer me alms as a criminal ? Away, first become a Christian ! " l Two years of exile in that barbarous region, the - dread of worse than exile, perhaps disastrous . . 357. news from Rome, at length broke the spirit of Liberius ; he consented to sign the semi-Arian creed of Sirmium, and to renounce the communion of Athanasius. 2 For the Emperor had attempted to strike a still Felix heavier blow against the rebellious exile. A Antipope. rival bishop, as though the See were vacant, had usurped the throne. Felix was elected, it was 1 Athanas. Apolog. Contra Arian. p. 205. Ad Monach. p. 368. Theod- oret, ii. c. 16, 17. 8 The jealousy of Felix, according to Baronius (sub ann. 357), was the Dalila which robbed the Episcopal Samson (Liberius) of his strength and fortitude. no*. CHAP. II. THE ANTIPOPE FELIX. 105 said, by three eunuchs, who presumed to represent the people of Rome, and consecrated by three courtly prelates, two of them from the East. But the clergy of Rome, and the people with still more determinate resolution, kept aloof from the empty churches, where Bishop Felix, if not himself an Arian, did not scruple to communicate with Arians. 1 The estrangement continued through the two years of the exile of Libe- rius ; the Pastor was without a flock. At the close of this period, the Emperor Constantius A.D. 357. visited Rome ; the females, those especially of the upper rank, (history now speaks as if the whole higher orders were Christians,) had most strenuously maintained the right of Liberius, and refused all allegiance to the intrusive Felix. They endeavored to persuade the Senators, Consulars, and Patricians, to make a representation to the Emperor ; the timid nobles devolved the dangerous office on their wives. The female deputation, in their richest attire, as be- fitting their rank, marched along the admiring streets, and stood before the Imperial presence ; by their fear- 1 Theodoret (H. E. ii. 16) and Sozomen (H. E. iv. 15) plainly assert that Felix adhered to the creed of Nicea. Socrates (H. E. ii. 37) condemns him as infected by the Arian heresy. By Athanasius (ad Monach., p. 861) he is called a monster, raised by the malice of Antichrist, worthy of. and fit to execute, the worst design of his wicked partisans. This prelate of ques- tionable faith, this usurper of the Roman See, has stolen, it is difficult to conjecture how, into the Roman Martyrology. It seems clear that he re- tired from Rome, and died a few years after in peace. Gregory the Thir- teenth, when searching investigations into ecclesiastical history became necessary, startled by the perplexing difficulty perhaps of a canonized Arian, certainly of an antipope, with the honors of a martyr, ordered a regular inquiry into the claims of Felix. (Baron. Ann. sub ann. 357.) The case looked desperate for the memory of Felix: he was in danger of degradation, when, by a seasonable miracle, his body was discovered With an ancient inscription, " Pope and Martyr." Baronius wrote a book ibout it, which was never published. 106 LATIX CHRISTIANITY. BOOK I. less pertinacity they obtained a promise for the release of Liberius. Even then Constantius was but imper- fectly informed concerning the strength of the factions which himself having exasperated to the utmost, he now vainly attempted to reconcile. His Edict de- clared that the two Bishops should rule with conjoint authority, each over his respective community. Such an edict of toleration was premature by nearly four- teen centuries or more. In that place, the uncongenial atmosphere of which we should hardly have expected Christian passions to have penetrated, the Circus of Rome, the Edict was publicly read. " What ! " ex- claimed the scoffing spectators, " because we have two factions here, distinguished by their colors, are we to have two factions in the Church ? " The whole audience broke forth in an overwhelming shout, " One God ! one Christ ! one Bishop ! " Liberius returned, in the course of the next year, to uberins in Rome. His entrance was an ovation ; the RrvmA A.D. 858, people thronged forth, as of old to meet some triumphant Consul or Cicero on his return from exile. The rival bishop, Felix, fled before his face ; l but Felix and his party would not altogether abandon the coequal dignity assigned him by the de- cree of Constantius, and confirmed by the Council of Sirmium. He returned ; and, at the head of a body of faithful ecclesiastics, celebrated divine worship in the basilica of Julius, beyond the Tiber. He was ex- pelled, patricians and populace uniting against this, one of the earliest Antipopes who resisted armed force. 8 1 Hieron. Chron. Marc, et Faust p. 4. * This curious passage in the Pontifical Annals (apud Muratori iii. sub an.) is evidently from the party of Felix; it asserts his Catholicity. CHAP. H. THE ANTIPOPE FELIX. 107 A tradition has survived in the Pontifical Annals, of a proscription, a massacre. 1 The streets, the baths, the churches ran with blood, the streets, where the par- tisans of rival bishops encountered in arms ; the baths, where Arian and Catholic could not wash together without mutual contamination ; the churches, where they could not join in common worship to the same Redeemer. Felix himself escaped, and lived some years in peace, on an estate near the road to Portus. 2 Liberius, Rome itself, sinks back into obscurity ; the Pope mingled not, as far as is known, in the fray, which had now involved the West as well as the East, Latin as well as Greek Christianity ; he was absent from the fatal Council of Rimini, 3 which de- A.D. 359. luded the world into unsuspected Arianism. 4 The Emperor Julian, during his short and eventful reign, might seem to have forgotten that there * 361-363. was such a city as Rome. Paris, Athens, Constanti- nople, Antioch, Jerusalem, perhaps Alexandria, might seem to be the only Imperial cities worthy of Jt , Uan his regard. It was a Greek religion which ^P* 10 *- he aspired to restore ; his philosophy was Greek ; his writings Greek ; he taught, ruled, worshipped, perished in the East. 6 Under his successors (after Jovian), Valentinian, and Valens, while Valens af- vaientiman. Sept. 23 or flicted the East by his feeble and frantic zeal 24, 366. 1 Gibbon (who for once does not quote his special authority, neverthe- less accepts it), c. xxi. v. iii. p. 385. It is rejected by Bower (v. i. p. 141) and by Walch, " Lives of Popes," in loc. * He died the year before Liberius, 365. * Hist, of Christ, iii. p. 46. * Liberius had already subscribed, during his banishment, the creed of Sirmium. Constantius and his semi-Arian or Arian counsellors may have been content with that act of submission, which had not been formally re- roked. 6 On Julian, Hist, of Christ, vol. iii. c. vi. 108 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK L for Arianism, Valentinian maintained the repose of the West by his rigid and impartial toleration. 1 On the death of Liberius, the factions, which had smouldered in secret, broke out again with fatal fury. The Pontificate of Damasus displays Christianity now strife on the not merely the dominant, it might almost seem death f IT- T Liberiua. the sole religion of Rome ; and the Roman character is working as visibly into Christianity. The election to the Christian bishopric arrays the people in adverse factions ; the government is appalled ; churches become citadels, are obstinately defended, furiously stormed ; they are defiled with blood. Men fall in murderous warfare before the altar of the Prince of Peace. In one sense it might seem the reanimation of Rome to new life ; ancient Rome is resuming her wonted but long-lost liberties. The iron hand of des- potism, from the time of the last Triumvirate, or rather from the accession of Augustus to the Empire, had compressed the unruly populace, which only occasion- ally dared to break out, on a change in the Imperial dynasty, to oppose, or be the victims of, the Prastorian soldiery. Now, however, the Roman populace appears quickened by a new principle of freedom ; of freedom, if with some of its bold independence, with all its blind partisanship, its headstrong and stubborn ferocity. The great offices, which still perpetuated in name the an- cient Republic, the Senatorship, Qusestorship, Consul- ate, are quietly transmitted according to the Imperial mandates, excite no popular commotion, nor even in- terest ; for they are honorary titles, which confer neither influence, nor authority, nor wealth. Even the Prefecture of the city is accepted at the will of the 1 Compare Hist of Christ, iii. p. 111. CHAP. H. CONTESTS FOR THE BISHOPRIC OF ROME. 109 Emperor, who rarely condescends to visit Rome. But the election to the bishopric is now not merely an affair of importance the affair of paramount importance it might seem in Rome ; it is an event in the annals of the world. The heathen historian, 1 on whose notice had already been forced the Athanasian controversy, Athanasius himself, and the acts and the exile of Libe- rius, assigns the same place to the contested promotion of Damasus which Livy might to that of one of the great consuls, tribunes, or dictators. He interprets, as well as relates, the event : 2 " No wonder that for so magnificent a prize as the Bishopric of Rome, men should contest with the utmost eagerness and obstinacy. To be enriched by the lavish donations of the princi- pal females of the city ; to ride, splendidly attired, in a stately chariot ; to sit at a profuse, luxuriant, more than imperial, table these are the rewards of success- ful ambition." 3 The honest historian contrasts this pomp and luxury with the abstemiousness, the humility, the exemplary gentleness of the provincial prelates. Ammianus, ignorant or regardless as to the legitimacy of either election, arraigns both Damasus and his rival Ursicinus 4 as equally guilty authors of the tumult. 1 1 assume, without hesitation, the heathenism of Ammianus, though, with regard to him, as to other writers of the time, there is as much truth as sagacity in the observation of Heyne Est obvia res in lectione scripto- rum istius temporis, prudentiorum plerosque nee patrias religiones uhjecisse, nee novas damnasse, sed in his quoque pro suorum ingeniormn facultate probanda probasse. Heynii Prolus. in Wagner's edit. p. cxxxv. 2 Ammianus Marcellinus, xxvii. 3, sub ann. 367. 8 Compare it is amusing and instructive the Cardinal Baronius writ- ing in the splendid Papal court, and the severe Jansenist Tillemont, on this passage. * On the side of Ursicinus (Ursinus) is the remarkable document pub- lished by Sirmond (Opera, i. p. 127), the petition of Marcellinus and Faus- tinas to the Emperor Theodosius, who, in his answer, though they were 110 LATIN CHKISTIAXITT. BOCK I Of the Christian writers (and there are, singularly enough, contemporary "witnesses, probably eye-witness- es, on each side), the one asserts the priority and legality of election in favor of Damasus, the other of Ursicinus ; the one aggravates, the other extenuates the violence and slaughter. But that scenes occurred of frightful atrocity is beyond all doubt. So long and obstinate was the conflict, that Juventius, the Praefect of the city, finding his authority contemned, his forces afterwards Luciferians (an unpopular sect), testifies to their character by his gracious promises of protection. According to the Preface ( is it quite cer- tain that the Preface is of the same date?) to this Libellus 1'recum, Dama- BUS was supported by the party of Felix ; he was the successor of Felix, the reputed Arian, Ursicinus of Liberins.* The Presbyter?, Deacons, and faithful people, who had adhered to Liberins in his exile, met in the Julian Basilica, and duly elected Ursicinus ; who was consecrated by Paul, bishop of Tibur. Damasus was proclaimed by the followers of Felix, in S. M. Lucina. Damasus collected a mob of charioteers and a wild rabble, broke into the Julian Basilica, and committed great slaughter. Seven days after, having bribed a great body of ecclesiastics and the populace, and seized the Lateran Church, he was elected and consecrated bi?h<>p. Ur>icinus was ex- pelled from Rome. Damasus, however, continued his acts of violence. Seven Presbyters of the other party were hurried prisoners to the Lateran: their faction rose, rescued them, and carried them to the Basilica of Liberius (S. Maria Maggiore). Damasus, at the head of a gang of gladiators, char- ioteers, and laborers, with axes, swords, and clubs, stormed the church: a hundred and sixty of both sexes were barbarously killed; not one on the side of Damasus. The party of Ursicinus were obliged to withdraw, vainly petitioning for a synod of bishops to examine into the validity of the two elections. Ursicinus returned from exile more than once, but Damasns had the ladies of Rome in his favor; and the council of Valontinian was not inaccessible to bribes. New scenes of blood took place. Ursicinus was compelled at length to give up the contest On the other hand Damasus had on his side the great vindicator suc- cess. Rufinu?, and Jerome (then at Rome, afterward* the secretary of Da- masus) assert, with the same minuteness and particularity, the priority and the lawfulness of his election: they treat Ursicinus as a schismatic: but they cannot deny, however they mav mitigate, the acts of violence and bloodshed. Damaan*, from other authority, b said to harp sworn a* Pmbvter to own no bishop bat Liberia*, to hare accompanied him in exile, but speedily deserted >>**", returned to Rome, and at last submitted to Felix. CHAP. H. DAilASUS ASV URSICINUS. Ill unequal to keep the peace, retired into the neighbor- hood of Rome. Churches were garrisoned, churches besieged, churches stormed and deluged with blood. In one day, relates Ammianus, above one hundred and thirty dead bodies were counted in the basilica of Sisin- nius. The triumph of Damasus cannot relieve his memory from the sanction, the excitement of, hardly from active participation in, these deeds of blood. 1 Nor did the contention cease with the first discomfiture and banishment of Ursicinus : he was more than once recalled, exiled, again set up as rival bishop, and re- exiled. Another frightful massacre took place in the church of St. Agnes. The Emperor was forced to have recourse to the character and firmness of the fa- mous heathen Praetextatus, as successor to Juventius in the government of Rome, in order to put down with impartial severity these disastrous tumults. Some years elapsed before Damasus was in undisputed possession of his see. The strife between Damasus and Ursicinus was a prolongation or rival of that between Liberius Damans and Felix, and so may have remotely grown Pope out of the doctrinal conflict of Arianisrn and Trinita- rianism. 2 No doubt too it was a conflict of personal ambition, for the high prize of the Roman Episcopate. But there was another powerful element of discord among the Christians of Rome. The heathen historian 1 Baronius ingeniously discovered a certain Maximus, a man of notorious cruelty, who afterwards held a high office, and might, perhaps, have been accessory to the late scenes of tumult ; and so quietly exculpates Damasus, by laying all the carnage upon Maximus, who was not in authority, possi- bly not in Rome at the commencement of the strife. 2 Jerome, Epist. xv. t. i. p. 39, asserts the orthodoxy of Damasus, the Arianisvn of Ursicinus : but Jerome is hardly conclusive authority against the enemy of Damasus. 112 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK I. saw and described the outward aspect of things, the tumults which disturbed the peace of the city, the con- flagrations, the massacres, the assaulted and defended churches, the two masses of believers striving in arms for the mastery. So too he saw the more notorious habits, the public demeanor of the bishops and of the clergy, then* pomp, wealth, ceremony. The letters of Jerome, while they confirm the statements of Ammia- nus, reveal the internal state, the more secret workings, in this new condition of society. Athanasius had not merely brought with him into the West the more spec- ulative controversies which distracted Greek Christian- ity, he had also introduced the principles and spirit of Monasticism Eastern Monasticism : and this too had been in Rome. embraced with all the strength and intensity of the Roman character. That which during the whole of the Roman history had given a majesty, a commanding grandeur to the virtues and to the vices of the Romans, to their patrician pride and plebeian liberty, to their frugality and rapacity, to their courage, discipline, and respect for order ; to their prodigality, luxury, sensuality ; to their despotism and their ser- vility ; now seemed to survive in the force and devo- tion with which they threw themselves into Christian- ity, and into Christianity in its most extreme, if it may be so said, excessive form. On the one hand the Bishop and the clergy are already aspiring to a sacer- dotal power and preeminence hardly attained, hardly aimed at, in any other part of Christendom ; the Pon- tiff cannot rest below a magnificence which would O contrast as strongly with the life of the primitive Bishop, as that of Lucullus with that of Fabricius. The prodigality of the offerings to the Church and to CHAP. II. LAW AGAINST HEREDIPETY. 113 the clergy, those more especially by bequest, is so im- moderate, that a law l is necessary to restrain Law ^n^ the profuseness on one hand, the avidity on Hered: P et y the other, a law which the statesman Ambrose 2 and the Monk Jerome approve, as demanded by the abuses of the times. " Priests of idols, mimes, charioteers, harlots may receive bequests ; it is interdicted, and wisely interdicted, only to ecclesiastics and monks." The Church may already seem to have taken the place of the emperor as universal legatee. As men before bought by this posthumous adulation the favor of Caesar, so would they now that of God. Heredipety, or legacy hunting, is inveighed against, in the clergy especially, as by the older Satirists. Jerome in his epistles is the Juvenal of his times, without his gross- ness indeed, for Christianity no doubt had greatly raised the standard of morals. The heathen, as repre- sented by such men as Praetextatus (they now seem to have retired into a separate community, and stood in relation to the general society, as the Christians had stood to the heathen under Vespasian or the Anto- nines), had partaken in the moral advancement. But with this great exception, this repulsive license, Jerome, both in the vehemence of his denunciations, and in his description of the vices, manners, habits of Rome, might seem to be writing of pre-Christian times. 3 1 The law of Valentinian (A.D. 370), addressed to Damasus, bishop of Rome, and ordered to be read in all the churches of the city. Cod. Theodos. xiv. 2, 20. 2 Ambros. Epist. xxii. 1. 5, p. 200. Hieronym. Epist. ii. p. 13. Solifl clericis et monachis hac lege prohibetur, et prohibetur non a persecutoribus, sed a principibus Christianis. Nee de lege conqueror, sect doleo cur meru- erimus hanc legem. Hieronym. ad Nepotian. 8 Prudentius, with poetic anachronism, throws back the jealousy of the heathens of the enormous wealth offered on the altars of the Christians, and 114 LATIN CHBISTIANITY. BOOK I But the Roman character did not interwork into the general Christianity alone, it embraced monastic Chris- tianity, in all its extremest rigor, its sternest asceticism, with the same ardor and energy. Christian Stoicism could not but find its Catos ; but it was principally among the females that the recoil seemed to take place from the utter shamelessness, the unspeakable profli- gacy of the Imperial times, to a severity of chastity, to a fanatic appreciation of virginity as an angelic state, as a kind of religious aristocratical distinction, far above the regular virtues of the wife or the matron. Pope Damasus, though by no means indifferent to the splendor of his office, was the patron, as his secretary Jerome was the preacher, of this powerful party ; and between this party and the priesthood of Rome there was already that hostility which has so constantly pre- vailed between the Regulars, the observants of monas- tic rule, and what were called in later times the secular clergy. The Monastics inveighed against the worldly riches, pomp, and luxury of the clergy ; the clergy looked with undisguised jealousy on the growing, irre- sistible influence of the monks, especially over the high-born females. 1 Jerome hated, and was hated the alienation of estates from their right heirs, into the third century. The Prefect of Rome reproaches the Deacon Laurentins, before his martyrdom (about 258), with the silver cups and golden candlesticks of the service : " Turn gamma cura eft fratribos Ut sertno testator loqoax, Oflerre, fundis renditia Sestertiorum millia. Addict* arorum praedia Foedia sub auctionibtu, Successor exhspres gemlt Sanctis egeng parentibus. HKC occuluntur abditis Ecclesiarum in anpnlis, Et gamma pietas creditor If adare dulces liberos." Perittepk. Hymn 11. Compare Paolo Sarpi delle Materie Beneficiarie, c. vi. v. iv. p. 74. * Jerome spared neither the clergy nor the monks. On the clergy, iee the passage (ad Eustochium): Sunt alii, de hominibus loquor, mei ordinia, CHAP. II. CONTEST BETWEEN MONKS AND CLERGY. 115 with the most cordial reciprocity. The austere Jerome was accused, unjustly no doubt, of more than spiritual intimacy with his distinguished converts ; his enemies brought a charge of adultery against Pope Damasus himself. 1 Nor was this a question merely between the superior clergy and a man in the high and invidious position of Jerome, renowned for his boundless learning, and hold- ing the eminent office of secretary under Pope Dama- sus. It was a dispute which agitated the people of Rome. Among the female proselytes who crowded to the teaching of Jerome, and became his most fervent votaries, were some of the most illustrious matrons, widows, and virgins. Marcella had already, when Athanasius was at Rome, become enamoured of the hard and recluse life of the female Egyptian anchor- ites. But she was for some time alone. The satiric Romans laughed to scorn this new and superstitious Christianity. A layman, Helvidius, wrote a book against it, a book of some popularity, which Jerome answered with his usual controversial fury and con- qui ideo presbyteratum et diaconatum ambiunt ut mulieres licentius vide- antur. Then follows the description of a clerical coxcomb. His whole care is in his dress, that it be well perfumed; that his feet may not slip about in a loose sandal ; his hair is crisped with a curling-pin ; his fingers glitter with rings ; he walks on tiptoe lest he should splash himself with the wet soil; when you see him, you would think him a bridegroom rather than an ecclesiastic. Jerome enjis the passage. Et isti sunt sacerdotes Baal. Then on the monks (ad Nepot.): Nonnulli sunt ditiores monachi, quam fuerant saeculares et clerici, qui possident opes sub Christo paupere, quas sub locuplete et fallaci Diabolo non habuerant, et seqq. Compare, throughout, the account of Jerome, in the Hist, of Christianity, vol. iii. p. i23, et seqq. 1 Quern in tantum matrons diligebant, ut matronarum auriscalpius di- ceretur. So says the preface to the hostile petition, the Libellus Precum. Apud Sirmond. i. p. 136. The charge of adultery is in Anastasius Vit Pamasi. 116 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK I. temptuousness. Marcella was a widow of one of the oldest patrician houses, connected with all the consular families and with the prefect of the city. She was extremely rich. She became the most ardent of Jerome's hearers ; her example spread with irresistible contagion. The sister of Marcella, Paula, with her two daughters, Blesilla and Eustochium, 1 threw them- selves passionately into the same devotion. Paula, like her sister, was very wealthy ; she possessed great part of Nicopolis, the city founded by Augustus to commemorate the battle of Actium. Blesilla, her younger daughter, was a widow at the age of twenty. She rejected the importunate persuasions of her friends to contaminate herself with a second marriage. She abandoned herself entirely to the spiritual direction of Jerome ; her tender frame sank under the cruel pen- ances and macerations which he enjoined. The death of the young and beautiful widow was attributed to these austerities. All Rome took an indignant interest in her fate ; her mother, for her unnatural weakness, became an object of general reprobation, and the public voice loudly denounced Jerome as guilty of her death. A tumult broke out at the funeral ; there was a loud cry, "Why do we tolerate these accursed monks ? Away with them, stone them, cast them into the Tiber!" The pontificate of Damasus, with those of his two immediate successors, Siricius and Anastasius, is an epoch in the history of Latin Christianity, distinguished 1 Among the other names of Jerome's female admirers, one sounds He- brew, Lea; some Greek, Eustochium, Melanium; besides these are Principia, Felicitas, Feliciana, Marcellina, Asella. On Asella and the whole subject, see Hist of Christianity, iii. p. 328, et seqq. Compare also a later work Gfrorer, Kirchen-Geschichte, ii. p. 631, et seqq. CHAP. II. EXTENSION OF MONACHISM. 117 by the commencement of three great changes : I. The progress towards sovereignty, at least over the Western Church : the steps thus made in advance will find their place in the general view of the Papal power on the accession of Innocent I. II. The rapidly in- creasing power of monasticism. III. The promulga- tion of a Latin version of the Scriptures, which be- came the religious code of the West, was received as of equal authority with the original Greek or Hebrew, and thus made the Western independent of the Eastern churches, superseded the original Scriptures for centu- ries in the greatest part of Christendom, operated pow- erfully on the growth of Latin Christian literature, contributed to establish Latin as the language of the Church, and still tends to maintain the unity with Eome of all nations whose languages have been chiefly formed from the Latin. Of both these events, the extension of monasticism, and the promulgation of the Vulgate Bible, Jerome was the author ; of the former principally, of the latter exclusively. This was his great and indefeasible title to the appellation of a Father of the Latin Church. Whatever it may owe to the older and fragmentary versions of the sacred writings, Jerome's Bible is a wonderful work, still more as achieved by one man, and that a Western Christian, even with all the advan- tage of study and of residence in the East. It almost created a new language. The inflexible Latin became pliant and expansive, naturalizing foreign Eastern im- agery, Eastern modes of expression and of thought, and Eastern religious notions, most uncongenial to its own genius and character ; and yet retaining much of ts own peculiar strength, solidity, and majesty. If the 118 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK I. Northern, the Teutonic languages, coalesce with greater facility with the Orientalism of the Scriptures, it is the triumph of Jerome to have brought the more dissonant Latin into harmony with the Eastern tongues. The Vulgate was even more, perhaps, than the Papal power the foundation of Latin Christianity. Jerome cherished the secret hope, if it was not the avowed object of his ambition, to succeed Damasus as the Bishop of Rome. He was designated, he says, almost by unanimous consent for that dignity. 1 Is the rejection of an aspirant so singularly unfit for the sta- tion, from his violent passions, his insolent treatment of his adversaries, his utter want of self-command, his almost unrivalled faculty of awakening hatred, to be attributed to the sagacious and intuitive wisdom of Rome? Or, as is far more probable, did the vanity of Jerome mistake outward respect for general attach- ment, awe of his abilities and learning for admiration, and so blind him to the ill-dissembled, if dissembled, hostility which he had provoked in so many quarters ? It is difficult to refrain from speculating on his eleva- tion. How signally dangerous would it have been to have loaded the rising Papacy with the responsibility of all, or even a large part of the voluminous works of Jerome I The station of a Father of the Church, one of the four great Latin Fathers, committed Chris- tendom to a less close adhesion to all his opinions, while at the same tune it placed him above jealous and hos- tile scrutiny. It was not till two centuries later, when speculative subjects had ceased to agitate the Christian mind, and the creed and the discipline had settled down 1 Omnium psene judicio, dignus summo sacerdotio decernebatur. Epiat xlv. ad Asellam, 3. CHAP. II. THE FIRST DECRETAL. 119 to a mature and established form, that a Father of the Church, a voluminous writer, could safely appear on the episcopal throne of Rome. Gregory the Great was at once the representative and the voice of the Christianity of his age. Nor could the great work of Jerome have been achieved at Rome, assuredly not by a Pope. It was in his cell at Bethlehem, meditating and completing the Vulgate, that Jerome fixed for centuries the dominion of Latin Christianity over the mind of man. Siricius was the successor of p Siriclug Damasus. 1 Jerome left ungrateful Rome, A - D- 38 *- 398 - against whose sins the recluse of Palestine becomes even more impassioned, whose clergy and people be- come blacker and more inexcusable in his harsher and more unsparing denunciations. The pontificate of Siricius is memorable for the first authentic Decretal, the first letter of the Bishop of Rome, which became a law to the Western Church, and the foundation of the vast system of ecclesiastical jurisprudence. It betrays the Roman tendency to harden into inflexible statute that which was left before to usage, opinion, or feeling. The East enacted creeds, the West discipline. The Decree of Siricius was addressed to Himerius, Bishop of Tarragona. 2 Himerius had writ- The Decretal, ten before the death of Damasus to consult A ' D ' 385 ' the Bishop of Rome on certain doubtful points of usage, the validity of heretical baptism, the treatment of apostates, of religious persons guilty of incontinence, Jhe steps which the clergy were to pass through to the higher ranks, and the great question of all, the celi- 1 Damasus died Dec. 11. 2 Apud Mansi, sub ann. 385, or Constant. Epist. Pontificum. 120 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK L bacy of the clergy. The answer of Siricius is in the tone of one who supposes that the usages of the Church of Rome were to be received as those of Chris- tendom. It was to be communicated beyond the prov- ince of Tarragona, throughout Spain, in Carthagena, Baetica, Lusitania, Galicia : it appears, by an allusion in a writing of Pope Innocent I., even in Southern Gaul. The all-important article was on the marriage of the clergy ; this was peremptorily interdicted, as by an immutable ordinance, to all priests and deacons. This law, while it implied the ascendancy of monastic opinions, showed likewise that there was a large part of the clergy who could only be controlled into celibacy by law. Even now the law was forced to make some temporary concessions. Those who confessed that it was a fault, and could plead ignorance that celibacy was an established usage of the Church, were exempted from penalties, but could not hope for promotion to a higher rank. This unrepealed law was one of the characteristics of Latin Christianity. Her first voice of authority celibacy of might seem to utter the stern prohibition, the ciergy. This, more than any other measure, sepa- rated the sacerdotal order from the rest of society, from the common human sympathies, interests, affections. It justified them to themselves in assuming a dignity superior to the rest of mankind, and seemed their title to enforce acknowledgment and reverence for that superior dignity. The monastic principle admitting, virtually at least, almost to its full extent, the Mani- chean tenet of the innate sinfulness of all sexual inter- course as partaking of the inextinguishable impurity of Matter, was gradually wrought into the general CHAP. II. CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY. 121 feeling. Whether marriage was treated as in itself an evil, perhaps to be tolerated, but still degrading to human nature, as by Jerome 1 and the more ascetic teachers ; or honored, as by Augustine, with a specious adulation, only to exalt virginity to a still loftier height above it ; 2 the clergy were taught to assert it at once as a privilege, as a distinction, as the consummation and the testimony to the sacredness of their order. As there was this perpetual appeal to their pride (they were thus visibly set apart from the vulgar, the rest of mankind), 3 so they were compelled to its observance at once by the law of the Church, and by the fear of falling below their perpetual rivals, the monks, in the general estimation. The argument of their greater usefulness to Christian society, of their more entire devotion to the duties of their holy function by being released from the cares and duties of domestic life : the noble Apostolic motive, that they ought to be bound to the world by few, and those the most fragile ties, in order more fearlessly to incur danger, or to sac- rifice even life more readily in the cause of the Cross ; such low incentives were disdained as beneath consid- eration. Some hardy opponents, Helvidius, Jovinian, Vigilantius, and others of more obscure name, endeav- ored to stem the mingling tide of authority and popu- lar sentiment ; they were swept away by its resistless 1 On Jerome's views see quotations Hist, of Christianity, iii. 320, et seqq. 2 Gaudium virginum Christi de Christo, in Christo, cum Christo, post Christum, per Christum, propter Christum. Sequantur itaque agnum qui virginitatem corporis amiserunt, non quocunque ille ierit, sed quousque ipsi potuerint. De Sanct. Virgin, cap. 27. The virgin and her mother may Voth be in heaven, but one a bright, the other a dim star. Serm. 354, ad Continent. 8 Quid interesset inter populum et sacerdotem, si iisdem ad stringerentur legibus. Ambros. Epist. bdii. ad Eccl. Vercell. 122 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK I. force. 1 They boldly called in question the first princi- ples of the new Christian theory, and in the name of reason, nature, and the New Testament, denied this inherent perfection of virginity, as compared with law- ful marriage. Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, lifted up at once their voices against these unexpected and mis- timed adversaries. Jerome went so far in his dispar- agement of marriage, as to be disclaimed by his own ardent admirers: but still his adversaries have been handed down to posterity under the ill-omened name of heretics, solely, or almost solely on this account. They live, in his vituperative pages, objects of scorn more than of hatred. So unpopular was their resist- ance to the spirit of the age. The general feeling shuddered at their refusal to admit that which had now become one of the leading articles of Lathi Christian faith. Yet, notwithstanding this, the law of the Celibacy of the Clergy, even though imposed with such overweening authority, was not received without some open and more tacit resistance. There were few, perhaps, courageous or far-sighted enough to oppose the principle itself, though even among bishops Jovinian was not without followers. Others, incautiously admitting the principle, struggled to escape from its consequences. In some regions the married clergy formed the majority, and, always sup- porting married bishops by their suffrages and influ- ence, kept up a formidable succession. Still Chris- tendom was against them ; and in most cases, those who were conscientiously opposed to these austere re- strictions, had recourse to evasions or secret violations 1 1 have entered somewhat more at length into this controversy in the Hist, of Christianity. CHAP. H. EXTINCTION OF PAGANISM. 123 of the law, infinitely more dangerous to public morals. Throughout the whole period, from Pope Siricius to the Reformation, as must appear in the course of our history, the law was defied, infringed, eluded. It never obtained anything approaching to general ob- servance, though its violation was at times more open, at times more clandestine. The Pontificates of Damasus and Siricius beheld almost the last open struggles of expiring Roman pagan- ism, the dispute concerning the Statue of Extinction of Victory in the Senate, the secession of a large Pa anism - number of the more distinguished senators, the plead- ings of the eloquent Symmachus for the toleration of the religion of ancient Rome. To such humiliation were reduced the deities of the Capitol, the gods, who, as was supposed, had achieved the conquest of the world, and laid it at the feet of Rome. But in this great contest the Bishop of Rome filled only an inferior part ; it was Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan, who en- forced the final sentence of condemnation against pa- ganism, asserted the sin, in a Christian Emperor, of assuming any Imperial title connected with pagan wor- ship, and of permitting any portion of the public reve- nue to be expended on the rites of idolatry. It was Ambrose who forbade the last marks of respect to the tutelar divinities of Rome in the public ceremonies. Latin Christianity, in truth, in all but its monarchi- cal strength, in its unity under one Head, and under one code of ecclesiastical law, enacted and executed in its last resort by that Head, was established in its dominion over the human mind without the walls of Rome. It was Jerome who sent forth the Vulgate from his retreat in Palestine ; it was Ambrose of Milan who raised the sacerdotal power to more than independence, limited 124 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK I the universal homage paid to the Imperial authority, protected youthful and feeble Emperors, and in the name of justice and of humanity rebuked the greatest sovereign of the age. It was Augustine, Bishop of the African Hippo, who organized Lathi theology ; wrought Christianity into the minds and hearts of men by his impassioned autobiography ; and finally, under the name of the " City of God," established that new and undefined kingdom, at the head of which the Bishop of Rome was hereafter to place himself as Sov- ereign ; that vast polity, which was to rise out of the ruins of ancient and pagan Rome ; if not to succeed at once to the temporal supremacy, to superinduce a higher government, that of God himself. This divine government was sure eventually to fall to those who were already aspiring to be the earthly representatives of God. The Theocracy of Augustine, comprehending both worlds, Heaven as well as earth, was far. more sublime, as more indefinite, than the spiritual monarchy of the later Popes. It established, it contemplated no such external or visible autocracy, but it prepared the way for it in the minds of men ; the spiritual City of God became a secular monarchy ruling by spiritual means. It may be well here to close the fourth century of Christianity, which ended in the uneventful pontificate AnMtariua i. of Anastasius I. Four hundred years had now elapsed since the birth of the Redeemer. The gospel was the established religion of both parts of the Roman Empire ; Greek and Latin Christianity divided the Roman world. Most of the barbarians, who had set- tled within the frontiers of the Empire, had submitted to her religion. With Christianity the hierarchical sys- tem had embraced the world. BOOK II. ^- ^. 4- 4- LO 00 GO 1 'ill! e o " S os us, red. 2 hi iosco depos I ! g s ft* e s ?? II .) a o 2 S > . i - 126 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK U. BOOK IL CHAPTER I. INNOCENT I. THE fifth century of Christianity has begun, and now arises a line of Roman prelates, some of them from their personal character, as well as from the cir- cumstances of the time, admirably qualified to advance the supremacy of the See of Rome, at least over West- ern Christendom. Christianity, in its Latin form, which for centuries was to be its most powerful, enduring, prolific develop- ment, wanted, for her stability and unity of influence, a capital and a centre ; and Rome might seem deserted by her emperors for the express purpose of allowing the spiritual monarchy to grow up without any dangerous collision against the civil government. The emperors had long withdrawn from Rome as the royal residence. Of those who bore the title, one ruled in Constanti- nople, and, more and more absorbed in the cares and Romeeentre calamities of the Eastern sovereignty, became of the west, gradually estranged from tin- affairs of the West. Nor was it till the time of Justinian that any attempt was made to revive his imperial pretensions to Rome. The Western Emperor lingered for a time in inglorious obscurity among the marshes of Ravenna, CHAP. I. ROME CENTRE OF THE WEST. 127 till at length the faint shadow of monarchy melted away, and a barbarian assumed the power and the ap- pellation of Sovereign of Italy. Still, of the barba- rian kings, not one ventured to fix himself in the an- cient capital, or to inhabit the mouldering palaces of the older Caesars. Nor could Ravenna, Milan, or Pavia, though the seats of monarchs, obscure the great- ness of Rome in general reverence : they were still provincial cities ; nor could they divert the tide of commerce, of concourse, of legal, if not of administra- tive business, which, however more irregular and inter- mitting, still flowed towards Rome. The internal gov- ernment of the city retained something of the old republican form which had been permitted to subsist under the despotism of the emperors. Above the con- suls or Senate, the shadows of former magistracies, the supreme authority was vested in a delegate, or repre- sentative of the Emperor, the prefect, or governor ; but, with the empire, that authority became more and more powerless. The aristocracy, as we shall erelong see, were scattered abroad after the capture of the city by Alaric, and were never after reorganized into a powerful party. Some centuries elapsed before that feudal oligarchy grew up, which, at a later period, were such dangerous enemies to the Papacy, degrading it to the compulsory appointment of turbulent or un- moral prelates, or by the personal insult, and even the murder, of popes. During the following period, there- fore, the Bishop of Rome, respected by the barbarians, even by the fiercest pagans, none of whom were quite without awe of the high priesthood of the Roman relig- ion, and, by that respect, commended still more strongly to the reverence of all Latin Christians ; alone hallowed, 128 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK II. as it were, ana permitted to maintain his serene dignity amid scenes of violence, confusion, and bloodshed ; grew rapidly up to be the most important person in the city; if not in form the supreme magistrate, yet dom- inant in influence and admitted authority, the all-vene- rated Head of the Church ; and where the civil power thus lay prostrate, assuming, without awakening jealousy and for the public advantage, many of its functions, and maintaining some show of order and of rule. It was not solely as a Christian bishop, and bishop of that city, which was still, according to the prevail- ing feeling, the capital of the world, but as the suc- guccessionto cessor of St. Peter, of him who was now st. Peter. acknowledged to be the head of the apos- tolic body, that the Roman pontiff commanded the veneration of Rome and of Christendom. The pri- macy of St. Peter, and the primacy of Rome, had been long reacting upon each other in the minds of men, and took root in the general sentiment. The Church of Rome would own no founder less than the chief Apostle ; and the distance between St. Peter and the rest of the Apostles, even St. Paul himself, was in- creased by his being acknowledged as the spiritual ancestor of the Bishop of Rome. At the commence- ment of the fifth century, the lineal descent of the Pope from St. Peter was an accredited tenet of Chris- tianity. As yet his pretensions to supremacy were vague and unformed; but when authority is in the ascendant, it is the stronger for being indefinite. It is almost a certain sign that it is becoming precarious, or has been called in question, when it condescends to appeal to precedent, written statute, or regular juris- diction. CHAP. I. UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 129 Everything tended to confirm, nothing to impede or weaken the gradual condensation of the supreme ecclesiastical power in the Supreme Bishop. The majesty of the notion of one all-powerful ruler, to which the world had been so long familiarized in the emperors ; the discord and emulation among the other prelates, both of the East and West, and the manifest advantage of a supreme arbiter ; the Unity of the visible Church, which was becoming, Unity of the or had, indeed, become the dominant Church - idea of Christendom ; all seemed to demand, or at least, had a strong tendency to promote and to main- tain the necessity of one Supreme Head. As the unity in Christ was too sublimely spiritual, so the supremacy of the collective episcopate, which endowed each bishop with an equal portion of apostolic dignity and of power, was a notion too speculative and meta- physical for the common mind. Councils were only occasional diets, or general conventions, not a standing representative Senate of Christendom. There was a simplicity and distinctness in the conception of one visible Head to one visible body, such as forcibly arrests and fully satisfies the less inquiring mind, which still seeks something firm and stable whereon to repose its faith. Cyprian, in whom the unity of the Church had taken its severest form, though prac- tically he refused to submit the independence of the African churches to the dictation of Rome, did far more to advance her power by the primacy which he assigned to St. Peter, than he impaired it by his steady and disdainful repudiation of her authority, whenever it was brought to the test of submission. 1 1 Qui cathedram Petri, super quern fundata est Ecclesia, deserit, in ec- VOL. T. 9 130 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK II. In the West, throughout Latin Christendom, the Roman See, in antiquity, in dignity, in the more regular succession of its prelates, stood alone and unapproachable. In the great Eastern bishoprics the holy lineage had been already broken and confused by the claims of rival prelates, by the usurpation of bishops, accounted heretical, at the present period Arians or Macedonians or Apollinarians, later Nes- torians or Monophysites. Jerusalem had never ad- vanced that claim to which it might seem entitled by its higher antiquity. Jerusalem was not universally acknowledged as an Apostolic See ; at all events it was the capital of Judaism rather than of Christianity ; and the succession, at the time of the Jewish war, and during the period of desolation to the time of Hadrian, had been interrupted at least in its local descent. At one period Jerusalem was su Inordinate to the Palestinian Ca3sarea. Antioch had been per- petually contested ; its episcopal line had been vitiated, its throne contaminated by the actual succession of several Arian prelates. 1 In Alexandria the Arian prelates had been considered lawless usurpers : the orthodox Church had never voluntarily submitted to their jurisdiction ; and Alexandria had been hallowed as the episcopal seat of the great Athanasius. But Athanasius himself, when driven from his see, had clesift se esse confidit ? This was a plain and intelligible doctrine. Episco- patus unus est, cujus a singulis in solidum pars tenetur was a conception far more vague and abstract, and therefore far less popular. De Unit. Eccl. See for the dispute with Stephen, Bishop of Rome, ch. i. 1 The obvious difficulty of the Primacy of Antioch as the first See of St. Peter, which, it might seem, had been, if not objected, at least suggested, was thus met by Innocent I. Quae urbis Romoe sedi non cederet, nisi quod ipsa in transitu meruit, ista susceptum apud se, consummatumque gaudet. Innocent. Epis. xix. ad Alexand. CHAP. I. SILENT AGGRESSIONS OF ROME. 131 found a hospitable reception at Rome, and constant support from the Roman Bishops. His presence had reflected a glory upon that see, which, but for one brief period of compulsory apostacy, had remained rigidly attached to the orthodox Trinitarian opinions. Constantinople was but a new city, and had no pre- tensions to venerable or apostolic origin. It had at- tained, indeed, to the dignity of a patriarchate, but only by the decree of a recent council ; in other respects it owed all its eminence to being the prelacy of new Rome, of the seat of empire. The feuds and contests between the rival patriarchates of the East were constantly promoting the steady progress of Rome towards supremacy. Throughout the fierce rivalry between Alexandria and Constantinople, the hostilities which had even now begun between Theo- philus and Chrysostom, and which were continued with implacable violence between Cyril and Nesto- rius, Flavianus and Dioscorus, the alliance of the Bishop of Rome was too important not to be pur- chased at any sacrifice ; and if the independence of the Eastern churches was compromised, if not by an appeal to Rome, at least by the ready admission of her interference, the leaders of the opposing parties were too much occupied by their immediate objects, and blinded by factious passions, to discern or to regard the consequences of these silent aggressions. From the personal or political objects of these feuds the Bishop of Rome might stand aloof; in the relig- ious questions he might mingle in undisturbed dignity, or might offer himself as mediator, just as he might choose the occasion, and almost on his own terms. At the same time, not merely on the great subject 132 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK U of the Trinity, had Rome repudiated the more ob- noxious heresy, even on less vital questions, the Latin capital happy in the exemption from controversial bishops had rarely swerved from the canon of severe orthodoxy ; and if any one of her bishops had been forced or perplexed into a rash or erroneous decision, as Liberius, during his short concession to semi-Arian- ism ; or, as we shall see before long, Zosimus to Pela- gianism ; and a still later pope, who was bewildered into Monophytism ; their errors were effaced by a speedy, full, and glorious recantation. f J ' Thus the East, agitated by furious conflicts con- TheEast ceming the highest doctrines of Christian- courts Rome, j^ conce rning the preeminence of the rival sees for dominant influence with the Emperor, was still throwing itself, as each faction was oppressed by its rival, at the feet of remote and more impartial Rome. In the West, at the same time, the disputes which were constantly arising about points of disci- pline, the succession of bishops, the boundaries of conflicting jurisdictions, still demanded and were glad to have recourse to a foreign arbitrator ; and who so fitting an arbiter as the Bishop of that city, which, in theory at least, was still the centre of civil govern- ment, the seat of Caesar's tribunal, to whom the Roman world had acquired a settled and inveterate habit of appeal ? Rome the mother of civil, might likewise give birth to canonical jurisprudence. 1 For the great talisman of the Papal influence was 1 Until the Roman Curia became inordinate in its exactions, and so utterly venal as it is universally represented in later centuries, this arbitration, when so much was yet unsettled, while the new society was yet in the process of formation, must have tended to peace and so to the strength of Christianity. CHAP. I. NAME OF ROME. 133 the yet majestic name of Rome. The bishops Name of gave laws to the city, which had so long Rome - given, and still to so great an extent, gave laws to the world. In the sentiment of mankind, at least in the West, Rome had never been dethroned from her supremacy. There were still Roman armies, Roman laws, Roman municipalities, Roman literature, in name at least a Roman Empire. 1 Constantinople boasted rather than disdained the appellation of New Rome. But while the Bishops of Rome retained much of the awe and reverence which adhered to the name, they stood aloof from all which desecrated and degraded it. It was the idolatrous and pagan Rome which fell before the barbarians, or rather was visited for its vices and crimes, its persecutions, and its still obstinate in- fidelity, by those terrible instruments of the divine vengeance. As our history will show, the discom- fiture of the heathen Rhadagaisus, and the tutelary, though partial, protection which Christianity spread over the city during the capture by Alaric (to which Augustine triumphantly appealed), were not oblit- erated by the unawed and remorseless devastation of Genseric. The retreat of Attila, the most ter- rible of all the Northern conquerers, before the im- posing sanctity, as it was universally believed, of Pope Leo, blended again in indissoluble alliance the sacred security of Rome with the authority of her bishop. 1 See in Ausonius the curious ordo of the cities of the Empire. 1. Prima urbes inter, divfim domus, aurea Roma. 2. Constantinople, before whom bows 3. Carthage 4. Antioch 5. Alexandria 6. Treves 7. Milan 8. Capua 9. Aquileia 10. Aries 11. Merida 12. Athens 13. 14. Catania, Syracuse 15. Toulouse 16. Narbonne 17. Bordeaux. The poet is a Gaul, a native of Bordeaux. Ravenna seems to have fallen into obscurity. Ausonii. Poem. 134 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK IL Leo himself, as will be hereafter seen, exalts St. Peter and St. Paul into the Romulus and Remus of the new universal Roman dominion. It was at this period (the commencement of the Accession of ^^h century), when the Imperial power was innocent. declining towards extinction in the hands of the feeble Honorius, and the Roman arms were for the last time triumphant, under Stilicho, over the Northern barbarians, that a prelate was placed on the episcopal throne of Rome, of a bolder and more impe- rious nature, of unimpeachable holiness, who held the pontifical power for a longer period than usual in the rapid succession of the bishops of Rome. Ambrose was now dead, and there was no Western prelate, at least in Europe, whose fame and abilities could obscure that preeminence, which rank and position, and in his case, commanding character, bestowed on the Bishop of Rome. Innocent, like most of the great- er Popes, was by birth, if not a Roman, of the Roman A.D. 402. territory. He was born at Albano. 1 The patriotism of a Roman might mingle with his holier aspirations for the spiritual greatness of the ancient mistress of the world. Upon the mind of Innocent appears first distinctly to have dawned the vast con- ception of Rome's universal ecclesiastical supremacy, dim as yet and shadowy, yet full and comprehensive in its outline. Up to the accession of Innocent, the steps by which the See of Rome, during the preceding century, had advanced towards the legal recognition of a suprem- 1 There is an expression in one of St. Jerome's letters, which, taken lit- erally, asserts Innocent to have been the son of his predecessor Anastasius. Qui apostolicae cathedrae et supradicti viri successor etflius est Is it to b orcsumed that this is an incautious metaphor of St. Jerome ? CHAP. I. ACCESSION OF INNOCENT. 135 acy, were few but not unimportant; the first had been made by the Council of Sardica, the renown of whose resolute orthodoxy gave it peculiar weight in all parts of Christendom, where the Athanasian Trini- ta nanism maintained its ascendency. It is not difficult to trace the motives which influenced the Bishops at Sardica. Great principles are often established by measures which grow out of temporary interests. The Western orthodox Bishops at Sardica hardly escaped being out-numbered by their heretical adversaries ; there were ninety-four on one side, seventy-six on the other. Had not the turbulent, but irresolute, minority withdrawn to Philippopolis, and there set up a rival synod, the issue might have been almost doubt- ful ; at ah 1 events, where parties were so evenly bal- anced, intrigue, accident, activity on one part, supine- ness on the other, or the favor of the Emperor, sardica 347. might summon an assembly, in which the pre- Rumm 359 - ponderance would be in favor of Arianism (it was so a few years after at Rimini) ; and thus might heresy gain the sanction of a Council of Christendom. But Rome had, up to this time, before the fall of Liberius, so firmly, so repeatedly, so solemnly, embraced the cause of Athanasius, that it might seem to be irrevo- cably committed to orthodoxy ; an appeal to Rome, therefore, would always give an opportunity to an orthodox minority, to annul or to suspend the decrees of an heretical Church. In all causes, therefore, of bishops (and not merely were the bishops hi general the chief members of Councils, but the first proceed- ing of all the Councils, at this period, was to depose the prelates of the opposite party) an appeal to Rome would both secure a second hearing, by more favorable 136 LATIN CHKISTIAXITY. BOOK H. judges, of the subject under controversy, and might maintain, notwithstanding adverse decrees, all the or- thodox bishops upon their thrones. The Council of Sardica, therefore, in its canons, established the law, that on an appeal to the Bishop of Rome, he might decide whether the judgment was to be reconsidered, and appoint judges for the second hearing of the cause ; he might even, if he thought fit, take the initiative; and delegate an ecclesiastic " from his side," to institute a commission of inquiry. 1 The right of appeal to Rome, thus established by ecclesiastical, was confirmed by Imperial authority dur- A.D. 421. ing the reign of Valentinian III. Up to that L*wofVal- . - -~r - e o j- i , time the .Lmperors, it they did not possess by the constitution of the Church, exercised nevertheless by virtue of their supreme and indefeasible authority, and by the irresistible, and, as yet rarely contested, tenure of power, the right of summary decision in religious as in civil causes. A feeble emperor would willingly devolve on a more legitimate court these troublesome and perplexing affairs. To a monarch, another spiritual Monarch would appear at once the most natural and the most efficient delegate to relieve him from these burdens ; he would feel no jealousy of such useful and unconflicting autocracy ; and the Western Emperor would of course invest in this part of the Imperial prerogative the Bishop of the Imperial City. Now too the temporal power, the Empire, was sink- ing rapidly into the decrepitude of age, the Papacy 1 Et ai judicaverit renovandum esee judicium, renovetur, et det judices; si autem probaverit, talem causam esse, ut non refricetur, ea qua acta stint, qua decreverant, confirmata erant. Can. 3. Can. 5 permits him to send this preabyterum a latere. Mansi, sab ann. CHAP. I. DECREPITUDE OF TEMPORAL POWER. 137 rising in the first vigor of its youthful ambition. Honorius was cowering in the palace of Ravenna, from the perils which were convulsing the empire on all sides, while the provinces were withdrawing their doubtful allegiance, or in danger of being dissevered from the Roman dominion. Innocent was on the episcopal throne of Rome, asserting his almost des- potic spiritual control over those very provinces. Innocent, in his assertion of supremacy, might seem to disdain the authority of Council or Emperor. He declares, in one of his earliest epistles, that all the churches of the West, not of Italy alone, but of Gaul, Spain, and Africa, having been planted by St. Peter and his successors, owe filial obedience to the parent See, are bound to follow her example in all points of discipline, and to maintain a rigid uniformity with all her usages. 1 To the minutest point Rome will again be the legislator of the world ; and it is singular to behold a representative, as it were, of each of these provinces bringing the first fruits of that def- erence, which was construed into unlimited allegiance, to the feet of the majestic Pontiff. The Bishop of Rouen requests from the Bishop of Rome, the rules of ecclesiastical discipline observed within his See. 2 1 Com sit manifestum in omnem Italiam, Gallias, Hispanias, Africam atque Siciliam insulasque intervenientes nullum instituisse ecclesias nisi eos quos venerabilis Apostolus Petrus ej usque successores constituerint sacerdotes. Epist. ad Decent. Episcop. Eugubin. Jaffe dates this Epist. 416. March 19. Labbe, ii. p. 1249. 2 In the third rule, which gives the provincial synods of bishops supreme authority in their own province, the words "sine prejudicio tamen Ro- nanae ecclesioe, cui in omnibus causis debet reverentia custodiri," are re- jected as a late interpolation. Epist. ad Victricium. Labbe, ii. p. 1249. Dilectio tua institutum secuta prudentium, ad sedem apostolicam referre maluit, quid de rebus dubiis custodiri deberet, potius quam usurpatione 138 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK n. Innocent approves the zeal of the Gaulish Bishop tfor uniformity, so contrary to the lawless spirit of innovation, which prevailed in some parts of the Chris- tian world ; and sends him a book containing certain regulations of peculiar severity, especially as to the* 404. Feb. 15. celibacy of the clergy. Exuperius, Bishop of Toulouse, is commended in a still more lofty and protecting tone of condescension for his wise recourse to the See of Rome, rather than the usurpation of undue authority. To the Spanish Synod of Toledo, the Bishop of Rome speaks something in the character of an appellant judge. The province of Illyricum, including Macedonia and Greece, on the original divis- 405. Feb. ion, had been adjudged to the Western Em- pire. The Bishop of Rome exercised a certain juris- diction, granted or recognized by the Council of Sar- dica, as the Metropolitan of the West. Damasus had appointed the Bishop of Thessalonica, as a kind of legate or representative of his authority. Innocent, in his epistle to the Bishops of Macedonia, expresses a haughty astonishment that his decisions are not admitted without examination, and gravely insinuates that some wrong may be intended to the dignity of the Apostolical See. 1 More doubtful was the allegiance A.D. 414. of Africa. At the commencement of Inno- cent's pontificate, his influence with the Emperor was prsesumpta, qua sibi viderentur, de singulis obtinere. Ad Exup. Episc. Tol. Labbe, ii. p. 1254. 1 In quibus (epistolis) multa posita pervidi quse stuporem mentibus nos- tris inducerent, facerentque nos non modicum dubitare utrum aliter putare- mus an ita esse posita, quemadmodum personabuut. Qua- cum .-;vpius repeti fecissem, adverti, sedi apostolicae ad quam relatio, quasi ad caput ecclesiarum missa esse debebat, aliquam fieri injuriam, cujus adhuc in ambiguum sententia duceretur. Epist. xxii. ad Episc. Matedon. Labbe, ii. 1272. CHAP. I. CHRYSOSTOM. 139 solicited for the suppression of the obstinate Donatists. Towards the close of his life, a correspondence took place concerning Pelagius and his doctrines. The African Churches, even Augustine himself, did not disguise their apprehension, that Innocent might be betrayed into an approbation of those tenets ; they desired to strengthen their own stern and peremp- tory decrees with the concurrence of the Bishop of Rome. The language of Innocent was in A.D. 417. his wonted imperious style ; the African Churches seem to have treated his pretensions to superiority with silent disregard. In the East, Constantinople, Alexandria, and even Antioch, were driven by their own bitter Innocent ^ feuds and hostilities, to court the alliance of Chr y 80Stom - Rome ; it could hardly be without some com- * 40*. promise of independence. In espousing the cause of Chrysostom against his rival Theophilus of Alexandria, Innocent took that side which was supported by the better and wiser, as well as by the popular voice of Christendom. He was the fearless advocate of persecuted holiness, of elo- quence, of ecclesiastical dignity, against the aggressions of a violent foreign prelate, who was interfering in an independent diocese, and against the intrigues of a court notoriously governed by female influence. The slight asperities of Chrysostom's character, the monas- tic austerities which seemed to some ill suited to the magnificence of so great a prelate, the aggressions on the privileges of some churches not strictly under his jurisdiction, but which were notoriously ventured for the promotion of Christian holiness by the suppression of simony and other worse vices ; these less obvious 140 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK H. causes of Chrysostom's unpopularity hardly transpired beyond the limits of his diocese, were lost in the daz- zling splendor of his talents and his virtues, or forgot- ten among his cruel wrongs. 1 Chrysostom appeared before the more distant Christian world as the greatest orator who had ever ascended the pulpit of the church. His name, the Golden Mouth, expressed the universal admiration of his powers. After having held Antioch under the spell of his oratory for many years, he had been called to the episcopal throne of the Eastern Metropolis by general acclamation. Now, notwithstanding the fond attach- ment of the greater part of Constantinople, and the manifest interposition, as it was supposed, of heaven, which on his banishment had shaken the guilty city with an earthquake and compelled his triumphant re- call, he was again driven from his see, degraded by the precipitate decree of an illegal and partial council, and exposed to the most merciless persecution. The one crime, which could have blinded into hatred the love and admiration of the Christian world, heterodoxy of opinion, was not charged against him by his most ma- licious enemies. His only ostensible delinquency was the uncompromising rebuke of vice in high places, and disrespect to the Imperial Majesty, which, even if true to the utmost, however it might astonish the timidity, or shock the servility of the East, in the West, to which the dominion of Arcadius and Eudoxia did not extend, would be deemed only a bold and salutary assertion of episcopal dignity and Christian courage. The letter addressed by Chrysostom, according to the 1 Compare Hist, of Christianity, b. iii. c. ix CHAP. I. SEE OF AXTIOCH- 141 copies in the Greek writers, to the three great prelates of the West, the Bishops of Rome, Milan, and Aqui- leia, in the Roman copies to Innocent alone, 1 was writ- ten with ah 1 his glowing fervor and brilliant per- spicuity. After describing the scenes of outrage and confusion in the church at Easter, the violation of the sanctuary, and the insults inflicted on the sacred per- sons of priests and dedicated virgins and bishops, the Bishop of Constantinople entreats the friendly interpo- sition of the Western prelates to obtain a general and legitimate Council empowered to examine the whole affair. The answer of Innocent is calm, moderate, dignified, perhaps artful. He expresses his awful hor- ror at these impious scenes of violence, deep interest in the fate of Chrysostom ; he does not however pre- judge the question, he does not even refuse to commu- nicate with Theophilus, till after the solemn decree of a council. Yet the sympathies of Innocent, as of all the better part of Christendom, were with the eloquent, oppressed, and patient exile. The sentiments as well as the influence of the Roman prelate were erelong proclaimed to the world, by an Imperial letter in favor 1 There is great variation in different parts of the Roman copy: it is sometimes addressed to persons in the plural number, sometimes to an in- dividual in the singular. This appears to me no very important argument, though adduced by the most candid Protestant writers, e. g. Shroeck. This cry of distress would not be carefully or suspiciously worded, so as to pro- vide against any incautious admission of superiority, of which Chrysostom, under such circumstances, thought little, even if any such claims had been already made. But the strongest proof (if I must enter into the contro- versy) that Chrysostom and his followers addressed themselves to the bbhops of Italy, as well as to that of Rome, seems to me the very passage in the Epistle of the Emperor Honorius, which is adduced, even by Pagi, to prove the contrary. Missi ad sacerdotes urbis jeternse atqut Halite utra- que ex parte legati ; expectabatur ex omnium auctoritate sententia . . . Namque hi, quorum expectabatur auctoritas. 142 LATDf CHRISTIANITY. BOOK D. of Chiysostom, which no persuasion but that of Inno- cent could have obtained from the Emperor of the West. Honorius openly espoused the cause of the A.. 406. exile : and though, throughout the whole of the transaction, the East, with something of the irrita- ble consciousness of wrong and injustice, resented the interference of the West, and treated the messengers of the Italian prelates with studied neglect and con- tumely, the defenders of Chrysostom were so clearly on the side of justice, humanity, generous compassion for the oppressed, as well as of ecclesiastical order, that the Bishop of Rome, the Head at least of the Italian prelates, could not but rise in the general estimation of Christendom. The fidelity of Innocent to the cause of Chrysostom did not cease with the death of the persecuted prelate : he refused to communicate with Atticus, his successor, or the usurper, according to the conflicting parties, of the See of Constantinople, unless Atticus would acknowledge Chrysostom to have been the rightful bishop until his death. 1 Common reverence for Chrysostom, and common hostility to Atticus, brought Innocent into close alliance with 1 There is a regular act of excommunication, in some of the Latin writers (it was brought to light by Baronius) in which Innocent boldly excludes the Emperor Arcadius from the communion of the faithful. It is expressed with all the proud humility, the unctuous imperiousneas of a later period. It is given up, by all the more sensible writers of the Roman Catholic church, principally on account of a fatal blunder. It includes the Dalila, the Empress Eudoxia, under the anathema. Eudoxia had been dead several years. (See Pagi, sub ann. 407.) I am in constant perplex- ity; fearing, on one hand, to omit all notice of, on the other feeling some- thing like contempt for, these forgeries, which are always #o injurious to the cause they wish to serve. As an impartial historical inquirer. I continually rise from them with my suspicion, even of better attested documents, so much sharpened, that I have to struggle vigorously against a general tkepticism. CHAP. I. CAPTURE OF ROME BY ALARIC. 143 Alexander, Bishop of Antioch. During his corre- spondence with Alexander, Innocent is dis- A.D. 6. posed to attribute a subordinate primacy to Antioch, as the temporary See of St. Peter. Rome now chose to rest her title to supremacy on the succession from the great Apostle. Peter could hardly have passed through any see, without leaving behind him some inheritance of peculiar dignity; while Rome, as the scene of his permanent residence and martyrdom, claimed the undoubted succession to almost monarchi- cal supremacy. That which might have appeared the most fatal blow to Roman greatness, as dissolving the Siege and spell of Roman empire, the capture, the con- Rom e U by f flagration, the plunder, the depopulation of Alanc< Rome by the barbarian Goths, tended directly to establish and strengthen the spiritual supremacy of Rome. It was pagan Rome, the Babylon of sensual- ity, pride, and idolatry which fell before the triumphant Alaric ; the Goths were the instruments of divine vengeance against paganism, which lingered in this its last stronghold. Christianity hastened to disclaim all interest, all sympathy in the fate of the " harlot that sat on the seven hills." Paganism might seem rashly to accept this desperate issue, girding itself for one final effort, and proclaiming, that as Rome had brought ruin on her own head by abandoning her gods, so her gods had forever abandoned the unfaithful capital. The eternal city was manifestly approaching one of the epochs in her eternity. Three times during the first ten years of the fifth century and of the pontif- icate of Innocent, the first time under Alaric, the second under Rhadagaisus, the third again under 144 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK II. Alaric, the barbarians crossed the Alps with over- whelming forces. Twice the valor and military abil- ities of one man, Stilicho, diverted the storm from 400 to 403. the walls of Rome. In his first expedition Battle of Poiientu. Alaric, after his defeat at Pollentia, 1 endeav- ored to throw himself upon the capital. He was re- called by the skilful movements of Stilicho, to suffer a final discomfiture under the walls of Verona. The poet commemorates the victories of Stilicho, the tri- umph of Honorius in Rome for these victories. In the splendid verses on the ovation of Honorius, it is no wonder that Pope Innocent finds no place. Clau- dian maintains his invariable and total silence as to the existence of Christianity. From his royal mansion on the Palatine Honorius looks down on no more glorious sight than the temples of his ancestors, which crowd the Forum in their yet inviolable majesty ; the eye is dazzled and confounded with the blaze of their bronzed columns and their roofs of gold ; and with their statues which studded the skies : they are the household gods of the emperor. That the emperor worshipped other gods, or was ruled by other priests, appears from no one word. 2 The Jove of the Capitol might seem still the tutelar god of Rome. Claudian had wound up his poem on the Gothic war, in which he equals the 1 Gibbon, c. xxx. 1 " Tot circum delubra yidet, tantisque Deorum Cingitur excubiis. Jurat infra tecta Tonantis Cernere Tarpeii pendentes rupe Gigantas, Caelatagque fores, mediUque rolantia sign* Nubibus. et densum stipantibus tether* templla Acies stupet igne metalll. Et circomfuso trepidans obtunditur anro. Agnoscisne tuos, Princeps renerande, Penates ? " de VI. Cons. Hon. 43, 63. Compare on Claudian note in Hist, of Christianitj. CHAP. 1. RHADAGAISUS STILICHO. 145 victory of Pollentia with that of Harms over the Cimbrians ; he ends with that solemn admonition, " Let the frantic barbarians learn hence respect for Rome." But three years after, the terrible Rhadagaisus, at the head of an enormous force of mingled barbarians, swept over the whole North of Italy, and encamped before the walls of Florence. Rhadagaisus was a pagan ; he sacrificed daily to some deity, whom the Latin writers call by the name of Jove. The party at Rome, attached to their ancient worship, are accused of having contemplated with more than secret joy the approach of, it might seem, the irresistible barbarian. They did this, notwithstanding his terrible threats that he would sacrifice the senate of Rome on the altars of the gods which delight in human blood. The common enmity to Christianity, according to St. Augustine, quenched the love of their country, their proud attachment to Rome. But God himself, by the unexpected discomfiture of Rhadagaisus, A.D. 405. crushed their guilty hopes, and rescued Rome from the public restoration of paganism. The consummate generalship of Stilicho, 1 by which he gradually enclosed the vast forces of Rhadagaisus among the mountains in the neighborhood of Florence, himself on the ridge of Fassulse, till they died off by famine and disease, was utterly incomprehensible to his age. Christianity took to itself the whole glory of Stilicho, the relief of Florence, the dispersion and reduction to captivity of the barbaric forces, and the death of Rhadagaisus, who was ordered to summary execution. A vision of St. Ambrose had predicted i Gibbon, loc. cit., will furnish the authorities. VOL. i. 10 146 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK H. the relief of Florence, and nothing less than the imme- diate succor of God, or of his Apostles, could account for the unexpected victory : and this strong religious feeling no doubt mingled with the common infatuation which seized all parties. Rome, it was thought, with a feeble emperor at a distance, with few troops, and those mostly barbarians, was safe in the majesty of her name and the prescriptive awe of mankind. Christ, or her tutelar Apostles, who had revealed the discom- fiture of Rhadagaisus, had protected, and would to the end protect, Christian Rome against all pagan invaders, baffle the treasonable sympathy, and disperse the sacri- legious prayers, of those who, true to the ancient re- ligion, were false to the real greatness of Rome. So often as heathen forces should menace the temples, not of the Capitoline Jove, or those yet un cleansed from the pollutions of their idolatries, but those, if less splendid, more holy fanes protected by the relics of Apostles and Martyrs, Rome would witness, as she had already witnessed, the triumph of her Christian emperor, the consecration of the spoils of the defeated barbarians on the altars of St. Paul, St. Peter, and of Christ. 1 The sacrifice of Stilicho 2 to the dark intrigues of Diograce the court of Ravenna was the last fatal sign and death n ,>, of stiiicho. of this pride and security. Both Christian and pagan writers combine to load the memory of Stilicho with charges manifestly intended to exculpate the court of Honorius from the guilt and folly of his 1 Paulinos in vit Ambrosii, c. 50. Augustin. de Civ. Dei, v. 23. Orosius, vii. 37. 2 Stilicho was married to Serena, the sister of Honorius. Honorius had married in succession Maria and Thermantia, the daughters of Stilicho. CHAP. I. DEATH OF STILICHO. 147 disgrace, and his surrender by a Christian bishop after he had sought, himself a Christian, sanctuary at the altar of the church of Ravenna, and his perfidious execution. The Christians accuse him of a design to depose the emperor, who was both his brother-in-law and his son-in-law, and to elevate his own heir Euche- rius to the Imperial throne. Eucherius, it is asserted, but with no proof, and with all probability against it, was a pagan ; the public restoration of paganism, as the religion of the Empire, was to be the first act of the new dynasty. 1 The ungrateful pagans seem to have been ignorant of this magnificent scheme in their favor ; they too brand Stilicho with the name of traitor, and ascribe to his perfidious dealings with Alaric the final ruin of Rome. 2 They hated him as the enemy, the despoiler of their religion ; as having robbed the temples of their treasures, burned the Sibylline books, stripped from the doors of the Capitol the plates of gold. Stilicho knew the weakness as well as the strength of Rome ; that may have been but wise and necessary policy, in order, by timely concession and tribute under the honorable name of boon or largess, to keep the formidable barbarian beyond the frontiers of Italy, which may have seemed treasonable degrada- tion to the haughty court, blind to its own impotence. 1 Orosius, vii. 38. 2 So Rutilius Numatianus, who hated Christianity " Quo magis est facinus diri Stilichonis iniquum, Proditor arcani qui fuit imperil. Romano generi dum nititur ease superstes, Crudelis summis miscuit ima furor. Dumque timet, quicquid se fecerat ante timer!, Immisit Latiae barbara tela neci." Rutil. Itin. ii. 41. Compare Gibbon, c. xxx. 148 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK IL The death of Stilicho was the signal for the reap- Aiarfc's pearance of Alaric again in arms in the inTMion. centre of Italy. His pretext for this second invasion was the violation of the treaties entered into by Stilicho. At all events, the unanswerable t> >ti- mony to the abilities of Stilicho, if not to his fidelity, is that which seemed to be the immediate, inevitable consequence of his disgrace and execution. No sooner was Stilicho dead, than Rome lay open to the barba- rian conqueror. Unopposed, almost without a skir- mish, laughing to scorn the slow and inefficient prepa- rations of the emperor and of Olympius who ruled the emperor, and who had misguided him to the ruin of Stilicho, Alaric advanced from the Alps to the walls of Rome. The first act of defence adopted by the senate of Rome was the judicial murder of Serena, the widow of Stilicho. She was accused of a design to be- tray the city to the Goth. Both parties* seem to have consented to this deed. The heathens remembered that when Theodosius the Great had struck the deadly blow against the rites and the temples of paganism, by prohibiting all public expenditure on heathen ceremo- A.D. 408. nies, Serena had stripped a costly necklace from the statue of Rhea, the most ancient and venera- ble of Rome's goddesses, and herself ostentatiously wore the precious spoil ; that neck was now given up to strangulation, a righteous and appropriate punish- ment for her impiety. The historian seems to inti- mate l that the Romans were surprised that the death of Serena produced no effect on the remorseless Goth. Btegeof Rome ^ e s i e g e f Rome was formed ; the vast k.D.408. population, accustomed to live, the wealthy 1 Zosimus Sozomen, ix. 6. CHAP. I. ETRUSCAN DIVINERS. 149 in luxury perhaps to no great extent moderated by Christianity, the poor by gratuitous distributions at the expense of the public or of the rich, to which Christian charity had now come in aid, 1 were suddenly reduced to the worst extremities of famine. The public distributions were diminished to one half, to one third. The heaps of dead bodies, which there wanted space to bury, produced a pestilence. In vain the Senate endeavored to negotiate an honorable capitula- tion. Alaric scorned alike their money, their despair, their pride. When they spoke of their immense pop- ulation, he burst out into laughter, " The thicker the hay, the easier it is mown." On his demand of an exorbitant ransom, the Senate humbly inquired, " "What, then, do you leave us ? " " Your lives ! " replied the insulting Goth. During this first siege Innocent was in Rome. The strange stoiy of the desperate proposition to deliver the city by the magical arts of certain Etrus- Etruscan can diviners, who had power, it was sup- divmers - posed, to call down and direct the lightnings of heaven, appears, in different forms, hi the pagan and Christian historians. 2 Innocent himself is said, by the heathen Zosimus, to have assented to the idolatrous ceremony. If this be true, it is possible that the mind of the Christian Prelate may have been so entirely unhinged by the terrors of the siege and the dreadful sufferings of the people, that he may have yielded to any hope, however wild, of averting the ruin. It is possible, 1 Laeta, the wife of Gratian, and her mother, were distinguished by their abundant charities, which at least mitigated the sufferings of multitudes. 2 Compare Hist of Christianity, iii. 181. Zosimus, v. 41. Sozomen, ht. 6. 150 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK H though less probable, that he may have known or sup- posed the Etruscans to be possessed of some skilful, and in no way supernatural, means of producing ap- parent wonders, 1 which might awe the ignorant barba- rians, and of which the use might be justified by the dreadful crisis ; and if these arts were thought super- natural, it was not for him to expose, at least for the present, the useful delusion. At all events, to judge the conduct of Innocent, we must throw ourselves completely back into the terror and affliction, the con- fusion and prostration of that disastrous tune. The whole history is obscure and contradictory. The Christian writer asserts that the ceremony did take place, but that the Christians (he does not name Inno- cent) stood aloof from the profane and ineffectual rite. The heathen aver, that the Senate, after grave deliber- ation, refused to sanction its public performance, and that, in fact, it did not take place. The barbarian, at Capitulation, length, condescended to accept a ransom, in some proportion to the wealth of the city 5000 pounds of gold, 30,000 of silver, four thousand silken robes, 3000 pieces of scarlet cloth, 3000 pounds of pepper. To make up the deficiency of the precious metals, the heathen temples,' to the horror of that party, were despoiled ; the time-honored statues of gods were melted to make up the amount demanded by the barbarian. The last fatal sign and omen of the departure of Roman greatness was, that the statue of Fortitude, or Virtue, was thrown into the common mass. 2 1 See Eusebe Salverte, on the knowledge possessed by the ancients in conducting lightning. Sciences Occultes. 2 'A&M ndi ixuvevoav nva ruv tic xpvaov not apyiipov ireTroujfievuv, uv CHAP. I. CAPITULATION OF ROME. 151 Alaric retired from Rome, his army increased by multitudes of slaves from the city and the neighbor- hood, who, it is said, to the number of 40,000, had found refuge in his camp. The infatuated pride, the insincerity, the treachery of the court of Ravenna, rendered impracticable all negotiations for peace. The minister Olympius, the chief agent in the assassination of Stilicho, has found favor, of which he seems to have been utterly unworthy, from Christian writers, on account of some letters addressed to him by St. Augus- tine. Even his fall produced no great change. Hono- rius, indeed, seems to have occupied his time at this crisis in framing edicts against Jews and heretics, and other decrees, as if for a peaceful and extensive empire. Under Olympius, he had promulgated the Imperial rescript, which deprived the heathen temples of their last revenue ; it was confiscated for the use of the de- vout soldiers. The statues of the gods were ordered to be thrown down ; the temples in the cities were seized for public uses, others were to be destroyed ; the banquets (epulae) prohibited. 1 But he was compelled to repeal a law which deprived him of the services of all heathens. Generides, a valiant and able pagan, was permitted to resume the military belt, and to take the command of part of the Imperial forces. A sec- ond time Alaric appeared before Rome. He seized upon the port of Ostia, and this cut off at once almost fjv Kal rb rrje avSpiaf, rjv Kakovai 'Pu/icuoi ObiprovTefi' ovnep duup&apEVTOf, baa rjjf dvdpiaf ^v KCU operas napa 'Puftaioif aneafiri. . . . Zosimus, v. 41. 1 This law is dated the 17th of the calends of December, 408. Templo- rum detrahantur annonse et rem annonariam jubent, expensis devotissimo- rum militum profutura, &c. Compare Beugnot, ii. p. 49, et seqq. Cod Theodos. xvi. 10, 19. 152 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK II. all the supplies of the city. 1 Rome opened her gates, Attains and Alaric set up a pageant emperor, Attains, A.D. 409.' as a rival to the emperor in Ravenna. The Christians beheld the elevation of Attalus, a pagan, who submitted to Arian baptism, but openly attempted to restore the party of paganism, with undisguised aversion. Lampadius, the Senator, at the head of this party, was Praetorian Prefect, Tertullus Consul. Tertullus boldly declared that to the Consulate he should add the High Priesthood. 2 The Pagan histo- rian describes the universal joy of Rome at the eleva- tion of such just and noble magistrates. The Chris- tians 3 looked eagerly to the court of Ravenna. Alaric was encamped between the Christian and pagan cities, between Ravenna and Rome. The feeble government of Attalus had to encounter an enemy even more for- midable than the Christians. The Count Heraclian closed the ports of Africa : a famine even more ter- rible than during the former siege, and even that had reduced men to the most loathsome and abominable food, afflicted the enfeebled and diminished population. A strange and revolting anecdote illustrates at once Roman manners and this dire calamity. The Romans, though they had no bread, had still their Circensian games. In the midst of the excitement, the ears of the Emperor were assailed with a wild cry Fix the tariff for human flesh. 4 All these calamities the Chris- tians ascribed to the restoration of heathen rites. 1 As usual, the dealers in grain were accused of hoarding their stores, in wder to possess themselves of all the remaining wealth of the city. 2 Sozom. he. 9. 8 Oros. vii. 42. 4 Zosimus inserts the words in Latin Pone pretium carni humanse. The price of bread, as of all other articles, was fixed by the government Zosimus, vi. 11. CHAP. I. THIRD SIEGE AND CAPTURE OF ROME. 153 Attalus, at the word of his Gothic master, descended from his throne, and sank back to his former Third siege insignificance. But Rome, when Alaric ap- of Rome - peared a third time under its walls, prepared to close her gates, and to act on the defensive (the Emperor Honorius had received the scanty succor of six cohorts from the East, and Rome was in frantic hope of rescue from Ravenna). Weakness or treachery baffled this desperate, if courageous, determination. At the dead of night, the Salarian gate was opened ; the morning beheld Rome in the possession of the conqueror ; but the conqueror, though a barbarian and a heretic, was a Christian. Over the fall of Rome, history might seem, in horror, to have dropped a veil. 1 However the first appalling intelligence of this event shook the Roman world to the centre, and capture of the fearful scene of pillage, violation, and de- f.nTIio. struction by fire and sword, was imagined to Aug ' 24 ' surpass in its horrors everything recorded in profane or sacred history, yet the shock passed away ; and Rome quietly assumed her second, her Christian empire. When the first stunning tidings of the fall of the Im- perial City reached Jerome in his retirement in Pales- tine, even some time after, when he had held inter- course with fugitives from Rome, the capture represents itself to his vivid fancy as one dark and terrific mass of havoc and ruin. It was accompanied by no mitigat- ing or relieving circumstances ; by none of those strik- 'ng incidents of Christian piety and mercy, which, in 1 Rome may be said to have fallen without an historian. Her ruin was indeed described by the Greek Zosimus, but his sixth book is lost. Orosius cannot be dignified by the name his work is but a summary of Augus- tine's City of God. 154 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK II. the pages of Augustine and Orosius, are thrown across the general gloom. The sudden horror, as well as con- sternation, joined with the gloomy temperament of Je- rome to deepen the darkness of the scene. 1 He asserts that the famine had already so thinned the population, that few remained in the city to be taken. He heaps together the awful passages in the Old Testament, on the capture of Jerusalem and other eastern cities, and the noble lines of Virgil on the sack of Troy, as but feebly descriptive of the night in which fell the Moab of the West. Nor can it be supposed that, whatever the disposition or even the orders of Alaric, the capture of a city so wealthy, so luxurious, so populous, by a vast and ill-disciplined host of barbarians, at least at their first irruption, could be more than a mid tumult of fury, license, plunder, bloodshed, and conflagration. Multitudes of that host, no doubt, still held their old warlike Teutonic faith. In those who were called Christians the ferocity of the triumphant soldier was hardly mitigated by the softening influences of the Gos- pel. The forty thousand slaves said to have joined the army of Alaric, brought their revenge and their local and personal knowledge of the richest palaces, and of the most opulent families, which would furnish the most attractive victims to lust or to pillage. But the calam- ities that involved in ruin almost the whole pagan pop- ulation and the palaces of the ancient families, which 1 Terribilis de Occidente rumor affertur .... Hteret vox et singultus intercipiunt verba dictantis. Capitur urbs, quae totum cepit orbem, imo fame perit, antequam gladio, et vix pauci, qui cnperentur, inventi sunt. Epist. xciv. Marcell&e Epitaph. Yet, in the same letter, he writes to Mar- cella Sit mihi fas audita loqui; imo a sanctis viris visa narrare, qui inter- fuere prcesentes. Ibid. Nocte Moab capta est, nocte cecidit murus ejus. Hieronym. i. 121, ad Principiam. CHAP. I. INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 155 still adhered to their ancestral gods, are lost in oblivion ; while Christianity has boastfully, or gratefully, pre- served those exceptional incidents, in which through her influence, and in her behalf, the common disaster was rebuked, checked, mitigated. The last feeble murmurs of paganism arraigned Christianity as the Extinction cause of the desertion of the city by her an- of v*& m - cient and mighty gods, and, therefore, of her inevitable fate. Christianity was now so completely the mistress of the human mind, as to assert that it was, indeed, the power of her God her justly provoked and right- eously avenging God which had brought to its final close the Gentile sovereignty of Rome. Nothing pagan had escaped, but that which found shelter under Chris- tianity. For Alaric, though an Arian, was a Christian. His conduct was strongly contrasted with what might have been feared from the heathen Rhadagaisus, if God had abandoned Rome to his fury. The Goth had been throughout under the awful control of Christianity. 1 He is said to have issued a proclamation, Influence O f which, while it abandoned the guilty and lux- Christianit y- urious city to plunder, commanded regard for human life ; and especially the most religious respect for the Churches of the Apostles. In obedience to these com- 1 The great Christian argument is summed up in this noble passage of Augustine : Quicquid igitur vastationis, trucidationis, depredationis, concremationis, affliction!* in ista recentissima Romana clade commissum est: facit hoc consuetudo bellorum. Quod autem more novo factum est, quod musitata rerum facie immanitas barbara tarn mitis apparuit, ut amplisshnae basilica implendae populo, cui parceretur, eligerentur et decernerentur, ubi nemo feriretur, unde nemo raperetur, quo liberandi multi a miserantibus hostibus iucerentur, unde captivandi nulli, nee a crudelibus hostibus abducerentur: hoc Christi nomini, hoc Christiano tempori tribuendum, quisquis non videt, csecus ; quisquis videt, nee laudat, ingratus ; quisquis laudanti reluctatur, insanus est. Augustin. Tract, de excid. Urbis. 156 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK H. mands, and under the especial control of the Almighty, among the smoking ruins, the plundered houses and temples, the families desolated by the sword, or by out- rages worse than death, the Christian edifices alone commanded at least some reverence and security. Everywhere else was promiscuous massacre, peace and safety alone in the churches. The heathens them- selves fled to these, the only places of refuge ; they took shelter, in their terror and despair, under the al- tars which they despised or hated. The more solid and majestic structures of paganism would, no doubt, defy the injuries which might be wrought by barbari- ans, more intent on plunder than destruction, but their most hallowed sanctuaries were violated. Before the Christian Churches alone rapacity, and lust, and cru- elty were arrested, and stood abashed. When the con- flagration raged, as it did in some parts of the city, amid private houses, palaces, or temples, some of the sacred edifices of the Christians might be enveloped in the flames. But the more important churches those of St. Peter and St. Paul were respected by the spreading fires, as well as by the infuriated soldiery. 1 There the obedient sword of the conqueror paused in its work of death, and even his cupidity was overawed. 2 Of all the temple treasuries, the public or private hoards of precious metals, which the owners were com- pelled to betray by the most excruciating tortures, the jewels, the plate, the spoils of centuries of conquest, the accumulated plunder of provinces, only the sacred 1 Augustiii. de Civ. Dei, ii. 1. a. 7. Yet this was unknown to Jerome. He says, In cineres ac tavillas sacra quondam ecclesia coneiderunt. Epist. xciii. 3 Perhaps the remote and even extramural situation of these churchea night tend to their security. CHAP. I. PROTECTION OF FEMALES. 157 vessels and ornaments of Christian worship remained inviolate. It was said that sacred vessels found with- out the precincts of the Church were borne with rev- erential decency into the sanctuary. Of this Orosius relates a remarkable and particular history. A fierce soldier entered in quest of plunder into the dwelling of an aged Christian virgin. He demanded, in courteous terms, the surrender of her treasures. She exposed to his view many vessels of gold, of great size, weight, and beauty ; vessels of which the soldier knew neither the use nor the name. " These," she said, " are the property of the Apostle St. Peter. Take them, if you dare, and answer for your act to God. A defenceless woman, I cannot protect them from your violence ; my soul, therefore, is free from sin." The soldier stood awe-struck. A message was sent to Alaric, and orders were instantly despatched that the virgin and her holy treasures should be safely conducted to the Church of the Apostle. The procession (for the virgin's dwelling was far distant from the Church) was led through the long and wondering streets. The people broke out into hymns of adoration, and amid the tumult of dis- order and ruin, the tranquil pomp pursued its course ; the name of Christ rose swelling above the wild disso- nance of the captured city. Even more lawless pas- sions yielded to the holy control. In the p^^y^ ^ loathsome scenes of violation, the chastity of female8 - Christian virgins alone at least, in some instances found respect from the lustful barbarian. 1 There is IDemetrias escaped, according to St. Jerome. Dudum inter barbaras tremuisti manus; aviae et matris sinu et palliis tegebaris. Vidisti te capti- vam, et pudicitiam tuam non tuae potestatis : horruisti truces hostium vul- tus: raptas virgines Dei gemitu tacite conspexisti. Hieronym. Epist. 8 Compare Augustin. de Civ. Dei, i. 16. 158 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK H an instance of a beautiful virgin who thus preserved her honor. Indignant at her resistance, the young soldier into whose power she had fallen, drew his sword and slightly wounded her. Though bleeding, she calmly held out her neck to the stroke of death. The soldier, though an Arian, observes the Catholic writer, could not but admire her fidelity to Christ her spouse. He led her to the Church, and, with a gift of six pounds of gold, surrendered her to those who were on guard over the sanctuary. 1 Marcella, the Mend of Jerome, did not escape so easily the only dangers to which, on account of her age, she was exposed. As he had heard from eye-witnesses of the scene, it was not till she had been beaten and scourged, 2 to compel her to reveal her secret treasures, treasures long before expended in charity, that her admirable courage and patience enforced the respect of the spoiler, and in- duced him to lead her to the asylum of the Church of St. Paul. 3 1 Sozomen, H. E. ix. 10. 8 Csesam t'ustibus flagellisque, aiunt te non sensisse tonnenta. Hieronym. Epist. loc. cit. 8 The most extraordinary passage relating to the sack of Rome is in St. Jerome's next letter. All the horrors on which he has dwelt, the capture of Rome, the massacre, rape, pillage, and conflagration, are not merely mitigated, but amply compensated to Rome and to the world by the profes- sion of virginity made by Demetrias. It was as great a triumph as the discomfiture of the Gothic army would have been. We ran neither under- stand Jerome nor his age without considering tin-.- strange sentences. Her vows of chastity were against the wishes of her whole family; the greater, therefore, their merit. Hence " invenisse earn quod pra^taret gen- eri, quod Romance vrbu cineres mitigarel." After de-c-ribin^ the rejoicing of Africa, he proceeds: Tune lugubres vestes Italia mutavit, et semiruta ttrbit Ronee mcutia, prislinum in parte rtceperefulyortm, projntium tibi ex- istimnntes Dt urn, tic alumna conterwme perftcta. I'utaiv- extinctam Go- thornm manum, et colluviem perfugarum et servorum. Domini desuper intonantis tulmine cecidisse. Non sic post Trebiam, Thra.-ymenum, et Cannae, in quibus locis Romanorum exercituum ca?sa sunt millia, Marcelli CHAP. I. INNOCENT ABSENT FROM ROME. 159 Innocent was happily absent from Rome during the last siege and sack of the citv. After the innocent i /> A i / i / i n absent from second retreat of Alaric from before the walls, Rome, he had accompanied a deputation to Ravenna, to seek, and seek in vain, from the powerless Emperor, some protection for the capital. He did not return, and the fate of the citv was left to the resolutions of A.D. 409. the Senate. He thus escaped the horrors of that fatal night, and the three days' pillage of the city. If his presence did not contribute to the comparative security of the Christians, neither did his holy person endure the peril of exposure to insult, or the blind and undis- criminating fury of a heathen soldiery. Innocent re- turned to a city, if in some parts ruined and desolate, now entirely Christian ; the ancient religion was buried under the ruins. Many of the noblest families of Rome were reduced to slavery by the Goths ; some had antici- pated the capture of the city by a shameful flight : many more abandoned forever their doomed and hope- less country. Alaric and his host, satiated with three days' plunder, at the end of six days broke up from Rome to ravage the rich and defenceless cities of south- ern Italy. The estates, which had so long maintained the enormous luxury of the Roman patricians, were primum apnd Nolam praelio, se populus Romanus erexit, &c. &c. Jerome has some notion that he is surpassing Tully and Demosthenes, whose elo- quence would be unequal to this wonderful event. Compare with this let- ter the Epistle addressed to the same Demetrias, there is little doubt, by no less a person than the heresiarch Pelagius. Pelagius, in the spirit of his age, is an admirer of virginity. But throughout the Epistle there is a sin- gular calni7ies. a.* well as elegance of style, which forcibly contrasts with the passionate hyperboles of Jerome. Pelagins, too, alludes to the sack of Rome, and urges it as an image of the last day. Eadem omnibus imago mortis, nisi quia magis earn timebant illi, quibus fuerat vita jucundior. Si ita mortales timemus hostes, et humanam manum, cum clangore terribili tuba intonare de caelo cseperit, &c. In Oper. Hieronym. v. p. 29. 160 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK II. ravaged or confiscated : whole families swept away into bondage. Without the city, as within, almost all that remained of eminent and famous names, the ancestral houses, which kept up the tradition of the glory of the republic, or the wealth of the Empire, sank into ob- scurity or total oblivion. The fugitives from Rome were found in all parts of the world, 1 and among these no doubt were almost all the more distinguished hea- thens, 2 who, no longer combining into a powerful party, no longer held together by the presence of the old ancestral temples, or by the household gods of their race and family, reduced to poor and insignificant out- Dispersion of casts from descendants and representatives of the noblest houses in Rome, gradually melted into the general Christian population* of the empire. Those, whom Jerome beheld at Bethlehem, were doubt- less Christians ; but the whole coasts, not only of Italy and its islands, of Africa, Egypt, and the East, swarmed with these unfortunate exiles. 3 Cartilage was full of those who, to the great indignation of Augustine, not- withstanding this visible sign of Almighty wrath, crowded the theatres, and raised turbulent factions con- cerning rival actors ; they carried with them no doubt, and readily promulgated that hostile sentiment towards Christianity, which attributed all the calamities of the 1 Nulla est regio, quse non exules Romanes habeat. Hieronym. Epist xcviii. 2 Compare Prefat. ad Ezekiel. 8 Honorius, in the mean time, was still issuing sanguinary edicts against heretics. Oraculo penitus remote, quo ad ritus suo turret k-.-v superstitionis obrepserant, sciant omnes sanctae legis inimici, plectendos se po?n& et pro- scriptionis et sanguinis, si ultra convenire per publicum excrruiKhi sceleris BUI temeritate tentaverint. To this law, addressed to Heraclian, count of Africa, (Ccd. Theodos. c. 51, de Hseret.) Baronius ascribes the speedy de- liverance of the city from Alaric, so highlv was it approved by God! Sub Ann. 410. CHAP. I. RESTORATION OF ROME. 161 times, consummated in the sack of Rome, to the new religion. It was this last desperate remonstrance of paganism which called forth Augustine's City of God, and the brief and more lively perhaps, but meagre and superficial work of Orosius. Babylon has fallen, and fallen forever ; the City of God, at least the centre and stronghold of the City of God, is in Christian Rome. Nor did Innocent return to rule over a desert. The wonder, which is expressed at the rapid res- Restoration toration of Rome, shows that the general con- of sternation and awe, at the tidings of the capture, had greatly exaggerated the amount both of damage and of depopulation. Some of the palaces of the nobles, who had fled from the city, or perished in the siege, may have remained in ruins ; above all the temples, now without funds to repair them from their confiscated estates, from the alienated government, or from the munificence of wealthy worshippers, would be left ex- posed to every casual injury, and fall into irremediable dilapidation, unless seized and appropriated to its own uses by the triumphant faith. Now probably began the slow conversion of the heathen fanes into Christian churches. 1 It took many more sieges, many more irruptions of barbaric conquerors, to destroy the works of centuries in the capital of the world's wealth and power. If deserted temples were left to decay, churches rose ; palaces found new lords ; the humbler buildings, which are for the most part the prey of ruin and conflagration, are speedily repaired ; it is hardly i In Rome this was rare, till the late conversion of the Pantheon into a Christian church. Few churches stand even on the sites of ancient temples. The Basilica seems to have been preferred for Christian worship. VOL. I. 11 162 LATFNT CHRISTIANITY. BOOK II. less labor to demolish than to build solid, massy and substantial habitations ; and fire, which probably did not rage to any great extent, was the only destructive agent which, during Alaric's occupation, endangered the grandeur or majesty of the city. If Christian Rome rose thus out of the ruin of the Greatness pagan city, the Bishop of Rome rose in pro- of BUhop. portionate grandeur above the wreck of the old institutions and scattered society. Saved, as doubtless it seemed, by the especial protection of God from all participation, even from the sight of this tremendous, this ignominious disaster, according to the phrase of the times, as Lot out of the fires of Sodom, 1 he alone could lift up his head, if with A.D. i. sorrow without shame. Honorius hid him- self in Ravenna, nor did the Emperor ever again, for any long time, make his residence at Rome. With the religion expired all the venerable titles of the religion, the Great High Priests and Flamens, the Auspices and Augurs. On the Pontifical throne sat the Bishop of Rome, awaiting the time when he should ascend also the Imperial throne ; or, at least, if without the name, possess the substance of the Imperial power, and stand almost as much above the shadowy form of the old republican dignities, which still retained their titles and some municipal authority, as the Caesars themselves. The capture of Rome by Alaric was one of the great steps by which the Pope arose to his plenitude of power. There could be no question that from this time the greatest man in Rome was the Pope ; he alone was invested with permanent and real power ; he alone 1 Orosius. CHAP. I. GREATNESS OF BISHOP. 163 possessed all the attributes of supremacy, the rever- ence, it was his own fault, if not the love of the people. He had a sacred indefeasible title ; authority unlimited, because undefined ; wealth, which none dare to usurp, which multitudes lavishly contributed to increase by free-will offerings ; he is, in one sense, a Caesar, whose apotheosis has taken place in his life- time, environed by his Praetorian guards, his eccle- siastics, on whose fidelity and obedience he may, when once seated on the throne, implicitly rely ; whose edicts are gradually received as law; and who has his spiritual Praetors and Proconsuls in almost every part of Western Christendom. 164 LATIN CHEISTIANITY. BOOK IL CHAPTER II. PELAGIANISM. THE Pelagian question agitated the West during the peiaKim l ater years of Innocent's pontificate. This controversy. j^ ^ e&n ^ g reat interminable controversy of Latin, of more than Latin, of all Western Chris- tianity. The nature of the Godhead and of the Christ was the problem of the speculative East : that of man, his state after the fall, the freedom or bondage of his will, the motive principle of his actions, that of the more active West. The East might seem to dismiss this whole dispute with almost contemptuous indifference. Though Pelagius himself, and his follower Celestius, visited Palestine and ob- tained the suffrages of a provincial council in their favor; though from his cell near Bethlehem, Jerome mingled in the fray with all his native violence, there the controversy died rapidly away, leaving hard- ly a record in Grecian theology, none whatever in Greek ecclesiastical history. 1 So completely, however, throughout the Roman peiagiuB. world is Christianity now an important part of human affairs, as to become a means of intercourse and communication between the remotest provinces. 1 Walch has observed, that none of the Greek historians, neither Socra- tes, Sozomen nor Theodoret notice the Pelagian controversy. Ketzer- Geschichte, iv. p. 531. CHAP. II. PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. 165 On the one hand new, and, as they are esteemed, heretical opinions are propagated, usually by their authors or by their partisans, from the most distant quarters, and so spread throughout Christendom ; on the other hand, the Christian world is leagued together in every part to suppress these proscribed opinions. A Briton, Pelagius, by some accounts two Britons, Pelagius and Celestius, leave their home at the ex- tremity of the known earth, perhaps the borders of Wales, the uttermost part of Britain, to disturb the whole Christian world. Pelagius is said to have been a monk, and though no doubt bound by vows of celi- bacy, yet was under the discipline of no community. He arrives in Rome, from Rome he passes to Africa, from Africa to Palestine. Everywhere he preaches his doctrines, obtains proselytes, or is opposed by in- flexible adversaries. The fervid religion of the Afri- can Churches repudiated with one voice the colder and more philosophic reasonings of Pelagius : l they submitted to the ascendency of Augustine, and threw themselves into his views with all their unextinguish- able ardor. But in the East the glowing writings of Augustine were not understood, probably not known ; 2 Pelagiua in his predestinarian notions never seem to have the East - been congenial to the Christianity of the Greeks. In Palestine, however, Pelagius was encountered by two implacable adversaries, Heros and Lazarus, bishops of 1 My history of the earlier period of Christianity entered into the general character of Pelagianism, especially as connected with the char- acter and writings of Augustine. I consider it at present chiefly in its relation to Latin Christianity. Hist, of Christianity, iii. pp. 264, 270. 2 Except hy Jerome, who, however, received his writings irregularly and with murh delay. The ordinary correspondence between the provinces 166 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK H. Gaul. 1 It is probable indeed, that the persecution was to be traced to the cell of Jerome, 2 with whose ve- hement and superstitious temperament his doctrines clashed as violently as with those of Augustine, councilor Pelagius was arraigned before a synod of Diwpoiis. fourteen prelates, at Diospolis (the ancient Lydda), and, to the astonishment and discomfiture of his adversaries, solemnly acquitted of all hereti- cal tenets. It is asserted that the fathers of Dios- polis were imposed upon by the subtle and plausible dialectics of Pelagius. Considering, indeed, that his accusers, the Gallic bishops (neither of whom per- sonally appeared), and his third adversary, Orosius, the friend and disciple of Augustine, only spoke Latin, that the Palestinian bishops only understood Greek seems now to have been slow and precarious. Nothing, writes Augus- tine to Jerome, grieves me so much as your distance from me "nt vix possim meas dare, vel recipere tuas litteras, per intervalla non dierum non mensium, sed aliquot annorum. August. Epist. xxviii. Were any of his works translated into Greek? 1 Orosius too was in Palestine, it should seem, in search of relics. He had the good fortune to carry off the body of the protomartyr St. Stephen. Compare Baronius, sub ann. 2 The letter to Demetrias, in the works of St. Jerome, seems admitted to be a genuine writing of Pelagius. That both Pelagius and his antagonist Jerome should have addressed an epistle to the same Demetrias suggests the suspicion of some strong personal rivalry. They were striving, as it were, for the command of this distinguished and still probably wealthy female. The whole tenor of the letter of Pelagius confirms the position, that the opinions of Pelagius had no connection with monastic enthusiasm, and did not arise out of that pride "of good works" which may belong to the consciousness of extraordinary austerities. (Compare Neander, Christliche Kirche.) Pelagius arrives at his conclusions by a calm, it might seem cold, philosophy. Excepting as to the praise of virginity, the greater part of the letter might have been written by an ancient Academic, or by a modern metaphysical inquirer. Jerome traces the origin of Pelagianism to the Greek, particularly the Stoic philosophy. He quotes Tertullian's saying, Philosophi, patriarch* haretioorum. Hieronym Epist ad Ctesi- phont. CHAP. H. PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. 167 (perhaps imperfectly any language but their own ver- nacular Syrian), and that Pelagius had the command of both languages ; that these questions, which de- manded the most exquisite nicety of expression and the strictest accuracy of definition, must have been carried on by the clumsy means of interpreters, the council of Diospolis, to the dispassionate inquirer, can- not cariy much weight. The usual consequences of religious controversies in those days, and in those regions, were not slow to appear. Jerome was at- tacked in his retirement, his disciples maltreated by their triumphant adversaries. Pelagius himself seems entirely exempted from any concurrence in these law- less proceedings ; but his fanatic followers (and even his calm tenets in the East could for once kindle fanaticism) are accused of perpetrating every crime, pillage, murder, conflagration, on the peaceful disci- ples of Jerome, especially on some of the noble Roman ladies who shared his solitude. 1 While ignorance, or indifference, or chance, or per- sonal hostility to the asserters of anti-Pelagian opinions 1 Innocent Epist. ad Aurel. et ad Johannem, Episcop. Hierosolym. These revengeful violences against Jerome appear to me better evidence that he was at least supposed to be the head of the faction opposed to Pelagius, than the reasons alleged by P. Daniel, Hist, du Concile de Pales- tine, and Walch, p. 398. The strong expressions as to these acts are from Innocent's letter. Direptiones, csedes, incendia, omne facinus extremaB dementias, generosissimae sanctae virgines deploraverunt in locis ecclesise tuae perpetrasse diabolum, nomen enim hominis causamque reticuerunt. Apud Labbe, Concil., ii. p. 1315. If the odious Pelagius had been the man, they would hardly have suppressed his name. And it must be acknowl- edged that Jerome suffered only the natural results of his own principles. In his third dialogue against the Pelagians he introduces their advocate as scarcely daring to speak out, lest he should be stoned : Statiin in me populo- rum lapides conjicias, et quern viribus non potes, voluntate interficias. To this the Catholic rejoins, Ille haereticum interficit, qui haereticum esse patitur. Hieronym. Oper., iv. 2. p. 544. 168 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK H. decided the question in the East, the West demanded a more solemn and authoritative adjudication on this absorbing controversy. By the decrees of the Council of Diospolis, Africa and the East were at direct issue ; and where should the Africans seek the arbiter, or the powerftil defender of their opinions, but at Rome ? Constantinople, and Alexandria, and Antioch, took no interest in these questions, or were occupied, especially the two former, by their own religious and political quarrels. The African Church, when such a cause was on tLe issue, stood not on her independence. As a Western monk, Pelagius was amenable, in some degree, to the patriarchal authority of the Bishop of Rome. Both parties seemed at least to acquiesce in the appeal to Innocent : the event could not be doubt- ful in such an age and before the representative of Latin Christianity. All great divergences of religion, where men are OH nof really religious (and this seems acknowl- controYerey. e dg e( l as to Pelagius himself, and still more as to some of his semi-Pelagian followers, Julianus of Eclana and the Monastic Cassian), arise from the undue dominance of some principle or element in our religious nature. This controversy was in truth the strife between two such innate principles, which phi- losophy despairs of reconciling, on which the New Testament has not pronounced with clearness or pre- cision. The religious sentiment, which ever assumes to itself the exclusive name and authority of religion, is not content without feeling, or at least supposing itself to feel, the direct, immediate agency of God upon the soul of man. This seems inseparable from the divine Sovereignty, even from Providential gov- CHAP. II. PELAGIAN CONTKOYEESY. 169 eminent, which it looks like impiety to limit, and of which it is hard to conceive the self-limitation. 1 Must not God's grace, of its nature, be irresistible ? What can bound or fetter Omnipotence? This seems the first principle admitted in prayer, in all intercourse between the soul of man and the Infinite : it is the life-spring of religious enthusiasm, the vital energy, not of fanaticism only, but of zeal. 2 On the other hand, there is an equally intuitive consciousness (and out of consciousness grows all our knowledge of these things) of the freedom, or self-determining power of the human will. On this depends all morality, and the sense of human responsibility ; all conception, ex- cept that which is unreasoning and instinctive, of the divine justice and mercy. This is the problem of philosophy ; the degree of subservience in the human will to influences external to itself, and in no way self-originated or self-controlled, and to its inward self-determining power. 3 In Christianity it involved not merely the metaphysic nature, but the whole bib- lical history of man ; the fall, and the sin inherited by the race of Adam ; the redemption of Christ, and the righteousness communicated to mankind by Christ. Pelagius came too early for any calm consideration of his doctrines, or any attempt to reconcile the diffi- culties which he suggested, with the sacred writings. 1 The absolute abandonment of free will seems the highest point of true devotion. Prosper thus writes of Augustine : Et dum nulla sibi tribuit bona, fit Deus illi Omnia, et in sancto regnat Sapientia templo. 2 Compare this argument in another form, Hist, of Christianity, iii. p. 267. 8 Edwards on the Will throughout, which on this point coincides with the philosophy of Hume 170 LATEST CHRISTIANITY. BOOK IL In his age the religious sentiment was at its height, and to the religious sentiment that system was true which brought the soul most strongly and imme- diately under divine agency. To substitute a law for that direct agency, to interpose in any way be- tween the Spirit of God and the spirit of man, was impiety, blasphemy, a degradation of God and of his sole sovereignty. This sentiment was at its height in Western Christendom. In no part had it grown to a passion so overwhelming as in Africa, in no African mind to such absorbing energy as in that of Augustine. Augustine, after the death of Ambrose, was the St. Augus- ne great authority in Latin Theology: from him was now anxiously expected, if it had not appeared, the great work which was to silence the last desperate remonstrances of Paganism, the City of God. 1 His Confessions had become at once the manual of passionate devotion, and the his- tory of the internal struggle of sin and grace in the soul of man. Augustine had maintained great in- fluence at the court of Ravenna: of the ministers of Honorius some were his personal friends, others courted his correspondence. Africa, the only gran- ary, held the power of life and death over Italy: and political and religious interests were now insepa- rably moulded together. But it was probably not so much either the authority or the influence of Augus- tine, which swayed the mind of Innocent to establish the Augustinian theology as the theory of Western Christianity; it was rather its full coincidence with his own views of Christian truth. i On the City of God compare Hist, of Christianity, iii. p. 279, 282. CHAP. IT. ST. AUGUSTINE. 171 Augustinianism was not merely the expression of the universal Christianity of the age as administering to, as being in itself the more full, fervent, continuous excitement of the religious sentiment, it was also closely allied with the two great characteristic tendencies of Latin Christianity. Latin Christianity, in its strong sacerdotal system, in its rigid and exclusive theory of the church, Latin . . . , Christianity at once admitted and mitigated the more anti-Pelagian. repulsive parts of the Augustinian theology. Pre- destinarianism itself, to those at least within the pale, lost much of its awful terrors. The Church was the predestined assemblage of those to whom causes. and to whom alone, salvation was possible; the Church scrupled not to surrender the rest of man- kind to that inexorable damnation entailed upon the human race by the sin of their first parents. As the Church, by the jealous exclusion of all heretics, drew around itself a narrower circle; this startling limita- tion of the divine mercies was compensated by the great extension of its borders, which now compre- hended all other baptized Christians. The only point in this theory at which human nature uttered a feeble remonstrance 1 was the abandonment of infants, who never knew the distinction between good and evil, to eternal fires. The heart of Augustine wrung from his reluctant reason, which trembled at its own in- 1 Julianus of Eclana put well the insuperable difficulty -which has con- stantly revolted the human mind, when not under the spell of some ab- sorbing religious excitement, against the extreme theory of Augustine and of Calvin. Deus, ais, ipse qui commendat caritatem suam in nobis, qui dilexit nos, et filio suo non pepercit, sed pro nobis ilium tradidit, ipse sic judicat, ipse est nascentium persecutor, ipse pro mala voluntate seternia ignibus parvulos tradit, quos nee bonam nee inalain voluntatem scit habera 172 LATIN CHKISTIANITY. BOOK H. consistency, a milder damnation in their favor. But some of his more remorseless disciples disclaimed the illogical softness of their master. 1 Through the Church alone, and so through the Sacerdotal hierarchy alone, man could be secure of that direct agency of God upon his soul, after which it yearned with irrepressible solicitude. The will of man surrendered itself to the clergy, for on them depended its slavery or its emancipation, as far as it was capable of emancipation. In the clergy, divine grace, the patrimony of the Church, was vested, and through them distributed to mankind. Baptism, usually administered by them alone, washed away original sin ; the other rites and sacraments of which they were the exclusive ministers, were still conveying, and alone conveying, the influences of the Holy Ghost to the more or less passive soul. This objective and visible form as it were, which was assumed for the in- ward workings of God upon the mind and heart, by the certitude and security which it seemed to bestow, was so unspeakably consolatory, and relieved, especially the less reflective mind, from so much doubt and anx- iety, that mankind was disposed to hail with gladness rather than examine with jealous suspicion these claims of the hierarchy. Thus the Augustinian theol- ogy coincided with the tendencies of the age towards the growth of the strong sacerdotal system ; and the sacerdotal system reconciled Christendom with the potuisse. Apud Auguatin. Oper. Imperf. i. 48. Augustine struggles in vain to elude the difficulty. Julianas as well as Pelagius himself strenuously asserted the necessity of infant baptism, not however ai giving remission of sins, but as admitting to Christian privileges and blessings. 1 Compare Hist, of Christ., iii. note, and quotation from Fulgentius. CHAP H. SACERDOTAL SYSTEM. 173 Augustinian theology. But the invariable progress of the human mind, as to this question, is in itself re- markable ; and necessary for the full comprehension of Christian history. AH established religions subside into Pelagianism, or at least semi-Pelagianism. The interposition of the priest, or the sacrament, or of both, between the direct agency of God and the soul of man, for its own purposes, gradually admits a growing freedom of the will. Conformity to outward rites, obedience to orders or admonitions, every religious act is required on the one hand, as within the self-deter- mining power of the will, and is in itself a more and more conscious exertion of that power. The sacerdo- tal system, in order that it may censure with more awfulness, and incite with more persuasiveness, admits a greater spontaneity of resistance to evil, and of incli- nation to good. It emancipates to a certain extent, that it may rule with a more absolute control. And as it was with Pelagius, so it is with his followers. No Pelagian ever has or ever will work a religious revolu- tion. He who is destined for such a work must have a full conviction that God is acting directly, imme- diately, consciously, and therefore with irresistible power, upon him and through him. It is because he believes himself, and others believe him to be thus acted upon, that he has the burning courage to under- take, the indomitable perseverance to maintain, the inflexible resolution to die for his religion; so soon as that conviction is deadened, his power is gone. Men no longer acknowledge his mission, he himself has traitorously or timidly abandoned his mission. The voice of God is no longer speaking in his heart ; men no longer recognize the voice of God from his lips. 174 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK H. The prophet, the inspired teacher, the all but apostle, has now sunk to an ordinary believer. He who is not predestined, who does not declare, who does not be- lieve himself predestined as the author of a great re- ligious movement, he in whom God is not manifestly, sensibly, avowedly working out his preestablished designs, will never be Saint or Reformer. But there was another part of the Augustinian The trans- theology, which has quietly dropped from it original am. in all its later revivals, yet in his day was an integral, almost the leading doctrine of the system ; and falling in, as it did, with the dominant feelings of Christendom, contributed powerfully to its establish- ment, as the religion of the Church. Augustine was not content to assert original sin, in the strongest lan- guage, against Pelagius, but did not scruple to dogma- tize as to the mode of its transmission. This was by sexual intercourse, 1 which he asserts in arguments, which the modesty of our present manners will not permit us to discuss, would have been unknown but for the Fall ; and was in itself essentially evil, 2 though an evil to be tolerated in the regenerate, for the pro- creation of children, themselves to be regenerate. 8 * The whole argument of the Book de Concopiscentia et de Nuptiis. Intentio igitur hujus libriest at ... carnalis concupiscent iae malum, prop- ter quod homo qui per earn nascitnr, trahit originate peccatum, discemamua a bonitate nuptiarum. 2 Sed quia sine illo malo (carnalis concnpiscentise) fieri non potest nup- tiarum bonum, hoc est propagatio filiorum, ubi ad hujusmodi opus venitur, Becreta quseruntur. Hinc est quod infantes etiam, qui peccare non possunt, non tamen sine peccati contagione nascuntur, non ex hoc quod licet, sed ex hoc quod dedecet. De Peccat. Origin., c. xxvii. His standing argument is from natural modesty, which he confounds with the shame of conscious guilt. The doctrine of original sin, as it is explicated br St. Austin, had two parents ; one was the doctrine of the Encratites and some other heretics, CHAP. II. TRANSMISSION OF ORIGINAL SIN. 175 Thus this great Oriental principle of the inherent evil of matter, as we have seen in the course of our Christian history, was the dominant and fundamental tenet of Gnosticism, lay at the root of Arianism, and will hereafter appear as the remote parent of Nestori- anism : and this was the primary axiom of all Monas- ticism. and so became, almost imperceptibly, the first recognized principle of all Latin theology. Augus- tine, in this theory of the transmission of sin, betrays that invincible horror of the intrinsic evil of the ma- terial and corporeal, which had been infused into his mind by his youthful Manicheism.* Most of the other leading tenets of the Manicheans, the creation of man by the antagonistic malignant power, the unreality of the Christ, the whole mystic mythology of the imagin- ative Orientals, Augustine had rejected with indigna- tion, and with the practical wisdom of the West ; but, notwithstanding all his concessions on the dignity of marriage, he is, in this respect, an irreclaimable Mani- chean. Sin and all sensual indulgence, as it was called, all, however lawful, union between the sexes, were convertible terms, or terms so associated in human thought as to require some vigor of mind to discrim- inate between them. It was the vice of the theology who forbade marriage, and supposing it to be evil, thought that they were warranted to say it was the bed of sin, and children the spawn of vipers and sinners ; and St. Austin himself, and especially St. Hierome, speaks some things of marriage, which if they were true, then marriage were highly to be refused, as being the increaser of sin rather than of children, and a semination in the flesh and contrary to the spirit; and such a thing, which being mingled with sin, produces univocal issues ; the mother and the daughter are so alike that they are worse again. Jer. Taylor, Answer to a Letter. 1 Augustine strongly protests against the charge which was even then nade against him of Manicheism. De Concup. et Nupt., lib. ii. 176 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK U of this period, and not, perhaps, of this period alone, that it seemed to make the indulgence of one passion almost the sole unchristian sin ; a passion which is probably strengthened rather than suppressed by com- pelling the mind to dwell perpetually upon it. This (and on this the whole stress was laid throughout the controversy) was, the concupiscence of the flesh, in- herited from Adam, which was not washed away in the sanctifying waters of baptism, but still clave to the material nature of man, and was to be kept under con- trol only by the most rigid asceticism. Celibacy thus became not merely a hard duty, but a glorious distinc- tion : the clergy, and those females who aspired to more perfect Christianity, not merely chose a more difficult, and therefore, if successful, a more noble career but were raised far above those lower mortals, who, in the most legitimate and holy form, that of faithful marriage, submitted to be the parents of children. Pelagius himself, 1 so completely was the human mind possessed with this notion, almost rivalled Augus- tine in his praises of virginity, which he considered the great test of that strength of free will which he asserted to be weakened only, if weakened, by the fall of Adam. The Augustinian theology, exactly to the extent to which it coincided with Latin Christianity, would no doubt harmonize with the opinions of one so com- pletelv representing that Christianity as Inno- 417. JMI. 27. cent I. When the African Churches, in their councils at Carthage, and at Milt-vis in Numidia, addressed the Pontiff on this momentous subject, the character, as well as the station of Innocent, might 1 Epist. ad Demetriad. CHAP. H. APPEAL TO ROME. 177 command more than respectful deference. Had they felt any jealousy as to their own independence, under the absorbing passion, the hatred of Pelagianism, they would have made any sacrifice to obtain the concur- rence of the Bishop of Rome. The letters inform Innocent that the Africans had renewed the unre- garded anathema pronounced against this wicked error, especially of Celestius, which had been issued five years before. They assert the power of Innocent to summon Pelagius to Rome to answer for his guilt, and to exclude him from the communion of the faithful. 1 They implore the dignity of the Apostolic throne, of the successor of St. Peter, to complete and Both parties . . A . appeal to ratify that which is wanting to their more Rome, moderate power. 2 Pelagius himself, even if he did not acknowledge the jurisdiction of the tribunal, en- deavored to propitiate the favor of the judge : he ad- dressed an explanatory letter, and a profession of faith, to the Bishop of Rome. 3 Yet Augustine and the Africans were not without solicitude as to the decision of Innocent. Since Pela- gius, they knew, lived in Rome, undisturbed by the inquisitive zeal of the bishop, Augustine, in a private letter, signed by himself and four bishops, informed the Pope that some of these persons boasted that they had won him to their cause, or, at least, to think less unfavorably of Pelagius.* 1 Ant ergo a tua veneratione accersendus.est Eomam, et diligenter intcr- rogandus. Epist. Cone. Milev. Labbe, ii., p. 1547. 2 Ut statutis nostrae mediocritatis, etiam Apostolicse sedis adhibeatur auc- toritas, pro tuenda salute multorum et quorundam etiam perversitate corri- genda. Epist. Cone. Carthag. ad Innocent. Labbe, ii. p. 1514. 8 Augustin. de Grat, Christ., cap. 30. De Pecc. Origin., 17, 21, &c. *Quidam scilicet quia vos tafia persuasisse perhibent. Ibid. Vf\T.. T. 12 178 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK U. The answer of Innocent allayed their fears. He did not pass by the opportunity of asserting, as an acknowledged maxim, the dignity of the Apostolic See, the source of all episcopacy, and the advantage of an appeal to a tribunal, which might legislate for all Christendom. 1 On the Pelagian question he places himself on the broad, popular, and unanswerable ground, that all Christian devotion implies the assist- ance of divine grace ; that it is admitted in every response of the service, in every act of worship. He pronounces the opinions anathematized by the African bishops to be heretical ; and declares that the unsound limb must be severed without remorse, lest it should infect the living body. 2 Africa, and all those who held the opinions of Augustine, triumphed in what might seem the unqualified sentence of the Bishop of Rome. At this period in the controversy, j^^of and before the arrival of the letter from * n ^7*' Pelagius, died Pope Innocent I. So far the Bishop of Rome had floated onwards towards supremacy on the full tide of dominant opin- ion ; his decrees were so acceptable to the general ear, that the tone of authority in which they began to be couched, jarred not on any quivering chord of jealousy 1 Qni ad nostrum referendum approbastia ease judicium, scientes quid Apostolicae sedi (cum omnes hoc loco positi ipsum sequi desideremus Apos- tolnm) debeatur, a quo ipse episcopatus et tota auctoritas nominis hujua emersit. Innocent Epist. ad Episc. Afric. Ut per cunctas orbis totius ecclesias, quod omnibus prosit, decernendum ana esse deposcit is. Ibid. 2 The lines of Prosper, who has written a long poem on this abstruse rubject, have been referred to this decree of Innocent I. In causam fidei flagrantius Africa nostra Exequeris; tecumque suum jungente vigorem Juris Apostolic! solio, fera viscera belli Conficis, et lato prosternis limite victos. CHAP. II. DEATH OF INNOCENT I. 179 or suspicion. The secret of that power lay in Rome's complete impregnation with the spirit of the age ; and this lasted, almost unbroken, till the Reformation. It were neither just nor true to call this worldly policy, or to suppose that the Bishops of Rome dishonestly conformed, or bent their opinions to their age for the sake of aggrandizing their power. Their sympathy with the general mind of Christianity constituted their strength ; from their conscious strength grew up, no doubt, their bolder spirit of domination ; but they be- came masters of the Western Church by being the representative, the centre, of its feelings and opinions. It was not till a much later period that the claim to personal infallibility, to the sole dictatorship over the Christianity of the world, was either advanced or thought necessary ; the present infallibility was but the expression of the universal, or at least predominant sentiment of mankind. Once at this period, and but for a short time, the Bishop of Rome threw himself directly across the stream of religious opinion. Zosimus, the ^gi^g. successor of Innocent, was by birth a Greek, 1 417 > Mar> 18- and seemed disposed to treat the momentous questions agitated by the Pelagian controversy with the contempt- uous indifference of a Greek. Whether from this uncongeniality of the Eastern mind with these debates ; whether from the pride of the man, which was flattered by the submission of both these dangerous heresiarchs to his authority; whether from an earnest and well- intentioned, but mistaken hope, of suppressing what appeared to him a needless dispute, Zosimus annulled at one blow all the judgments of his predecessor, In- 1 Anastasius Bibliothec., c. 42. 180 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK IL nocent ; and absolved the men, whom Innocent, if he had not branded with a direct anathema, had declared deserving to be cut off from the communion of the faithful. The address of Pelagius to Innocent had not arrived in Rome before the death of that prelate ; it was ac- companied with a creed elaborately and ostentatiously orthodox on all the questions which agitated the East- ern mind, and a solemn and minute repudiation of all the heresies relating to the nature of the Godhead. It might seem almost prophetically intended to propitiate the favor of a Greek Pope. He touched but briefly on the freedom of the will, and the necessity of divine grace ; rejecting, as Manichean, the doctrine, that sin was inevitable ; as a doctrine which he ascribes to Jo- vinian, the impeccability of the Christian. 1 Celestius, who had remained some time in peaceful retirement at Ephesus, had passed to Constantinople ; from thence he is said to have been expelled by the Bishop Acacius. He now appeared in Rome, and throwing himself, as it were, at the feet of the Pontiff, declared that he was ready to submit to a dispassionate examination and authoritative judgment on his tenets. A solemn hearing was appointed in the Basilica of St. Clement. Celestius was listened to with favor ; if Peiagiua tne positive sentence was delayed, his accusers dec d ia^d estlu9 Heros and Lazarus, the Gallic bishops, were orthodox. denounced in the strongest terms to the Afri- 1 The creed apud Baronium sub ann. 417 Liberum sic esse confite- mur arbitrium, ut dicamus nos semper Dei indigere auxilio, et tain illos en-are qui cum Manicheis dicunt hominem peccatuni vitare non posse, quain illos qui cum Joviniano asserunt, hominem non posse peccare ; uter- que eniin tollit libertatem arbitrii. Was the first clause aimed at Augus- tine and the Africans ? CHAP. H. TRIAL OF CELESTIUS. 181 can Council as vagabond, turbulent, and intriguing prelates, who had either abdicated or abandoned their sees, and travelled about sowing strife and calumny wherever they went. 1 The African prelates were summoned within a short period to make good their charges against Celestius, who in this first investigation had appeared unimpeachable. 2 Zosimus went further : he had warned Celestius and his accusers alike to ab- stain from these idle questions and unedifying disputes, the offspring of vain curiosity, and of the desire for the display of eloquence on subjects unrevealed. 3 Such to Zosimus appeared these questions, which had wrought Africa into a frenzy of zeal and distracted the whole West. The trial of Celestius was followed by the public recital of a letter from Praylas, Sept. 21. Bishop of Jerusalem, asserting in the most unqualified terms the orthodoxy of Pelagius. It was read with joy, with admiration, almost with tears of delight. " Would," writes Zosimus to the African bishops, " that one of you had been present at the edifying scene. That such a man should be impeached, and impeached by a Heros and a Lazarus ! There was no point in which the grace and assistance of God 1 Zosimus Aurelio et univ. Episcop. Africse. Apud Labbe, ii., 1559. Heros, according to Zosimus, had been Bishop of Aries, Lazarus of Aix. Their rise was owing entirely to the tyrant (probably the usurper Constan- tine) ; it was accompanied with tumult and bloodshed, persecution of the priesthood who opposed them. With Constantino they fell, driven out by the execrations of the people, and abdicating their sees. So the Bishop of Rome. S. Prosper gives a high character of both. S. Prosper, Chron. 2 Innotescere sanctitati vestrae super absoluta Crelestii fide nostrum exa- men. Ib. 8 Admoneri, has tendiculas qusestionum, et inepta certamina quse non edi- ficant, sed magis destruunt, ex ilia curiositatis contagione profluere, dum unusquisque ingenio suo et intemperanti eloquentia supra scripta abutitur. -Ibid. 182 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK H could be asserted by a faithful Christian, which was not fully acknowledged by them." 1 But the authority, which was received with deferen- tial homage, so long as it concurred with their own views, lost its magic directly that it espoused the opposite cause. The African bishops inflexibly ad- hered to the condemnation of Pelagius, of Celestius, and their doctrines. Carthage obstinately refused to yield to Rome ; it appealed to the sentence of Inno- cent, and disdainfully rejected the annulling power of Zosimus. Augustine, indeed, continued to speak with conciliating mildness of the Roman Prelate ; but he let fell some alarming and significant expressions as to the prevarication of the whole Roman clergy. To the long representation addressed to him by the Councilor Council of Carthage, Zosimus replied in a Match, 4is. haughty tone, asserting that, according to the tradition, no one might dare to dispute the judgment of the Apostolic See. But the close of the epistle betrayed his embarrassment. Whether his natural sagacity had discovered that he had rashly attempted to stem the torrent of opinion ; his brotherly love for the African Churches would induce him to communi- cate all his determinations to them, in order that they might act together for the common good of Christen- dom. He had stayed, therefore, all further proceed- ings in the affair of Celestius. 3 It was time for Zosimus to retrace his precipitate Appai to course. Augustine and the African bishops 8ammonec l to their aid a more powerful 1 Tales enim absolute fidei infamari posse? Est ne ullus locus in quo Dei gratia vel adjutorium pnetermissum sit? Zosim. ad Episcop. Atric. Labbe, ii. p. 1561. * Zosim. ad Episcop. Africa?. CHAP. H. APPEAL TO THE EMPEKOR. 183 ally than even the Bishop of Rome. While the Pope either still adhered to the cause of Pelagius, or but be- gan to vacillate, an Imperial edict was issued from the court of Ravenna, peremptorily deciding on this ab- struse question of theology. 1 This law was issued be- fore the final sitting of the Council of Carthage, in which, on the authority of two hundred and twenty- three bishops, eight canons were passed, condemnatory of Pelagianism. There can be no doubt, that the law was obtained by the influence of the African bishops with the Emperor or his ministers ; there is great like- lihood by the personal authority of Augustine with the Count Valerius. Italy, indeed, could hardly re- fuse to listen to the voice of Africa. This appeal to the civil magistrate is but another instance, that the ecclesiastical power has no scruple in employing in its own favor those arms of which it deprecates the use, the employment of which it treats as impious usurpa- tion, when put forth against it. By this law it became a crime against the state, to be visited with civil penal- ties, to assert that Adam was born liable to death. 2 The dangerous heresiarchs were condemned by name, and without hearing or trial, to banishment from Rome. 3 Informers were invited or commanded to apprehend 1 The law is dated April 30, A.D. 418. The final council was held early in May. 2 Hi parent! cunctorum Deo .... tarn trucem inclementiam ssevae vol- untatis assignant . . . . ut mortem praemitteret nascituro (Adamo, sc.}, non hanc insidiis vetiti fluxisse peccati, sed exegisse penitus legem immu- tabilis constituti. Rescript. Honor, et Theodos. apud Augustin. Oper. x., Append., p. 106. 8 Hos ergo repertos ubicunque de hoc tarn nefando scelere conferentes a quibuscunque jubemus corripi, deductosque ad audientiam publicam pno- miscue ab omnibus accusari . . . ipsis inexorati exilii deportation! damna- tis. Ibid. 184 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK II. and drag before the tribunals, and to accuse the main- tainers of these wicked doctrines. In the order issued by the Praetorian Prefects of Italy and the East, to carry this law into effect, not merely were the he- resiarchs banished, but their accomplices condemned to the confiscation of their estates, and to perpetual exile. 1 Zosimus threw off the dangerous tenderness with zosimus which he had hitherto treated Celestius and retracts. n | s party. Already, before the promulga- tion of the Imperial edict, he had demanded his une- quivocal condemnation of certain errors, charged against him by Paulinus, a Carthaginian deacon, who had been sent to Rome to represent the African opin- ions. Celestius was now again summoned to render an account of his tenets ; under the ban of the Impe- rial law, an object of hatred to the populace, certain that the Pope had withdrawn his protection, of course he dared not appear: he had quietly retired from Rome. 2 Zosimus proceeded to condemn the faith, to anathematize the doctrines of Pelagius and Celestius, to excommunicate them from the body of the faithful, if they did not renounce and abjure the venomous tenets of their impious and abominable sect. Nor was this all : the Bishop of Rome addressed a circular let- ter to all the bishops of Christendom, condemning the doctrines of Pelagius. To this anathema they were expected to subscribe. 8 Eighteen bishops alone, of those who took this letter 1 The convicted heretic, by the edict of Palladius, was to be facultatum publicatione nudatus. 2 Augustin. de Pecc. Origin., c. 6. The gratulatory letter of Paulinua himself on the condemnation of Celestius, in Baronius, sub ann. 418. 8 Augustin. de Pecc. Orig., 3, 4 ; in Julian, 1, c. 4. Prosper in Chronic. CHAP. H. SEMI-PELAGIANISM. 185 into consideration, refused to condemn their E hteen fellow Christians unheard. They turned recusante - against Zosimus his own language to the African bishops, in which he had accused their precipitancy and injustice in condemning these very men without process or trial. They appealed to a General Council. Of these eighteen, the most distinguished was Juli- anus, Bishop of Eclana, in Campania. His Julianug ^ opinions did not altogether agree with those Ecl * na ' of Pelagius and Celestius ; l he was the founder of what has been called Semi-Pelagianism. Julianus from his birth, his character, and the events of Ins life, was a remarkable man. He was of a noble family, the son of a bishop, Memor, for whom Augustine en- tertained the warmest friendship. 2 He was early ad- mitted into the lower order of the clergy, and married a virgin of birth and virtue equal to his own. She was of the ^Emilian family, daughter of the Bishop of Beneventum. The epithalamium of Julianus and la was written by the holy Paulinus, Bishop of Nola. The poet urges upon the young and ardent couple not to break off their dangerous nuptials, but after their marriage to preserve their inviolate chastity. The pious bishop has, indeed, some misgivings as to the success of his poetic persuasions, and adds, that if they are betrayed into the weakness of having offspring, he trusts that they will make compensation to that state, which they have robbed of its brightest ornaments, by dedicating l The great point of difference was that Pelagius held Adam to have been born mortal ; Julianus admitted that the sin of Adam had brought death into the world. 8 Augustin. contr. Julian., i. 12. 186 LATIX CHRISTIANITY. BOOK IL all their children, a sacerdotal family, to virginity. 1 Julianus was a man of great accomplishments, well read in the writers, especially the poets of Italy and Greece. But neither his illustrious descent, his Roman or his Christian kindred, nor his talents, nor his vir- tues, nor his station, availed in the least in this desper- ate conflict at once with power and popular opinion. There were now arrayed in formidable and irresistible confederacy, the three commanding influences in West- ern Christendom, the Pope, the Emperor, and Au- gustine. The Pope, indignant at the demand for a General Council, proceeded to involve Julianus and the rest of the eighteen remonstrants under the anathema pronounced against Pelagius, and to depose him from his see. Julianus had but the unsatisfactory consola- tion of asserting that Zosimus dared not meet him be- fore a General Council. The Emperor was at first disposed to accede to the demand for a Council, but the influence of Augustine with the Count Valerius changed the impartial judge into an implacable adver- sary. He is even accused, and by his most respected adversary Julianus, of employing every means, even those of corruption, to inflame the minds of the power- fid against the followers of Pelagius. 2 A new Imperial edict sentenced to exile Julianus and all the bishops who had fallen under the anathema of Zosimus. A second rescript followed, commanding all bishops not ( 1 Ut git in ambobug eoncordia rirginitati*, Ant sint ambo sacris semina rirginibna. Votorum prior hie gndos est, ut nescia carnia Membra gerant. quod Bi corpore conpruerint, Casta sacerdotale genus rentura propago, t domu? Aaron rit tota domua Memoru. Paull. Nolan. Epithalamium, circafinem. 1 8e note infra. CHAP. H. JTJLIANTJS, PELAGIUS, AXD CELESTIUS. 187 merely to subscribe the dominant opinions on these profound and abstruse topics, but to condemn their authors, Pelagius and Celestius, as irreclaimable here- tics, and tliis under pain of deprivation and banish- ment. Justly might Julianus taunt his ecclesiastical brethren with this attempt to crush their adversaries by the civil power. With shame and sorrow we hear from Augustine himself that fatal axiom, which for centuries reconciled the best and holiest men to the guilt of persecution, the axiom which impiously arrayed cruelty in the garb of Christian charity that they were persecuted in compassion to their souls; 1 that they ought to be thankful for the kind violence, which did them no real injury, but coerced them for their good ; and that if for this end the secular power was called in, it was to restrain them from their sacrilegious temerity. 2 Thus, then, on these men had fallen the ban of ecclesiastical and secular power, and in the H^ penecu- West, at least, of popular opinion. 3 Pela- tion ' gius vanishes at this time from history ; he had been condemned by a Council at Antioch, and driven, a second Catiline as he is called by Jerome, from Jeru- salem : of his end nothing is known. The more cou- rageous and active Celestius still kept up the vain strife. 1 Xon impotentiae contra vos precamur auxilium, sed pro vobis potits ut ab ausu sacrilege cohibeamini, Christiana potentise landamus officium. Oper. Imperf., 1. ii., c. 14. 2 Compare 1. 10, where he says that Christian powers (he means the civil powers) are bound to use disciplinam coercitionis against all opponents of the Catholic faith. 8 Julianus, it appears, objected to Augustine that all his authorities were "Western bishops. This Augustine does not deny, but demands whether the authority of St. Peter and his successor, Innocent, is not enough. Contr. Julian., 1, c. 13. He quotes, however, Gregory of Nazianzum and Basil. 188 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK H. Twice he returned to Rome during the episcopacy of the successor of Zosimus, and twice again was ban- ished. At length, with Julianus, he took refuge at Constantinople, where he obtained a more favorable hearing both from the reigning Emperor, the younger Theodosius, and from Nestorius, the bishop. But his enemies were watchful, and Constantinople refused to entertain the condemned heresiarch : of his death like- wise history is silent. The accomplished Julianus, 1 exiled from his see, proscribed not merely by the harsh edicts of power, but hunted by popular detestation from town to town, wandered through Christendom, as if he bore a divine judgment upon him. His long and weary life was protracted thirty years after his exile. 2 At length he settled as teacher of a school, in an obscure town of Sicily. The last act of the pro scribed heretic was to sacrifice all he had to relieve the poor in a grievous famine. Some faithful follower, it is said, whether in zeal for his tenets or admiration for his virtues, inscribed on his tomb, " Here sleeps in peace Julianus, the Catholic Bishop." 1 The fragments of the writings of Julianus, especially those in the Opus Imperfectum of Augustine, show great acuteness and eloquence, and a facility and perspicuity of style which bears no unfavorable comparison with the great African father. His piety is unimpeachable. 2 Julianus constantly taunts Augustine with this appeal to the passions of the rude and ignorant vulgar on such abstruse subjects, and with even >x>rse means of persecuting his adversaries. Cur seditiones Romae conduc- tis populis excitastis ? Cur de sumptibus pauperum saginastis per totam poene Africam, equorum greges, quos prosequenti Olybrio, tribunis et cen- turionibus destinistis? Cur matronarum oblatis luereditatibus potestates saeculi corrupistis, ut hi nos stipula furoris publice ardeat ? Cur dissipastis Ecclesiarum quietem? Cur religiosi principis tempora persecutionum im- pietate maculistis? Oper. Imperfect, iii. 74. Augustine contents himself by simply denying these charges, the last of which, by his own showing and by the extant edicts, was too true. In another place Julianus says, Ut erecto cornu dogma populate. Oper Imperfect., ii. 2. CHAP. H. SEMI-PELAGIANISM. 189 While the West in general bowed before the com- manding authority of Augustine ; trembled g^. and shrunk from any opinion which might P" 1 ^ 81 " 8111 - even seem to impeach the sovereignty of God ; laid its free will down a ready sacrifice before divine grace, as contained in the sacraments of the Church and admin- istered by the awful hierarchy ; hesitated not to aban- don the whole world, external to the Church, to that inevitable hell which was the patrimony of all the children of Adam ; Semi-Pelagianism arose in another quarter, and under different auspices, and maintained an obstinate contest for considerably more than a cen- tury. This school grew up among the monasteries in the south of France. Among its partisans were some of the most eminent bishops of that province. The most distinguished, if not the first founder, of this Gallic Semi-Pelagianism was the monk Cassi- Cassianus. anus. The birthplace of Cassianus is uncertain, but if not Greek or Oriental by birth, he was either one or the other, or both, by education. 1 His youth was passed in the Eastern monasteries, first in Bethlehem, afterwards in Egypt. Eastern and Egyptian mona- chism, like its more remote ancestor in India, and its more immediate parent, the Essenism or Therapeutism of the Jews, was anything but a blind or humble Pre- destinarianism. It was the strength and triumph of the human will. It was the self-wrought victory over the bondage of matter ; the violent avulsion and stern estrangement from all the indulgences, the pursuits, 1 Notwithstanding the express words of Gennadius, Cassianus natione Scytha, he has been supposed an African. He is called Afer in the list of ecclesiastical writers by Honorius (Ixi. c. 84); an Egyptian (Pagi, Basnage, Fabricius); a Latin (Photius, c. 197); a Gaul (Card. Norris and the Bene- dictines, Hist. Lit. de la France). 190 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK II. the affections, the society of the world. The dreamy and passive state of the monk, in which he was surren- dered to spiritual influences, began not till his own determination had withdrawn him into the austere and eremetical solitude. There man might be commingled, in absolute identity, with the Godhead. Every act of remorseless asceticism was a meritorious demand on the divine approbation. The divine influence was wrestled for and won by the resolute and prevailing votary, not bestowed as the unsought gift of God. Cassianus passed from Egypt to Constantinople, where he became the favored pupil of that Greek Father whose writings are throughout the most adverse to the Augustinian system. The whole theology of Chrysos- tom, in its general impression, is a plain and practical appeal to the free will of man. He addresses man as invested in an awful responsibility, but as self-depend- ent, self-determining to good or evil. The depravity against which he inveighs is no inherited, inherent cor- ruption, to be dispossessed only by divine grace, but a personal, spontaneous, self-originating, and self-main- tained surrender to evil influences ; to be broken off by a vigorous effort of religious faith, to be controlled by severe self-imposed religious discipline. As far as is consistent with prayer and devotion, man is master of his own destiny. The Augustinian questions of predestination, grace, the foreknowledge of God, even, in general, the atonement and the extent of its conse- quences, lie without the sphere of Chrysostom's theol- ogy. Cassianus received at least the first holy orders from Chrysostom. During the disturbances in Con- stantinople relating to his deposal, Cassianus was sent to Rome on a mission to Pope Innocent I. To the CHAP. II. CASSIANUS. 191 memory of Chrysostom he preserved the most fervent attachment. Chrysostom was to him a second John the Evangelist. 1 Probably after the fall of Chrysostom, Cassianus settled at Marseilles, and founded two mon- CaBsianus asteries, one of men and one of women, in in GauL which he introduced the severe discipline of the East. Marseilles was Greek ; it retained to a late period the character and, to some degree, the language of a Grecian colony ; no doubt, on that account, it was congenial to Cassianus. But Cassianus became so completely master of Latin as to write in that lan- guage his Monastic Institutes, the austere and inflexi- ble code followed in most of the coenobitic foundations north of the Alps ; and it is chiefly from this work that posterity can collect the Semi-Pelagian opin- ions of its author. 2 Already, however, some of the faithful partisans of Augustine had given the alarm at this tendency towards rebellion against the dictator- ship of their master. Prosper and Hilarius denounced this yet more secret defection of those who presumed to impugn with vain objections the holy Augustine on the grace of God. 3 The last works which occupied 1 Adoptatus a beatissimse memorise Joanne in ministerium sacrum atque oblatus Deo .... Mementote magistrorum vestrorum veterum sacerdo- tumque vestrorum .... Joannis fide ac puritate mirabilis: Joannis in- quam, Joannis illius qui vere ad similitudinem Joannis Evangelist, et discipulus Jesu et Apostolus, quasi super pectus domini semper affectumque discubuit .... Qui communis mihi ac vobis magister fuit ; cujus discipuli et institutio sumus, et seqq. Cassianus de Incarn. c. 31. 2 There has been a controversy whether Cassianus was a Semi-Pelagian. With his works before them, even from the same passages of his works, grave and learned men have argued on both' sides. 8 Gratiam Dei, qua Christian! sumus, qui tarn dicere audent a sanctoe memorise Augustino Episcopo non recte esse defensam, librosque ejus contra errorem Pelagianum conditos immoderatis calumniis impetere non ^uiescunt. Prosper contr. Collatorem, c. 1. 192 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK H. Augustine were addressed to Prosper and Hilarius, in order to check this daring inroad, and to establish on irrefragable grounds the predestination of the saints and the gift of perseverance. 1 The partisans of Augustine continued to wage the controTewy war ^th all the burning zeal and imperious in Gaui. authority of their master. A school arose, not of theology alone, but of poetry. Prosper, in a long poem, compelled the reluctant language and form of Latin verse to condemn the " ungrateful," who in their wanton pride ascribed partly to themselves, not absolutely to the grace of God, the work of their salvation. Prosper and Hilarius were followed by a long line of assertors of the Augustinian Predestina- rianism, of which Fulgentius was the most rigid and inexorable advocate. 2 Cassianus, on the other side, handed down to a succession of more or less bold disciples the aversion to the extreme views of Augustine. It is doubtfiil whether the Vincentius, who espoused his opinions, was the celebrated Abbot of Lerins, the author of the * Commonitory.' At a later period Faustus, Bishop of Riez, brought the sanction of learning, high character, and sanctity to the same cause. Semi-Pelagianism aspired to hold the balance be- tween Pelagius and Augustine; 3 to steer a safe and middle course between the abysses into which each, on * De Pnedestinatione Sanctorum liber ad Prosperum et Hilarium .... De done perseverantiae liber ad Prosperum et Hilarium secundus. s Fulgentius was the predecessor of that modem divine who is said to hare spoken of the comfortable doctrine of the eternal damnation of little children. * Sed nee cum haereticis tibi, nee cum Catholicis plena concordia et . . . tu informe, nescio quid, tertium et utraque parte inconveniens reperisti, quo nee inimicorum consensum adquireres, nee in nostrorum perrnaneres. Prosper, c. ii. p. 117. CHAP. H. CONTROVERSY IN GAUL. 193 either side, had plunged in desperate presumption. 1 It emphatically repudiated the heresy of Pelagius in the denial of original sin ; it asserted divine grace, but it seemed to confine divine grace to the outward means, the Scriptures and the sacraments, rather than to its inward and direct workings on the soul itself. But it condemned with equal resolution the system of Augustine, by which the grace of God was hard- ened into an iron necessity ; it reproached him with that Manicheism which divided mankind into two hard antagonistic masses. 2 But of all religious controversies this alone had the merit of not growing up into a fatal and implacable schism. 3 The Semi-Pelagians, though condemned in several successive councils, were not cast out of the Church, and did not therefore form separate and hostile communities. This rare mutual respect, which now prevailed, is no doubt to be attributed to one important cause. The monasteries, which were held in such profound and universal venera- tion, were the chief schools of these doctrines ; some 1 Compare Walch, v. p. 56. 2 Compare the letter of Prosper to Rufmus, in which Augustine is said to make duas humani generis massas, an error as bad as that of heathens or Manicheans. 8 No question has been more disputed in later days, or with less certain result, than whether there was a distinct sect of Predestinarians at this period. The controversy originated in the publication of a remarkable tract, the " Praedestinatus," by the Jesuit Sirmond. The great object was to clear the memory of Augustine, who was claimed both by Jesuits and Jansenists. Such a sect, if it existed, would carry off from St. Augustine all the charges heaped upon Predestinarianism at that time. If they were heretics, Augustine was of unimpcached orthodoxy, and therefore could not have held a condemnable Predestinarianism. Walch discusses the question at length, vol. v. VOL. i. 13 194 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK H. of the most austere and most admired of these Coenobites were the chief assertors of the free will of man. 1 1 Prosper himself betrays this enforced respect and its peculiar source : Nee tibl follacis subrepat imago decoris, Nullum ex his en-are putes, licet in Grace vitam Ducant. et jugi afficiant sua corpora morte : Abstineant opibus ; Bint casti ; 8intque benign! ; Terrenisque ferant animum super astra relictia; Si tamen haec propria rirtute capessere quenquam Posse putant, sitve ut dignus labor iate juvari Ingenium meruisse aiunt bona vera petentis ; Crescere quo cupiunt, minuuotur; proficiendo Deficiunt ; surgendo cadunt, currendo reoedunt ; Unde etenim rani frustra splendescere quacrunt, Inde obscurantur : qnoniam sua, laudis amore, Non quae aunt Christi quaerunt, nee fit Deus illis Principium et capiti non dant in corpore regnum. Prosper ad Ingrato3, zzxrii. CHAP. HI. DEATH OF ZOSBIUS. CHAPTER III. NESTORIANISM. ZOSIMUS filled the See of Rome only a year and nine months. His short pontificate was agi- Mar _ 18) 4^ tated not only by the Pelagian controversy, D^thV 18 but by disputes with the bishops of Southern Zosimu8 - Gaul and of Africa, hereafter to be considered when the relations of those provinces to the See of Rome shall take their place in our history. The death of Zosimus gave rise to the third con- tested election for the See of Rome. The greater the dignity of the Bishop of Rome, and the more lofty his pretensions to supremacy, the more would ambition covet this post of power and distinc- tion ; the more, on the other hand, would holy and Christian emulation aspire to place the worthiest pre- late in this commanding station ; and men's Disputed . . election, opinions would not always concur as to the Dec. 27, 28. ecclesiastic best qualified to preside over Western Christendom. Thus while the most ungovernable worldly passions and interests would intrude them- selves into the election, honest religious zeal, often the blindest, always the most obstinate of human motives, would esteem it a sacred duty to espouse, an impious weakness to abandon, some favorite cause. The unsettled form of the election, and the unde- 196 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK II, unaettied fined rights of the electors, could not but form of . 3 , T/V i i election. increase the difficulty and exasperate the strife. The absolute nomination by the clergy would have been no security against contested elections ; for in every double election a large part of the clergy was ranged on either side, and formed the rival factions. A certain assent of the people was still considered necessary to ratify the appointment. At all events, the people looked on the election with such profound interest, during a contest with such violent excitement, that it was impossible to exclude them from interfer- ence : and both factions were so anxious for their sup- port, that only the losing party would see the impro- priety of their tumultuous mingling in the fray. The election of the Bishop was now as much an affair of the whole city as that of a consul or a dictator of old, without the ancient and time-honored regulations for collecting the suffrages by centuries or by tribes. And who were the people ? Was this right equally The people, shared by all the members of the religious community, now almost coextensive in number with the inhabitants of the city? Had the Senate any special privilege, or were all these rights of the laity vested in the Emperor alone as the supreme civil power, and so in the Prefect of Rome, the representa- tive of imperial authority ? The popular universal suffrage, which, in a small primitive church, one per- vaded with pure Christian piety, tended to harmony, became an uncontrolled democratic anarchy when the bishopric included a vast city. It is surprising that this difficulty, which was not removed until, at a com- paratively recent period, the election was vested in the College of Cardinals, was not fatal to the supremacy CHAP. m. THE PEOPLE. 197 of Rome. But though the wild scenes of anarchy and tumult, which, especially from the eighth to the elev- enth century, impaired the authority of the Pope in Rome itself, and desecrated his person ; though the successful Pontiff was often only the head of a trium- phant faction, and was either disobeyed, or obeyed with undisguised reluctance, by the defeated party ; still dis- tance seemed to soften off all this unseemly confusion, above which the Pope appeared seated on his serene and lofty throne in undiminished majesty. It con- stantly happened that at the very time at which in Rome the Pope was insulted, maltreated, wounded, imprisoned, driven from the city, the extreme parts of Christendom were bowing to his decrees in unshaken reverence. Twice already perhaps more than twice had Rome been afflicfted with a fierce and prolonged con- test. The austere bigotry of Novatian had maintained his claim against the authority of Cornelius. Felix had been the antipope to Liberius. The streets .of Rome had run with blood, the churches had been de- filed with dead bodies, in the more recent strife of Da- masus and Ursicinus. On the death of Zosimus, some of the clergy chose the Archdeacon Eulalius in the Lateran Church ; on the same, or the next day, a larger number met in the Church of S. Theodora, and elected the Presbyter Boniface. Three bishops, among whom was the Bishop of Ostia, either compelled, it was said, or, yielding through the weakness of extreme old Dec. 27, 28. age, consecrated Eulalius. Boniface was inaugurated by nine bishops, in the presence of seventy Double presbyters, in the Church of St. Marcellus. election - 198 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK II. Rome might apprehend the return of those terrible and bloody days which marked the elevation of Damasus. The Prefect of Rome was Symmachus, son of that eloquent orator who had defended with so much en- ergy the lost cause of paganism. The outward con- formity, at least, of Symmachus to Christianity may be presumed from the favor of Honorius ; but it is curious to find a contest for the Papacy dependent for its decision on the son of such a father. Symmachus, in his report to the Emperor, inclines toward the party Buiaiius. of Eulalius. Boniface was summoned to Ra- venna. He delayed to obey the mandate, which reached him when he was performing his sacred func- tions without the city ; the officers of the Prefect were maltreated by the populace of his party. The gates of Rome, therefore, were closed upon Boniface, and Jan. 6. Eulalius, in great state, amid the acclamations of part, at least, of the people, took possession of St. Peter's, the Capitol, as it were, of Christianity. The party of Boniface were not inactive, or without influence at the court of Ravenna. The petition to the Emperor declared that all the Presbyters of Rome would accompany Boniface, to make known her will, or, rather, the judgment of God. 1 Honorius issued a Edict of rescript, with supercilious impartiality com- Hononug. manding both prelates to remain at a distance from the city, until the cause should be decided by a synod of bishops from Italy, Gaul, and Africa. In the mean time, as the Roman people could not be deprived of the solemn rites of Easter, Achilleus, Bishop of Spoleto, was ordered to officiate during the vacancy. 1 Prelectis singulis Titulis, presbyteri omnes aderunt, qui voluntatem iuam, hoc est, judiciura Dei proloquantur. Apud Baronium, sub ann. 419. CHAP. III. BONIFACE POPE. 199 Eulalius would not endure this sacrilegious usurpation of the powers of his see. He surprised by night, at the head of that part of the populace which was on his side, the Lateran Church ; and in contempt of the Emperor's orders, celebrated the holy rites. But the days of successful conflict with the civil power were not yet come. The rashness of Eulalius estranged even Symmachus from his cause : 1 this act was treated as one of rebellion. Eulalius was expelled from the city. He was threatened, as well as all the Mar. is-28. clergy who adhered to him, with still more fearful pen- alties. The laity who communicated with Eulalius were to be punished, the higher orders with banish- ment and confiscation, slaves with death. The pri- mates of the Regions of Rome were to be responsible for all popular tumults. Such was the commanding judgment of the Emperor. 2 Boniface took possession without further contest of the Pontifical throne. He was the son of a Boniface presbyter 3 named Jocondus, a Roman by Apr. '10. birth ; he was an aged prelate, of mild and blameless character ; wisely anxious to prevent, as far as pos- sible, the scandals, and even crimes, in which he had been so nearly involved. He addressed the Emperor, urging the enactment of a law, a civil law, which should restrain ecclesiastical ambition, and coerce those who aspired to obtain by intrigue, what ought to be the reward of piety and holiness. Honorius issued an edict, that in case of a contested election both the rival candidates should be excluded from the office, and a new appointment made. Thus the Imperial power 1 Symmachi rescript, apud Baron. 2 See the rescript of Honorius, apud Baronium 8 Platin. vit. Bonifac. 200 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK H. assumed, and was acknowledged to possess, foil au- thority to regulate the election of Bishops of Rome. 1 During the three years of the pontificate of Boniface, the Pelagian controversy was still drawing out its almost interminable length. On the death of Boniface, 2 Eulalius refused to leave the seclusion into which he had retired ; the decline of life may have softened his ambition for he died the Bpt. 4, 422. following year. Celestine was elected, and ruled in peace the See of Rome. The Pontificates of NOT. 10. Celestine I. 3 and his successor Sixtus I. 4 were occupied by the Nestorian controversy : oc- cupied, but hardly disturbed. The East, as it has ap- peared, had stood aloof serene and unimpassioned throughout the Pelagian controversy; in Palestine, the Latin Jerome alone, and his partisans the two Western bishops of doubtful fame, would not endure the presence of Pelagius. In Alexandria and Con- stantinople, Predestination, Grace, Free Will, excited no tumults, arrayed against each other no hostile fac- tions, demanded no councils. The Bishop of Con- stantinople pronounced his authoritative decrees, which no one desired to question ; and expelled from his dio- cese Celestius, or Pelagius himself, whom no one cared to defend. They alone, of all powerful heresiarchs in Constantinople, neither distracted the Imperial court, nor maddened popular faction. Latin Christianity contemplated with almost equal indifferent indifference Nestorianism, and all its prolific <* u* w<*t. race, Eutychianism, Monophysitism, Mono- i Rescriphim Honorii, apud Baronium. Boniface died Nov. 4, 422. Celestine I., Nov. 10. 422; died July, 432. * Sixtus I., 432; died 440. CHAP. m. STATE OF THE EAS1. 201 thelitism. "While in this contest the two great Patri- archates of the East, Constantinople and Alexandria, brought to issue, or strove to bring to issue, their rival claims to ascendency ; while council after council pro- mulgated, reversed, reenacted their conflicting decrees ; while separate and hostile communities were formed in every region of the East ; and the fears of persecuted Nestorianism, stronger than religious zeal, penetrated for refuge remote countries, into which Christianity had not yet found its way : in the West there was no Nestorian, or Eutychian sect. Some councils con- demned, but with hardly an audible remonstrance, these uncongenial heresies : the doctrines are con- demned, but there appears no body of heretics whom it is thought necessary to strike with the anathema. In the East, religion ceased more and more to be an affair of pure religion. It was mingled up state of with all the intrigues of the Imperial court, the East ' with all the furies of faction in the great cities. The council was the arena, not merely for Christian doc- trine, but for worldly ascendency. Secular ambition could no longer be distinguished, nor could the warring prelates themselves distinguish it, from zeal for ortho- doxy. Religious questions being decided by the favor of the Emperor, the Empress, or the ruling minister, eunuch or barbarian, that favor was sought by the most unscrupulous means by intrigue, by adulation, by bribery ; and these means became hallowed. There was no sacrifice with which Alexandria would not pur- chase superiority over Constantinople, or Constantino- ple over Alexandria : the rivalry of the sees darkened into the fiercest personal hostility. In the mean time the Bishop of Rome, unembarrassed 202 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK IL with the intricacies of the question, which had no temptation for his more practical understanding, with the whole West participating in his comparative apa- thy, could sit, at a distance, a tranquil arbiter, and in- terfere only when he saw his own advantage, or when all parties, exasperated or wearied out, gladly submit- ted to any foreign or unpledged judgment. The East- ern prelates, too eager to destroy each other, were either blind to, or in the heat of mutual detestation disregarded this silent aggression, and admkted princi- ples without suspicion fatal to their own indepen- dence. On the nature of the Godhead the inexhaustible East had not yet nearly run the whole round of speculative thought; the Greek language still found new gradations on which it might employ its fine and subtile distinctiveness. All these controversies, which began anew with Nestorianism, sprang by lineal and unbroken descent from the great ancestral princi- ple. The same Oriental tenet (however it may not, at first sight, be apparent) which gave birth to the various Gnostic sects, and to Manicheism, had lain at the root of Arianism, 1 now quickened into life Nes- torianism and all its kindred race. Arianism had arisen out of that profound sense of the malignancy of matter, which in its grosser influence had led to iHist. of Christianity, vol. ii. p. 443. Add to the authorities there quoted this decisive passage from Arius himself, apud Athanas. xvi. de Syn. el 6t rd it; aiirov, ical rd tic yaarpbg (Psalm, ex. 8) Kat rb tic rov narpbf lt;TJhQav, ical rjKU, ug fiepof avrov 6/j.oovatov KOI wf TrpoBofo) vird nvuv voelrat, avv&erof larai 6 irar^p Kai duuperdc KO! rpeirrbg nal aufta /car' avrovf. Arius accused his adversaries of destroying this pure spirituality of the Father, by asserting the dpoovaia of the Son. The Father became likewise composed of parts, divisible, mutable, corporeal, and to him this was an Unanswerable argument. CHAP. in. TRIXITARIAXISM ESTABLISHED. 203 the Manicliean Dualism. The pure, primal, parental Deity must stand entirely aloof from all connection with that in which evil was inherent, inveterate, inextinguishable. This was the absolute essence of Deity ; this undisturbed, unattainted Spiritualism, which disdained, repelled, abhorred the contact, the approxi- mation of the Corporeal, which once assimilating to, or condescending to assume any of the attributes of Matter, ceased to be the Godhead. By the triumph of the Athanasian Trinitarianism, and by the gradual dominance which it had ob- Tnnitanan- * i _ ism estab- tained over the general mind of Christendom, ushed. the coequal and consubstantial Godhead in the Trinity had become an article of the universal creed in the Latin Church. Arianism survived only among the bar- barians. The East adhered almost as generally to the Creed of Nicea. The Son, therefore, had become, if the expression may be ventured, more and more divine ; he was more completely not merely assimilated, but absolutely identified, with the original, perfect, uncon- taminated Godhead. Yet his descent into the material world, his admixture with the external, the sensible, the created his assumption of the form and being of man (which all agreed to be essential to the Chris- tian scheme, not in seeming alone, according to the Docetic notion, but actually and really) must be guarded by the same jealousy of infecting his pure and spiritual essence by the earthly contagion : that which would have been fatal to the spirituality of the Father, might endanger the same prerogative of the Son. The divine and human natTire could not indeed be kept separate, but they must be united with the least possible sacrifice of their essential at- 20-1 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK IL tributes. If (according to Nestorius) the Eternal and Coequal Word were born, this was a denial Views of f his preexistence ; and to assert that he storius. could jj e liable to passion or suffering, 1 in the same manner violated the pure spirituality of the Godhead. He proposed, therefore, that the appella- tion, Christ, should be confined, and, as it were, kept sacred, as signifying the Being, composed of the blended, yet unconfounded, God and man ; and that the Virgin should be the mother of Christ, the God-man, not the mother of God, of the unassociated divinity. 9 This is the key to the whole controversy. Never was there a case in which the contending parties approximated so closely. Both subscribed, both appealed to the Nicene Creed; both admitted the preexistenee, the impassibility of the Eternal Word; but the fatal duty, which the Christians in that age, and unhappily in subsequent ages, have imposed upon themselves, of considering the detec- tion of heresy the first of religious obligations, mingled, as it now was, with human passions and interests, made the breach irreparable. Men like Cyril of Alexandria, in whom religion might seem to have inflamed and embittered, instead of allaying, the worst passions of our nature, pride, ambition, cruelty, rapacity; and Councils like that of Ephesus, with all the tumult and violence without the dignity of a senate or popular assembly, convulsed the East, and led to a fierce and irreconcilable schism. The stern repudiation of the term, the Mother of worship of God, encountered another sentiment, which na( j |j een rapidly growing up, as one of the 1 Patibilis. 2 XpurroroKOf , not Beoronof. CHAP. m. "WORSHIP OF THE VIRGIN. 205 dominant influences of the Christian mind. The wor- ship of the Virgin had arisen from the confluence of many pure and gentle, and many natural feeh'ngs. The reverence for everything connected with the Redeemer, especially by ties so close and tender, would not with cold jealousy watch and limit its ardent language. The more absolute deification, if it may be so said, of Christ ; the forgetfulness of his human- ity induced by his investment in more remote and awful Godhead, created a want of some more kin dred rnd familiar object of adoration. The worship of the intermediate saints admitted that of the Virgin as its least dangerous, most affecting, most consolatory part. The exquisite beauty and purity of the images, the Virgin Mother and the Divine Infant, though uot as yet embodied in the highest art, by painting or sculpture, appealed to the unreasoning and unsuspect- ing heart. To this was added, the superior influence with which Christianity had invested the female sex, and which naturally clave to this gentler and kindred object of adoring love. In one of the earliest docu- ments relating to this controversy, the honor con- ferred on the female sex by the birth of the Lord from the Virgin Mary is dwelt upon in glowing terms : woman's glory is inseparably connected with that of the Virgin Mother. The power exercised by females at the court of Constantinople, now by the sisters and wives, the Pulcherias and Eudoxias, at other times, by the mothers of Emperors, the Helenas and Irenes, as in some degree springing from Christianity, was strengthened by, and in its turn strengthened, this adoration of the Virgin Mary, which interposed itself between that of Christ, and 206 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK H. still more that of God the Father, and the worship- ping Christian. With this view accords the whole course of the Promotion of history. On the death of Sisinnius Bishop Neetorius, J . A.D. 428. of Constantinople, the Emperor, the younger Theodosius, to terminate the intrigues and factions among the clergy of the city, summoned Nestorius from Antioch to the Episcopal Throne of the Eastern Rome. 1 Nestorius appeared, simple in his dress, grave in his demeanor, pale and meagre from ascetic observ- ances, and with the fame of surpassing eloquence. 2 He revived to the expecting city the fond remem- brance of Chrysostom, who, like him, had been catted from Antioch to Constantinople. 3 The Golden Mouth was again to appall and delight the city. But the religion of Chrysostom, from its strong practical char- acter, had escaped that speculative tinge which seemed natural to the Syrian mind. The last lingering ves- tiges of Gnosticism survived in Syria. Arius, though not a Syrian Presbyter, found his most ardent adher- ents in that province ; and now from the same quarter sprang this new theory, which, though it rested its claim to orthodoxy on its irreconcilable hostility to Arianism, grew out of the same principle. Anastasius, a presbyter, who accompanied Nestorius commence- from Antioch, first sounded the clarion of tortenilm^*" strife and confusion. He publicly preached . 429. an( j even j m pi ous to 1 Nestorius was a Syrian, a native of Germanicia. Socrat. vii. 29. Theodoret, Hseret. Fab. iv. 12. Simeon Batharsam. apud Assemanni, Biblioth. Orient, i. 346. a Tanta antea opinione vixisti, ut tuis te aliena civitas invideret. Such is the honorable testimony borne to the character of Nestorius by Pope Celestine. Epistol. ad Nestor., Mansi, iv. 1206. Cassian De Incarn. vii. 30. Tillemont, page 286. CHAP. m. OPINIONS OF NESTORITJS. 207 address the Virgin Mary as the Mother of God. The indignation and excitement of the city was heightened by fast-spreading rumors, that the Bishop not merely refused to silence the sacrilegious Presbyter, but openly avowed the same opinion. 1 As is usual, the subtile distinctions of Nestorius were unheard or unintelligible to the common ear. He proscribed an appellation to which the pulpits and the services of the Church had habituated the general mind. The tenet jarred upon the high-strung sensitiveness of an inveterate faith, and awoke resentment, on which the finest argument was lost. In the great Metropolitan Church sermons of the Bishop delivered a sermon on the Incar- N< nation of the Lord. 2 As an orator he placed his own theory in the most brilliant light. He dwelt on the omnipotence, the glory, and all the transcendent at- tributes of God the Creator, and of God the Re- deemer. "And can this God have a mother?" 8 " The heathen notion of a God born of a mortal mother is directly confuted by St. Paul, who declares the Lord without father and without mother. Could a creature bear the Uncreated? Could the Word which was with the Father before the worlds, become a new-born infant? The human nature alone was born of the Virgin : that which is of the flesh is flesh. 4 The manhood was the instrument of the di- vine purposes, the outward and visible vesture of the Invisible. God was incarnate, indeed, but God died not ; his death was but casting off the weeds of mor- tality, which he had assumed for a time." A second 1 Socrates, H. E. vii. 29, 32. 2 Socrates, H. E. vii. 32. Evagrius, i. 2. Liberatus, Breviar. c. 4 8 Socrates, ut supra. * Marios Mercator, edit. Gamier, ii. p. 5. 208 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK IL and a third sermon followed, in which Xestorius still farther unfolded his opinions : " Like can but bear like ; a human mother can only bear a human being. God was not born he dwelt in that which was born ; the Divinity underwent not the slow process of growth and development during the nine months of preg- nancy." But the more perplexing and subtle are arguments addressed to those whose judgment is al- ready ratified by their passions, they only inflame resentment instead of working conviction. The whole city was in an uproar ; every ecclesiastical rule broken asunder. The presbyters, in every quarter, preached against their bishop; and a bold monk (the monks were always the faithful representatives of the relig- ious passions of their age) forbade the Bishop, as an obstinate heretic, to approach the altar. Nestorius (and in all his subsequent afflictions it must be re- membered that, when in power, he scrupled not to persecute) did not bear these insults with Christian equanimity, or repress them with calm dignity. The refractory priests and the tumultuous people were seized, tried, and scourged more cruelly than in a land of barbarians. Nestorius, it is said, with his own hand, struck the presumptuous monk, and then made him over to the officers, who flogged him through the streets, with a crier going before to proclaim his offence, and then cast him out of the city. 1 1 This is the account indeed of a partisan the report of Bacillus to the Emperor Theodosius. Labbe, Concil. But his whole history shows the persecuting spirit of Nestorius: "The fifth day after his consecration he endeavored to deprive the Ariana of their church : they burned it down in despair. He was called by his enemies Nestorius the Incendiary." Socrat. vii. 29. He excited also a violent persecution against the Nova- tians, Quarto-decimans and Macedonians. Ibid, et c. 31. The most damning fact against him, however, is his own boast that he procured CHAP. HI. OPINIONS OF STESTORIUS. 209 Nestorius found in Constantinople itself a more dangerous antagonist. On a festival in honor of the Virgin, Proclus Bishop of Cyzicum (an unsuccessful rival, it is said, of Nestorius for the Metropolitan See) delivered a passionate appeal to the dominant feeling. The worship of the Virgin, in the most poetic ages of Christianity, has hardly surpassed the images which Proclus poured forth in lavish profusion in honor of the Mother of God. " Earth and sea did homage to the Virgin, the sea smoothing its serene waters, earth conducting the secure travellers who thronged to her festival. Nature exulted, and womankind was glorified." " We are assembled in honor of the Mother of God " (the appellation condemned by Nes- torius) ; " the spotless treasure-house of virginity ; the spiritual paradise of the second Adam ; the workshop, in which the two natures were annealed together : the O 7 bridal chamber in which the Word wedded the flesh ; the living bush of nature, which was unharmed by the fire of the divine birth ; the light cloud which bore Him which sate between the Cherubim ; the stainless fleece, bathed in the dews of Heaven, with which the Shepherd clothed his sheep ; the handmaid and the mother, the Virgin and Heaven;" and so on through a wild labyrinth of untranslatable meta- an imperial law of the utmost severity against all heretics: Ego, certe legem inter ipsa meae ordinationis initia contra eos, qui Christum pnrum hominem dicunt, et contra reliquas haereses innovavi. Mansi, v. 731 or 763. For the Law, see Cod. Theodos. de Haeret. Vincentius Lirinensis writes of Xestorius, Ut uni hseresi aditum patefaceret, cunctarum haereseon blas- phemias insectabatur. Commonit. c. 16. Nestorius was in character a monk, without humility. " Give me (such is the speech ascribed to him as addressed to the Emperor) a world freed from heresy, and I will give you the kingdom of heaven. Aid me in subduing the heretics, I will aid yon in routing the Persians." 210 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK II phor. 1 The cloudy opening cleared off into something like argument; it became an elaborate reply to Nes- torius, the declaration of war from one who felt his strength in the popular feeling. But the war was not confined to Constantinople ; Cyril of it involved the whole East. Now rushed lria ' forward an adversary far more formidable hi station, in ability, in that character for Christian orthodoxy of doctrine which then hallowed every act, even every crime, but from which true Christianity would avert its sight in shame and anguish, that such a champion should be accepted as the representative of the Gospel of peace and love. Cyril of Alexan- dria, to those who esteem the stern and uncompro- mising assertion of certain Christian tenets the one paramount Christian virtue, may be the hero, even the saint : but while ambition, intrigue, arrogance, rapacity, and violence are proscribed as unchristian means barbarity, persecution, bloodshed as unholy and unevangelic wickednesses posterity will condemn the orthodox Cyril as one of the worst of heretics against the spirit of the Gospel. Who would not meet the judgment of the Divine Redeemer loaded with the errors of Nestorius, rather than with the barbarities of Cyril? Cyril was the nephew of Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria, the worthy successor to the see and to the character of that haughty and unscrupulous prel- 1 This sermon of Proclus (to be found Labbe, Coneil. sub ann.) is said, in the ancient preface, to have been delivered in the great church, in the presence of Nestorius. Nestorius appears to have answered this attack with moderation. In dieser ganzer Rede (the answer of Nestorius) hersa- chet so viel Bescheidenheit, als gewiss in andern polemischen Schriften dieses Zeitalters kaum angetroffen wird. Walch, p. 376. CHAP. 111. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA. 211 ate, the enemy of Chrysostom. Jealousy and animosity towards the Bishop of Constantinople was a sacred legacy bequeathed by Theophilus to his nephew, and Cyril faithfully administered the fatal trust. He in- herited even the bitter personal hatred of Chrysostom ; refused to concur in the general respect for his mem- ory, and in the reversal, after his death, of the unjust sentence of deposition from his see. He scrupled not to call the eloquent, and in all religious tenets and principles absolutely blameless Christian orator, a second Judas. 1 The general voice of Christendom alone compelled him to desist from this posthumous persecution. Nor was Cyril content without surpass- ing his haughty kinsman in the pretensions of his archiepiscopate. From his accession, observes the ec- clesiastical historian of the time, the bishops of Alex- andria aspired, far beyond the limits of the sacerdotal power, to rule with sovereign authority. 2 They con- fronted, and, as will appear, contended on equal terms and with the same weapons, against the Imperial magistracy. 3 The first act of Cyril's episcopacy was that of a persecutor. He closed the churches of the cyrfi's perse- Novatians, seized and confiscated all their iii-i e> sacred treasures, and stripped the bishop of all his possessions. The war which he commenced against the heretics he continued against the Jews and heathens. But the numerous and wealthy The Jews. Jews of Alexandria, who multiplied as fast as they 1 Epist. ad Attic, apnd Labbe, 204. 2 Kai yap kE, iKeivai) f) imffKonr) 'Afal-avSptiac, irapa rfis IspartKrif Taeuc radwaarEveiv TUV irpa-yfidruv IAa/3e TTJV apxrfv. Socrat. H. E. vii. 7. 8 Ibid. loc. cit. 212 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK n were diminished by their own feuds or feuds with the Christians, were not to be oppressed so easily as a small and unpopular sect of Christians. Cyril must have been well acquainted with the fierce and violent temperament of the Alexandrian populace, and with their proverbial character, that their fac- tions never ended without bloodshed. 1 But Cyril had himself too much of the hot Egyptian blood in his veins ; and the bishop, instead of allaying this sanguinary propensity by the gentle and humanizing influences of Christianity, was rarely the last to raise the banner of strife, never the first to lay it down, never laid it down until his enemies were prostrate at his feet. Both Jews and Christians in Alexandria had so far departed from the primitive habits of their religion, that their most frequent and dangerous col- lisions took place in the theatre ; and the drama, in its noblest form a part of the pagan religion, had now degenerated into such immodest or savage exhibitions, or in itself gave rise to such maddening factions that, instead of allaying hostile feelings by the common amusement and hilarity, it inflamed them to fiercer animosity. 2 The contested merits of a pantomimic actor now exasperated the mutual hatred of the re- ligious parties. Orestes, the prefect of the city, deter- mined to suppress these tumults, and ordered strict police regulations to that effect to be hung up in the theatre. Certain partisans of the archbishop entered the theatre, with the innocent design, it is said, of yap alftarof ofi navErai lift dpfajf, Socrat. vii. 13. 8 These entertainments usually took place on the Jewish Sabbath, and on that idle day the theatre was thronged with Jews, who preferred this profane amusement to the holy worship of their Synagogue. Hist, of Jews, iii. 199. CHAP. m. CYRIL'S PERSECUTIONS. 213 reading this proclamation. Among these was one Hierax, a low schoolmaster, a man conspicuous as an admirer of Cyril, whom he was wont (according to common usage in the church) to applaud vehemently whenever he preached. From what cause is not quite clear, the Jews supposed themselves insulted by the presence of Hierax ; 1 they raised a violent outcry that the man was there only to stir up a tumult. Orestes, jealous, it is said, of the archbishop on account of his encroachments on the civil authority, sided with the Jews, ordered Hierax to be seized as a disturber of the peace and publicly scourged. The archbishop sent for the principal Jews, and threatened them with exemplary vengeance, if they did not cause all tumults against the Christians to cease. The Jews determined to anticipate the menace of their adversaries. Having put on rings of palm bark, in order to distinguish each other in the dark, they suddenly, at the dead of night, raised a cry that the great church, called that of Alex- ander, was on fire. The Christians rose and rushed from all quarters to save the church. The Jews fell upon them and massacred on all sides. When day dawned, the cause of the uproar was manifest. The archbishop placed himself at the head of a formidable force, attacked the synagogue of the Jews, expelled the whole race, no doubt not without much bloodshed, from the city, and allowed the populace to pillage all their vast wealth. The Jews, who from the time of Alexander had inhabited the city, were thus cast forth * My suggestion, in a former work, that these regulations might have appointed different days for the different races of the. people to attend the theatre, would make the story more clear. The excuse which Socrates suggests for the presence of Hierax implies that he had no business there. 214 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK n naked and outraged from its walls. The strong part which Orestes took against the archbishop, and his regret at the expulsion of so many thriving and opu- lent Jews from the city, warrant the suspicion that their rising was not without great provocation. Both parties sent representations to the Emperor : in the interval Cyril was compelled by the people of Alex- andria to make overtures of reconciliation. 1 On one occasion he went forth to meet Orestes with the Gospel in his hand : the prefect, probably supposing that he had not much of its spirit in his heart, refused his advances. The monks of the Nitrian desert had already been Monks of employed in the persecutions by Theophilus. These fiery champions of the Church took arms, to the number of five hundred, and poured into the city to strengthen the faction of the patriarch. They surrounded the chariot of the prefect, insulted him, and heaped on him the opprobrious names of heathen and idolater. The prefect protested, but in vain, that he had been baptized by Atticus, Bishop of Constantinople. One of these monks, named Ammo- nius, hurled a great stone and struck him on the head ; the blood gushed forth, and his affrighted attendants fled on all sides. But the character of Orestes stood high with the people. The Alexandrians rose in de- fence of their magistrate; the monks were driven from the city ; Ammonius seized, tortured, and put to death. Cyril commanded his body to be taken up : the honors of a Christian martyr were prostituted on this insolent ruffian ; his panegyric was pronounced in the Church, and he was named Thaumasius, the Won- 1 ToOro ydp 6 Aodf TUV 'Afel-avdpeuv abrav itoidv Bocrat. loc. cit. CHAP. HI. HYPATIA. 215 derful. But the more Christian of the Christians were shocked at the conduct of the Archbishop. Cyril was for once ashamed, and glad to bury the affair in ob- livion. But before long his adherents were guilty of a more atrocious and an unprovoked crime, of the guilt of which a deep suspicion attached to Cyril. All Alexandria re- spected, honored, took pride in the celebrated Hypatia. Hypatia. She was a woman of extraordinary learn- ing ; in her was centered the lingering knowledge of that Alexandrian Platonism cultivated by Plotinus and his school. Her beauty was equal to her learning ; her modesty commended both. She mingled freely with the philosophers without suspicion to her lofty and unblemished character. Hypatia lived in great intimacy with the prefect Orestes ; the only charge whispered against her was that she encouraged him in his hostility to the patriarch. Cyril, on the other hand, is said not to have been superior to an unworthy jealousy at the greater concourse of hearers to the lec- tures of the elegant Platonist than to his own ser- mons. 1 Some of Cyril's ferocious partisans seized this woman, dragged her from her chariot, and with the most revolting indecency tore her clothes off, and then rent her limb from limb. 2 The Christians of Alexan- dria did this, professing to be actuated by Christian zeal in the cause of a Christian prelate. No wonder, in the words of the ecclesiastical historian, that by such a deed a deep stain was fixed on Cyril and the Church of Alexandria. 3 1 Socrates, H. E. vii. 13. 2 Damascius apud Suidam. 8 Toi'TO ov fuxpdv fujftov KvpiHuu, ital Tg 'Atel-avdpeuv tuxfaiaia e/pyo- wo. Socrat. loc. cit. 216 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK H It was this man who now stood forth as the head and representative of Eastern Christendom, the assertor Cyifl g*in** f P 1116 Christian doctrine, the antagon Nertonus. heresy on the episcopal throne of Constan- tinople. Cyril was not blind to the advantage offered by this opportunity of humiliating or crushing by this odious imputation the Bishop of the Imperial See, which aspired to dispute with Alexandria the primacy of the East. The patriarchs of Alexandria had seen the rise of Constantinople with undissembled jealousy. To this primacy Antioch, perhaps Jerusalem, might advance some pretensions. Ephesus boasted of her connection with St. John. But Byzantium had been a poor see under the jurisdiction of Heraclea ; its claim rested entirely on the city having become the seat of empire. This jealousy had been, no doubt, the latent cause of the bitter and persevering hostility of The- ophilus towards Chrysostom. The more ambitious Cyril might now renew the contest with less suspicion of unworthy motives ; he was waging war, not against a rival, but against a heretic. The intelligence of the disturbances in Constantino- ple and the unpopular doctrines favored at least by Nestorius spread rapidly to Alexandria ; the monks of both regions probably maintained a close correspond- ence. Cyril commenced his operations by an Easter sermon, in which, without introducing the name of Nestorius, he denounced his doctrines. He followed up the blow with four epistles, at certain intervals : one addressed to his faithful partisans, the monks of Egypt; one to the Emperor; one to the Empress mother, the guardian of her son ; the last to Nestorius himself. The address to the Emperor commences in CHAP. HI. CYEIL AGAINST NESTORIUS. 217 an Oriental tone of adulation, the servility of which would have been as abhorrent to an ancient Roman as its impiety to a primitive Christian. The Emperor is the image of God upon earth : as the Divine Majesty fills heaven and awes the angels, so his serene dignity the earth, and is the source of all human happiness. This emperor was the feeble boy, Theodosius II. To the Empresses, the mother and the sister of Theodo- sius, as more worthy auditors, and judges better quali- fied to enter on such high mysteries, Cyril pours out all the treasures of his theology. In the letter to Nes- torius, who, it seems, had taken offence at the dissem- ination of the address to the Egyptian monks in Con- stantinople, Cyril states, with some calmness, that the whole Christian world, Rome, Syria, Alexandria, were equally shocked by the denial of the title " Mother of God " to the Blessed Virgin. 1 This epistle was fol- lowed by a second, which called forth an answer from Nestorius. This answer, as well as the whole of the controversy, more completely betrays the leading no- tions which had obtained such full possession of the mind of Nestorius. The Godhead, as immaterial, is essentially impassible. The coeternal Word must be impassible, as the coeternal Father. 2 The human 1 Labbe, Concil. iii. p. 51. 2 Kal rdv i9ov kKelvov ruv irarepuv ebpfiaeu; XP^ V , v "^ v bpoovaunt QeorrjTa ira&i]Trjv eipTjKora, ovde uvaaraaav rdv fahvpevov var)v avaarfjaav- ra. Epist. Xestor., apud Labbe, p. 321. Tdv yap b> rote irpurou; anady, KTipiixdevTa, Kal devrepa; yewriaeuy afisKTav, itd'hiv Tra^rdv, Kal veoKTia- TOV OVK otd' OTrug EiCTj-yev, p. 322. This is throughout the point at issue. Compare the third part (in the Concil. Labbe) containing the twelve chap- ters of Cyril, the objections of the Oriental prelates, and the apology of Cyril for each separate chapter. The one party contend against the passi- bility, the mutability of the Godhead ; Christ being God, is aTrai^f Kal The flesh, which endured all the passion and the change, 218 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK H. nature was the temple in which dwelt the serene and impassive Divinity. To degrade the Divinity to the brute and material processes of gestation, birth, pas- sion, death, the inalienable accidents of the flesh and the flesh alone, was pure heathenism, or a heresy worse than that of Arius or Apollinaris. Cyril himself is driven by this difficulty to the very verge of Xestorian opinions, and to admit that the Godhead cannot prop- erly be asserted to have suffered wounds and death. 1 But throughout this age the strong repulsive power of religious difference subdues the feebler attractive force of conciliation and peace. The epistolary altercation between Cyril and Nestorius grew fiercer, and with less hope of reconcilement. Nestorius, though he might not foresee the formidable confederacy which was organizing itself against him, might yet have known on what dangerous ground he stood even in state of con- Constantinople. The clergy of both factions, rtandnopie. w fro had engaged in the strife for the ad- vancement of Philippus or of Proclus, the rivals of the ruling archbishop for the see, mutually indignant at the intrusion of a stranger, were already combined in hatred towards Nestorius. All the monks were furious partisans of the " Mother of God." Against was intimately connected with the Deity; was its pavilion, its dwelling- place; and this may explain "The Word became Flesh." Compare pp. 844, 881, 892. 1 Cyril was reduced to the expression rriK, Jf TW Ww xacrxovrof aufiarof, f iavrdv olxeiovTat rb ira&df. In the Alexandrian Liturgy of S. Gregory, this expression has been introduced. KCU xaduv iKOvaiof capri, Kat fielvas &ir- T. 15 226 LATIN CHKISTIANITY. BOOK II. secrets and disturb the harmony of the Imperial family, as well as to confound the quiet of the Church, as though this confusion were his only means of obtaining fame and distinction. 1 Theodosius had already acceded to the universal Council of demand for a General Council. This alone, Ephesus. according to 'the opinion of the time, could allay the intestine strife which had set Rome and Alexandria at variance with Constantinople, divided Constantinople into fierce and violent factions, and appeared likely to renew the fatal differences of tho Arian and Macedonian contests. The Imperial sum- mons was issued, and in obedience to that mandate assembled the first General Council of Ephesus. It might have been supposed that nowhere would General Christianity appear in such commanding maj- Counciis. ggj-y as J n a Council, which should gather from all quarters of the world the most eminent prel- ates and the most distinguished clergy ; that a lofty and serene piety would govern all their proceedings, profound and dispassionate investigation exhaust every subject ; human passions and interests would stand re- buked before that awful assembly ; the sense of their own dignity as well as the desire of impressing their brethren with the solemnity and earnestness of their belief would at least exclude all intemperance of man- ner and language. Mutual awe and mutual emulation in Christian excellence would repress, even in the most violent, all on-Christian violence. Their conclusions would be grave, mature, harmonious, for if not hanno- 1 Kal (a) yeyovbf (hostility in the Imperial family) Troiqaai {iovfao&ai rravrbf, juMav f) lepe&f bppi<; [icvroi fudf nal rrjf avrris npodsoiuc TO. re TUV kniikrioujv, ra re TUV flaaiAeuv (u.7J(iv xupi&iv fiovfaadcu, (if ox floijf a$opiif/f erepaf riido/a^aewf . Sacr. Theodos. Iinper. ad Cyrill. CHAP. IE. INCONGRUITY OF GENERAL COUNCILS. 227 nious the confuted party would hardly acquiesce in the wisdom of their decrees ; even their condemnations would be so tempered with charity as gradually to win back the wanderer to the still open fold, rather than drive him, proscribed and branded, into inflexible and irreconcilable schism. History shows the melancholy reverse. Nowhere is Christianity less attractive, and, if we look to the ordinary tone and character of the proceedings, less authoritative, than in the Councils of the Church. It is in general a fierce collision of two rival factions, neither of which will yield, each of which is solemnly pledged against conviction. In- trigue, injustice, violence, decisions on authority alone, and that the authority of a turbulent majority, decisions by wild acclamation rather than after sober inquiry, detract from the reverence, and impugn the judgments, at least of the later Councils. The close is almost in- variably a terrible anathema, in which it is impossible not to discern the tones of human hatred, of arrogant triumph, of rejoicing at the damnation imprecated against the humiliated adversary. Even the venerable Council of Nicea commenced with mutual accusals and recriminations, which were suppressed by the modera- tion of the Emperor ; and throughout the account of Eusebius l there is an adulation of the Imperial convert, with something of the intoxication, it might be of par- donable vanity, at finding themselves the objects of royal favor, and partaking in royal banquets. But the more fatal error of that Council was the solicitation, at least the acquiescence in the infliction of a civil penalty, that of exile, against the recusant Prelates. The de- generacy is rapid from the Council of Nicea to that 1 Hist, of Christianity, ii. p. 440. 228 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK IL of Ephesus, where each party came determined to use every means of haste, manoeuvre, court influence, bri- bery, to crush his adversary ; where there was an encouragement of, if not an appeal to, the violence of the populace, to anticipate the decrees of the Council ; where each had his own tumultuous foreign rabble to back his quarrel ; and neither would scruple at any means to obtain the ratification of their anathemas through persecution by the civil government. Some considerations will at least alky our wonder at this singular incongruity. A General Council is not the cause, but the consequence, of religious dissension. It is unnecessary, and could hardly be convoked, but on extraordinary occasions, to settle some questions which have already violently disorganized the peace of Christendom. It is a field of battle, in which a long train of animosities and hostilities is to come to an issue. Men, therefore, meet with all the excitement, the estrangement, the jealousy, the antipathy engen- dered by a fierce and obstinate controversy. They meet to triumph over their adversaries, rather than dispassionately to investigate truth. Each is committed to his opinions, each exasperated by opposition, each supported by a host of intractable followers, each prob- ably with exaggerated notions of the importance of the question ; and that importance seems to increase, since it has demanded the decision of a general assembly of Christendom. Each considers the cause of God in his hands : heresy becomes more and more odious, and must be suppressed by every practicable means. The essentially despotic character of the government, which entered into all transactions of life, with the deeply rooted sentiment in the human mind of the supreme CHAP. in. COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 229 and universal power of the law, the law now centred in the person of the Emperor, who was the State ; the apparent identification of the State and Church by the adoption of Christianity as the religion of the Empire, altogether confounded the limits of ecclesiastical and temporal jurisdiction. The dominant party, when it could obtain the support of the civil power for the exe- cution of its intolerant edicts, was blind to the danger- ous and unchristian principle which it tended to estab- lish. As the Council met under the Imperial authority, so it seemed to commit the Imperial authority to enforce its decisions. Christianity, which had so nobly asserted its independence of thought and faith in the face of heathen emperors, threw down that independence at the foot of the throne, in order that it might forcibly extirpate the remains of Paganism, and compel an absolute uniformity of Christian faith. The Council of Ephesus was summoned to Meeti of open its deliberations at Pentecost ; the fifty days from Easter were allowed for the assem- bling of the Prelates. da y> June 7 - Candidianus, Count of the domestics, a statesman of high character, was appointed to represent the Emper- or in the Council. His instructions were, not to inter- fere in the theological question, the exclusive province of the Bishops ; to expel all strangers, monks and lay- men, from the city, lest they should disturb the proceed- ings ; to maintain order, lest the animosities of the Bishops should prevent the fair investigation of the truth ; to permit no one to leave the Council, even under pretence of going to the Court ; to permit no ex- traneous discussions to be introduced before the assem- bly. Candidianus did not arrive till after Pentecost. 230 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK II Already, however, Ephesus had begun to be crowded with strangers from all quarters. Nestorius came ac- companied by not more than sixteen Bishops of his party. Cyril arrived attended by fifty Egyptian Bish- ops ; Memnon, the Bishop of Ephesus, a declared ene- my of Nestorius, had summoned thirty Prelates from Asia Minor. Nor were these antagonists content with mustering their spiritual strength ; each was accompa- nied by a rabble of followers of more unseemly char- acter ; Cyril by the bath-men and a multitude of women from Egypt ; Nestorius by a horde of peasants, and some of the lower populace of Constantinople. The troops of Candidianus, after his arrival, begirt the city ; Irenaeus, with a body of soldiers, was intrusted, by the special favor of the Emperor, with the protec- tion of the person of Nestorius. The adverse parties could not await the opening of the Council without betraying their hostility ; skirmish- ing disputes took place, 1 and no opportunity was passed of darkening the fame and the opinions of Nestorius in the popular mind. If Nestorius came under the fond hope of being heard on equal terms, and allowed to debate in a calm and dispassionate spirit the truth of his tenets, such were not the views of Cyril or of Ce- lestine. To them the Bishop of Constantinople was already a condemned heretic ; the business of the Council was only the confirmation of their anathema, Aoywv. Socrat. vii. 34. Joanne Antiocheno remo- rante * * * Cyrillus deflorationes quasdam librorum Nestorii faciebat, eum perturbare volens. Et quum plurimi Deum confiterentur Jesum Chri- stum, ego, inquit Nestorius, qui fuit duorum vel trium mensium nunquam confiteor Deum ; qua gratia mundus sum a sanguine vestro, et ammodo ad ros non veniam. Liberatus, Chron. c. 5. This is a good illustration of the Latin misconception of the opinions of Nestorius. CHAP HI. MEMXOX OF EPHESUS. 231 and the more authoritative deposition of the unortho- dox Prelate. With them the one embarrassing diffi- culty was whether, in case Nestorius recanted his opinions, they were to annul the sentence of excom- munication and of deposal, and admit him to a seat in the Council. 1 Memiion of Ephesus lent himself eagerly to all the schemes of Cyril. Nestorius was treated as Memnon of a man under the ban of excommunication : E P heBns - all intercourse, even the common courtesies of life were refused. All the Churches of Ephesus were closed against the outcast from Christian communion. When he expressed his solicitude, if not to attend the morning and evening service, at least to partake in the solemn mysteries of that season, not merely was he ignomin- iously repelled from the Churches, even from that of the Martyr St. John, but the avenues were beset by throngs of rude peasants brought in from the country, and prepared for any violence, and by the Egyptian sailors from the vessels of Cyril. 2 Pentecost had passed ; five days after arrived Juve- nalis, Bishop of Jerusalem, a prelate known Jnvenal of to be hostile to Nestorius. But John of Jerusalem. Antioch, with the greater part of the Eastern Bishops, did not appear. The Patriarchs of Constantinople and of Alexandria were arrayed as parties in the cause : 1 Etenim qnseris utrum sancta synodus recipere debet hominem a se pra- dicata damnantem ; an quia induciaram tempos emensum est, sententia du- dum lata perduret. This is from an answer to a letter of Cyril which Is lost. Celestine's reply to this question is perhaps studiously ambiguous. But the letter, as extant, is probably a translation. The secret instructions of Celestine to his legates (apud Baluzium, p. 381) show his intimate alli- ance with Cyril. Labbe, Cone. p. 622. Compare Walch, p. 466. 2 Epist. Xestorii, p. 565. Epist. ad Imper. p. 602. Epist. ad Senat 303. 232 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK IL each charged the other with heresy. The Roman Pa- triarch of the West was not present in person : the Patriarch of Antioch, therefore, might seem necessary, if not to the validity, to the weight and dignity of the Council. Cyril and his partisans were clamorous for the immediate opening of the Council ; the Bishops had been already too long withdrawn from their dio- ceses. Nestorius insisted on awaiting the arrival of John of Antioch and his prelates ; Candidianus gave the weight of the Imperial authority for delay. The Emperor had required the presence of John of Antioch and the Eastern Prelates at the Council. 1 Strong rea- sons were afterwards alleged by John of Antioch for his tardy arrival. His departure from Antioch had been arrested by a famine in the city, and daily insur- rections of the people on that account ; inundations had impeded his march. 2 Many of the Bishops of his vast province were ten or twelve long days' journey beyond Antioch ; they could not leave their cities be- fore Easter. 8 Cyril himself had received a courteous letter from John of Antioch, stating that he had ar- rived within six stations of Ephesus ; that he was trav- elling with the utmost speed, but that the roads were bad ; they had lost many of their beasts of burden ; and some of the more aged Bishops had been unable to proceed at that rapid rate. Cyril, however, chose to consider the delay of the Bishop of Antioch intentional and premeditated, eithei in order to shield the guilty Nestorius from the anath- ema of the Council, or to escape any participation in i Defens. trium Capitulor. Facundus, apud Sirmond Opera, ii. p. (507 * The epistle of John of Antioch to the Emperor. Evagrius, H. E. i. 3, 4. Labbe, Concil. p. 443. CHAP. III. FIRST GENERAL COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 233 such a sentence against one so well known, and for- merly at least so popular, in Antioch. 1 Only sixteen days were allowed to elapse by the impatient zeal (the noblest motive that can Opening of be assigned) of Cyril for the opening a Coun- fondly' cil which was to represent Christendom, to June> ^ absolve or to condemn as an irreclaimable heretic the Bishop of the second capital of the world. On Mon- day the 22nd of June, in the Church of the Virgin Mary, (an ill-omened scene for the cause of Nestorius,) met the Council of Ephesus. 2 The Count Candidianus, in a public report to his Imperial master, describes the violence, unfairness, even the treachery of the proceedings. No sooner had he heard that Cyril, Memnon, and their partisans were prepared to open the assembly, than he hastened to the Church. In the Emperor's name, he inhibited the meeting; he condescended to entreaties that they would await the arrival of the Eastern Bishops ; he declared that they were acting in defiance of the Im- perial Rescript. They answered that they were igno- rant of the contents of that ordinance. Thus com- pelled, and lest he should be the cause of popular insur- 1 Cyril's imputations against John of Antioch are inconsistent and con- tradictory. In one place he charges him with hypocrisy, and insinuates that he kept aloof to favor Nestorius (if the partisan of Nestorius, his pres- ence would have been more useful than his absence); in another that, con- scious of the badness of the cause of Nestorius, he kept aloof to avoid tak- ing any part in his inevitable condemnation : " Do what you will (rrpaTTere a TtpdrTETs), only let me not be personally involved in the business." Compare Cyril's Letter to the Clergy of Constantinople, p. 561, with the Epistol. Imper., p. 602. 2 The effect of this arrangement may be conceived from the Sermon of Cyril (Labbe, p. 584), in which he lavishes all his eloquence in her praise, through whom (&' #f ) all the wonders and blessings of the Gospel, which he recites, descended on man. LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK IL rection and rebellion, Candidianus read the Rescript ; and concluded by solemnly warning them against their indecent precipitation. This was their object ; the read- ing the Rescript they considered as legalizing the Coun- cil ; it was followed by loud and loyal clamors. The Count fondly supposed that these cries intimated obedi- ence to the Imperial command ; instead of this, they instantly commanded Candidianus to withdraw from an assembly in which he had no longer any place ; insult- ingly and ignominiously they cast out the representative of the Emperor. They proceeded summarily to eject the few Bishops attached to Nestorius ; and then com- menced their proceedings as the legitimate Senate of Christendom. 1 The council consisted of rather more than one hun- dred and fifty bishops about forty from Egypt, thirty from Asia Minor, several from Palestine with Juvenalis of Jerusalem, the rest from Thrace, Greece, the islands Crete, Rhodes, and Cyprus, and from some parts of Asia.. Rufus of Thessalonica professed to represent the bishops of Illyricum. 2 The proceedings, according to the regular report, now that all opposition was ex- pelled, flowed on in unobstructed haste and unprece- dented harmony. Peter, an Alexandrian presbyter, who acted as chief secretary, 3 opened the business with a statement of the dispute between Nestorius on one hand, Cyril and the Bishop of Rome on the other. On the motion of Juvenal of Jerusalem was then read the Imperial convocation of the bishops. It was asked 1 See the statement of Candidianus, pp. 589-59-2. In another place ha ays, " A vobis injuries^ et ignominies^ ejectus sum." In Synodico. * According to Nestorius, not only the Eastern bishops were expected bat those of Italy and Sicily. * Itpififuxfipiof KoTopiw. Primicerius Notariomm. CIIAP. HI. CITATION OF NESTORIUS. 235 how long a period had elapsed since the day appointed by the Emperor for the meeting ; Memnon of Ephesus replied " sixteen days." Cyril then rose, and asserting that on account of the long delay (of sixteen days !) some bishops had fallen ill, and some had died, declared that it was imperative to proceed at once to determine a question which concerned the whole sublunary world. 1 The Imperial Rescript itself had commanded the prelates to proceed without delay. One citation had been already sent by four bishops, summoning Nestorius to appear before the ^^^^ of council. Nestorius had declined, not uncour- Nestorina - teously, to acknowledge the validity of the assembly before the arrival of all the bishops. A second and a third deputation of the same number of bishops was sent. The first reported that they were not permitted by the guard to approach the presence of Nestorius, but received from his attendants the same answer ; the third that they were exposed to the indignity of being kept standing in the heat of the sun, and not allowed to enter the palace. The proceedings now commenced : the Nicene Creed was read, and then Cyril's letter to Nestorius. The bishops in succession declared their full co faith in the creed, and the perfect concordance of Cyril's exposition with the doctrines of the Nicene Fathers. Then followed the answer of Nestorius to Cyril. Cyril put the question of its agreement with the creed of Nicea. One after another the bish- ops rose, and in language more or less vehement, pronounced the tenets of Nestorius to be blasphemous, and uttered the stern anathema. All then joined in 1 Eif ufefetav airdaiis tyf vir 1 ovpavov. p. 453. 236 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK II. one tumultuous cry, " Anathema to him who does not anathematize Nestorius." The church rang with the fatal and reechoed word, " Anathema, anathema ! The whole world unites in the excommunication : anathema on him who holds communion with Nestorius ! " The triumph of Cyril ceased not here. The con- demnatory letters of Celestine of Rome to Nestorius were read and inserted in the acts of the council. Cer- tain bishops averred that of their personal knowledge Nestorius had not retracted his obnoxious doctrines. Then were read extracts from the works of the great theologians, Athanasius, Gregory, Basil, and others: many of these were of very doubtful bearing on the question raised by Nestorius ; they were contrasted with large extracts from his writings. A letter was read from Capreolus, Bishop of Carthage, excusing the ab- sence of the African clergy on account of the miserable desolation and the wars which afflicted the province, asserting in general terms their cordial adherence to the Catholic doctrine, and their abhorrence of heretical innovations. The Council, it is said, compelled by the sacred Decree of canons and amid the tears of many bishops, proceeded to deliver its awful sentence ; l Jesus Christ himself, blasphemed by Nestorius, (so ran the decree,) declares him deposed from his epis- copal rank, and from all his ecclesiastical functions. All the bishops subscribed the sentence. 2 The whole of this solemn discussion, with its fearful conclusion, was crowded into one day ! The impatient populace 1 'A.vayKaiu( /care7rp?evTef two re TUV KOVOVUV * * # daKpvaavres rroAAcudf * * * ffKvdpum)v unoQaaiv. Labbe, p. 533. 2 Above two hundred names appear. Some perhaps were added as con- curring in the sentence. CHAP. III. ARRIVAL OF SYRIAN BISHOPS. 237 had been waiting from morn till evening the issue of the Council. No sooner had they heard the dep- osition of this new Judas, than they broke out into joyous clamors ; escorted the Prelates with torches to their homes ; women went before them burning incense. A general illumination took place. Thus did the Saviour, writes Cyril, proudly recounting these popular suffrages, show his Almighty power against those who blasphemed his name. 1 Five days after arrived John of Antioch, and the Eastern Prelates ; they were received with Arrival of great honor by Count Candidianus, by the Bishops, other bishops not only with studied discourtesy, but with tumultuous and disorderly insult. 2 Nestorius kept aloof in judicious seclusion. These Prelates pro- ceeded to instal themselves as a Council, under the sanction of the Imperial Commissary. Their first inquiry was whether the former Council had been conducted with canonical regularity, and the sentence passed after dispassionate investigation. Candidianus bore testimony to the indecent haste and precipita- tion of the decree. But instead of calmly protesting against these violent proceedings, and declaring them null and void, as wanting their own concurrent voice, this small synod of between forty and fifty bishops, 8 rushed into the error which they had proscribed in others ; with no calmer or longer inquiry, before they 1 Cyril's letter to the people of Alexandria. 2 Compare, however, the statement of Memnon, a suspicious witness, p. 763. 8 These bishops did not all come with John ; some were of those pre- viously assembled at Ephesus, who had refused to take part in the council. Their adversaries assert that some of them were deprived bishops, others not bishops at all. According to this statement John's party did not amount to more than thirty. Epist. Cyril, et Memnon. p. 638. 238 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK II. had shaken the dust off their feet, 1 they condemned the doctrines of Cyril, as tainted with Arianism, Eunomianism, and Apollinarianism ; pronounced the sentence of deposition against the most religious Cyril (ecclesiastical courtesy held this appellation inseparable from that of bishop) and against Memnon of Ephesus ; and recorded their solemn anathema against the Prel- ates of the adverse Council. 2 The sentence condemned not their heresy alone, but likewise their disobedience to the Imperial authority, and their impious violence in excluding the faithful from the holy ceremonies of Pen- tecost, their closing the churches, and besetting them with gangs of Egyptian sailors and ecclesiastics, and with Asiatic boors. The excommunication was pub- lished throughout the city with the solemnity of an Imperial proclamation. Cyril and Memnon launched a counter-anathema ; and instead of abstaining, as ex- communicated persons, from the sacred offices, cele- brated them with greater pomp and public ity. In the mean time letters arrived from the Bishop of Jni y 10. Rome, Celestine. Cyril's council reassem- Letters rf. ,.,',,' ceiestine, bled to receive them ; every sentence was in such full accordance with their views, that the whole assembly rose in acclamation. " The council renders thanks to the second Paul, Celestine ; to the second Paul, Cyril ; to Celestine, protector of the faith ; to Celestine, unanimous with the council. One Celes- tine, one Cyril, one faith in the whole council, one faith throughout the world." 8 The Bishops Arcadius and Projectus, with Philip the Presbyter, the legates of Rome, gave their deliberate sanction to the deposi- l Cyril, Epist ad Celestin. p. 663. Labbe, Concil. 599. * Actio Secunda Concilii, p. 618. CHAP. m. EIOTOUS PROCEEDINGS. 239 tion of Nestorius. At another sitting it was reported that endeavors had been made to bring John of An- tioch, now accused as an accomplice in the guilt and heresy of Nestorius, to an amicable conference. Three bishops, deputed to him, had been repelled by the fierce and turbulent soldiery who guarded his residence. A second deputation had been admitted to his presence : he loftily refused to enter into negotiations with excom- municated persons. On this report the council pro- ceeded to annul all the decrees of John and his synod. Having thrice cited him to appear, they declared John of Antioch deposed and excommunicated, as well as all the bishops of his party. 1 Cyril was not idle in his more public sphere of influence. He thundered from the pulpit against the bold man who had interfered in his triumphant conflict with the dragon of heresy, which vomited out its poison against the Church ; he asserted that he was ready to encounter this new Goliath with the arms of faith. 2 Both parties were disposed to employ weapons of a more worldly temper. John of Antioch violent threatened the election of a new Bishop of contest - Ephesus in the place of the deprived Memnon. 3 A peaceful band of worshippers according to one account, more probably an armed host, determined to force their way into the cathedral of St. John. They found it 1 The Bishop of Jerusalem claimed jurisdiction, as of ancient usage, over the see of Antioch. p. 642. 2 'EKTJpev, (if 6pf, 6 KokvKtyaTuos dpdicuv TT)V avoatov Kai Se/fyfov K~ a^)v, Totf TTjf eKKTi-rjciaf T/cvot? rbv T7/f idiaf avoaio-njrof Ibv kmirrvuv, " This Goliath from the East shall fall by stones from the scrip of Christ ; and what is the scrip of Christ ? the Church, which contains many stones, elect and precious." This is a specimen of the Archbishop's religious rhap- sody. Homil. Cyril, p. 667. 3 Labbe, p. 710. 240 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK H. beset by Memnon with a strong garrison. Content, according to their own partial statement, with wor- shipping without the doors, they were retreating in peace, when the partisans of Memnon made a des- perate sally, took men and horses prisoners, assailed them, and drove them through the streets with clubs and stones, not without much bloodshed. 1 The court of Theodosius was perplexed with the Consunu- contradictory and doubtful reports from Eph- esus. Candidianus and the party of Nesto- rius jealously watched the issues of the city, that no representations from Cyril and his council should reach the imperial ear. Theodosius still maintained his impartiality, or more probably a minister favorable to Nestorius ruled in the court. An imperial letter arrived, written in the interval between the deposition of Nestorius and the arrival of John of Antioch, 2 strongly reproving the proceedings of the council, annulling all its decrees, commanding the reconsidera- tion of the creed by the whole assembly, forbidding any bishop to leave Ephesus till the close of the council, and announcing the appointment of a second commissary to assist the Count Candidianus. But all the watchful- ness of the government and of Nestorius could not in- tercept the secret correspondence of Cyril's party with their faithful allies, the earliest and most inveterate enemies of Nestorius, the monks of Constantinople. A beggar brought a letter, announcing to them the glad tidings of the deposition of Nestorius, which the court had not condescended to communicate to the people. 1 Their own despatches urged, and no doubt exaggerated, the contempt of the imperial authority, the lawlessness of the rabble at the command of Cyril and of Memnon. * It was sent in great haste, by the imperial officer, Palladium CHAP. HI. EMPEKOR'S RESCRIPTS. 241 The court must be overawed ; these spiritual dema- gogues would not await the tardy and doubtful ortho- doxy of the Emperor. Dalmatius, a monk of high repute for his austere sanctity, who, it is said, had in vain been solicited by the Emperor himself to quit his cell and inter- cede for the city during an earthquake, now, com- pelled by this more weighty call, came forth from his solitude. A vision had confirmed his sense of the imperious necessity. At the head of a procession of archimandrites and monks he passed slowly through the streets and sate down, as it were, to besiege the 1 ' O palace. Wherever he passed, the awed and wondering people burst out into an anathema against Nestorius. But the court did not as yet stoop from its lofty dictatorship in ecclesiastical affairs. A new Emperor > 8 Imperial Commissary, one of the highest rescn P te - officers of state, named John, appeared in Ephesus. His first measure was one of bold and severe impar- tiality, a vigorous assertion of the civil supremacy, humiliating to the pride of sacerdotal dignity. The Imperial letters sanctioned equally the decrees of each conflicting party, the deposition of Cyril and Memnon, as well as of Nestorius. John summoned all the Prelates to his presence. At the dawn of morning appeared Nestorius with John of Antioch. Some- what later, Cyril presented himself with the bishops of his party ; Memnon alone refused to come. Here- upon arose a clamorous debate. Cyril and his bishops would not endure the presence of the heretical and excommunicated Nestorius. The divine and awful letters could not be read either in the absence of Cyril, or in the presence of Nestorius. The party VOL. I. 16 242 LATEST CHRISTIANITY. BOOK II. of Nestorius and John as peremptorily demanded the expulsion of the deposed and excommunicated Cyril. The debate maddened into sedition, sedition into a battle. The Imperial Representative was compelled to use his military force to restrain the refractory churchmen, before he could read the Emperor's let- ters. At the sentence of deposition against Cyril and Memnon, the clamors broke out with fresh violence. John, the Prefect, took a commanding tone ; he or- dered the arrest and committal to safe but honorable custody of all the contending prelates. Nestorius and John of Antioch submitted without remonstrance. Cyril, after a homily to the people, in which he represented himself as the victim of persecution, in- curred by Apostolic innocence and borne with Apos- tolic resignation, yielded to the inevitable necessity. Memnon at first concealed himself, and attempted to elude apprehension, but at length voluntarily surren- dered to the Imperial authority. The throne was besieged, and confused by strong representations on both sides. At length it was de- termined that eight deputies for each party should be permitted to approach the court, and stand before the sacred presence of the Emperor. In Constantinople this assembly might cause dangerous tumults : they oonnca of me t therefore in the suburb of Chalcedon. OuUcedon. Qn ^ ^ of Q^ appeared p hilip the Presbyter, the representative of Pope Celestine. and the Western Bishop Arcadius, Juvenal of Jerusalem, Flavianus of Philippi, Firmus of the Cappadocian CaBsarea, Acacius of Melitene, Theodotus of Ancyra, Euoptius of Ptolemais. On that of the Orientals, the Metropolitans John of Antioch, John of Damascus, CHAP. IH. PULCHEKIA. 243 Himerius of Nicomedia ; the Bishops Paul of Emesa, Macarius of Laodicea, Apringius of Chalcis, Theod- oret of Cyrus, and Helladius of Ptolemais. Though the Bishop of Chalcedon endeavored to close the churches on the Oriental bishops, and the fanatic Monks from Constantinople threatened to stone them, 1 the people, according to their statement, listened with absorbed interest to the eloquence of Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus, and to the mild exhortations of John of Antioch. The youthful Emperor himself, when they taunted the adverse doctrine with degrading the God- head to a passible being, rent his robes at the blas- phemy. 2 The Oriental Bishops gradually began to separate the cause of Nestorius from their own. They insisted much more on the heresy of Cyril than on the orthodoxy of Nestorius. They accused him of assert- ing that the Godhead of the only begotten Son of God suffered, not the Manhood. 3 They protested that they would rather die than subscribe the twelve chap- ters of Cyril, in which the anti-Nestorian doctrine had now taken a determinate form ; or communicate with a Prelate deposed by their legitimate authority. Other influences were now at work at the court of Constantinople. The masculine but ascetic mind of Pulcheria, the sister, the guardian, the Em- Puicheria. press, she may be called, of the Emperor, with her 1 " Nam Constantinopoli neque nos, neque adversarii nostri intrare per- missi suinus, propter seditiones bonorum monachorum." Epist. Oriental, p. 732. 2 See the short but curious statement in Latin : " Passibilem esse deita- tem. Quod usque adeo gravatim tulit pius rex noster, ut excuteret pallium, et retrorsum cederet prse blasphemiae multitudine." p. 716. 8 'Qf ij deorrje TOV (tovoyevovf Qeov vlov made, KOL OVK i\ avi?pw7rorj?f. This they considered nearly allied to Arianism, as making the Son a :reated being. See the full view of their tenets in the Epist. Oriental, p. 740 244 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK H. rigid devotion to orthodoxy and her monastic character, was not likely to swerve from the dominant feeling of the Church ; to comprehend the fine Oriental Spirit- ualism which would keep the Deity absolutely aloof from all intercourse with matter, as implied in his pas- sibility : least of all, to endure any impeachment on the Mother of God, the tutelar Deity, and the glory of her sex. The power of the Virgin in the Court of Heaven was a precedent for that of holy females in the courts of earth. To the Virgin Empress, in later times, the gratitude of the triumphant party of Cyril and of the West attributed the glory of the degrada- tion and banishment of Nestorius, and the discomfiture and dispersion of his followers. Still later, the Pope Leo addresses her as having expelled the crafty enemy from the Church : and her name was constantly saluted in the streets of Constantinople as the enemy of heretics. 1 Nestorius was quietly abandoned by both parties. Nestorius The secret of this change lies deeper in the abandoned. re cesses of the Imperial councils. The Eu- nuch minister, who had been his powerful supporter, died ; he might, indeed, not long have enjoyed this treacherous favor, for the Eunuch had most impartially condescended to receive bribes from the opposite fac- tion also. When the Emperor ordered his vast treas- ures to be opened, confiscated no doubt to the Imperial use, a receipt was found for many pounds of gold re- ceived from Cyril through Paul, his sister's son. 2 Nestorius was allowed the vain honor of a voluntary 1 " Quo dudum subdolum sanctse religionis hostem, ab ipsis visceribua ecclesiae depulistis, quum hteresin suam tueri impietas Nestoriana non pot- nit." S. Leon. Epist. 59. 8 Epist. Acacii Berocens. ad Alexandrum Episc. Ilierapol. Acaciua heard 'his from John of Antioch. CHAP. IE. CYRIL IN ALEXANDRIA. 245 abdication. From Ephesus he was permitted to retire to a monastery at Antioch. This monastery, of St. Euprepius, had been the retreat of his early youth ; he returned to it, having endured all the vicissitudes of promotion and degradation. There he lived in peace and respect for four years. Cyril in the mean time had escaped or had been per- mitted to withdraw from the custody of the CyrU in Imperial officers at Ephesus. He returned Alexandria - to Alexandria, where he was received in triumph as the great Champion of the Faith. Thence, from the security of his own capital, almost with the pride of an independent potentate, but with the unscrupulous use of all means at his command, he directed the move- ments of the theologic warfare, which was maintained for three weary years with the Oriental Prelates. The wealth of Alexandria was his most powerful ally. While yet at Chalcedon, the desponding Orientals complain that their judges are ah 1 bought by Egyptian gold. 1 But this fact rests even on more conclusive testimony. Maximian, a Roman, had been raised to the vacant see of Constantinople. His first measure betrayed his bearing. He commanded all the churches of Constantinople to be closed against the Oriental Bishops, who desired to pass over from Chalcedon to visit the capital, as being under the unrepealed ban of the Church. A letter has survived, addressed by Cyril's avowed agents to the Bishop of Constantinople. They urge the willing Prelate to endeavor to rouse the somewhat languid zeal of the Princess Pulcheria in the i This is asserted in the letter of Theodoret of Cyrus : " Nihil enim hinc 6oni sperandum, eo quod judices omnes auro confidant." ..." Sic enim potent .iEgyptius omnes excaecare muneribus suis." Epist. Legat. p. 746. 246 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK H. cause of Cyril, to propitiate all the courtiers, and, if possible, to satisfy their rapacity. 1 The females of the court were to be solicited with the utmost importu- nity ; the monks, especially the Abbot Dalmatius, and Eutyches (afterwards himself an heresiarch), were to overawe the feeble Emperor by all the terrors of re- ligion, and by no means neglect to impress the Lords of the Bedchamber with the same sentiments. They were to be lavish of money ; already enormous sums had been sent from Egypt; 1500 pounds of gold had been borrowed of Count Ammonius ; and the wealth of the Church of Constantinople was to be as prodi- gally devoted to the cause. Ministers were to be de- graded, more obsequious ones raised to their posts by the influence of Pulcheria, in order to strengthen the pure doctrine, " the pure doctrine of Christ Jesus !" 2 Theodosius, weary of the strife, dissolved the meet- Synod of m S at Chalcedon, and thus the Council of aJSJtod Ephesus, which had assumed the dignity of A.D. 48i. ^ e third Ecumenical Council, was at an end. All, however, was still unreconciled hatred and confusion. The Oriental Bishops, as they returned home, found the churches at Ancyra and other cities of Asia Minor closed against them, as being under an 1 Eunapius, the heathen, gives a frightful picture of the venality of th court of Pulcheria. See the new fragment in Niebuhr's Byzantine histo- rians, p. 97. 2 The Letter in the Synodicon. The Latin is very bad ; in some parts unintelligible. A few sentences must be given: "Et Dominum nieum sanctissimum abbatem roga ut Imperatorem mandet, terribili cum conjura- tione constringens, et ut cubicularios omnes ita constringat. . . . Sed de tua Ecclesia pnesta avaritiae quorum nosti, ne Alexandrinorum Ecclesiam contristent. . . . Festinet autem Sanctitas tua rogare Dominam Pulche- riam, ut facial Dominum Lausuin intrare et Praepositum fieri, ut Chrysore- tis potentia dissolvatur, et sic dogma nostrum roboretur. Alioquin semper tribulandi sunms." CHAP. IH. SYNOD OF TARSUS. 247 interdict. They met together, on the other hand, at Tarsus, and afterwards at Antioch, con- synod of demned the twelve articles of Cyril, con- A.D. 43&. firmed the deposition of Cyril and Memnon, and in- cluded under their ban the seven Bishops, their antag- onists at Chalcedon. Maximian ventured on the bold step of deposing four Nestorian Bishops. The strife was hardly allayed by the vast mass of letters J which distracted and perplexed the world ; there was scarcely a distinguished Prelate who did not mingle in the fray. Theodosius himself interfered at length in the office of conciliation. Misdoubting, however, the extent of the Imperial authority, which had so manifestly failed in controlling this contest into peace, he cultivated the more potent intercession of the famous Simeon Stylites : the prayers of the holy " Martyr in the air " might effect that which the Emperor had in vain sought by his despotic edicts. John of Antioch and his party deputed Paul, the aged Bishop of Emesa, to Alexan- dria, to negotiate a reconciliation. Paul bore with him a formulary agreed upon at Antioch, the subscrip- tion to which by Cyril was the indispensable prelimi- nary of peace. On the acceptance of this formulary, and the consent of Cyril to anathematize ah 1 who should assert that the Godhead had suffered, or that there was one nature of the Godhead and the Man- hood, he and the Orientals would revoke the sentence of excommunication against Cyril. 2 But Paul of Emesa, amiably eager for peace, and not insensible to the dignity of appearing as Treaty of arbiter between these two great factions, was peace> 1 They occupy page after page of the great Collection of the Councils. 2 Ibas. Epist ad Maron. in Synodico. 248 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK EL no match for the subtlety of Cyril. Cyril was ill at the time of Paul's arrival, and some time elapsed in fruit- less negotiation. At length, after an ambiguous assent to the formulary of Antioch by Cyril, a treaty was con- cluded, in which Paul unquestionably exceeded his powers. But no sooner were the terms agreed upon than the doors of the Alexandrian churches flew open, and the contending parties vied with each other in flat- tering homilies. 1 At first the Orientals were startled at what appeared the unwarrantable concessions of Paul : " it was a peace," in the language of one, " which filled us with confusion of face and apprehen- sion of the just judgment of God." 2 The more vio lent of Cyril's friends were equally displeased with the event. Isidore of Pelusium openly reproached him with his time-serving concessions and with the recanta- tion of his own doctrines. 3 After some further contest, the peace negotiated in Alexandria was ratified at Antioch. The Orientals yielded their assent to the deposition of Nestorius, the condemnation of his doctrines, and acknowledged the * C legitimate nomination of his successor Maximianus in i See the three homilies of Paul, and one of Cyril. * Epist. Theodoret. Cyren. ad finem. Isidor. Pelus. Epist. ad Cyrill. Facundus de Trib. Capit. xi. 9. Isidore of Pelusium was no friend of Cyril. From the first he saw through hia character. During the Council of Ephesus he solemnly admonished hia bishop in terms like these: " Strong favor is not keensighted, hate is utterly blind: keep thyself unsullied by both these faults: pass no hasty judg- ments: try every cause with strict justice. . . Many of those summoned to Ephesus mock at thee (of nufujdovai) as one who seeks only to glut his private revenge, and has no real zeal for the orthodoxy which is in Christ Jesus. He, they say, is the sister's son of Theophilus, and follows the ex- ample of his uncle. As he manifestly gave free scope to his animosity gainst the God-inspired and God-beloved ('hry-M-ium, so does this man igainst Nestorius," &c. &c. Isid. Pelus. Epist. i. 310. See also the Le ters to the Emperor Theodosius, 311, and to Cyril, 323, 324, 370. CHAP. LEI. TKEATY OF PEACE. 249 the see of Constantinople. On the other hand Cyril, though spared the public disavowal of his own tenets, had purchased, in the opinion of many, his restoration to communion with the Orientals by a dishonorable compromise of his bolder opinions. It was a peace between John of Antioch and Cyril of Alexandria, not between the contending Peace hollow factions, which became more and more es- and briefc tranged and separated from each other. But the peace between John and Cyril soon grew into a close alli- ance, and John began to persecute his old associates. The first victim was Nestorius himself, now sunk to so low a state of insignificance as to expose him to the suspicion and hatred of his enemies, without retaining the attachment of his former friends. His obscure fate contrasts strongly with the vitality of his doctrines. By an Imperial edict, obtained not improbably by John of Antioch, who was weary of a troublesome neighbor, Nestorius in his old age was exiled to the Egyptian Oasis, as the place most completely cut off from man- kind, so that the contagion of his heresy might be con- fined to the narrowest limits. Even there he did not find repose. The Oasis was overrun by a tribe of bar- barous Africans, the Bleinmyes. These savages, out of respect or compassion, released their aged captive, who found himself in Panopolis ; and, having signified his arrival and his adventures to the Prefect of the city, expressed his hope that the Roman Government would not refuse him that compassion which he had found among the savage heathen. The heretic reckoned too much on human sympathies. He was hastily de- spatched under a guard of soldiers to Elephantine, the very border of the Roman territory, and recalled as has- 250 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK O. tily. These journeys wore out his old and infirm body ; and, after a vain appeal to the court to be spared a fourth exile, which is mocked by the ecclesiastical historian as a new proof of his obstinacy, he sunk into the grave. But there the charity of the historian Evagrius does not leave him in peace : he relates with undisguised satisfaction a report that his tongue was eaten with worms ; and from these temporal pains he passed to the eternal and immitigable pains of hell. 1 The three great Sees were now in possession of the A.D. 434. anti-Nestorians. Cyril ruled in Alexandria ; Maxim ian had been succeeded in Constantinople by Proclus, the ancient and inveterate antagonist of Nes- torius ; and John in Antioch. But, besides the Nes- torians, there was a strong anti-Cyrillian party among the Orientals, the former allies of John of Antioch, who protested against the terms of the peace. They maintained the uncanonical deposition of Nestorius, though they disclaimed his theology ; they asserted the unrepealed excommunication of Cyril. Alexander, Bishop of Hierapolis, declared that he would suffer death or exile rather than submit to Church communion with the Egyptians on such terms ; and declared that John must be lost to all sense of shame. On this prin- ciple the leading Bishops of nine provinces revolted against their Patriarchs, the two Syrias, the two Ci- licias, Bithynia, Moesia, Thessalia, Isauria, the second Cappadocia. They even ventured to send a protest to Sixtus, who had now succeeded Celestine in the See of Rome, in which they inveighed against the versatility and perfidy of John of Antioch. But an edict, ob- tained by the two dominant influences in the Byzan, 1 Evagrius, H. E. i. 6. CHAP. III. NESTORIANISM PROSCRIBED. 251 tine court, that of gold l and that of the Princess Pulche- ria, armed John with powers to expel the refractory Prelates from their sees ; and John had no scruples in punishing that mutinous spirit which he had encouraged so long. Nor were these Bishops prepared to suffer the martyrdom of degradation. Andrew of Samosata, Theodoret of Cyrus, Helladius of Tarsus, the leaders of that party, submitted to the hard necessity. It is probable, however, that the milder terms enforced upon them only required communion with John ; they were not compelled to give their formal assent to the depo- sition of Nestorius, or to withdraw their protest against the twelve articles of Cyril, or to repeal the anathema against him. Some, however, were more firm ; Mele- tius of Mopsuestia was forcibly expelled from his city by a rude soldiery, and fourteen other Bishops bore degradation rather than submit to these galling conces- sions. At the same time that Nestorius was banished from Antioch, an Imperial edict proscribed Nesto- Nest orianism nanism. 2 The followers of Nestorius were P roscribed - to be branded by the odious name of Simonians, as apostates from God ; his books were prohibited, and, when found, were to be publicly burned ; whoever held a conventicle of the sect was condemned to confiscation of goods. But however oppressed in the Roman Em- pire, Nestorianism was too deeply rooted in the Syrian mind to be extinguished either by Imperial or by ecclesi- 1 " Audivimus olim quod multum sategerit Venus, qui pro Joanne Constantinopoli latitat, et aurwn multum distribuerit aliquibus ut posset obtinere sacram, quae nos cogeret aut communicare Joanni, aut exire ab ecclesiis: quod etiam veraciter contigit." Meletii Epist. ad Maximin. Anagarb. 2 Codex Theodos. de Haeret. xvi. v. 66. 252 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK IL astical persecution. It took refuge beyond the frontiers, among the Christians of Persia. It even overleaped the stern boundary of Magianism, and carried the Gos- pel into parts of the East as yet impenetrated by Chris- tian missions. The farther it travelled eastwards the more intelligible and more congenial to the general sen- timent became its Eastern element, the absolute impas- sibility of the Godhead. Even in the Roman East it maintained, in many places a secret, in some an open resistance to authority. 1 The great Syrian School, that of Theodore of Mopsuestia and Diodorus of Tar- sus, the most popular of the Syrian theologians, were found to have held opinions nearly the same with those of Nestorius. Cyril and Proclus demanded the pro- scription of these dangerous writers ; but the Eastern Prelates, those of Edessa, and the successors of Theo- dore, indignantly refused submission. A new contro- versy arose, which was not laid to rest, but was rather kept alive by the new heresy which, during the next twenty years, confused the Eastern Churches and de- manded a fourth General Council Eutychianism. A.D. 432-440. Sixtus, the successor of Celestine, had Aug. is! ruled in Rome during these later transactions in the East ; he was to be succeeded by one of greater name. 1 Gibbon, at the close of his 47th chapter, has drawn one of his full, rap- id, and brilliant descriptions of the Oriental conquests of the Xestorians, from Assemanni, Renaudot, La Croze, and all other authorities extant in his day. Nestorianism and its kindred or rival sects retired far beyond the sphere of Latin Christianity ; it was not till the Portuguese conquests in the East that they came into contact and collision. The very recent works of Layard and the Rev. Mr. Badger reveal to us the present state of the settle- ments of the Nestorians the latter, their creed and discipline in th neighborhood of the Tigris and Euphrates. CHAP. IV. LEO THE GREAT. 253 CHAPTER IV. LEO THE GREAT. THE Pontificate of Leo the Great is one of the epochs in the history of Latin, or rather of Leo the universal Christianity. Christendom, wher- x.^flio. ever mindful of its divine origin, and of its Aug ' proper humanizing and hallowing influence, might turn away in shame from these melancholy and dis- graceful contests in the East. On the throne of Rome alone, of all the greater sees, did religion maintain its majesty, its sanctity, its piety; and, if it demanded undue deference, the world would not be inclined rigidly to question pretensions supported as well by such conscious power as by such singular and unim- peachable virtue ; and by such inestimable benefits conferred on Rome, on the Empire, on civilization. Once Leo was supposed to have saved Rome from the most terrible of barbarian conquerors ; a second time he mitigated the horrors of her fall before the King of the Vandals. During his pontificate, Leo is the only great name in the Empire ; it might almost seem in the Christian world. The Imperial Sover- eignty might be said to have expired with Theodosius the Great. Women ruled in Ravenna and in Con- stantinople, and their more masculine abilities, even their virtues, reflected a deeper shame on the names of Theodosius II. and Valentinia'n III., the boy Sov- 254 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK H. ereigns of the East and West. Even after the death of Theodosius, Marcian reigned in the East, as the husband of Pulcheria. In the West the suspected fidelity impaired the power, as it lowered the char- acter of Aetius; his inhuman murder deprived the A.D. 430. Empire of its last support; and the Count Boniface, the friend of Augustine, in his fatal revenge, opened Africa to the desolating Vandal. Leo stood equally alone and superior in the Christian world. Two years before the accession of Leo, Augustine had died. He had not lived to witness the capture and ruin of Hippo, his episcopal city. A.D.445. The fifth year after the accession of Leo, died Cyril of Alexandria; Nestorius survived, but in exile, his relentless rival. Cyril was succeeded by Dioscorus, who seemed to have inherited all which was odious in Cyril, with far inferior polemic ability ; afterwards, an Eutychian heretic, and hardly to be acquitted of the murder of his rival, Flavianus. This future victim of the enmity of Dioscorus filled the see of Constantinople. Domnus, a name of no great dis- tinction, was Patriarch of Antioch. In the West there are few, either ecclesiastics or others, who even aspire to a doubtful fame, such as Prosper, the poet of the Pelagian controversy, and Cassianus, the legislator of the Western monasteries. Leo, like most of his great predecessors and succes- sors, was a Roman. He was early devoted to the service of the Church ; and so high was the opinion of his abilities, that even as an acolyte he was sent to Africa with letters condemnatory of Pelagianism. By the great African Prelates, Aurelius and St. Au- gustine, he was confirmed in his strong aversion to CHAP. IV. ELECTION OF LEO. 255 those doctrines, which might seem irreconcilable with his ardent piety. He urged upon Pope Sixtus the persecution of the unfortunate Julianus. 1 When Leo was yet only a Deacon, Cassianus dedicated to him his work on the Incarnation. At the decease of Pope Sixtus, Leo was absent on a civil mission, Election of the importance of which shows the lofty ** estimate of his powers. It was no less than an at- tempt to reconcile the two rival generals, Aetius and Albinus, whose fatal quarrel hazarded the dominion of Rome in Gaul. There was no delay ; all Rome, clergy, senate, people, by acclamation, raised the absent Leo to the vacant see. Leo disdained the customary hypocrisy of compelling the electors to force the dignity upon him. With the self-confidence of a commanding mind he assumed the office, 2 in the pious assurance that God would give him strength to fulfil the arduous duties so imposed. Leo was a Roman in sentiment as in birth. All that survived of Rome, of her unbounded ambition, her inflexible persever- ance, her dignity in defeat, her haughtiness of lan- guage, her belief in her own eternity, and in her indefeasible title to universal dominion, her respect for traditionary and written law, and of unchangeable custom, might seem concentred in him alone. 3 The 1 " His insidiis Sixtus Papa, diaconi Leonis hortatu, vigilanter occurrens, nullum aditum pestiferis conatibus patere permisit, et . . . omnes catho- licos de rejectione fallacis bestise gaudere fecit." Prosper, in Chronic. 2 " Etsi necessarium est trepidare de merito, religiosum est gaudere de dono . . . ne sub magnitudine gratia? succumbat infirmus, dabit virtutem, qui contulit dignitatem." Sermo 11. 8 Nothing can be stronger than the Popes' declarations that even they are strictly subordinate to the law of the church. " Contra statuta patrum concedere aliquid vel mutare nee hujus quidem sedis potest auctoritas." Zos. Epist. sub ann. 417. " Sumus subject! canonibus. qui canonuin prae- cepta servamus." Cosiest, ad Episc. Ulyr. "Privilegia sanctorum pa- 256 LATIX CHRISTIANITY. BOOK II. onion of the Churchman and the Roman is singularly displayed in his sermon on the day of St. Peter and St. Paul ; their conjoint authority was that double title to obedience on which he built his claim to power, but chiefly as successor of St. Peter, for whom and for his ecclesiastical heirs he asserted a proto-Apostolic dignity. From Peter and through Peter all the other Apostles derived their power. No less did he assert the predestined perpetuity of Rome, who had only obtained her temporal autocracy to prepare the way, and as a guarantee, for her greater spiritual supremacy. St. Peter and St. Paul were the Romulus and Remus of Christian Rome. Pagan Rome had been the head of the heathen world ; the empire of her divine re- ligion was to transcend that of her worldly dominion. Her victories had subdued the earth and the sea, but she was to rule still more widely than she had by her wars, through the peaceful triumphs of her faith. 1 It was because Rome was the capital of the world that the chief of the Apostles was chosen to be her teacher, in order that from the head of the world the light of truth might be revealed over all the earth. The haughtiness of the Roman might seem to pre- dominate over the meekness of the Christian. Leo is indignant that slaves were promoted to the dignity of the sacerdotal office ; not merely did he require tram canonibus institute et Xiceje synodi fixa decretis nulla po.unt impro- bitate convelli, nulla novitate violari." S. Leo. Epist. 78 : compar 80. "Quoniam contra statnta paternorum canonum nihil cuiquam audire conceditur, ita si quis diversum aliquid decernere relit, se potius minuet, quam ilia corrumpat; quae si (ut oportet) a sanctis Pontificibus observantur per universas ecclesias, tranquilla erit pax et firma concordia." I. 1 " Per sacram beati Petri sedem caput orbis effecta, latius pnesiderea religione divina quam dominatione terrena." Serm. Ixxxiii. CHAP. IY. ELECTION OF LEO. 257 the consent of the master, lest the Church should become a refuge for contumacious slaves, and the es- tablished rights of property be invaded, but the base- ness of the slave brought discredit on the majesty of the priestly office. 1 Though Leo's magnificent vision of the universal dominion of Rome and of Christianity blended the in- domitable ambition of the ancient Roman with the faith of the Christian, the world might seem rather darkening towards the ruin of both. Leo may be imagined as taking a calm and comprehensive survey of the ardu- ous work in which he was engaged, the state of the various provinces over which he actuaUy exercised, or aspired to supremacy. In Rome heathenism appears, as a religion, extinct ; but heretics, especially the most odious of all, the Manicheans, were in great numbers. In Rome, Leo ruled not merely with Apostolic author- ity, but took upon himself the whole Apostolic func- tion. He was the first of the Roman Pontiffs whose popular sermons have come down to posterity. The Bishops of Constantinople seem to have been the great preachers of their city. Pulpit oratory was their rec- ommendation to the see, and the great instrument of their power. 2 Chrysostom was not the first, though 1 " Tanquam servilis vilitas hunc honorem capiat. . . . Duplex itaque in hac parte reatus est, quod et sacrum ministerium talis consortii vilitate pol- luilur, et dominorum . . . jura solvuntur." Epist. iv. 2 Sozomen asserts that it was a peculiar usage of the Church of Rome that neither the bishop nor any one else preached in the Church ovre 6e 6 enioKOTTOG ovre o^Uof nf hddds ^ EKK^rjaiag diduaicei. H E. vii. 19. This statement, defended by Valesius, is vehemently impugned by many Roman Catholic writers. Quesnel confines it to sermons on particular occasions. But the assertion of Sozomen is clearly general, and con- trasted with the usage of Alexandria, where the bishop was the only preacher. If this be true, the usage must have been subsequent to the beginning of Arianism, perhaps grew out of it. The presumption of VOL. I. 17 258 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK H. the greatest, who had been summoned to that high dignity, for the fame of his eloquence. From the pulpit Nestorius had waged war against his adver- saries. Leo, no doubt, felt his strength ; he could cope with the minds of the people, and make the pulpit what the rostrum had been of old. His ser- mons singularly contrast with the florid, desultory, and often imaginative and impassioned style of the Greek preachers. They are brief, simple, severe ; without fancy, without metaphysic subtlety, without passion : it is the Roman Censor animadverting with nervous majesty on the vices of the people ; the Roman Praetor dictating the law, and delivering with authority the doctrine of the faith. They are singu- larly Christian Christian as dwelling almost exclu- sively on Christ, his birth, his passion, his resurrection ; only polemic so far as called upon by the prevailing controversies to assert with especial emphasis the per- fect deity and the perfect manhood of Christ. 1 Either ignorance or error in Sozomen arises out of the generality of his state- ment, that there was in fact no preaching in Rome. The style of Leo'a sermons, brief, simple, expository, la almost conclusive against any long cultivation of pulpit-oratory. They are evidently the first efforts o Chris- tian rhetoric the earliest, if vigorous, sketches of a young art. Com- pare page 21. 1 One class were what may be described as charity-sermons. At a cer- tain period of the year, collections were made for the poor throughout all the regions of Rome. This usage had been appointed to supersede some ancient superstition, it is supposed the Ludi Apollinares, held on the 6th of July. The alms of the devout were to surpass in munificence the offerings of the heathen. These collections seem to have replaced in some degree the Rportula of the wealthy, and the ostentations largesses of the Emperors. On alms-giving Leo insists with great energy. It is an atonement for sin. Serm. vii. In another place, " eleemosyn peccata delent.'' Facing, without alms, is an affliction of the flesh, no sanctification of the ?oul. There is a beautiful precept urging the people to seek out the more modest of the indigent, who would not beg: Sunt enim qui pal am poscere ea, quibus indigent, erubescunt; et malunt miseria tacitae egestatis affligi, CHAP. IV. THE MANICHEES. 259 the practical mind of Leo disdained, or in Rome the age had not yet fully expanded the legendary and poetic religion, the worship of the Virgin and the Saints. St. Peter is not so much a sacred object of worship as the great ancestor from whom the Roman Pontiff has inherited supreme power. One martyr alone is commemorated, and that with nothing mythic or miraculous in the narrative the Roman Lauren- tius, by whose death Rome is glorified, as Jerusalem by that of Stephen. 1 Leo condemns the whole race of heretics, from Arius down to Eutyches ; but the more immediate, more dangerous, more hateful adversaries of the Ro- man faith were the Manicheans. That sect, in vain proscribed, persecuted, deprived of the privilege of citizens, placed out of the pale of the law by The j^^, successive Imperial edicts ; under the abhor- chees - rence not merely of the orthodox, but of almost all other Christians ; were constantly springing up in all quarters of Christendom with a singularly obstinate vitality. At this time they unquestionably formed a considerable sect in Rome and in other cities of Italy. Manicheism, according to Leo, summed up in itself all which was profane in Paganism, blind in carnal Juda- ism, unlawful in magic, sacrilegious, and blasphemous in all other heresies. 2 It does not appear how far the Manicheism of the West had retained the wilder and more creative system of its Oriental founder ; or, sub- dued to the more practical spirit of the West, adhered quam publica petitione confundi . . . paupertati eorum consultum fuerit et pudori." Serm. ix. p. 32-3. Leo denounces usury "foenus pecuniae, funus animse." Serm. xvii. 1 Sena. Ixxxv. 2 Serm. xvi. 260 LATE* CHRISTIANITY. BOOK H. only to the broader anti-Materialistic and Dualistic r tenets. But these more general principles were obnox- ious in the highest degree to the whole Christianity of the age. Where the great rivalship of the contending parties in Christendom was to assert most peremptorily, and to define most distinctly, the Godhead and the hu- manity of the Redeemer, nothing could be more uni- versally abhorrent than a creed which made the human person of the Redeemer altogether unreal, and was at least vague and obscure as to his divinity : which in that Redeemer was clearly extraneous and subordinate to the great Primal Immaterial Unity. All parties would unite in rejecting these total aliens from the Christian faith. 1 But Leo had stronger reasons for his indignation against the Roman Manichi-ans. Whether the asceticism of the sect in general had re- coiled into a kind of orgiastic libertinism, or whether the polluting atmosphere of Rome, in which no doubt much of pagan licentiousness must have remained, and which would shroud itself in Christian, as of old in pagan mysteries, the evidence of revolting immoralities is more strong and conclusive against these Roman Manicheans than against any other branch of this con- demned race at other times. The public, it might seem the ceremonial violation of a maiden of tender years, in one of their religious meetings, was witnessed, it was said, by the confession of the perpetrator of the crime ; by that of the elect who were present ; by the Bishop, who sanctioned the abominable wicked The investigation took place before a great assembly 1 8. Leo, Serm. xvi. and xlii. * Epist ad Turib. xiv. Epist. viii. Rescript. Valentin. " Coram Senatn amplissimo manifest* ipsorom confessione patefacta sunt. CHAP. IV. DIFFICULTIES OF THE AFRICAN CHURCH. 261 of the principal of the Roman priesthood, of Oct. 10, 443. the great civil officers, of the Senate, and of the peo- ple. We cannot wonder that the penalties fell indis- criminately upon the whole sect. Some, indeed, were admitted to penance, on their forswearing Manes and all his impious doctrines, by the lenity of Leo ; others were driven into exile ; still, however, no capital pun- ishment was inflicted. Leo wrote to the Jan. 444. Bishops of Italy, exhorting them to search out these pestilent enemies of Christian faith and virtue, and to secure their own flocks from the secret contamination. The Emperor Valentinian III., no doubt by the advice of Leo, issued an edict confirmatory of those laws of his predecessors by which the Manicheans were to be banished from the whole world. They were to be liable to all the penalties of sacrilege. It was a public offence. The accusers were not to be liable to the charge of delation. It was a crime to conceal or har- bor them. All Manicheans were to be expelled from the army, and not permitted to inhabit cities ; they could neither make testaments nor receive bequests. The cause of the severity of the law was their flagrant and disgraceful immorality. If Italy did not folly acknowledge, it did not contest the assumed supremacy of the Roman See. Leo writes not only to the Bishops of Tuscany and Campania, but to those of Aquileia and of Sicily, as under his imme- diate jurisdiction. Africa was among the provinces of the Western Empire. It was a part of the Latin world Africa. an indispensable part as being now, since the Egyp- tian supplies were alienated to the East, with Sicily, the sole granary of Rome and of Italy. If the patri- 262 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK II archate of Rome was coextensive with the Western Empire, Africa belonged to her jurisdiction, and the closest connection still subsisted between these parts of Latin Christendom. Latin had from the first been the language of African theology ; and of the five or six greatest names among the earlier Western fathers, three, Tertullian, Cyprian, and Augustine, were of those provinces. In every struggle and in every con- troversy Africa had taken a leading part. She had furnished her martyrs in the days of persecution ; she had contended against all the heresies of the East, and repudiated the subtle metaphysics of Greek Christen- dom ; orthodoxy had in general triumphed in her de- liberations. By the voice of St. Augustine she had discomfited Manicheism ; and it was her burning tem- perament which, in the same great writer, had repelled the colder and more analytic Pelagianism, and made the direct, immediate, irresistible action of divine grace upon the soul an established article of the Western creed. Her councils had been frequent, and com- manded general respect; her bishops were incredibly numerous in the inland districts ; and, on the whole, Christianity might seem more completely the religion of the people than in any other part of the empire. But the fatal schism of the Donatists had, for more than a century, been constantly preying upon her strength, and induced her to look for foreign interfer- ence. The orthodox church had, in her distress, con- stantly invoked the civil power. The emperor natu- rally looked for advice to the bishops around him, especially to the Bishop of Rome ; and from the earliest period, when Constantine had referred tin's con- troversy to a council of Italian prelates, they had been CHAP. IV. DIFFICULTIES OF THE AFRICAN CHURCH. 263 thus indirectly the arbiters in the irreconcilable con- test. For even down to the days of St. Augustine, and beyond the Vandal conquest of Africa, the Don- atists maintained the strife, raised altar against altar, compared the number of their bishops with advantage to those of their adversaries, resisted alike the reason- ings of the orthodox, and the more cogent arguments of the imperial soldiery. The more desperate, the more fierce and obstinate the fanaticism. The ravages of the Circumcellions were perpetually breaking out in some quarter; the civilization which had covered the land, up to the borders of the desert, with peaceful towns and villages, so much promoted by the increased cultivation of corn, and which at once contributed to extend Christianity and was itself advanced by Chris- tianity, began to suffer that sad reverse which was almost consummated by the Vandal invasion. The wild Moorish tribes seemed training again towards their old unsubdued ferocity, and preparing, as it were, to sink back, after two or three more centuries, into the more congenial state of marauding Mahometan sav- ages. But Africa, notwithstanding the difficulties whicn arose out of these sanguinary contentions, and the con- stant demands of assistance from the civil power in Italy, conscious of her own intellectual strength, and proud of the unimpeached orthodoxy of her ruling churches, by no means surrendered her independence. If Rome at times was courted with promising submis- siveness, at others it was opposed with inflexible obdu- racy. Though Cyprian, by assigning a kind of pri- macy to St. Peter, and acknowledging the hereditary- descent of the Roman Bishop from the great apostle, 264 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK H. had tended to elevate the power of the Pontiff, yet his great name sanctioned likewise almost a contemptuous resistance to the Roman ecclesiastical authority. The African Councils had usually communicated their de- crees, as of full and unquestioned authority, not sub- mitted them for a higher sanction. The inflexibility of the African Bishops had but recently awed the Pelagianizing Zosimus back into orthodoxy. Some events, which had brought the African churches into direct collision with the Roman Pontiff, betrayed in one case an admission of his power, on the other a steadfast determination of resistance, which would dis- dain to submit to foreign jurisdiction. In the first, Augustine himself might seem to set the example of homage opposing only earnest and deprecatory argu- ments to the authority of the Roman Pontiff. 1 It was the African usage to erect small towns, even villages, into separate sees. St. Augustine created a bishopric in the insignificant neighboring town of Fussola. He appointed a promising disciple, named Anto- Fussoia. nius, to the office. But, removed from the grave control of Augustine, the young bishop aban- doned himself to youthful indulgences, and even to violence, rapine, and extortion. He was condemned by a local council; but, some of the worst charges being insufficiently proved, he was only sentenced to make restitution, deprived of his episcopal power, but not degraded from the dignity of a bishop. Antonius appealed to Rome ; he obtained the support of the aged Primate of Numidia, by the plausible argument that, if he had been guilty of the alleged enormities, he was unworthy of, and ought to have been degraded 1 Augustin. Epist 261. CHAP. IV. DIFFICULTIES OF THE AFRICAN CHURCH. 265 from, the episcopal rank. Boniface, who was then Pope, commanded the Numidian bishops to restore Antonius to his see, provided the facts, as he stated them, were true. Antonius, as though armed with an absolute decree, demanded instant obedience from the people of Fussola : he threatened them with the Impe- rial troops, whom, it would seem, he might summon to compel the execution of the Papal decree. The peo- ple of Fussola wrote in the most humble language to the new Pope, Celestine, entreating to be relieved from an oppression, as they significantly hinted, more griev- ous than they had suffered under the Donatist rule, from which they had but recently passed over into the Catholic Church. They threw the blame on Augus- tine himself, who had placed over them so unworthy a bishop. Augustine confessed his error, and urged the claims of the people of Fussola for redress in the most earnest terms. He threatened to resign his own see. The dispute ended in the suppression of the see of Fussola, by the decree of a Council of Numidia, and the assent of Celestine. It was reunited to that of Hippo. But the second dispute was not conducted with the same temper it terminated in more Apianus. important consequences. Apiarius, a presbyter of Sic- ca, was degraded for many heinous offences by his own bishop. On his appeal, he was taken under the protection of Rome without due caution or inquiry by the hasty Zosimus. Zosimus commanded * 419. his restoration to his rank, as well as to the com- munion of the Church. The African bishops pro- tested against this interference with their episcopal rights. In an assembly of 217 bishops at Carthage, 266 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK II. appeared Faustinas, Bishop of Picenum, and two Ro- man presbyters. They boldly produced two canons of the Council of Nicea, that first and most sacred legisla- tive assembly, to which Christendom owed the estab- lishment of the sound Trinitarian doctrine, and which was received by all the orthodox world with un- bounded reverence. These canons established a gen- eral right of appeal from all parts of Christendom to Rome. The Bishop of Rome might not only receive the appeal, but might delegate the judgment on appeal to the neighboring bishops, or commission one of his own presbyters to demand a second hearing of the cause, or send judges, according to his own discretion, to sit as assessors, representing the Papal authority with the bishops of the neighborhood. 1 The African bishops protested, with exemplary gravity, their respect for all the decrees of the Nicene Council ; but they were perplexed, they said, by one circumstance that in no copy of those decrees, which they had ever seen, did such Canons appear. They requested that the authentic copies, supposed to be preserved at Con- stantinople, Antioch, and Alexandria, might be in- spected. 2 It turned out, that either from ignorance in himself, almost incredible, or from a bold presump- tion of ignorance in others, not less inconceivable, the Bishop of Rome had adduced Canons of the Synod of Sardica, a council of which the authority was in many respects highly questionable, and wliich did not aspire to the dignity of a General Council, for the solemn decrees of the great (Ecumenic Senate. The 1M E latere suo Presbyterum " is the expression probably heard for the first time in these canons. 2 " Habentes auctoritatem ejus a quo destinati sunt." Labbe, Cone. ii. p. 1590. CHAP. IV. DIFFICULTIES OF THE AFRICAN CHURCH. 267 close of this affair was as unfavorable as its conduct to the lofty pretensions of the Roman Bishop. While the Africans calmly persisted in asserting the guilt of Apiarius, the Bishop of Rome, through his legate, obstinately pronounced him to be the victim of injus- tice. Apiarius himself, seized by a paroxysm of re- morse, suddenly and publicly made confession of all the crimes imputed to him crimes so heinous and offensive, that groans of horror broke forth from the shuddering judges. The Bishop of Rome was left in the humiliating position of having rashly embarked in an iniquitous cause, and set up as the judge of the African bishops on partial, unsatisfactory, and as it appeared, utterly worthless evidence. The African bishops pursued their advantage, adduced the genuine Canons of Nicea, which gave each Provincial Council full authority over its own affairs, and quietly rebuked the Roman Prelate for his eagerness in receiving all outcasts from the Churches of Africa, and interfering in their behalf concerning matters of which he must be ignorant. They asserted that God would hardly grant to one that clear and searching judgment which he denied to many. 1 Thus, in fact, they proclaimed the entire independence of the African Churches on any foreign dominion : they forbade all appeals to transmarine judgments. 2 But Africa had not to contest that independence with the ambition and ability of Leo. The long age 1 " Nisi forte quispiam est qui credat, unicuilibet posse Deum nostrum examinis inspirare justitiam, et innumerabilibus congregatis in unum con- cilium denegare." Labbe, Concil. ii. p. 1675. 2 " Quod si ab eis provocandum putaverunt, non provocent ad trans- marina judicia, sed ad Primates suarum Provinciarum (aut ad Universal^ Concilium) sicut et de Episcopis saepe constitution est." Ibid. 268 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK IL of peace, wealth, fertility, and comparative happiness which had almost secluded Africa, since the battle of Thapsus, from the wars and civil contentions of the Empire, and had permitted Christianity to spread its beneficent influence over the whole province, was drawing to a close. The Vandal conquest began that long succession of calamities the Arian persecutions under Hunneric and Thrasimund, the successors of Geuseric the re-conquest by the Eastern Empire, and the internal wars, with their train of miseries, famine, pestilence, devastation, which blasted the rich land into a desert; silenced altogether the clamors of Christian strife still maintained by the irreclaim- able Donatists, and quenched all the lights of Chris- tian learning and piety ; until, at length, the whole realm was wrested by the strong arm of Mahomedan- ism from its connection with Christendom and the civilization of Europe. The Vandal conquest under Genseric alone belongs vandal con- to this period. The Vandals, until the in- Africa. vasion of the Huns, had been dreaded as the most ferocious of the Northern or Eastern tribes. Their savage love of war had hardly been mitigated by their submission to Arian Christianity. Yet the invasion of Genseric was at first a conquest rather than a persecution. The churches were not sacred against the general pillage, but it was their wealth which inflamed the cupidity, rather than the oppug- nancy of the doctrine within their walls which pro- voked the insults of the invaders. The clergy did not escape the general massacre : many of them suf- fered cruel tortures, but they fell in the promiscuous ruin : they were racked, or exposed to other excruciat- CHAP. IV. VANDAL CONQUEST OF AFRICA. 269 ing torments to compel the surrender of their treasures, which they had concealed, or were supposed to have concealed. After the capture of Carthage, bishops and ecclesiastics of rank, as well as nobles, were reduced to servitude. The successor of Cyprian, " Quod vult Deus," ("What God wills," the Afri- can prelates had anticipated our Puritans in their Scriptural names,) and many of his clergy were embarked in crazy vessels, and cast on shore on the coast of Naples. Yet Genseric permitted the elevation of another orthodox bishop, Deo Gratias, at the prayer of Valentinian, to the see of Carthage. Valentinian might seem prophetically to prepare succor and com- fort for the Romans who should hereafter be earned captives to Carthage. During the later years of his reign Genseric became a more cruel persecutor. He would admit only Arian counsellors about his court. The honors of martyr- dom are claimed for many victims, perhaps rather of his jealousy than of his intolerance ; for the Vandal dominion was that of an armed aristocracy, few in numbers when compared with the vast population of Roman Africa. He closed the churches of the ortho- dox in Carthage after the death of Deo Gratias ; they were not opened for some time, but at length, at the intervention of the Emperor of the East, they were permitted a short period of peace, until the reign of Genseric's more fiercely intolerant successors, Hun- neric and Thrasimund. 1 Gaul was the province of the Western empire, beyond the limits of Italy (perhaps excepting Gaui. i Victor Vitensis, lib. i., with the notes of Ruinart, Hist. Persecution^ Vandalicse. 270 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK IL Africa), which was most closely connected by civil and ecclesiastical relations with the centre of govern- ment. But Northern and Western Gaul, as well as the two Germanics, were already occupied by Teutonic conquerors, Goths, Burgundians, and Franks, and were either independent, or rendered but nominal allegiance to the descendants of Theodosius. Britain appeared entirely lost to the Roman empire and to Christianity. Her Christianity had retired to her remote mountain fastnesses in Wales, Cornwall, Cumberland, and to tb.3 more distant islands ; it was cut off altogether from the Roman world. But in Gaul the clergy, at least the orthodox clergy, were as yet everywhere of pure Roman, or Gallo-Roman race : the Teutonic conquerors, who were Christians, Goths, Burgundians, Vandals, had not shaken off the Arianism into which they had been converted; and the Franks were still fierce and obstinate pagans. The Southern Province alone retained its full subordination to the Court of Ravenna ; and the jealousies and contests among the Bishops of Gaul had already driven them to Rome, the aggrieved for redress against the oppression, the turbulent for protection against the legitimate authority of their Bishops or Metropolitans, the Pivlates whose power was contested, for confirmation of their domin- ion. The acknowledged want of such a superior juris- diction would thus have created, even if there had been no pretensions grounded on the su'-reinn to St. Peter, a jurisdiction of appeal. Nowhere indeed can the origin of appeals be traced more dearly, as arising out of the state of the Church. The Metropolitan power over Narbonese Gaul was contested by the Churches of Aries and Vienne. The circumstances CHAP. IV. OKIGIN OF APPEALS. 271 of the times, the retirement of the Prefect of Gaul from Treves to Aries, the dignity which that city had assumed as the seat, however of an usurped empire, had given a supremacy to Aries. But neither would the metropolitan nor the episcopal dignity be adminis- tered with such calm justice as to command universal obedience. Severe discipline and strict adherence to the canons by the austere would excite rebellion, laxity and weakness encourage license. A remote tribunal would be sought by all, by some out of despair of find- ing justice nearer home, by some in the hope that a bad cause might find favorable hearing where the judges must be comparatively ignorant, and propitiated by that welcome deference which submitted to their authority. Yet, though there are several instances of Bishops deposed, not seldom unjustly, by synods of Gallic Bishops, none had carried his complaint before the Bishop of Rome until towards the end of the fourth century. 1 Priscillian appealed from the Council of Bourdeaux, not to the Bishop of Rome, but to the Emperor. During the Pontificate of Zosimus, Patro- clus, Archbishop of Aries, was involved in an implaca- ble feud with Proculus, Bishop of Marseilles. 2 That degradation of Proculus which he could notA.D.385. inflict by his own power, the Metropolitan of Aries endeavored to obtain by that of Zosimus. 3 Zosimus, 1 Quesnel, Dissertat. v. p. 384. 2 Every point in this controversy has been discussed with the most un- wearied pertinacity by the advocates, on one side of the high Papal su- premacy; on the other, by the defenders of the Gallican liberties. I have endeavored to hold an equal hand, and to dwell only on the facts which rest on evidence. There is an implacable war between the successive editors of the works of Leo the Great, the Frenchman Quescel, and the Italians, the Ballerinis. Sulpic. Sever. 11. 272 LATEST CHRISTIANITY. BOOK H. it appears to be admitted, was deceived by the misrep- resentations of Patroclus, and scrupled not to issue Feb. 9, 422. the sentence of degradation against the Bishop of Marseilles. 1 Proculus defied the sentence, and continued to exercise his episcopal powers. The more prudent Pope, Boniface, in a case of appeal from the clergy of Valence against their Bishop, referred the affair back to the Bishops of the province. 2 Under Leo, the supremacy of the Roman See over Gaul was brought to the issue of direct assertion on his part, of inflexible resistance on that of his oppo- nent. Hilarius, a devout and austere prelate, invested by his admiring biographer in every virtue, in the holi- ness and charity of a saint, a perfect monk and a con- summate prelate (as a preacher, it was said that Augustine, if he had lived after Hilarius, would have been esteemed his inferior) was Archbishop of Aries. 3 His zeal or his ambition aspired to raise that metropolitan seat into a kind of Pontificate of Gaul. He was accustomed to make visitations, accompanied by the holy Germanus of Auxerre, not improbably beyond the doubtful or undefined limits of his metro- politan power. 4 During one of these visitations, i Zosim.JEpist 12 ad Patrocl. 3 Bonifac. Epist. ad Episcop. Gallise. 8 The account of his election, by his biographer, is curious. He was designated as bishop by his predecessor Honoratus. He was then a monk of Lerins. A large band of the citizens of Aries, with a troop of soldiers, set out to take him by force. They did not know him : " spiritalis praeda adstat ante oculus inquirentium, et nihilominus ignoratur." He is discov- ered, but requires a sign from heaven. A dove settles on his head. S. Hilar. Vit apud Leon. Oper. p. 323. 4 " Ordinationes sibi omnium per Gallias ecclesiarum vindicans, et debi- tam metropolitanis sacerdotibus in suam translVrciis dignitatem; ipsius qnoque beatissimi Petri reverentiam verbis arrogantibus minuendo . . . ita use vos cupiens subdere potestati, ut se Beato apostolo Petro non patiatur CHAP. IV. HILAEIUS BEFOEE LEO. 273 charges of disqualification for the episcopal office were exhibited against Celidonius, Bishop, according to some accounts, of Besan^on. He was accused of having been the husband of a widow, and in his civil state of having pronounced as magistrate sentences of capital punishment. Hilarius hastily summoned a council of Bishops, and pronounced sentence of deposition against Celidonius. On the intelligence that Celidonius had gone to Rome to appeal against this decree, Hilarius set forth, it is said, on foot, crossed the Alps, and trav- elled without horse or sumpter mule to the Great City. He presented himself before Leo, and with A.D. 445. respectful earnestness entreated him not to infringe the ancient usages of the Gallic Churches, significantly declaring that he came not to plead before Leo, or, as an accuser in a case of appeal, but to protest against the usurpation of his rights. 1 Leo proceeded to annul the sentence of Hilarius and to restore Celidonius to his bishopric. He summoned Hilarius to rebut the evidence adduced by Celidonius, to disprove the justice of his condemnation. So haughty was the language of Hilarius, that no layman would dare to utter, no ecclesiastic would endure to hear such words. 2 He in- flexibly resisted all the authority of the Pope and of St. Peter; and confronted the Pope with the bold assertion of his own unbounded metropolitan power. Hilarius thought his life in danger ; or he feared lest esse subjection." Leo. Epist. This may have been stated by Leo under indignation at the resistance of Hilarius to his authority, and on the testi- mony of the enemies of Hilarius ; but his biographer admits that the very humility of Hilarius had generated a kind of supercilious haughtiness; he was rigid, but to the proud, terrible, but to the worldly. p. 326. 1 " Se ad officianon ad causam venisse; protestandi ordine non accusandi que sunt acta suggerere." Vit. Hil. 2 " Qua; nullus laicorum dicere. nullus sacerdotuin posset audire." Ibid VOL. i. 18 274 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK II. he should be seized and compelled to communicate with the deposed Celidonius. He stole out of Rome, and though it was the depth of winter, found his way back to Aries. 1 The accounts of St. Hilarius, hitherto reconcilable, now diverge into strange contradiction. The author of his Life represents him as having made some weak overtures of reconciliation to Leo, as wast- ing himself out with toils, austerities, and devotions, and dying before he had completed his forty-first year. He died, visited by visions of glory, in ecstatic peace ; his splendid funeral was honored by the tears of the whole city ; the very Jews were clamorous in their sor- row for the beneficent Prelate. The people were hardly prevented from tearing his body to pieces, in order to possess such inestimable relics. 2 The counter-statement fills up the interval before HHariusdied ^ e death ^ Hilarius with other important A.I>. 449. events. Leo addresses a letter to the Bishops of the province of Vienne, denouncing the impious resistance of Hilarius to the authority of St. Peter, and releasing them from all allegiance to the See of Aries. For hardly had the affair of Celidonius been decided by the See of Rome than a new charge of ecclesiastical tyranny had been alleged against Hilarius. The Bishop Projectus complained, that while he was afflicted with illness, Hilarius, to whose province he did not belong, had consecrated another Bishop in his 1 The accounts of this transaction in the Life and in the Letters of Pope Leo appear to me, considered from the point of view of each writer, strictly coincident, instead of obstinately irreconcilable. 2 The writer describes himself as a witness of this remarkable fact: " Etiam Judaeorum concurrunt agrnina copiosa. . . . Hebrseam concinen- tium linguam in exequiis honorandis audisse me recolo. Nam nostros ita moeror obsederat, ut ab officio solito impatiens doloria inhibuerit magni- tude." p. 339. CHAP. IV. HILARIUS CENSURED. 275 place, and this in such haste, that he had respected none of the canonical forms of election ; he had awaited neither the suffrage of the citizens, the testi- monials of the more distinguished, nor the election of the Clergy. In this, and in other instances of irregu- lar ordinations, Hilarius had called in the military power, and tumultuously interfered in the affairs of many churches. It is significantly suggested, that on every occasion Hilarius had been prodigal of the last and most awful power possessed by the Church, that of excommunication. 1 Hilarius was commanded to confine himself to his own diocese, deprived of the authority which he had usurped over the province of Vienne, and forbidden to be present at any future ordi- nations. But a sentence, in those days more awful than that of the Bishop of Rome, was pronounced against Hilarius. At the avowed instance of Leo, Valentinian promulgated an Imperial Edict, denounced the contumacy of Hilarius against the primacy of the Apostolic throne, confirmed alike by the merits of St. Peter, the chief of the episcopal order, by the majesty of the Roman city, and by the decree of a holy Coun- cil. Peace can alone rule in the Church, if the uni- versal Church acknowledge its Lord. Hilarius is ac- cused of various acts of ecclesiastical tyranny and violence, irregular ordinations, deposals of Bishops without authority : of entering cities at the head of an armed force, of waging war instead of establishing peace. The sentence of so great a Pontiff as the Bishop of Rome did not need Imperial confirmation ; but as Hilarius had offended against the Majesty of 1 " Sed quod minim eum in laicos talem existere, qui soleat in sacerdo- tum damnations gaudere? " S. Leon. Epist. ad Vienn. 276 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK H the Empire, as well as against the Apostolic See, he was reminded that it was only through the mildn Leo that he retained his see. He and all the Bishops were warned to observe this perpetual Edict, which solemnly enacted that nothing should be done in Gaul, contrary to ancient usage, without the authority of the Bishop of the Eternal City ; that the decree of the Apostolic See should henceforth be law ; and who- ever refused to obey the citation of the Roman Pontiff should be compelled to do so by the Moderator of the Province. 1 Spain was already nearly dissevered from the empire Spain. of Rome. It had been overrun, it was in great part occupied, by Teutonic conquerors, Suevians, Goths, and Vandals, all of whom, as far as they were Christians, adhered to the Arianism to which they had been converted by their first Apostles. The land groaned under the oppression of foreign rulers, the or- thodox Church under the superiority of Arian sover- eigns. If the provinces looked back, at least with the regret of interrupted habit, to the Imperial government, and in vain hoped for deli verance from the sinking house of Theodosius, the orthodox Church uttered its cry of distress to the Bishop of Rome. It was not however against Arianism, but a more formidable and dangerous antagonist ; one kindred to that which Leo had sup- pressed with such difficulty in his own immediate terri- tory. The blood of the Spanish Bishop Priscillian, the first martyr of heresy, as usual had flowed in vain. He had been put to death by the usurper Maximus. at the 1 Constitutio Yalentiniani, iii. August!, apud S. Leonis Opera, Epist. xi. p. 642. CHAP. IV. CONDITION OF SPAIN. 277 instigation of two other Spanish prelates, Ithacius and Valens ; but to the undisguised horror of such Church- men as Ambrose and Martin of Tours. Leo more sternly approved this sanguinary intervention of the civil power. But, in justice to Leo, it was the moral and social, rather than civil offence of which he sup- posed the Priscillians guilty, which justly called forth the vengeance of the temporal Sovereign. In such case alone the spiritual power, which abhorred legal acts of bloodshed, would recur to the civil authority. 1 But the opinions of Priscillian still prevailed, and even seemed to have taken deeper root in Spain. Prelates were infected with the indelible contagion. Turibius, the Bishop of Astorga, laid the burden of his sorrows before Leo ; he asked his advice in what manner to cope with these dangerous adversaries. The doctrines of the Priscillians are summed up in sixteen articles. In these appear the great universal principles of Gnos- ticism or Manicheism, or rather of Orientalism : the sole existence of the primal Godhead, which preceded the emanation of his virtues. In this primal Godhead, if they recognized a Trinity, it was but a trinity of names. In these articles their enemies detected Arian- ism and Sabellianism. To the Godhead was opposed the uncreated Power of darkness, equally eternal, sprung from chaos and gloom. The Christ existed not till he was born of the Virgin ; it was his office to 1 " Videbant enim omnem curam honestatis auferri, omnem conjugiorum copulain solvi, simulque divinum jus humanumque subverts, si hujusmodi hominibus usquam vivere cum tali professione licuisset. Profuit diu ista districtio ecclesiasticae lenitatis, quae etsi sacerdotali contenta judicio, cruen- tas refugit ultiones, severis tamen Christianorum principum constitutionibus adjuvatur, dum ad spiritale nonnunquam recurrunt remedium, qui timent corporate supplicium." S. Leon. Epist. See Hist, of Christianity, iii 262. 278 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK IL deliver the souls of men, those souls being of the Ji- * O vine Essence, from the bondage of the body, that body created by the spirit of darkness. The Priscillianites fasted rigidly on the day of the Nativity, and on every Sunday, as the day of Resurrection, no doubt not on account of the unreality of the Saviour's body, but for an opposite reason, because at his birth he was de- graded to an union with a material body, and at his resurrection reassumed that infected condition. It was this that set them in perpetual, implacable antagonism, not merely in their secret opinions, but in their public and outward usages, with the rest of the Christian world. Their austere proscription of marriage, and aversion to the procreation of beings with material bodies, led to the accustomed charge, perhaps in many A.D. 447. cases, among the rude and ignorant, to the natural consequence, gross licentiousness. The peculi- arity of the Priscillian system was an astrological Fa- talism. The superstition which prevailed for so long a period in Europe, of assigning certain parts of the human body to the influences of the signs of the Zo- diac, assumes its first distinct form in their tenets. 1 It was the earthly part which was subject to these powers, who in some mysterious way were concerned in its cre- ation. Leo proceeded not, by a summary edict, to evoke this question from the Churches of Spain ; he recommended the convocation of a general Council of Bishops from the four Provinces of Tarragona, Cartha- gena, Lusitania, and Gallicia. If the times prevented 1 Cap. xiv. apud Leon. Oper. p. 705. " Ad hanc insaniam pertinet pro- digiosa ilia totius human! corporis per duodecim cceli signa distinctio, ut diversis partibus diverase pnesideant potestates ; et creature, quam Deus ad imaginem suam fecit, in tanta sit oMi^atione siderum, in quant& estconnex- one membrorum." S. Leon. Epist. xv. CHAP. IT. ILLYEICTJM. 279 this general assembly, the Bishop of Astorga might appeal to a Provincial Council from Gallicia alone. Two Councils were held, one at Toledo, the other at Braga in Gallicia, in which Priscillianism was con- demned in the usual terms of anathema. 1 Illyricum, in the primary division of the Empire, had been assigned to the West ; it would be nijricum. comprehended under the patriarchal jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome. As early as the pontificate of Siri- cius, the metropolitan of Thessalonica was appointed as delegate of the Bishop of Rome to rule the province. To this precedent Leo appeals, when he invests Anas- tasius, Metropolitan of the same city, with equal pow- ers. 2 But he does not rest his title to supremacy on his Patriarchal power, or on the claim of the Western Empire to the allegiance of Illyricum ; he grounds it on the universal dominion which belongs to the suc- cessors of St. Peter. The province appears to have acquiesced in his authority, and received with due submission his ordinances concerning the election of Bishops and Metropolitans. But all graver causes were to be referred to Rome for judgment. The East, again plunged into a new controversy, might look with envy on the passive peace of The East, the West. Supremacy, held by so firm and vigorous a hand as that of Leo, might seem almost necessary to Christendom. The Bishop of Rome, standing aloof, and only mingling in the contests by legates, whom he 1 It is declared in this decree, that all who had been twice married, who had married widows, or divorced women, were canonically unfit for the priesthood. Xor was it any excuse that the first wife had been married before baptism. " Cum in baptismate peccata deleantur, non uxorum nu- merus abrogetur." 2 Epist. v. ad Episcop. Metropol. per Illyricum constitutes (Jan. 12, 444). 280 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK II. might disclaim at any time as exceeding their powers, could not but be heard with anxious submission by both parties, and by the Christian world at large. He would be contemplated with awful reverence, as attempting to command troubled Christendom into repose. Nestorianism had been, if not suppressed within the empire, reduced to the utmost weakness ; it had been cast forth beyond the limits of the Roman world into distant and miserable exile. Nestorius him- self had been the victim of the remorseless persecu- tion. But the theological balance was too nicely poised on this question, not speedily to descend on the opposite side. Cyril himself, by some of his strong expressions, had given manifest advantage to the Oriental Bishops. 1 Many who condemned the heresy of Nestorius, loudly impeached the orthodoxy of the Alexandrian Prelate. The Monks. Almost throughout the East, the monks, mindful perhaps of their Egyptian origin, had been strenuous in the cause of Cyril. In Constantinople they had overawed the government, and powerfully contributed to the discomfiture of Nestorius. But from character, education, and habits the Eastern monks were least qualified to be the arbiters in a controversy which depended on fine shades and differences of expres- sion. Their dreamy and recluse life, their rigid ritual observances, even their austerities, instead of sharpen- ing then: intellects, led to vague conceptions ; and the want of commerce wnth mankind disabled them from wielding the keen weapons of dialectics, or of compre- hending the subtle distinctions taught in the schools of philosophy. From the temperament which drove them i See p. 142. CHAP. IV. THE MONKS EUTYCHES. 281 to the cell or cloister, and which was not corrected by enlightened education, their opinions quickly became passions ; those passions were inflamed by mutual en- couragement, emulation, and the corporate spirit of small communities, actuated by a dominant feeling. Nor with them were these, points of abstract and specula- tive theology ; the honor of the Redeemer, the dignity of the Virgin Mother now so rapidly rising into an ob- ject of adoration, were deeply committed in the strife. Such men were to speak with precise and guarded lan- guage on the unity of the divine and human nature in the person of Christ ; on the unity which combined the two in perfect harmony, yet allowed not either to encroach on the separate distinctness, the unalterable and uninterchangeable attributes of the other. The foremost adherent of Cyril in Constantinople had been Eutyches, a Presbyter, the Archi- Eutyches. mandrite or Superior of a convent of monks without the walls of the city. 1 At his bidding the swarms of monks had thronged into the streets, defied the civil power, terrified the Emperor, and contributed, more than any other cause, to the final overthrow of Nestorius. He had grown old in the war against heresy ; he had lived in continence for seventy years ; 2 nor was it till after his departure from strict ortho- doxy that men began to discover his total deficiency in learning. A new race of Metropolitans had arisen in the more important sees of the East. That of Antioch was filled 1 Eutyches is three times mentioned as a powerful ally of Cyril in the memorable letter to Maximianus, cited above. Flavian. Epist. ad Leon. Brev. Hist. Eutych. p. 759. Liberatus in Breviar. 2 Ad Leon. Epist. sub fin. He complains in another place that Flavianus had not respected his gray hairs. 282 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK H. by Domnus, that of Alexandria by Diosco- * rus ; Flavianus ruled the Church of Constan- tinople. All these prelates inherited the or- thodox aversion to Nestorianism. Dioscorus, . though he persecuted the relatives of Cyril, despoiled them of their property, and degraded them from their offices, with the violence, the turbulence, and the intolerance of his predecessor, adhered to his anti-Xestorian opin- ions. A great effort had been made to crush the lingering influence of those Prelates who had resisted Cyril. The aged Theodoret of Cyrus, who had ac- cepted the peace of Antioch, but had not consented either to the condemnation or to the complete absolu- tion of Cyril ; Ibas of Edessa, who had defended the suspected writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia ; Ire- nseus of Tyre, who, as a civilian, when Count of the Empire, had been held a partisan of the Nestorian party, and though he had been twice married, had been promoted to that see: these, with some others, were degraded from their rank, and sent into exile. In all these movements, Eutyches and his monks had joined always their clamors ; where tumults in the streets of Constantinople or elsewhere were neces- sary to advance their cause, succors less becoming their secluded, peaceful, and unworldly character. On a sudden, Eutyches, from the all-honored and boastful champion of orthodoxy, to his own surprise (fur in justice to him he seems to have had no very distinct notions of his own heterodoxy), 1 is arraigned, con- demned, and finally branded to posterity as the head of a new and odious heresy. 1 Leo writes of him with sovereign contempt : " Qui ne ipsius quidem tymboli initia comprehendit." This old man has not learned what are the i of the Christians. Ad Flavian. CHAP. IV. EUTTCHES ACCUSED. 283 In a Synod held at Constantinople, under the Bishop Flavianus, Eusebius, Bishop of Doryleum, E utyches solemnly charged Eutyches with denying the * two natures in Christ. Thrice was Eutyches sum- moned before this tribunal, thrice he resisted or eluded the formal citation. He declared himself bound by a vow not to quit his monastery ; a vow which, as his adversaries reminded him, he had not very religiously respected during the tumults against Nestorius: he pleaded bad health ; he promised to come forward on a future day. At length he condescended to appear, but environed by a rout of turbulent monks, and with an Imperial officer, Florianus, who demanded to take his place in the Synod. The affair now proceeded with more decent gravity. The charge was made bv Eusebius, who had practised in the schools as a Master of Rhetoric. 1 Eutyches in vain struggled to extricate himself from the grasp of the rigid logician. He took refuge in vague and ambiguous expressions, he equivo- cated, he contradicted himself; his merciless antagonist pressed him in his dialectic toils, and at length extorted the heretical confession : the two natures which were distinct before the Incarnation, in the Christ were blended and confounded in one. The Synod heard the confession with horror, amazement, and regret; the awful sentence of excommunication was Excommn- passed ; the implacable assertor of orthodoxy M against Nestorius found himself cast forth as a con- victed and proscribed author of heresy. But this grave ecclesiastical proceeding has another side. The secret history of the times, preserved by a later but trustworthy authority, if it does not A.D. 441. 1 Evagrius. 284 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK TL resolve the whole into a wretched court intrigue, connects it too closely with the rise and fall of con- flicting female influence, and the power of an Eunuch minister. 1 The sage and virtuous Pulcheria had long ruled with undisputed sway the feeble mind of her Imperial brother, Theodosius II. Chrysaphius the Eunuch had risen to the chief administration of public affairs. He was scheming to balance, or entirely to overthrow the authority of Pulcheria by the influence of the Empress, the beautiful Eudocia. Chrysaphius was the godson of Eutyches. He had hoped to raise the monk to the see of Constantinople. The elevation of Flavianus crossed these designs. But Chrysaphius did not despair of his end ; he still hoped to expel Flavianus from the throne, and replace him by his own spiritual father. Either to estrange the mind of the Emperor from Flavianus, or to gratify his own rapac- ity, he demanded the customary present to the Em- peror on the Prelate's inauguration. Flavianus ten- dered three loaves of white bread. The minister indignantly rejected this poor offering, and demanded a considerable weight of gold. Such offering Fla- vianus could only furnish by a sacrilegious invasion of the treasures, or profanation of the sacred vessels of the Church. This quarrel was hardly appeased when Chrysaphius endeavored, with more dangerous friend- ship, to implicate Flavianus in his own intrigues against Pulcheria. Flavianus not merely eluded the snare, but the Eunuch suspected the Bishop of betray- ing his secret designs. Eusebius, the antagonist of Eutyches, was of the party of Pulcheria before his advancement to the see of Doryleum ; he had held a 1 Theophanes, Chronog. p. 153. Edit. Bonn. CHAP. IV. EUTYCHES APPEALS. 285 civil office, probably in the household of the Emperor's sister. He had been an early and an ardent adversary of Nestorius ; he now stood forward as the accuser of the no less heretical Eutyches. But Eutyches was too powerful in the support of his faithful monks, and in the favor of the Eutyc hes minister, to submit either to the Bishop of a PP eals - Constantinople, or to a local Synod. He appealed to Christendom from the Metropolitan of Constanti- nople to the Metropolitans of Jerusalem, Thessalonica, Alexandria, and Rome. He accused the Bishops at Constantinople of forging or of altering the Acts of their Synod. He demanded a General Council to examine his opinions. The Emperor, under the in- fluence of Chrysaphius, acceded to the request; the Council was summoned to meet at Ephesus, under the presidency of Dioscorus of Alexandria. Letters were despatched to the West by both parties, by Eutyches not only to the Bishop of Rome, but to the Bishop of Ravenna, 1 and no doubt to others. The support of Leo was too important not to be sought with earnest solicitude. But Eutyches ad- dressed him as a suppliant, imploring his protection against injustice and persecution ; Flavianus as an equal, who condescended to inform his brother Bish- op of the measures which he had taken against an heretical subject of his diocese, and requested him to communicate the decree of the Constantinopolitan Synod to his brethren in the West. The consentient voice of Leo might restore peace to Christendom. 1 The answer of the Bishop of Ravenna is extant in the works of S. Leo. Epist. xxv. The close, in which Chrysologus defers most humbly to Rome, Beems to me suspicious. 286 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK IL But Leo was too wise to be deluded by tbe servility of Eutyches, or offended by the stately courtesy of Flavianus. 1 He waited to form his decision ^dth cautious dignity. At Ephesus met that assembly which has been council caii- branded by the odious name of the " Rob- of ber Synod." But it is difficult to discover in is. Aug. . . . . . .. - . 8, A. D. 9. what respect, either in the legality or its convocation, or the number and dignity of the assem- bled prelates, consists its inferiority to more received and honored Councils. Two Imperial Commissioners, Elpidius and Eulogius, attended to maintain order in the Council, and peace in the city. Dioscorus, the Patriarch of Alexandria, by the Imperial command assumed the presidency. 2 The Bishops who formed the Synod of Constantinople were excluded as par- ties in the transaction, but Flavianus took his place, with the Metropolitans of Antioch and Jerusalem, and no less than three hundred and sixty bishops and ecclesiastics. Three ecclesiastics, Julian, a Bish- op, Renatus, a Presbyter, and Hilarius, a Deacon, 1 Quesnel and Pagi on one side, Baronius and the Ballerinis on the other, contest the relative priority of two letters addressed by Flavianus to Leo. The question in debate is whether Flavianus initiated an appeal to Rome. But neither of them contains any recognition of Leo's authority. In the first, according to Ballerini, he sends the account of the proceedings. 'Qare *co2 T%V afy> daionjTa yvovaav TO. /car* avrov, nuat rotf vrrd T^V oqv tieoaiptiav refavai tieoytfeordTotf Ixiaitoirotf dqljjv Kaii/aoi rijv airov oWo/3av. p. 757. The second letter, as printed by the Ballerinis, is in the same tone: dituuov 6e nal rovro, uf ^yovfuu, 6t6axdrjvai vp\f, uf bri K. T. X. 2 Dioscorus wanted the severe and unimpeached austerity of Cyril. He was said to have had a mistress named Irene. He is the subject of the well-known epigram which illustrates Alexandrian wit and boldness " EiprjvTi iravreaaiv," 'ETtff/to?rof slnn Hf dvvarai irdvreao', rjv ftovof Ivdov e CHAP. IV. ROBBER SYNOD. 287 were to represent the Bishop of Rome. 1 The Abbot Barsumas (this was an innovation) took his seat in the Council, as a kind of representative of the monks. Though commenced with seeming regularity, the proceedings of the assembly soon degenerated into disgraceful turbulence, violence, and personal conflict. But it is impossible to deny that in this respect the Robber Synod only too faithfully followed, if it ex- ceeded, the legitimate and (Ecumenic Council of Ephesus. Its acts were marked with the same in- decent precipitation ; questions were carried by fac- tious acclamations within, and the Council was over- awed by riotous mobs without. But that which was pardonable and even righteous zeal in the cause of Cyril, was sacrilegious tumult in that of Eutyches : the monks, who had been welcomed and encouraged as holy champions of the faith when they issued from their cells to affright the Emperor into the condemna- tion of Nestorius, when they thronged around Euty- ches, became a mutinous and ignorant rabble. 2 The Egyptian faction (for Dioscorus, though tyran- nical to the kindred and adherents of Cyril, embraced his opinions with the utmost ardor) looked to this Council, not so much for the vindication of Eutyches, as for the total suppression of Nestorianism, and, no doubt, the abasement of Flavianus, and hi the person of Flavianus, of the aspiring see of Constantinople. But in their blind heat they involved themselves with the creed of Eutyches. The Council commenced with the usual formalities. The proposition to read the let- 1 They were attended by Dulcitius, a notary. S. Leo. and Synod Ephes. One Bishop, Renatus, had died on the road. Hilarius seems to have taken the lead among Leo's legates. 2 Compare Walch, p. 215. 288 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK H. ters of Leo to Flavianus, which condemned the doc- trine of Eutyches, was refused with the utmost con- tempt. 1 Then were rehearsed the acts of the Synod of Constantinople. On the first mention of the two natures in Christ an angry dispute arose. But when the question put to Eutyches by Eusebius of Dorvleum was read, whether he acknowledged the two natures Decree of the after the incarnation, the assembly broke out A.p! n 9. with one voice, " Away with Eusebius ! banish Eusebius ! let him be burned alive ! As he cuts asunder the two natures in Christ, so be he cut asunder ! " The President put the question, " Is the doctrine that there are two natures after the incarna- tion to be tolerated?" The sacred Council replied, " Anathema on him who so says ! " "I have your voices," said Dioscorus, " I must have your hands ! He that cannot cry, let him lift up his hands ! " With an unanimous suffrage the whole assembly proclaimed, " Accursed be he who says there are two ! " The Council proceeded to absolve Eutyches from all sus- picion of heterodoxy, and to reinstate him in all his ecclesiastical honors; to depose Flavianus and Euse- bius, and to deprive them of all their dignities. Fla- vianus alone pronounced his appeal ; Hilarius, the Roman deacon, alone refused his assent. 2 The una- nimity of the assembly is unquestionable, but it is asserted, and on strong grounds, that it was an unanim- ity enforced by the dread of the imperial soldiery and 1 " Quern Alexandrinus antistes, qui totum solus fbi potentiae suae vindi- cavit, audire contempsit," &KOVOOI Karfimaev in the Greek. S. Leon. Epist. 1. ad Constantinop. Leo's letter exists in indifferent Greek, and worse Latin, dated 449, Jan. 13. 3 We hear nothing of the other legate of Leo, the Bishop Julian : the Presbyter Renatus was dead. CHAP. IV. DEATH OF FLAVIANUS. 289 the savage monks, who environed and even broke in, and violated the sanctity of the Council. 1 Dioscorus pursued his triumph. The deposition of Ibas of Edessa, Theodoret of Cyrus, Irenaeus of Tyre, and of others who were suspected of Nestorianism, or at least refused to subscribe the anathemas of Cyril, was confirmed. Domnus of Antioch was involved in their fete. Hilarius the deacon fled to Rome ; but not so fortunate was Flavianus. After suffering personal in- sults, it is said even blows, from the furious Dioscorus himself, instigated by the monk Barsumas, who shouted aloud, "Strike him, strike him dead!" he Death of expired after a few days, either of his wounds, Flavianus. of exhaustion, or mental suffering. Thus was this the first, but not the last, Christian Council which was de- filed with blood. 2 Alexandria had succeeded in dictating its doctrine to the whole of Christendom ; the Patriarch of Alex- andria had triumphed over both his rivals, had deposed the Metropolitan of Antioch, and the more dreaded Bishop of Eastern Rome. Nor was this ah 1 . An Im- perial edict avouched the orthodoxy and confirmed the acts of the second Council of Ephesus. It involved Flavianus and Eusebius in the charge of Nestorianism ; it proscribed Nestorianism in all its forms, branding it by the ill-omened name of Simonianism : it forbade the consecration of any bishop favorable to Nestorius or Flavianus, and deposed them, if unwarily conse- crated : it condemned all worship or religious meet- ings of the Nestorians (and all who were not Euty- 1 See the evidence of Basil, Bishop of Csesarea. 2 Leo, writing from the report of Hilarius, the Deacon, " Magnum facinus Alexandrine Episcopo auct&re vel executor e commission est." Epist. ad Anat. VOL. i. 19 290 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK II. chians were in danger of being declared Nestorians), under the penalty of confiscation and exile ; and inter- dicted the reading of all Nestorian books, which are ranked with the anti-Christian writings of Porphyry ; that is, the Avorks of Nestorius and of Theodoret, and according tc one copy of the law, those of Diodorus and Theodore of Mopsuestia also, under the same penalties. But the law might command, it could not enforce peace. Eastern Christendom was severed into two conflicting parties. Egypt, Palestine, and Thrace ad- hered to Dioscorus, while the rest of Asiatic Christen- dom, Pontus and Asia Minor, still clung to the cause of Flavianus. 1 Strengthened by the unanimous con- sent of the West, which entered so reluctantly into these fine metaphysical subtleties, Leo, the Bishop of Rome, refused all recognition of the Ephesian Council. Dioscorus, in the heat of his passion and the pride of success, broke off (an unheard of and unprecedented boldness) all communion with Rome. A sudden and total revolution at once took place. The change was wrought, not by the commanding voice of ecclesiastical authority, not by the argu- mentative eloquence of any great writer, who by his surpassing abilities awed the world into peace, not by the reaction of pure Christian charity, drawing to- gether the conflicting parties by evangelic love. It was a new dynasty on the throne of Constantinople. The feeble Theodosius dies ; the masculine Pulche- ria the champion and the pride of orthodoxy the friend of Flavianus and of Leo, ascends the throne, and gives her hand, with a share in the empire, to a brave soldier named Marcianus. 1 Liberal. Brev. c. xii. CHAP. IV. COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON. The hopes of one party, and the apprehensions of the other, were realized with the utmost rapidity. The first act of the Government, which Anatolius, the new bishop, who, though nominated by the Egyptian .party, was a moderate prudent man, either acquiesced in or promoted, was the quiet removal of Eutyches from the city. This measure was confirmed by a synod at Con- stantinople. A more full and authoritative Council could alone repeal the acts of the " Robber Synod " of Ephesus. The only opposition to the summons of such Council at Chalcedon arose from Leo. The Roman Pontiff had urged on the Western Emperor (it is said, on his knees) the necessity for a general Council ; but Leo desired a Council in Italy, where no one could dispute the presidency of the Roman prelate. Prescient, it might seem, of the decree at Chalcedon, which raised the Patriarch of Constantinople to an equality with the Bishop of Rome, he dreaded the convocation of a Council in the precincts and under the immediate influ- ence of the Byzantine court. At Chalcedon, the Asiatic suburb of Constantinople, met that assembly, which has been admitted council of to rank as the fourth, by some as the last, of oct^'sT* 01 the great CEcumenic Councils. Anatolius, A ' D ' 4 ' Bishop of Constantinople, was present, with Maximus of Antioch, and Juvenalis of Jerusalem. Leo ap- pointed as his representatives two bishops and a presby- ter. 1 Above five hundred bishops 2 made their appear- 1 Paschasinus, Bishop of Lilybaeum, Lucentius, Bishop of Esculanum (Ascoli), Boniface, Presbyter of the Church of Rome. 2 This is the number in the Breviarium: Marcellinus raises the number to six hur.dred and thirty. Between four and five hundred signatures are ippended to the acts. 292 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK H ance. Dioscorus of Alexandria was there, but sat not in the order of his rank, and was not allowed the right of suffrage. Theodoret of Cyrus claimed his seat, but did not obtain it without violent resistance from the Egyptian faction, who denounced him as a Nestorian : his own party retorted charges against -the Egyptians, as persecutors of Flavianus, and as Mani- cheans. The Imperial Commissioners reproved with firmness, and repressed with dignity, but with much difficulty, these rabble-like proceedings. 1 The first act of the Council, after the decrees of the Synod at Ephesus had been read, was to annul the articles of deposition against Flavianus and Eusebius. Many of the bishops expressed their penitence at their concurrence in these acts : some saying that they were compelled by force to subscribe others to subscribe a blank paper. The Council proceeded to frame a reso- lution, deposing Dioscorus and five other bishops, as having iniquitously exercised undue influence in the Oct. 10. Council of Ephesus ; but the right of appro- bation of this decree was reserved to the Emperor. During the whole of this first session, Dioscorus had confronted his adversaries with the utmost intrepidity, readiness, and self-command. He cried aloud, " They are condemning not me alone, but Athanasius and Cyril. They forbid us to assert the two natures after the incarnation." The night drew on ; Dioscorus de- manded an adjournment ; the Senate refused ; the acts were read over by torch-light. The bishops of Illyria proclaimed their abandonment of the cause of Dios- corus. The night was disturbed by wild cries of accla- 1 It is said in the Breviar. Hist. Eutych. that the Emperor and Senate irere present The Senate appears in the acts. CHAP. IV. CONDEMNATION OF DIOSCORUS. 293 mation to the Emperor and the Senate, appeals to God, anathema to Dioscoms " Christ has deposed Dios- corus Christ has deposed the murderer God has avenged his martyrs ! " The Council at the next ses- sion proceeded 1 to the definition of the true faith. The Creeds of Xicea and of Constantinople, the two Epis- tles of Cyril, and above ah 1 the Epistle of Leo to Fla- vianus, were recognized as containing the orthodox Christian doctrine. The letter of Leo excited accla- mations of unbounded joy. " This is the belief of the Fathers, of the Apostles ! " " So believe we all ! " " Accursed be he that admits not that Peter has spoken by the mouth of Leo ! " " Leo has taught what is right- eous and true ; and so taught Cyril ! " " Eternal be the memory of Cyril ! " " Why was not this read at Ephesus ? It was suppressed by Dioscorus ! " With this there was again a strange mingled outcry of the Bishops, confessing their sin and imploring forgiveness, and of the adversaries of Dioscorus, chiefly the clergy of Constantinople, clamoring, " Away with the Egyp- tian, the Egyptian into exile ! " The Imperial Commissioners, who, with some few of the Bishops, were anxious that affairs should pro- ceed with more dignified calmness, hardly restrained the impulse of the Council, who were eager to pro- ceed by acclamation, and at once, to the condemnation of Dioscorus ; they accused him of being a Jew. It would, perhaps, have been better for that prelate, if they had been permitted to follow their impulse ; for charges now began to multiply and to darken against the falling Patriarch charges of disloyalty, Con( j emnat5on of tyranny, of rapacity, of incontinence. of Dioscorus Thrice was he summoned to appear (he had not been 294 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK H. permitted to resume his seat, or had withdrawn during the stormy course of the proceedings), thrice he diso- beyed, or attempted to elude the summons. The sol- emn sentence was then pronounced by one of the Western Bishops, the representatives of Leo. It stated that Dioscorus, sometime Bishop of Alexandria, had been found guilty of divers ecclesiastical offences. To pass over many, he had admitted Eutyches, a man under excommunication by lawful authority, into com- munion ; he had haughtily repelled all remonstrances ; he had refused to read the Epistle of Leo at the Coun- cil of Ephesus ; he had even aggravated his guilt by daring to place the Bishop of Rome himself under in- Oct. is. terdict. Leo, therefore, by their voice, and with the authority of the Council, in the name of the Apostle Peter, the Rock and Foundation of the Church, deposes Dioscorus from his episcopal dignity, and excludes him from all Christian rights and privi- leges. The unanimous Council subscribes the judg- ment. 1 The decree was temperate and dignified; it con- tamed no unfair or exaggerated accusations ; though it might dwell with undue weight on the insulting con- duct towards Leo, it condescended to no fierce and abusive appellations. Nor was the grave majesty of the assembly disturbed by a desperate rally of the Barsumas monks, headed by Barsumas. This man, as >nk ' not unjustly suspected of being implicated in 1 It is remarkable that the decree took no notice of the various imputa- tions of heresy against Dioscorus, none of the accusations of murder said to have been perpetrated by him in Alexandria. Compare especially the libel of Ischyrion the Deacon, who offers to substantiate his charges by witnesses. Either Dioscorus was one of the most wicked of men, or Ischy- rion the most audacious of calumniators. Labbe, p. 398-400. CHAP. IV. BAKSUMAS THE MONK. 29c the death of Flavianus, the assembly refused to admit to the honors of a seat. Repelled on all sides, and awed by the Imperial power, the monks appealed to Christ from Csesar, shook their garments in contempt of the Council, and as a protest against the injustice done to Dioscorus ; and then sullenly retired to then: solitudes to brood over and propagate in secret their Monophysite doctrines. Some of their traditions assert, in characteristic language, that Barsuinas, thus igno- minioosly expelled by the Council and by the Emperor, pronoinced his curse against Pulcheria. She died a few days afterwards, and Barsumas, while he took rank among his followers as a prophet and man of God, be- came from that time an object of cruel and unrelenting persecution by his enemies. It is remarkable that the formulary of faith adopted finally by the Council of Chalcedon was brought for- ward by the Imperial Commissioners. After much al- tercation and delay, it received at length the sanction of the Council. After this the Civil Government (the Emperor Marcian) issued two laws, addressed to all orders, to the clergy, to the military, and to the com- monalty ; one prohibited the future agitation of these questions, as tending to tumult : it denounced as the penalty for offences against the statute, degradation to the ecclesiastic, to the soldier ignominious expulsion from the army, to the common man exile from the Im- perial city. 1 The second decree confirmed all the pro- ceedings at Chalcedon, enforced on the public mind the deferential conclusion, that no private man could hope to arrive at a sounder understanding of these 1 A strong canon of the Council of Chalcedon against simony implies that the benefices in the East, as in the West, were highly lucrative. 296 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK II. mysteries than had been painfully attained by so many holy bishops, and only after much prayer and profound investigation. The punishment of dissent was left in- definite and at the will of the civil rulers. But before the final dissolution of the Council at Chalcedon, among thirty canons on ecclesiastical sub- jects, appeared one of singular importance to Christen- dom. It asserted the supremacy of the Roman See, not in right of its descent from St. Peter, but solely as the Bishopric of the Imperial City. It assigned, there- fore, to the Bishop of the New Rome, as equal in civil dignity, a coequal and coordinate ecclesiastical author- ity. 1 This canon, it is averred, was passed by a few bishops, who lingered behind the rest of the Council ; it claims only the subscription of one hundred and fifty prelates, and those chiefly of the diocese of Constan- tinople. It is not indeed likely that the Alexandrian Church, though depressed by the ignominious degrada- tion of its head, still less that the more ancient Churches of Antioch and Jerusalem should thus tamely acquiesce in the assumption of superiority (un- less it were a measure enforced by the Imperial power) by the modern and un-Apostolic Church of Byzan- tium. 2 Leo from this period denounces the arrogance 1 Ko2 y&p TU i9pov. Mi JT4. !!> L CHAP. I. CONTEMPORARY POTENTATES. 311 WIITIEX "*" THIOOTHIO KiaOS TiM.ii. xixai 457.' LM I. 474 i.D. i.D. i.D. i.D. ij>. A.D. i.D. A.D. 426. Genaerie. 476 461. Sererut. 484 464. Vacant. 466 467. AaUiemius. 471 466.Eri. 4S4 474.L*o 1 1. 481 Baailisoui. 472. Olybriui. Glyceriuf. Nepoa. AuUtultu. 476 476. Hnnnerie. 484 IIXOS OF ITiLI. 481. Clo-ri.. 610 K nr'!om 476. Odoaeer the HeruUan. 493 484. Alaiio IL 507 484. Gondebald. 495 of CloTij. 491.AnartaihuI.618 493. Tbeodorio the Oitrogoth. 628 KIXOI OT BCKQUITDT. 496. Thrasimoud. 622 461. Gunderie. 472 507. Geaatrle. Ell (Vltalianu.) 615 618. Justin L 627 472. Gundebald and hi brothen, 60* 511. A malaria. 631 62S. HBderio. 630 627. Justinian. 666 526. Athalaric, 634 534. Theodatus. 636 624. Gondemar. 632 Conquered by We tern FraniJ. 631. Thendn. 648 630. GOimer. 634 634. Conquered by Jujtinian. 636. Vitise*. 640 548. Theodesedld. 549 549. Agila. 668 640. Theodebald. 641. Ararlo. loula. 663 558. Tel*. 658. AthanagBd. 667 565. Justin H. 578 667. Uuba. 672 678. Tiberiui. 582 58 Maurioe. 602 572. Leorigfld. 680 586.Reeare4, 000 002. Fhoeag. 610 (& For Eastern Empire, to. See bottom of nut page. 812 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK IIL BOOK III. CHAPTER I. MONOPHYSITISM. LEO THE GREAT had not lived to witness the last feeble agonies of the Western Empire ; he escaped the ignominious feeling which must have depressed the spirit of a Roman at the assumption of the strange title, the King of Italy, by a Barbarian : he was not called upon to render his allegiance, or to acknowledge the title of Odoacer. The immediate successor of Leo was Hilarius, by NOT. 19, 46i. birth a Sardinian. As deacon, Hilarius had been the representative of Leo at the Coun- cil of Ephesus. His firmness during those stormy debates displays a character unlikely to depart from the lofty pretensions of his predecessor. He reasserted in the East the unbending orthodoxy of Leo ; in the West, he maintained, to the utmost extent, the author- ity which had been claimed over the churches of Gaul 664. Vino, GertKur. Mi. *?"***?* isr IS. femu^SM 5. Albota. IR 572. Clrophll. 674 674. Doie. rult to -W4 6S4. Authuv, iff) ktar. WO. Agflntt 61* CHAP. I. EXTINCTION OF ROMAN SOVEREIGNTY. 313 and Spain. Rusticus, Bishop of Narbonne, on his death-bed, nominated Hermes as successor to his see. This precedent of a bishop making his see, as it were, a subject of testamentary bequest, seemed dangerous, though in this case the lawful assent had been obtained from the clergy and the people. Hilarius, at NOV. 3, 462. the head of a synod in Rome, condemned the prac- tice, but for the sentence of degradation substituted the lesser punishment, the deprivation of the right to confer ordination. In another dispute concerning the jurisdiction of the Metropolitans of Aries and Vienne over the Bishop of Die, the successor Feb. 24, 464. of St. Peter at least confirms, if he does not ground his whole ecclesiastical authority on the decrees of Christian Emperors. The Imperial sanction was want- ing to ratify the edicts of the Apostolic See. 1 The bishops of the province of Tarragona addressed Pope Hilarius in humbler language, and were treated, there- fore, in a loftier tone of dictation. The only act of Hilarius which mingles him up with the temporal affairs of the age, is his solemn rebuke of the Emperor Anthemius, the sovereign who had been sent from Constantinople to rule the West, for presum- ing to introduce those maxims of toleration, to which his father-in-law, Marcian, had compelled unruly Con- stantinople ; and even to look with favor on the few i " Fratri enim nostro Leontio nihil constituti a sanctte memorise deces- sore meo potuit abrogari, nihil voluit, quod honori ejus debetur, auferri ; quia Christianorum quoque principum lege decretum est, ut quidquid eccle- siis earumque rectoribus, pro quiete omnium domini sacerdotum, atque ipsius observautia discipline, in auferendis confusionibus apostolicae sedis antistes suo pronunciasset examine, veneranter accipi, tenaciterque ser- trari, cum suis plebibus caritas vestra cognosceret: nee unquam possent sonvelli, quae et sacerdotal! ecclesiastica prseceptione fulcirentur et regia." Hilarii Pap Epist. xi. Labbe, p. 1045. 314 LATIN CHBISTIAXTTY. BOOK III surviving partisans of the ancient philosophy, if not of the ancient religion. Under the reign of Anthemius, the old heathen festival, the Lupercalia, was still cele- brated in Rome. The venerable rite which still com- memorated at once the genial influences of the open- Sept.467. ing year, and the birth of Rome from the she-wolf which nursed her twin founders, was but slightly disguised to the worshipping Christians. 1 It was Simplicius, the successor of Hilarius, born at iw>.25,468. Tibur, who beheld the sceptre wrested from 8Smp the helpless hand of Augustulus, and heard the demand of the allegiance of Italy from Odoacer, a barbarian of uncertain race. The Papal Epistles dwell only on the polemic controversies of the day, on ciow of the questions of ecclesiastical jurisdiction or cere- Western .,,.,.,. J , Empire. monial disclipline ; they rarely notice, even incidentally, the great changes in the civil society around them. We endeavor in vain to find any ex- pression or intimation of the feelings excited in a Ro man of the high station and influence of the Pope, at the total extinction of that sovereignty which had gov- erned the world for centuries, and from which the Bishop of Rome acknowledged himself to hold to some extent his authority ; by whose edicts Christianity had become the established religion of the world, to which the orthodox faith looked for its support by the legal proscription of heretics ; which had been at least the civil lawgiver of the Church, and by whose grants she held her vast increasing estates. How far was the conscious possession of a power, which might hereafter sway opinions as widely as the republic or the empire had enforced outward submission and by force of arms * Compare Gibbon, ch. xxxvi. CHAP. I. CHURCH IN THE EAST. 315 had quelled every thought of resistance, accepted as a consolation for the departed name of sovereignty? How far did Roman pride take refuge under the pre- tensions of her Bishop to be the head of Christendom, from the degradation of a foreign and barbarian yoke ? Christendom, from all her monuments and records, mio-ht seem to have formed a world of her own. Of o the fall of Augutulus, of the rise of Odoacer, we hear not a word. Even in the midst of this extraordinary revolution the active energy of the Popes seems con- centred on the East. The Bishop of Rome is busy in Constantinople, opposing the intrigues of Timotheus Ailurus, the Bishop of Alexandria, and jealously watch- ing the ambition of Acacius, the Bishop of Constan- tinople, a more formidable enemy than Odoacer, as threatening the religious supremacy of Rome. 1 He" takes deep interest in the changes on the throne of the East, congratulates the Emperor Zeno on his restora- tion, but it is because Zeno is an enemy to the Euty- chian heretics, because he rises on the ruins of Basilis- cus, the patron of the Monophysite faction. For while the West, partly from her want of interest in these questions, partly from the unsettled state of public affairs, from the breaking up of Attila's king- dom, the Vandal invasion of Italy, the Visigothic con- quests in Gaul and Spain, and the final extinction of the empire, reposed, as to its religious belief, under the paternal sway of Pope Leo and his succes- Chnreh j n sors, the distracted East, in all its great capi- the East ' tals, was still agitated with strife, that strife perpetually breaking out into violence and bloodshed. The Coun- O cil of Chalcedon had commanded, had defined the or- * Simplicii Epist. p. 1078. 316 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III thodox creed in vain. Everywhere its decrees were received or rejected, according to the dominant party in each city, and the opinions of the reigning Emperor. On all the metropolitan thrones there were rival bishops, anathematizing each other, and each supported either by the civil power, by a part of the populace, or by the monks, more fierce and unruly than the unruly populace. For everywhere monks were at the head of the religious revolution which threw off the yoke of jerniem. the Council of Chalcedon. 1 In Jerusalem Theodosius, a monk, expelled the rightful prelate, Ju- venalis ; was consecrated by his party, and maintained himself by acts of violence, pillage, and murder, more like one of the lawless bandits of the country than a Christian bishop. The very scenes of the Saviour's Alexandria, mercies ran with blood shed in his name by his ferocious self-called disciples. In Alexandria the name of Dioscorus (who remained quiet till his death, at Gangra, his place of exile) was still dear to most of the monks, and to many of the people, who asserted the champion of orthodox belief and Alexandrian dig- nity to have been sacrificed to the Nutation Council of Chalcedon. A prelate named Proterius had been appointed, in the triumph of that Council, to the vacant see. The bold wit of the Alexandrian populace had always delighted in affixing nicknames upon the rulers and kings of Egypt ; in their strong religious animos- 1 Leonia Epist. cix. a cxxiv. ; Marciani Epist. ad ealc. Cone. Chalced. ; Evagrins, 11, 5. The latter writer says the difference between the two parties was between the two prepositions cv and ef . Leo makes a renterka- ble admission. His words might have been misunderstood by those who "non valentes in Graecum apte et proprie Latina transferre, cum in rebus subtilibus et difficilibus explicandis, vix sibi etiam in sua lingua disputator quisque sufficiat." CHAP. I. EXCESSES OF THE MONKS. 317 ity, they scrupled not to profane their holy bishops with equally irreverent appellations. Timotheus, a monk, called Ailurus the Weasel, perhaps because he was said to have slunk by night to the secret meetings of the rabble, or because he stole into the bish- A.D. 457. opric of another, was consecrated by the anti-Chalce- donian faction, as a rival metropolitan. We are im- patient of these dreary and intricate feuds. That of Alexandria ended, it must not be said, for it might seem interminable, but came to a crisis, in the horrible assassination of Proterius. So little had centuries of Christianity tamed the savage populace of this great city, that the Bishop was not only murdered in the baptistery, but his body treated with shameless indig- nity, and other enormities perpetrated which might have appalled a cannibal. 1 Timotheus, however, is acquitted as to the guilt of participation in these mon- strous crimes. But the Weasel did not assume the throne of Alexandria without a rival. Another Timo theus, called Solofaciolus, was set up (Timo- A.B. 460. theus the Weasel having been banished on the author- ity of the Emperor Leo), after no long interval, by the Chalcedonian party. 2 At Antioch, some years later, a third monk, Peter, called from his humble birth and occupation the Fuller, 3 with the apparent countenance of Zeno, the Antioch. Emperor Leo's son-in-law, whom he had accompanied 1 Kal ov6e TUV vrdf airoygveffdai /card ravt; i9^pof Qedopevot ticeivov, ov IXMV [teaiTqv &eov /cat avdpunuv fvay^of evofua&rjoav. Evagrius, 11, 9, quoting the letter of the Bishops and Clergy to the Emperor Leo. 2 Timotheus was allowed to go to Constantinople to plead his cause; thence he was dismissed into banishment. S. Leon. Epist. ad Gennadium et ad Leonem Imper. 8 The history of Peter the Fuller is related differently ; the time of hia invasion of the church of Antioch is not quite certain. 318 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. during his wars in the East, began to intrigue with the discontented party in that city. He led a procession, chiefly of monastics, through the streets, which added to the " Thrice Holy " in the hymn, " who wast cru- cified for us." In a short time Peter succeeded in expelling the Bishop Martyrius, who voluntarily abdi- cated his see. Barsumas, the notorious leader of the monks in Con- stantinople, who had been driven from that city by the Council of Chalcedon, was not inactive during his exile. Throughout Syria he spread the charge of Nes- torianism against the Council, and exasperated men's minds against the prelates of that party. On one re- ligious subject alone the conflicting East maintained its perfect unity, in the reverence, it may be said the wor- ship, of the Hermit on the Pillar. Simeon Stylites had been observed by his faithful disciple to have re- mained motionless for three days in the same attitude of prayer. Not once had he stretched out his arms in the form of the cross ; not once had he bowed his fore- head till it touched his feet (a holy exploit, which his wondering admirers had seen him perform t \vel \ e hun- dred and forty-four times, and then lost their reckon- ing). The watchful disciple climbed the pillar ; a rich odor saluted his nostrils ; the saint was dead. The news reached Antioch. Ardaburius, general of the forces in the East, hastened to send a guard of honor, lest the neighboring cities should seize perhaps meet in desperate warfare for the treasure of his body. Antioch, now one in heart and soul, sent out her Patri- arch, with three other bishops, to lead the funeral pro- cession. The body was borne on mules for three hundred stadia ; a deaf and dumb man touched the CHAP. I. SIMEON STYLITES. 319 bier, he burst out into a cry of gratulation. The whole city, with torches and hymns, followed the body. The Emperor Leo implored Antioch to yield to him the inestimable deposit. The Emperor implored in vain. Antioch, so long as she possessed the remains of Simeon, might defy all her enemies. In the same year, when Antioch thus honored the funeral rites of him whom she esteemed the greatest of mankind, Rome was la- menting in deep and manly sorrow her Pontiff, Leo. Contrast Simeon Stylites with one Emperor crouching at the foot of his pillar, and receiving his dull, inco- herent words as an oracle, then with another, a man of higher character, supplicating for the possession of his remains, and Pope Leo on his throne in Rome, and in the camp of ^.ttila. Such were then Greek and Latin Christianity. Nor was the lineage of the Holy Simeon broken or contested. The sees of Constantino- ple, Antioch, Alexandria, the throne of the East, might be the cause of long and bloody conflict. The hermit Daniel mounted his pillar at Anaplus, near the mouth of the Euxine ; in that cold and stormy climate, his body, instead of being burned up with heat, was rigid with frost. But he became at once the legitimate, acknowledged successor of Simeon, the Prophet, the oracle of Constantinople. Once he condescended to appear in the streets of Constantinople; his presence decided the fate of the Empire. 1 The religious affairs in the East were indissolubly 1 On Simeon. Antonii vit. S. S. Theodore! Lect., Evagr. i. 13; on Daniel vit. Dan. Theodoret. This kind of asceticism was the admiration of the East to a later period. Eustathius of Thessalonica addressed a Stylites in the xiith century, admonishing the Saint against pride, yet at the same time asserting this to be the utmost height of religion. Eustath. Opuscula, Edit. Tafel, p. 182. 320 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK IIL blended with the political revolutions, to which the om religious factions added their weight, and inconstant!- . .. nopie. From unquestionably did not mitigate the animos- A.B. 467 to . ^ rm i *V4. ity. Inese revolutions were frequent and Death of violent. Leo the Thracian, the successor of Martian. Marcian, throughout his long reign, adhered firmly to the Council of Chalcedon. Towards the close of his reign the treacherous murder of Aspar the Patrician, and his son Ardaburius, to whom Leo had owed his throne; the violation of the Imperial word, solemnly given in order to lure Aspar from the sanctuary to which he had fled (the inviolability of the right of sanctuary Leo had just established by a statute) ; the same contempt of the laws of hos- pitality (the murder took place at a banquet in the Imperial palace, to which he had invited Aspar and his son), all this execrable perfidy was vindicated to a large part of his subjects, because Aspar was an Arian. 1 The Eastern world was in danger of falling under the sway of the Caesar Ardaburius, who was either an open Arian, or but a recent and suspicious convert. This was in itself enough to convict him and his partisans of treasonable designs, and to justify- any measures which might avert the danger from the Emperor Leo. Empire. During the whole reign of Leo, Eutychianism had been repressed by the known or- thodoxy of the Emperor. 2 Timotheus the Weasel had been permitted, as has been said, through the weak and suspicious favor of Anatolius, the Bishop i Niceph. xv. 27. * A law of Leo betrays the fears of the government of these monkish factions : " Qui in monasteriis agunt, ne potestatem habeant a monasteries exeundi." The force of law was necessary to compel these disciples of Paul and Antony to be what they had taken vows to be. CHAP. I. ZENO EXPELLED BY BASILISCUS. 321 of Constantinople, to visit the court, but lie had been repelled and sent into exile by the severe Emperor. But with the exception of the first disturbances ex- cited at Antioch by Peter the Fuller, the reign of Leo the Thracian was one of comparative religious peace. Eutychianism hid its head in the sullen silence of the monasteries. With the contested Em- pire on the death of Leo, the religious contests broke out in new fury. Zeno, who had married Leo's daughter, Ariadne, was driven from the zeno espeiied i i T-> -T 111 /> TT by Basiliscus. throne by Basihscus, the brother or Venna, A.D. 476. the widow of Leo. With Basiliscus, the anti-Chalce- donian party rose to power. An Imperial encyclic letter branded with an anathema the whole proceedings at Chalcedon, and the letter of Pope Leo, as tainted with Nestorianism. Everywhere the Eutychian bishops seized upon the sees, and expelled the rightful prel- ates. Peter the Fuller, who had for a time been excluded, reascended the throne of Antioch. Paul resumed that of Ephesus. Anastasius of Jerusalem rendered his allegiance. Timotheus the Weasel came from his exile to Constantinople, and ruled the Em- peror Basiliscus with unrivalled sway. 1 Acacius, the Bishop of Constantinople, was a man of great ability. He beheld the unwelcome presence, the increasing influence of the rival Patriarch of Alexandria, with jealous suspicion, and refused to admit him to the communion of the Church. Fierce struggles for power distracted Constantinople. 2 On one side were 1 See the triumphant reception of Timotheus in Constantinople, Evagr. iii. 4. 2 The language of the Pope Simplicius shows the manner in which the hostile parties wrote of each other: "Comperi Timotheum parricidam, qui ^Egyptiacae pridem vastator Ecclesiaj, in morem Cain . . . ejectus a facie 21 322 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. the Eutychian monks ; on the other, the Bishop Aoa- cius and a large part of the populace and of the monks of Constantinople, for fierce bands of monks now appeared on either side. But his most powerful supporter was the Hermit Daniel, who descended from the pillar, where he had received the suppliant visits of the former Emperor, to take part in these tumults, that pillar which more sober Christians might almost have mounted in order to rise above the turbid at- mosphere of strife. With this potent ally the Bishop of Constantinople (probably indeed supported by the strong faction of the expelled Zeno) waged an equal war against the Emperor. Ere long the strange spec- tacle was presented of a Roman Emperor flying before a naked hermit, who had lost the use of his legs by standing for sixteen years on his column. Basiliscus too late revoked his encyclic letter. He fell, and Zeno zeno empe- resumed the power. The tide turned against tor, A.D. 477. t ne Monophysite or anti-Chalcedonian party. But the rest, though some bishops hastened to make their peace with the Emperor and with Acacius, con- tended obstinately against the stream. Stephanus, the Bishop of Antioch, was murdered in the church by the partisans of Peter the Fuller. Timotheus the Weasel, spared from all extreme chastisement on ac- count of his age, died ; but in his place arose another monk, Peter, called Mongus, or the Stammerer, and laid claim to the see of Alexandria. Timotheus Solo- faciolus, however, under the Imperial authority, re- Dei, hoc est Ecclesiae dignitate seclusus." ... He then dereribes his re- sumption of the Alexandrian See: "Quo procul dubio Cain ipso longe detestabilior approbatur; ille siquidem a perpetrato semel facinore damna- tus abstinuit, hie profecit ad crimina majora post pocnam." Simplic. Epist. Labbe, 1070. CHAP. I. HEXOTICON OF ZEXO. 323 sumed the Patriarchate, and endeavored to reconcile the heretics by Christian gentleness. 1 The Emperor Zeno beheld with commiseration and dismay his dis- tracted empire ; he determined, if possible, to assuage the animosities, and to reconcile the hostile factions. After a vain attempt to obtain the opinions of the chief ecclesiastical dignitaries, without assembling a new Council, a measure which experience had shown to exasperate rather than appease the strife, Zeno issued his famous Henoticon, or Edict of A-D- 482. UT- believed, if not by Acacius, Bishop of Constantinople, under his direction and with his sanction. It aimed not at the reconcilement of the conflicting opinions, but hoped, by avoiding all expressions offensive to either party, to allow them to meet together in Chris- tian amity ; as if such terms had not become to both parties an essential part, perhaps the whole, of their Christianity. The immediate effects of the Henoticon in the East might seem to encourage the fond hope of success. The feud between the rival Churches of Constan- tinople and Alexandria was for a time appeased. Acacius and Peter the Stammerer recognized their mutual claims to Christian communion. Calendion, the Chalcedonian Bishop of Antioch, had been ban- ished to the African Oasis. Peter the Fuller had resumed the throne. Peter acceded to the Henoticon ; and these three Patriarchal churches commended the Imperial scheme of union to the Eastern world. 2 1 Libcratus says that the heretics used to cry out as he passed, " Though we do not communicate with you, yet we love you." Breviar. Baronius is indignant at this " nimia indulgentia " of the bishop (sub ann. 478). 2 Evagrius, iii. 26. 324 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. It was but a transient lull of peace. The Henoti- Aiexandria. con, without reconciling the two original conflicting parties, only gave rise to a third : in Three parties. Alexandria the two factions severed into three. One half of the Eutychian or anti-Chalce- donian party adhered to Peter the Stammerer; the other indignantly repudiated what they called the base concession of Peter; they were named the Acepliali, without a head, as setting up no third prelate. The strong Chalcedonian party had nominated as successor John Talajas. to the mild Timotheus Solofaciolus, a man of a different character. John Talajas, while at Con- stantinople, had been compelled by the provident, but vain precaution, no doubt, of Acacius, to pledge him- self not to aspire to the see of Alexandria. 1 The ob- ject of Acacius was to unite the Alexandrian Church under Peter the Stammerer, beneath the broad com- prehension of the Henoticon. No sooner was Timo- theus dead, and John Talajas safe at Alexandria, than he accepted the succession of Timotheus. On the union between Acacius and Peter the Stammerer, John Talajas fled to Rome; he was welcomed as a second Athanasius. For now a question had arisen, which involved the Question of Bishops of Rome, not merely as dignified Dupremacy. arbiters on a high and profound metaphysical question of the faith, but, vital to their power and dig- nity, plunged them into the strife as ardent and implac- able combatants. The Roman Pontiffs had already, at least from the time of Innocent I., asserted their in- alienable supremacy on purely religious grounds, as successors of St. Peter. If, as in the recent act of 1 Evagrius, on the authority of Zacharias. CHAP. I. QUESTION OF ROMAN SUPREMACY. 325 Hilarius, they had appealed to the laws of the empire, as confirmatory of that supremacy, it was to enforce more ready and implicit obedience. But with the world at large the ecclesiastical supremacy of Rome rested solely on her civil supremacy. The Pope was head of Christendom as Bishop of the first city in the world. Already Constantinople had put forth claims to coequal ecclesiastical, as being now of coequal temporal dignity. This claim had been ratified by the great (Ecumenic Council of Chalcedon, that Council which had established the inflexible line of orthodoxy between the divergent heresies of Nestorius and Eutyches. This was but the supplementary act, it was asserted, of a small and factious minority, who had lingered behind the rest ; but, it appeared upon the records, it boasted the authority of the unanimous Council. 1 The ambition of Acacius, now, under Zeno, sole and undisputed Bishop of Constantinople, was equal to his ability. He seemed watching the gradual fall of the Western Empire, the degradation of Rome from the capital of the world, which would leave Con- stantinople no longer the new, the second, rather the only Rome upon earth. The West, in the person of Anthemius, had received an emperor appointed by Constantinople; the Western Empire at one moment seemed disposed to become a province of the East. Acacius had already obtained from the Emperor (we must reascend in the course of our history to connect the East with the West), Leo the Thracian, who had ruled between Marcian and Zeno, a decree confirming to the utmost all the privileges of a Patriarchate claimed by Constantinople. In that edict Constantinople as- 1 Compare Baronius sub aim. 472. 826 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK d. sumed the significant and threatening title of " Mother of all Christians and of the orthodox Religion." The Pope Simplicius had protested against this usurpation, but his protest is lost. The aspiring views of Acacius were interrupted for a short time by his fall under the Emperor Basiliscus; but his triumph (an unwonted triumph of a Bishop of Constantinople over an Em- peror), his unbounded favor with Zeno, might warrant the loftiest expectations. As the acknowledged and victorius champion of orthodoxy, Acacius could now take the high position of a mediator. In the Henot- icon Zeno the Emperor spoke his language, and in that edict appeared a manifest desire to assuage the discords of the East, and to combine the Churches in one harmonious confederacy. On the murder of Stephanus of Antioch, Acacius had consecrated his successor ; a step against which the Pope Simplicius, A.D. 479. Re- who was watching all his actions, sent a monstrance -rt c i i T of simpiiciua. strong remonstrance. Before the publica- tion of the Henoticon, the Western Empire had de- parted from Rome; but though her political suprem- acy, even her political independence was lost, she would not tamely abandon her spiritual dignity. For Rome, in the utmost assertion of her power against the Bishop of Constantinople, might depend on the support of above half the East; of all who were discontented with the Henoticon ; and who, in the absorbing ardor of the strife, would not care on what terms they obtained the alliance of the Bishop of Rome, so that alliance enabled them to triumph over their adversaries. The dissatisfaction with the Henot- ^ con comprehended totally opposite factions, ^ f o u owers o f Nestorius and of Euty- CHAP. I. FACTIONS IN THE EAST. 327 ches, who were impartially condemned on all sides ; and the ecclesiastics, who considered it an act of pre- sumption in the Emperor to assume the right of legis- lating in spiritual matters, a right complacently admitted when ratifying or compulsorily enforcing ecclesiastical decrees, and usually adopted without scruple on other occasions by the party with which the Court happened to side. But the strength of the malcontents was the high Chalcedonian or orthodox party, who condemned the Henoticon as tainted with Eutychianism, and de- nounced Acacius as holding communion with Eutychian Prelates, and therefore himself justly suspected of leaning to that heresy. In Constantinople the more formidable of the monks were of this party ; the Bishops of Rome addressed more than once the clergy and the archimandrites of that city, as though assured of their sympathy against the Bishop and the Empe- ror. John Talajas, the exiled Bishop of Alexandria, filled Rome with his clamors. The Pope Simplicius addressed a remonstrance to Acacius, to which Aca- cius, who to former letters of the Bishop of Rome had condescended no answer, coldly replied that he knew nothing of such a Bishop of Alexandria ; that he was in communion with the rightful Bishop, Peter Mongus, who, like a loyal subject, had subscribed the Emperor's Edict of Union. 1 At this juncture died Pope Simplicius. On the i acancy of the see occurred a singular scene. March, The clergy were assembled in St. Peter's, ni^th of In the midst of them stood up Basilius, Sl1 the Patrician and Prefect of Rome, acting as Vice- gerent of Odoacer, the barbarian King. He ap- 1 Liberat. Breviar. 328 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK HI pearcd by the command of his master, and by the admonition of the deceased Simplicius, to take care that the peace of the city was not disturbed by any sedition or tumult during the election. That election could not take place without the sanction of his Sover- eign. He proceeded, as the Protector of the Church from loss and injury by Churchmen, to proclaim the Decree of following edict : " That no one, under the penalty of anathema, should alienate any farm, buildings, or ornaments of the Churches ; that such alienation by any Bishop present or future was null and void." So important did this precedent ap- pear, so dangerous in the hands of those schismatics who would even in those days limit the sacerdotal power, that nearly twenty years after, a fortunate occasion was seized by the Pope Symmachus to annul this decree. In a synod of Bishops at Rome, the edict was rehearsed, interrupted by protests of the Bishops at this presumptuous interference of the laity with affairs of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. 1 The authen- ticity of the decree was not called in question ; it was declared invalid, as being contrary to the usages of the Fathers, enacted on lay authority, and as not ratified by the signature of any Bishop at Rome. The same Council, however, acknowledged its wisdom by re- enacting its ordinance against the alienation of Church property. Felix, by birth a Roman, succeeded to the vacant Feiu ni. see. He inherited the views and passions, A.D. 483. as well as the throne of Simplicius and his strife with the East. His first act was an indignant rejection of the Henoticon, as an insult to the Council 1 Synodus Romana. Labbe, sub aim. 502. CHAP. I. FELIX HI. 329 of Chalcedon; as an audacious act of the Emperor Zeno, who dared to dictate articles of faith ; as a seed- plot of impiety. 1 He anathematized all the Bishops who had subscribed this edict. At the head of a Roman synod, Felix addressed a strong admonitory letter to Acacius of Constantinople, and another, in a more persuasive tone, to the Emperor Zeno. These letters were sent into the East by two Bishops, Misenus and Vitalis, as Legates of Pope Felix. To Peter the Fuller was directed another letter, arraigning him as involved in every heresy which had ever afflicted the Church, or with something worse than the worst. 2 Whether he awaited any reply from the re- Excommuni- rt T-> i i i p i i cates Peter fractory Bishop or not seems doubtful ; but the Fuller. he proceeded to fulminate a sentence of deposition and excommunication against Peter in his own name, and to assume that this sentence would be ratified by Aca- cius of Constantinople. The Legate Bishops, Misenus and Vitalis, were 1 Theodoras Lector. 2 The introduction by Peter the Fuller of " who wast crucified for us," after the angelic hymn, the Holy, Holy, Holy, struck the ears of the ortho- dox with horror. Felix relates with all the earnestness of faith, and with all the authority of his position, the miraculous origin of this hymn in its simple form. During an earthquake at Constantinople, while the whole peo- ple were praying in the open air, an infant was visibly rapt to heaven, in the sight of the whole assembly and of the Bishop Proclus ; and after staying there an hour, descended back to the earth, and informed the people that he had heard the whole host of angels singing those words. It was not merely that the words, added at Antioch, left it doubtful which of the Persons of the Trinity was crucified for us ; the term was equally impious as regarded any one of those consubstantial, uncreated, invisible, impassi- ble Beings. Ka&o roivvv 6 /yovoyev^f vlog k 492 - West) to the accession of Hormisdas, intervened three Popes, Gelasius I., Anastasius I., Symmachus. Gelasius, a Roman, seemed, as a Roman, to assume the plenitude of Roman dignity. From the first, he adhered to all the lofty pretensions of his predecessor, gated the whole of these transactions with unrivalled industry and candor, and with the almost apathetic impartiality of his school, seems suddenly to break out into something approaching to eloquence. Walch, Ketzer-Ges- ehichte, vol. vii. 348 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III and in his frequent and elaborate writings vindicated all the acts of Felix. He inexorably demanded, as the preliminary to any peaceful treaty, that the name of Acacius should be expunged from the diptychs. No power could now retrieve or rescue Acacius from his inevitable doom Acacius, who had not only disre- garded the excommunication of the Bishop of Rome, but presumed to emulate his power of pronouncing damnation. Constantinople must absolutely abandon the champion of her coequality, if not her superiority. Acacius, all his followers, all who respect his memory, must share his irrevocable proscription. 1 The Roman Gelasius endeavors to awaken a kindred pride in the Emperor Anastasius, now the sole representative of Roman sovereignty ; 2 for Italy is under the dominion of the Goth. Gelasius might even seem to cherish some secret hope of the deliverance of Rome from its barbaric lord, by the intervention of the yet Roman East. But at the same time Gelasius asserts boldly, for the first time, in these strong and discriminating terms, the supremacy of the clergy in all religious mat- ters. " There are two powers which rule the world, 1 The letter of Gelasius to Euphemius of Constantinople is a model of that haughty humility which became the ordinary language of the Roman bishops. Euphemius had written, that by condescension and the best dis- position Gelasius could restore concord (" annectis condescendibilem me et optima dispositione revorare posse concordiam " ). "Do you call it con- descension to admit among true bishops the names of heretics and excom- municated persons, and of those who communicate with them and their successors? Is not this, instead of descending like our Lord from heaven to redeem, to plunge ourselves into hell ? " " Hoc non est condescendere ad subveniendum, sed evidenter in inferum demergi." He summons Euphe- mius to meet him before the tribunal of Christ, in the presence of the apos- tles, and decide whether his austereness and asperity is not truly apostolic. Epist. 1. 2 " Te sicut Romae natus, Romanum principem, amo, colo, suscipio. 1 ' Ad Anastas., A.D. 493. CHAP. I. POPE ANASTASIUS. 349 the Imperial and the Pontifical. You are the sov- ereign of the human race, but you bow your neck to those who preside over things divine. l The priesthood is the greater of the two powers ; it has to render an account in the last day for the acts of kings." 2 Pope Anastasius II., the successor of Gelasius, spoke a milder, more conciliatory, even more suppli- Pope Anas- TT i 111 i i tasius. ant language. He dared to doubt the damna- NOV. 24, 496. tion of a bishop excommunicated by the see of Rome : " Felix and Acacius are now both before a higher tribunal ; leave them to that unerring judgment." 3 He would have the name of Acacius passed over in 1 Gelasius refers to the authoritative example of Melchisedek, a type in- terpreted with curious variation during the Papal history. " In the oldest times Melchisedek was priest and king. The devil, in imitation of this holy example, induced the emperor to assume the supreme pontificate. But after Christianity had revealed the truth to the world, the union of the two powers ceased to be lawful. Neither did the emperor usurp the pon- tifical, nor the pontiff the imperial power. Christ, mindful of human frailty, has separated forever the two offices, leaving the emperors depend- ent on the pontiffs for their everlasting salvation, the pontiffs dependent on the emperors for the administration of all temporal affairs. So the ministers of God do not entangle themselves in secular business ; secular men do not intrude into things divine." Pass over eight or nine centuries, and hear Innocent IV. ; we give the pregnant Latin : " Dominus enim Jehsus Christ- ns . . . secundum ordinem Melchisedek, verus rex et verus sacerdcs existens, quemadmodum patenter ostendit, nunc utendo pro hominibus honorificentia regiae majestatis, nunc exequendo pro illis dignitatem pon- tificii apud Patrem, in apostolica sede non solum pontificatum, sed et re- galem constituit monarchatum, beato Petro ej usque successoribus terreni simul et coelestis imperii concessos habemus." Apud Hoefler. Albert von Beham, p. 88. Stuttgard, 1847. 2 " Quando etiam pro ipsis regibus domino in divino reddituri sunt ex- amine rationem." Ad Anastas., Mansi, vii. 8 " Nanique et predecessor noster Papa Felix, et etiam Acacius illic pro- culdubio sunt: ubi unusquisque sub tanto judice non potest perdere sui meriti qualitatem." Anastas. Epist. A.D. 496. This letter was sent to Constantinople by two bishops, Cresconius of Todi and Gennanus of Capua, with private instructions, not recorded in history. 350 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. silence, quietly dropped, rather than publicly expunged from the diptychs. This degenerate successor of St. Peter is not admitted to the rank of a saint. The Pontifical book (its authority on this point is indig- nantly repudiated) accuses Anastasius of having com- municated with a deacon of Thessalonica, who had kept up communion with Acacius ; and of having NOT. 19, 498. entertained secret designs of restoring the name of Acacius in the services of the Church. 1 His death, according to Baronius, his sudden death by the manifest hand of God, destroyed altogether these hopes of peace. But how deep and lasting was the tradition of detestation against this meek renegade to papal au- thority, may be supposed by its survival for at least nine centuries. Dante beholds in hell the unhappy Anastasius, condemned forever for his leniency to the heresy of Constantinople. 2 On the death of Pope Anastasius, the contested elec- Symmachua. tion for the pontificate between Symmachus>, a convert from paganism, 8 and Lauren ti us, was c\a<- perated by these divergences of opinion on the schism with the East. Festus, the legate of Anastasius, the deceased Pope, at Constantinople, the bearer, as it was 1 " Revocare Acacinm" so I translate the words as Acacius had long been dead. Lib. Pontif., Vit Anastas. 2 " E quivi per 1' orribile soperchio Del puzzo, che '1 profondo abisso gttta Ci raccostammo dietro ad un coperchio D' un grand' avello, ov' io vidi una scritta, Che diceva : Anastagio Papa guardo, Lo qual trasse Fotino della via dritta." Fotinus is said to have been the Deacon of Thessalonica. 8 "Catholica fides, quam in sede beati Petri, veniens ex paganitate, Buscepi." Epist. ad Anastas. The date of this is uncertain. Was he a son or descendant of the famous Symmachus? The latter is more probable. CHAP. I. DEATH OF POPE ANASTASIUS. 351 supposed, of conciliatory terms obtained by the con- cessions of the Pope, on his return to Rome, threw himself as a violent partisan into the cause of Lau- rentius. The Emperor Anastasius himself, either in private letters to his adherents in Rome or in some public document, accused the successful Symmachus, who, by the decision of King Theodoric, had obtained the throne, 1 as a Manichean ; and as having audacious- ly conspired with the Senate of Rome (a singular Council for the Pope) to excommunicate the Emperor. The sovereign of the East inflexibly withheld the cus- tomary letters of gratulation on the accession of Sym- machus. The apologetic invective of Symmachus to the Emperor is in the tone of fearless hostility. He retorts against the Eutychian the odious charge of Manicheism. He denies the excommunication of the Emperor Anastasius ; Acacius only was excommuni- cated. Yet he leaves him to the inevitable conclusion that all who were in communion with the excommuni- cate must share their doom. 2 Anastasius is arraigned as departing from his boasted neutrality only against the Catholics. The unyielding, almost turbulent resist- ance of the Roman party in Constantinople is justified by the aggressions assumed to be entirely on the part of the tyrannical Emperor. Peace between two such opponents was not likely to make much prog- * 498-514. ress. Throughout the pontificate of Symmachus, the Roman faction in the East kept up that fierce and tumultuous, or more secret and brooding opposition, which lasted till the death of Anastasius. Symmachus may have heard the first tidings of the orthodox revolt 1 See on, under the- reign of Theodoric, the elevation, struggle, and final istablishment of Symmachus. 8 Between 499-512. Baroniua places it 503. 3 "2 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. of Vitalianus ; his successor Hormisdas reaped the fruits of the humiliation of Anastasius, followed in due time by the reconciliation of the Greek and Latin Churches. 1 i See on, under the reign of Theodoric. CHAP. H. PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 353 CHAPTER II. CONVERSION OF THE TEUTONIC RACES. CHRISTIANITY within the Roman Empire might seem endangered in its vital existence by these un- genial inward dissensions. Its lofty assertions that it came down from heaven as a religion of peace of peace to the individual heart of man, as reconciling it with God, and instilling the serene hope of another life of peace which should incorporate mankind in one harmonious brotherhood, the type and preestab- lishment of the sorrowless and strifeless state of beati- tude might appear utterly belied by the claims of conflicting doctrines on the belief, all declared to be essential to salvation, and the animosities and bloody quarrels which desolated Christian cities. Anathema instead of benediction had almost become the general language of the Church. Religious wars, at least rare in the pagan state of society, seemed now a new and perpetual source of human misery a cause and a sign of the weakness and decay, and so of the inevi- table dissolution, of the Roman Empire. But Christianity had sunk into depths of the human heart, unmoved by these tumults, which so fiercely agitated the surface of the Christian world. Far be- low, less observed, less visible in its mode of operation, though manifest in its effects, was that profound con- VOL. i. 23 354 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK IH viction of the truth of the Gospel, that infelt sense of its blessings, which enabled it to pursue its course of conversion throughout the world, to bring the Ro- man mind more completely under subjection, and one by one to subdue the barbarian tribes which began to overspread and mingle with the Greek and Latin population of the Empire. For Christianity had that within it, which overawed, captivated, enthralled the innate or at least universal religiousness of man- kind ; that which was sufficiently simple to arrest by its grandeur the ruder barbarian, while, by its deeper mysteries, it led on the philosophic and reflective mind through unending regions of contemplation. It had its one Creator and Ruler of the universe, one God, one Redeemer, one Spirit, under which the ancient polytheism subsided into a subordinate hierarchy of intermediate beings, which kept the imagination in play, and left undisturbed almost all the hereditary superstitions of each race. It satisfied that yearning after the invisible, which seems inseparable from our nature, the fears and hopes which more or less vaguely have shadowed out some future being, the fears of retribution appeased by the promises of pardon, the hope of beatitude by its presentiments of peace. It had its exquisite goodness, which appealed to the in- delible moral sense of mankind, to the best affections of his being ; it had that equality as to religious privi- leges, duties, and advantages, to which it drew up all ranks and classes, and both sexes (slaves and females being alike with others under the divine care), and the abolition, so far, of the ordinary castes and divisions of men ; with the substitution of the one distinction, the clergy and the laity, and perhaps also that of the CHAP. II. CONVERSION OF GERMANS. 355 ordinary Christian and the monk, who aspired to what was asserted and believed to be a higher Christianity. All this was, in various degrees, at once the manifest sign of its divinity, and the secret of its gradual sub- jugation of nations at such different stages of civiliza- tion. It prepared or found ready the belief in those miraculous powers, which it still constantly declared itself to possess ; and made belief not merely prompt to accept, but creative of, wonder, and of perpetual preterhuman interference. Some special causes will appear, which seemed peculiarly to propitiate certain races towards Christianity, while their distinctive char- acter reacted on their own Christianity, and through them perhaps on that of the world. We are not at present advanced beyond the period when Christianity was in general content (this indeed gave it full occupation) to await the settle- conyersion ment of the Northern tribes, if not within the wUhhTthe" pale, at least upon the frontiers of the Em- pire ' pire : it had not yet been emboldened to seek them out in their own native forests or morasses. But it was a surprising spectacle to behold the Teutonic nations melting gradually into the general mass of Christian worshippers. In every other respect they are still dis- tinct races. The conquering Ostrogoth or Visigoth, the Vandal, the Burgundian, the Frank, stand apart from the subjugated Roman population, as an armed or territorial aristocracy. They maintain, in great part at least, their laws, their language, their habits, their character ; in religion alone they are blended into one society, constitute one church, worship at the same altar, and render allegiance to the same hierarchy. This is the single bond of their common humanity ; 356 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. and so long as the superior Roman civilization enabled the Latins to retain exclusively the ecclesiastical func- tions, they might appear to have retreated from the civil power, which required more strenuous and robust hands to wield it, to this no less extensive and impor- tant influence of opinion ; and thus held in suspense the trembling balance of authority. They were no longer the sovereigns and patricians, but they were still the pontiffs and priests in the new order of society. There might appear in the Teutonic religious char- acter a depth, seriousness, and tendency to the mysterious, congenial to Christianity, which would prepare them to receive the Gospel. The Grecian polytheist was often driven into Christianity by the utter void in his religion, and by the incon- gruity of its poetic anthropomorphism with the prog- ress of his discursive reason, as well as by his weari- ness with his unsatisfactory and exhausted philosophy: the Roman was commanded by its high moral tone and vigor of character. But each had to abandon temples, rites, diversions, literature, which had the strongest hold on his habits and character, and so utterly incongruous with the primitive Gospel, that until Chris- tianity made some steps towards the old religion by the splendor of its ceremonial, and the incipient pagan- izing, not of its creed, but of its popular belief, there were powerful countervailing tendencies to keep him back from the new faith. And when the Greek entered into the Church, he was not content with- out exercising the quickness of his intelligence, and the versatilities of his language on his creed, without analyzing, discussing, defining everything. Or by in- truding that higher part of his philosophy, which best CHAP. II. TEUTONIC RELIGION. 357 assimilated with Christianity, he either philosophized Christianity, or for a time, as under the Neo-Platonists and Julian, set up a partially Christianized philosophy as a new and rival religion. The inveterate corrup- tion of Roman manners confined that vigorous Chris- tian morality, its strongest commendation to the Roman mind, at first within the chosen few who were not utterly abased by licentiousness or by servility: and even with them in large part it was obedience to civil authority, respect for established law, perhaps in many a kind of sympathy with the lofty and independent sacerdotal dignity, the sole representative of old Roman freedom, which contributed to Christianize the Latin world. How much more suited were some parts of the Teutonic character to harmonize at first with Chris- tianity, and to keep the proselytes in submission to the authority of its instructors in these sublime truths ; at the same time to invigorate the Church by the infusion of its own strength and independence of thought and action, as well as to barbarize it with that ferocity which causes, is increased by, and main- tains, the foreign conquests of ruder over Teutonic more polished races ! Already the German reUglon had the conception of an illimitable Deity, towards whom he looked with solemn and reverential awe. Tacitus might seem to speak the language of a Chris- tian Father, almost of a Jewish prophet. Their gods could not be confined within walls, and it was degrada- tion to these vast unseen powers to represent them under the human form. Reverential awe alone could contemplate that mysterious being which they called divinity. 1 These deities, or this one Supreme, were l " Caeterum non cohibere parietibus Decs, neque in ullam humani oris 358 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. shrouded in the untrodden, impenetrable forest. Such seems to have been the sublime conception above, if not anterior to, what may be called the mythology of Teutonic religion. This mythology was the same, only in its elemental form, throughout the German tribes, with that which, having passed through more than one race of poets, grew into the Eddas of Scan- dinavia. Vestiges of this close relationship are traced in the language, in the mythic conceptions, and in the superstitions of all the Teutonic tribes. Certain relig- ious forms and words are common to all the races of Teutonic descent. 1 In every dialect appear kindred or derivative terms for the deity, for sacrifice, for temples, and for the priesthood. This mythic religion was in some points a nature-worship, though there might have existed, as has been said, something more ancient, and superior to the worship of the visible and impersonated powers or energies of the material world. The Romans discovered, not without wonder, that the supreme deity of the actual German worship was not invested in the attributes of their Jove, but rather of Mercury. 2 There woden. is no doubt that Woden was the divinity to whom they assigned this name, a name which, in its various forms, (it became at length Odin,) is common to the Goths, Lombai-ds, Saxons, Frisians, and other tribes. In its primitive conception, if any of these conceptions were clear and distinct, Woden appears to have been the all-mighty, all-permeating Spirit the Mind, the primal mover of things, the all-Wise, the speciem adsimilare ex magnitudine coelestium arbitrantur, Deorumque no- niiuibus appellant secretum illud quod sola reverentiil viclent." Tac. Ger- man, ix. 1 Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, Einleitung, pp. 9-11 (2d edit.). The n hole large volume is a minute and laborious commentary on this axiom. 8 " Deum maxime Mercurium colunt" Tac. Germ. ix. CHAP. II. TEUTONIC RELIGION. 359 God of speech and of knowledge. 1 But with a warlike people, the supreme deity could not but be a god of battle, the giver of victory. He possessed therefore the attributes of Mars blended with those of Mercury. 2 The conduct or the reception of departed spirits, which belonged to the pagan Mercury, may have been one function which led to his identification with the Teu- tonic Woden. Already, no doubt, their world of the dead was a rude Valhalla. In the earlier belief, the Thunderer, with the sun, the heavenly bodies, and the earth, the great objects of nature-worship, held only the second place. The Her- thus of Tacitus was doubtless Hertha, the mother earth, or impersonated nature, of which he describes the worship in language singularly coincident with that of the Berecynthian goddess of Phrygia. 3 1 " Wodan sane quern adjecta litera Gwodan dixerunt, ipse est qui apud Romanes Mercurius dicitur, et ab universis Germanise gentibus ut Deus adoratur." Paul. Diacon. i. 9. See also Jonas Bobbiens. Vit. Bonifac. ('Dies Mercurii became Wodan's day, Wednesday. ^ Compare Grimm, p. 11C, Grimm, pp. 108, &c., and the whole article Wuotan, which hS closes with the following observation : " Aber noch zu einen andern Betrachtung darf die hohe stelle fuhren, welche die Germanen ihrem Wuotan anweisen. Der Monotheismus ist etwas so nothwendiges und wesentliches, das fast alle Heiden in ihrer Gutter bunten Gewimmel, bewusset oder unbewusset, darauf ausgehn, einen obersten Gott anzuerkennen, der schon die Eigen- schaften aller iibrigen in sich tragt, so dass diese nur als seine Einfliisse, verjiingenden und erfrischungen, zu betrachten sind. Daraus erklart sich wie einzelne Eigenheiten bald einem bald diesem einzelnen Gott dargelegt werden, und warum die hochste Macht, nach Verschiedenheit der Viilker auf den einen oder den andern derselben fallt.' ' 2 Paulus Diacon., loc. cit. He is called Sigvodr (Siegvater) in the Edda. Grimm, p. 122. 8 After recounting the tribes who worship this goddess, he proceeds " In commune Herthum, id est, Terrain matrem colunt, eamqtie intervenire rebus hominum, invehi populis arbitrantur. Est in insula Oceani castum nemus, dicatum in eo vehiculum, veste contectum, attingere uni sacerdoti concessum. Is adesse penetrali Deam intelligit, vectamque bobus feminis multa cum veneratione prosequitur. Laeti tune dies, festa loca, qusecunque adventu hospitioque dignatur. Non anna suinunt, clausum omne ferrum, 360 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK HI. There were other religious usages most absolutely repugnant to Christianity, and demanding, as it were, Human uer m ^^ intervention, so universal as to acnfioes. i m ply a closer relationship than that of un- connected races, which resemble each other from being in the same state of civilization. From the borders of the Roman Empire to the shores of the Baltic, from the age of Tacitus to that of the Northern Chroniclers, human sacrifices appeased the gods, or rewarded them for the victories which they had be- stowed upon their worshippers. The supreme god, Woden, the Mercury of Tacitus, was propitiated by human victims. The tribunes and principal centurions in the army of Varus were slam on these horrid altars. 1 The Goths sacrificed their captives to the god of wur. 2 The Greek historian of the age of Justinian imputes pax et quies tune tantum nota, tune tantiim amata, donee idem sacerdoa satiatam conversatione mortalium Deam templo reddit; in ox vehiculum et vestes, et, si credere velis, numen ipsum secreto lacu abluitur. Servi min- istrant) quos statim idem lacus haurit. Arcanus bine terror, sanctaque ignorantia, quid sit illud quod tantum perituri vident." Tacit. Gtrm. xL Contrast and compare these secret and awful rites (and their " truce of God") with Lucretius, Quo nunc insigni per magnas preedita terras Horrifice fertur divine Matris imago . . . Ergo cum primum magnas invecta per urbes Magnificat tacita mortales muta salute : re atqne argento sternunt iter orane riarum , Largificl stipe donantee, ninguntque rosarum Floribus, umbrantes Matrem comitumque caterras. ii. 597 et stq. (Also Ovid. Fasti, iv. 337.) Grimm, in another part of his book, illustrates all this by a circumstance related during the persecution of the Christian Goths by Athanaric iSozom. H. E. vi. 37.) An image on a wagon was led in procession round the tents of the people ; all who refused to worship and make their offerings to this Gothic deity were burned alive in tlu-ir tents. 1 Tac. Germ. ix. and xxxix. Ann. i. 81. The Hermanduri and Catti are particularly mentioned as slaying human victims. 2 Jornandes, 86. CHAP. II. ANIMAL SACRIFICES. 361 the same ferocious usage to the Thuletes (the Scan- dinavians), and to the Heruli ; l Sidonius Apollinarius to the Saxons. 2 The Frisian law denounces not merely the penalty of death, but describes as an immolation to the gods the punishment of one who violates a temple. At a later period St. Boniface charges some of his Christian converts with the sale of captives to the pagans for the purpose of sacrifice. 3 At the great temple at Upsala every kind of animal was suspended in sacrifice : seventy-two dogs and men, mingled to- gether, were counted on one occasion. 4 The northern poetry contains many vestiges of these human immola- tions. The Northmen are said by Dithmar of Merse- burg to have sacrificed every year, about Christmas, ninety-nine men in a sacred place in Sea-land. This execrable custom was suppressed by the Em- A.P. 926. peror Henry I. the Fowler. 6 Among animals the horse was the chosen victim of all the Teutonic tribes. It was offered in the Animal age of Tacitus in the German forests, which sacrififtes - had been just penetrated by the Roman arms, and, according to the Sagas, by the yet unconverted Danes and Swedes. Throughout the wide regions occupied by the Teu- tons the sacred grove was the sanctuary of Holy the deity. The Romans could not tread gro 1 Procop. de Bell. Gothic, ii. 14, ii. 15. 2 Epist. viii. 5. 8 " Quod quidem ex fidelibus ad immolandum paganis sua venundent mancipia." Epist. xxv. 4 " Ita etiam canes, qui pendent cum hominibus, quorum corpora mixta luspensa, narravit mihi quidam Christianorum se septuaginta duo vidisse." 6 Miiller, Saga Bibliothek. ii. 560, v. 93. See also, in Mr. Thorpe's Mythology of Scandinavia, a copious list of references on the sanctity of groves, vol. i. p. 255 (note) ; on temples, p. 259 ; on human sacrifices, p. 264. 862 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. ' BOOK III. without awe these dark dwelling-places of the gods of their enemies ; they were astonished at the absence of all images, and perhaps did not clearly distinguish the shapeless symbols which were set up in some places, from the aged trunks, which were also the objects of worship. The reverence for these hallowed places, the adoration of certain trees, survived the introduction of Christianity. The early missionaries and the local councils are full of denunciations against this inveterate heathen practice. We shall behold St. Boniface and others, as their crowning triumph, daring to hew down stately trees, the objects of the veneration of ages, and the barbarians standing around, awaiting the event in sullen suspense, and leaving their gods, as it were, on this last trial. If they were gods, would they endure this contumelious sacrilege ? The belief in the immortality of the soul, and in another life, though not perhaps so distinct, or con- nected with the transmigration of the soul, as in Gaul, yet seems to have been universal, dominant ; as far as warlike contempt of death, an active and influential faith. But it was to most men vague, dreary, dismal, the Nifleheim, the home of clouds and darkness, was the common lot ; the Valhalla that alone of the noble, and of select and distinguished warriors. The priesthood were held in the same reverence throughout Germany. It was not an organized and Priesthood, powerful hierarchy, or a separate caste, like that of the Druids in Gaul and Britain ; ] but the 1 Caesar says of the Germans, " Neque Druides habent qui rebus divinis pnesint, neque sacrifices student." B. G. vi. 21. This, though not strictly true, is true in the sense in which Csesar wrote, as contrasted with the hier- trchy of Gaul. " Ungleich betrachtlicher war in Zahl und ausbildung das celtische Priesterthum." Grimm. CHAP. II PRIESTHOOD. 363 priests officiated in and presided over the sacred cere- monials of sacrifice and worship, and administered jus- tice. In the early German wars, when Rome was, as it were, invading the sanctuaries of the Teutonic deities, the priesthood appear as a kind of officers of the god of war, enforcing discipline, branding cowardice, and inflicting punishment, which the free German spirit would endure only from those who bore a divine com- mission. 1 In all affairs of public concern the priest ; in private affairs the head of the family, interpreted the lots by which the gods rendered their oracles. 2 The priest or the king might alone harness the sacred horses; the allusions to the priesthood in the late writers on the various conquering tribes, are not very frequent, but sufficient to show that they had that ven- eration inseparable from the character of persons who performed sacrifices, consulted the gods, and by aus- pices, or other modes of divination, predicted victory or disaster. 3 Prophetic women characterize the Teutonic faith in all its numerous branches. The Velleda of Tacitus, who ruled like a Queen, and was worshipped almost as a goddess, is the ancestress of the Nomas of the poetic Sagas. 4 In the East the gift of prophecy 1 ' Cseterum neque animadvertere, neque vincire, nee verberare quidem, nisi sacerdotibus permissum; non quasi in poenam, nee ducis jiissu, sed velut Deo imperante, quern adesse bellantibus credunt." Tacit. Germ. vii. 2 Tac. Germ. x. and xi. A priest of the Catti was led in the triumph of Grmanicus. Strabo. 8 Even Grimm's industry is baffled by the question of the power of the priesthood in Germany : " Aus der folgenden zeit und bis zur einfiihrung des Christenthums, haben wir fast gar keine kunde weiter wie es sich in innern Deutschland mit dem priestern verhielt: ihr dasein folgt aus den der tempel und opfer." p. 61. Among the Anglo-Saxons the priests might not bear arms, or ride, except on a mare. Bede, Hist. Ecc. ii. 13. 4 Tac. Germ. viii. Hist. iv. 61. " Ea virgo, nationis Bructerae, late imperitabat. Vetere apud Gennanos more, quo plerasque fceminarum fatidicas, et augescente superstitione, arbitrantur Deas." Compare iv. 65, v. 24, Grimm, Art. Weise Fraucn. 364 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK UL is sometimes, but rarely, vouchsafed to females ; in Greece it was equally shared by both sexes ; the seer or prophet is the exception in the Northern my- thology. This reverence for women, especially for sacred virgins, no doubt prepared them to receive one article of the new religious faith, which had already begun to grow towards its later all-absorbing importance ; while it harmonized with the general ten- dency of Christian doctrine to elevate the female sex. Such was the general character of the Teutonic re- ligion, disposed to the dark, the awful, the mysterious, with a profound belief in prophetic revelations, and a priesthood accustomed to act in a judicial, as well as in Teuton* a religious capacity. And with such religious encounter . i i i / i i / i Christianity, conceptions, and habits of thought and feel- ing, the Northern tribes, first on the frontiers, after- wards within the frontiers, and gradually in the heart of the Roman Empire, came into the presence of Christianity of Christianity now organized under a powerful priesthood, a hierarchy of bishops, priests, and inferior clergy : laying claim to divine inspiration ; and though that divine inspiration was gathered and con- centred, as it were, into a sacred book in a wider and more vague and indistinct sense, it remained with the rulers of the Church. The Teutonic conqueror, already expatriated by the thirst for conquest or the aggression of more martial tribes, by his migration had broken off all local associations of sanctity ; he had left far behind him his hallowed grove, 1 and his reeking altar ; 2 even the awe of his primeval forests must have 1 The Lombards even in Italy found stately trees to worship. See Mura- tori, Dissert. 59, especially a curious quotation about a holy tree in the dukedom of Beuevento. The Gallic Councils ( Aries, 452 : Tours, 597 ; Nantes, 658) prohibit the worship of trees, the latter of certain stones. a Luitprand. Leg. L vi. 30. CHAP. II. TEUTONS ENCOUNTER CHRISTIANITY. 365 gradually worn away as he advanced into the southern sunshine, and took possession of the regular towns or the cultivated farms of his Roman subjects. The human sacrifices not merely belonged of ancient usage to these gloomy sanctuaries : but even before they had learned the Christian tenet, that all sacrifice had ceased with the one great sacrifice on the cross, the milder manners, which they could not but insensi- bly, if slowly, acquire by intercourse with more pol- ished nations, would render such dire offerings more and more unfrequent : they would be reserved for sig- nal occasions, till at length they would fall into total desuetude. In one respect, in which the genius of Christianity might have been expected to clash with his own re- ligious notions, Christianity had already advanced many steps to meet the Teuton. The Christian God, and even the gentle Saviour of mankind, had Chrjst a Q^ become a God of battle. The cross, the ofbattlc - symbol of Christian redemption, glittered on the stand- ards of the legions ; and every victory, and every new conquest, might encourage the hope that this God, the God of the southern people, did not behold them with disfavor, was deserting his own votaries, and would gladly receive and reward the allegiance of more manly and valiant worshippers. Notwithstanding the proud consciousness of their own superior prowess as warriors, the Teutonic conquerors could not enter into the do- minions of Rome, cross the Roman bridges, march idong the Roman roads, encamp before the walled cities, with their towers, temples, basilicas, forums, aqueducts, baths, and churches now aspiring to grand- eur, if not magnificence, without awe at the superior 3G6 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. intellectual power of those whom they had subdued. Raspect for ^ was natural to connect this intellectual su- the clergy, periority with the reHgion ; and while every- thing else, the civil power, the ordinary course of affairs, as well as the army, bowed before them, the religion alone stood up, resolute, unyielding, almost un- disturbed. The Christian bishops and clergy (like the aged senators of old, as they are described in the noble passage of Livy, awaiting their doom in the Capitol, and appalling for a time the ruthless Gaul by the ven- erable majesty of their dress and demeanor) might seem to awe their conquerors into respect ; and though at times, when the paroxysm of wonder was broken, as in the former instance, the conquerors might insult or even massacre the objects of their adoration, still in general the sacred character would work on the super- stitious mind of the barbarian. The Teuton had already the habit of contemplating the priest as the representative of divinity. According to the general feeling of polytheism, acknowledging the gods of other tribes or nations, as well as his own, to possess divine power, he arrayed the priesthood of the stranger in the same fearfulness ; the mysterious sanctity which dwelt with the Christian's God hallowed the Christian bishop. Nor, though individual priests might and did accom- NO Teutonic P an 7 tne migratory tribes, does there appear priesthood. an y Q f ^-^ s t ron g sacerdotal spirit which be- longs to an organized hierarchy, by which its influence is chiefly maintained and established, which is pledged to and supported by mutual emulation, and by fear of the reproach of treason to the common cause, or of base abandonment of the wealth, the power, and the credit of the fraternity. With these elements then of CHAP. II. EFFECT OX CHRISTIANS. 367 faith within his heart, the German was migrating into the territory as it were of a new God, and was encoun- tered everywhere by the priest of that God. That priest was usually full of zeal, and, with all to whom his language was intelligible, of eloquence ; con- fessedly in all intellectual qualities a superior being, and asserting himself to be divinely commissioned to impart the truth ; seizing every opportunity of vicissi- tude, of distress, of sickness, of affliction, to enforce the power and goodness of his God ; himself perhaps in perfect faith turning every one of those countless incidents, which to a barbarian mind was capable of a supernatural tinge, into a manifest miracle ; opening a new and more distinct and terrible hell and a heaven of light and gladness, and declaring himself to possess the keys of both. At no time, under no circumstances, would Chris- tianity appear more sincere, more devout, Effect on more commanding, or more amiable. As ChrisUans - has always been observed during a plague, an earth- quake, or any other great public calamity, men be- come either more recklessly godless, or more profoundly religious ; so during the centuries of danger, disaster and degradation, which were those of barbarian inva- sion and conquest, the fire must, as it were, have been trying the spirits of men. Those who had no vital or rooted religion would fall off, as some of them would O ' assert, from a God who showed them no protection. These while free would waste away the few remaining years or days of their wealth, or at all events of their freedom, in licentiousness and luxury ; if slaves, they would sink to all the vices, as well as the degradation of slavery. The truly religious, on the other hand, 368 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. would clasp more nearly to their heart the one remain- ing principle of consolation and of dignity. They would fly from a world which only offered shame and misery, to the hope of a better and more happy state of being. Death was their only release, but beyond death, they were secure, they were at peace ; they would take refuge, at least in faith, from the face of a tyrannical master, or what to a freeborn Roman was as galling and humiliating, a lord and proprietor, in the presence of the Redeemer. They would flee from down-trodden servitude on earth to glory and beatitude in heaven. The darker the calamity, the more entire the resignation ; as wretchedness would be more ram- pant, so devotion would be more devout. The Provin- cial with his home desolated, his estate seized, his fam- ily outraged or massacred or carried away into bondage, would, if really Christian, consider himself as taking up his cross ; he would be a more fervent, as it were, a desperate believer. In the letters of Sidonius Apolli- naris, we find the Bishop of Clermont writing to Ma- tern us, the Bishop of Vienne, for the form of certain litanies or rogations, which were used in that city dur- ing an earthquake and conflagration ; he proposes to institute the same solemn ceremonies in apprehension of the invasion of the Goths into Provence. Salvian bitterly reproaches the Roman Gauls with their passion for theatric games, which they indulged during such days of peril and disaster only with more desperate in- tensity. But, even if the true Christians in those hours of trial were fewer in number, it cannot be doubted that their piety took a more vehement and im- passioned character. It was the time for i^ovarK r^f fUfaiaeuf irpaypaTuies KOI f>vano>.ov, /,- Ac t$i]OKti fcua ifiaria avpovoi oi gtruvta, irov?paf re eivai KCU jrurreiie airpaypova &>otv ael, ydp axedov jrdvref slaiv. Of what were they artisans ? This was during the reign of Theodosius II., A.D. 408-449. 2 To Mvof dia-xvpuf kxpurriaviaev, loc. tit. 8 Orosius, vii. 22. 4 Salvian is absolutely charitable to the errors of the German Arians : ''Hseretici ergo sunt, sed non scientes. Errant ergo, sed bono animo errant, non odio sed affectu Dei." But this is to contrast them with the vices of he orthodox. De Gubern. Dei. 378 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. ticular account survives, was that of the Franks, and that by Catholic prelates into stern proselytes to the Catholic faith. 1 . This conversion of the Franks was the most impor- Convewion ^nt event in its remote as well as its immediate Franks, consequences in European history. It had great influence on the formation of the Frankish monarchy. The adoption of the Catholic form of faith, by arraying on the side of the Franks all the Catholic prelates and their followers, led to their preponderance over the Visigothic and Burgundian kings, to their descent into Italy under Pepin and his son, and to their intimate connection with the Papal see ; and thus paved the way for the Western Empire of Charlemagne. They were the chosen champions of Catholicism, and Ca- tholicism amply repaid them by vindicating all their aggressions upon the neighboring kingdoms, and aid- ing in every way the consolidation of their formidable power. The Franks, the most barbarous of the Teu- tonic tribes (though in cruelty they seem to have been surpassed by the Vandals), had settled in a Christian country, already illustrious in legendary annals for the wonders of Saints, as of Martin of Tours, the founda- tion of monasteries, and the virtues of Bishops like Remigius, who gave his name to the great cathedral city of Rheims. The south of France was ruled by Arian sovereigns. Clovis was a pagan, then only the chief of about 4000 Frankish warriors, but full of adventurous daring and unmeasured ambition. His conversion, if it had not issued in events of such pro- 1 Gregory of Tours is the great authority for this period : he wrote for those " qui appropinquante mundi fine desperant." In Prolog. See Loebel, Gregor von Tours ; Ampere, Hist. Lit. de la France. CHAP. II. CLOVIS. found importance to mankind, might have seemed but a trivial and fortuitous occurrence. The influence of a female conspires with the conviction that the Chris- tians' God is the stronger God of battle ; such are the impulses which seem to bring this bold yet crafty bar- barian, who no doubt saw his advantage in his change of belief, to the foot of the Cross, and made him a strenuous assertor of orthodox faith. Clovis had ob- tained in marriage the niece of Gundebald, king of the Burgundians. The early life of this Princess was passed amid the massacre of her parents and kindred ; it shows how little Christianity had allayed the ferocity of these barbarians. Gundicar, king of the Burgundians, left four sons. The fate of the family was more like that of G Und ica, r the a polygamous Eastern prince, where the sons Bur s un< of different mothers, bred up without brotherly inter- course in the seraglio, own no proximity of blood. Gundebald, the elder son, first slew his brother Chilperic, tied a stone round the neck of Chilperic's wife, and cast her into the Rhone, beheaded his two sons and threw their bodies into a well. The daughters, of whom Clotilda was one, he preserved alive. Godemar, his next brother, he besieged in his castle, set it on fire, and burned him alive. Godesil, the third brother, as will be related at a subsequent period, shared the same fate. Gundebald, as yet only a double fratricide, either felt, or thought it right to appear to feel, deep remorse for his crimes. Avitus, Bishop of Vienne, saw or imag- ined some inclination in the repentant king to embrace Catholicism. In far different language from that spoken by Ambrose to the Emperor Theodosius, the Bishop addressed the bloody monarch, " You weep 380 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK m with inexpressible grief at the death of your brothers, your sympathizing people are afflicted by your sadness. But by the secret counsels of God, this sorrow shall turn to joy ; no doubt this diminution in the number of its princes was intended for the welfare of the king- dom, those alone were allowed to survive who are needed for the administration of the kingdom." l Gundebald, however, resisted these flattering argu- ments, and remained obstinately Arian ; but Clotilda, his niece, it is unknown through what influence, was educated in orthodoxy. Clotilda took the opportunity, when the heart of her husband Clovis might be softened by the birth of her first-born son, to endeavor to \vean him from his idolatry. Clovis listened with careless indifference ; yet with the same indifference common in the Teutonic tribes, permitted the baptism of the infant. But the child died, and Clovis saw in his death the resentment of his offended Gods; he took but little comfort from the assurance of the submissive mother, that her son, having been baptized, was in the presence of God. Yet with the same strange versatility of feel- ing, he allowed his second son also to be baptized. This child too declined, and Clovis began to renew his reproaches ; but the prayer of the mother was heard, and the child restored to health. 2 It was not, however, in this gentler character that the Frank would own the power of the Christians' cioTfa. God. The Franks and the Alemanni met in battle at Tolbiac, not far from Cologne. The Franks 1 Alcimi Aviti Epist. apud Sirmond. oper. vol. ii. * According to Gregory of Tours, she argued with her husband against the worship of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and Mercury. Was it ignorance or did Gregory suppose that he was writing like a Roman? Gregor Turon. ii. CHAP. H. CLOVIS. 381 were worsted, when Clovis bethoaorht him of Clotilda's ' O God. He cast off his own inefficient divinities ; he prayed to Christ, and made a solemn vow, that if he were succored, he would be baptized as a Christian. The tide of battle turned ; the king of the Alemanni was slain ; and the Alemanni, in danger of total de- struction, hailed Clovis as their sovereign. 1 Clotilda, without loss of time, sent the glad tidings to Remigius, Bishop of the city, which afterwards took his name. Clovis still hesitated, till he could consult his people. The obsequious warriors declared their readiness to be of the same religion as their king. To impress the minds of the barbarians the baptismal ceremony was performed with the utmost pomp ; the church was hung with embroidered tapestry and white curtains ; odors of incense like airs of Paradise were diffused around; the building blazed with countless lights. When the new Constantine knelt in the font to be cleansed from the leprosy of his heathenism, " Fierce Sicambrian," said the Bishop, " bow thy neck : burn what thou hast adored, adore what thou hast burned !" Three thousand Franks followed the example of Clovis. During one of their subsequent religious conferences, the Bishop dwelt on the barbar- ity of the Jews in the death of the Lord. Clovis was moved, but not to tenderness, " Had A.B. 496. I and my faithful Franks been there, they had not dared to do it." At that time Clovis the Frank was the only orthodox sovereign in Christendom. The Emperor 1 " luvocavi enim Decs meos, sed, ut experior, elongati sunt ab auxilio meo, unde credo eos nullius esse potestatis pneditos, qui sibi obedientibus non succurrunt. Te nunc invoco, et tibi credens desidero, tauturn ut eruar ab adversariis meis." Greg. Turon. ii. 30. 382 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III ciovfc the Anastasius lay at least under the suspicion only orthodox . , _ , . , A . iovereign. or favonng the Jiiutjchian heresy. Ihe Ostrogoth Theodoric in Italy, the Visigothic * and Burgundian kings in France, the Suevian in Spain, the Vandal in Africa were Arians. If unscrupulous ambition, undaunted valor and enterprise, and deso- lating warfare, had been legitimate means for the propagation of pure Christianity, it could not have fourd a better champion than Clovis. For the first time the diffusion of belief in the nature of the God- head became the avowed pretext for the invasion of a neighboring territory. 2 Already the famous Avitus, Bishop of Vienne, has addressed a letter to Clovis, in which he augurs from the faith of Clovis the victory of the Catholic faith; even the heterodox Byzantine emperor is to tremble on his throne ; Catholic Greece to exult at the dawning of this new light in the West. The wars of Clovis with Burgundy were all but openly declared wars of religion ; the orthodox clergy hardly condescended to disguise their inclination to the Franks, O * whom they supported with their prayers, if not with more substantial assistance. 8 Before the war broke out, 1 Euric, the greatest of the Visigothic kings, was now dead; he had left but feeble successors. Euric labored under the evil fame of a persecutor; he had attempted what Theodoric aspired to effect in Italy, but with far less success, the fusion of the two races the Roman and Teutonic; but that of which Sidonius so bitterly complains, of so many sees vacant by the Intolerance of Euric, the want of bishops and clergy to perpetuate the Catholic succession, ruined churches, and grass-grown altars, reads as too eloquent. Reveillot admits that the views of Euric were political rather than religious (p. 141). 2 The rebellion of Vitalianus in the East was a few years later. 8 The barbarous Clovis must have heard, it must not be said, read, still less, considering the obscure style of the prelate, understood, the somewhat gross and lavish flattery of his faith, his humility, even his mercy, to which the saintly Bishop scrupled not to condescend : " Vestra fides nostrn victoria est. . . . Gaudeat ergo quidem Graecia se habere principem legis nostrae. CHAP. H. CLOVIS. 383 a synod of the orthodox Bishops met, it is said, under the advice of Remigius, at Lyons. With Avitus at their head, they visited King Gundebald, and proposed a conference with the Arian bishops, whom they were prepared to prove from the Scripture to be in error. 1 The king shrewdly replied, " If yours be the true doctrine, why do you not prevent the King of the Franks from waging an unjust war against me, and from caballing with my enemies against me ? 2 There is no true Christian faith where there is rapacious covet- ousness for the possessions of others, and thirst for blood. Let him show forth his faith by his good works." Avitus skilfully eluded this question, and significantly replied, that he was ignorant of the motives of Clovis, " but this I know, that God overthrows the thrones of those who are disobedient to his law." 8 When after the submission of the Burgundian kingdom to the pay- ment of tribute to the Franks, Gundebald resumed the sway, his first act was to besiege his brother Godesil, the ally of Clovis, in Vienne. Godesil fled to the Arian church, and was slain there with the Arian Bishop. 4 Numquid fidem perfecto prsedicabimus quam ante perfectionem sine prae- dicatore vidistis ? an forte humilitatem ... an misericordiam quam solutus a vobis adhuc nuper populus captivus gaudiis mundo insinuat lacrymis Deo ? " The mercy of Clovis ! Avitus, Epist. xli. 1 It is remarkable that all the distinguished and influential of the clergy appear on the Catholic side. The Arians are unknown even by name. It is true that we have only Catholic annalists. But I have little doubt that the Arian prelates were for the most part barbarians, inferior in education and in that authority which still, in peaceful functions, attached to the Ro- man name. It was Rome now enlisting a new clan of barbarians in her own cause, and under her own guidance, against her foreign oppressors. 2 The Bishop Avitus of Vienne was in correspondence with the insurgent Vitalianus in the court of the Emperor Anastasius. So completely were now all wars and rebellions religious wars. 8 Collatio Episcop. apud D'Achery, Spicileg. iii. p. 304. * M. Reveillot has very ingeniously, perhaps too ingeniously, worked out 384 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. On this occasion Avitus tried again to work on the obstinate mind of Gundebald ; his arguments con- founded but did not persuade the king, who retained his errors to the end of his life. When, however, Clovis determined to attack the Religious kingdom of the Visigoths, the monkish his- torian ascribes to him this language: "I am sore troubled that these Arians still possess so large a part of Gaul." 1 Before he set out on his campaign the King of the Franks went to perform his devotions before the shrine of St. Martin at Tours. As he entered the church he heard the words of the Psalm which they were chanting, " Thou hast girded me, O Lord, with strength unto the battle ; thou hast sub- dued unto me those which rose up against me. Thou hast given me the necks of mine enemies, that I might destroy them that hate me." 2 The oracular words were piously fulfilled by Clovis. The Visigothic king- dom was wasted and subdued by the remorseless sword of the Frank. These are not the only illustrations of the Christianity practised by Clovis, and related in the religious history of the reign of King Gundebald (p. 189 et seq.). But he is somewhat tender to the Bishop, who "almost prai.-cs (luixlrliald for the murder of his brothers." The passage is too characteristic to be omitted: " Flebatis quondam pietate ineffabili funera germanorum (he had murdered them), sequebatur ill-turn publicum itniversitatis atllk-tio, et occulto divinitatis intuitu, instrumenta mccstitia: parabnntur ad gaudium .... Minuebat regni felicitas numerum regalium persoiiarum et hocsolum servabatur mundo, quod sufficeret imperio (the good Turkish maxim). Illic repositum est quicquid prosperum fuit catholR-a* vi-ritati." This is said of an Arian, but the father of an orthodox son, Sigismund, converted by Avitus. Epist. v. p. 95. 1 Valde moleste fero, quod hi Ariani partem Galliarum tcnent. Earn us cum Dei adjutorio, et superatis eis terrain redigamus in ditionem nostram. Greg. Tur. ii. 37. 8 Psalm xviii. 39. Did Clovis understand Latin ? or did the orthodox clergy of Tours interpret the flattering prophecy V CHAP. H. CLOVIS. 385 perfect simplicity by his monkish historian. 1 Gregory of Tours describes without emotion one of the worst acts which darken the reign of Clovis. He suggested to the son of Sigebert, King of the Ripuarian Franks, the assassination of his father, with the promise that the murderer should be peaceably established on the throne. The murder was committed in the neighboring forest. The parricide was then slain by the command of Clovis, who in a full parliament of the nation solemnly protested that he had no share in the murder of either ; and was raised by general acclamation on a shield, as King of the Ripuarian Franks. Gregory concludes with this pious observation : " For God thus daily prostrated his enemies under his hands, and enlarged his kingdom, because he walked before him with an upright heart, and did that which Born A D was pleasing in his sight." 2 Yet Gregory s 39 - 594 - 1 Miracles accompany his bloody arms; a hind shows a ford; a light from the church of St. Hilary in Poitiers summons him to hasten his attack before the arrival of the Italian troops of Theodoric in the camp of the Visigoth. The walls of AngoulSme fall of their own accord. Gregory Tur. ii. 37. According to the life of St. Eemi. Clovis massacred all the Arian Goths in the city. Ap. Bouquet, iii. p. 379. St Cesarius, the Bishop of Aries, when that city was besieged by Clovis and the Burgun- dians, was suspected of assisting the invader by more than his prayers. He was imprisoned, his biographers assert, his innocence proved. Vit. S. Cirsar. in Mabill. Ann. Benedic. ssec. i. 2 Greg. Turon. ii. 42. " Prosternebat enim quotidie Deus hostes ejus sub manu ipsius et augebat regnum ejus, eo quod ambulavit recte corde omniuo, et fecerit quae placita erant in oculis ejus." There follows a long list of assassinations and acts of the darkest treachery. " Clovis fit perir tous les petits rois des Francs par une suite de perfidies." Michelet, H. de France, i. 209. The note recounts the assassinations. Throughout, the triumph of Clovis is the triumph of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity over Arianism. " Dominus enim se vere credentibus, etsi insidiante ini- mico aliqua perdant, his centuplicata restituit ; hseretici vero nee acquirunt, sed quod videntur habere, aufertur. Probabat hoc Godigeseli, Gundobaldi ; atque Godomari interitus, qui et patriam simul et animas perdiderunt." Prolog, ad lib. iii. VOL. i. 25 386 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III of Tours was a prelate, himself of gentle and blameless manners, and of profound piety. Throughout indeed this dark period of the contest influence of between the Franks, the Visigoths, and the Burgundians for the dominion of France, as well as through the long dreary annals of the Me- rovingian kings, it will be necessary, as well as just, to estimate the character, influence, and beneficent workings of the clergy on the whole society. But the more suitable place for this inquiry will be when the two races, the Roman provincial and the Teutonic, are more completely mingled, though not fused together, for it was but gradually that the clergy, who never ceased to be Roman in the language of their services and of letters, ceased to be so in sentiment, and through- out northern France especially, in blood and descent. There is more even at this time of the first conversion of the Franks to Christianity, in the close alliance be- tween the Roman clergy of Gaul with the Franks, than the contest of Catholicism with heterodoxy. The ciergy Arian clergy of the Visigoths were probably, Latin< to a considerable extent, of Teutonic race, some of them, like Ulphilas, though provincials of the Empire by descent, of Gothic birth. Their names have utterly perished ; this may partly (as has been said) be ascribed to the jealousy of the Catholic writers, the only annalists of the time. But the conversion of the Franks was wrought by the Latin clergy. The Franks were more a federation of armed adventurers than a nation migrating with their families into new lands ; they were at once more barbarous and more exclusively warlike. It would probably be long before they would be tempted to lay aside their arms and CHAP. II. FRANKS AND LATINS. 387 aspire to the peaceful ecclesiastical functions. The Roman Gauls might even imagine that they beheld in the Franks deliverers from the tyranny of their actual masters, 1 the Burgundians or Visigoths. Men im- patient of a galling yoke pause not to consider whether they are not forging for themselves another more heavy and oppressive. They panted after release from their present masters, perhaps after revenge for the loss of their freedom and their lands, for their degradation, their servitude ; and cared not to consider whether it would not be a change from bad masters to worse. Clovis, it is true, had commenced his career by the defeat of Syagrius, the last Roman who pretended to authority in Gaul, and had thus annihilated the linger- ing remains of the Empire ; but that would be either pardoned by the clergy or forgotten in the fond hope of some improvement in their condition under the bar- barian sway. It was, of course, a deep aggravation of their degraded state that their masters were not only foreigners, barbarians, conquerors they were Arians. The Franks, as even more barbarous, were more likely to submit in obedience to ecclesiastical dominion ; and so it appears that almost throughout the reign of the Merovingian dynasty the two races held their separate functions the Franks as kings, the Latins as churchmen. The weak prince who was leposed from his throne, or the timid one who felt himself unequal to its weight, was degraded, accord- ing to the Frankish notion, into a clerk ; 2 he lost his 1 Gregory of Tours ingenuously admits "quod omnes (the Catholic clergy) desiderabili amore cupiverunt eos regnare." 1. ii. 23. 2 Queen Clotilda, when her two sons seized their nephews, her favorite grandsons (the children of Chlodomir), and gave her the choice of their death or tonsure, answered like a Frankish queen, " Satius mihi est, si ad regnum non veniant, mortuos eos videre quam tonsos." iii. 18. 388 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK HI. national eminence and distinction, but disqualified by the tonsure from resuming his civil office, according to the sacerdotal notion, he was admitted to the blessed privilege of the priesthood ; while at the same time his feeble and contemptible character was a guarantee against his becoming a dangerous rival for the higher honors of the Church. Hence, on the one hand, the unchecked growth of the sacerdotal authority, and the strong Catholicity of the clergy among the Franks, the retention of all the higher offices, at least in the Church, by the Roman Provincials, till they had be- come of such power, wealth, and dignity, as to rouse the amibftion of the noble, and even of the royal families. 1 Until that time the two races remained distinct, each in possession of his separate, uncontested function ; and each might be actuated by high and noble, as well as selfish and ambitious motives. The honest and simple German submitted himself to the comparatively civilized priest of that God whom he now worshipped the expounder of that mysterious creed before which he had bowed down in awe the administrator in those imposing rites to which he was slowly and, as it were, jealously admitted, the award- er of his eternal doom. On the other hand the clergy, fully possessed with the majesty of their divine mission, would hold it as profanation to impart its sanctity to a rude barbarian. Not merely would Roman pride find 1 In the year 566 a certain Meroveus, from whose name he may be con- cluded to have been a Frank, appears as Bishop of Poitiers. Greg. Turon. be. 40. Compare Planck, Christliche Kirchliche Verfassung, ii. p. 96. It Is a century later that, at the trial of Prsetextatus, Archbishop of Rouen, are twelve prelates, six Teutons Ragheremod, of Paris: Landowald, Bayeux; Remahaire, Coutances; Merowig, Poitiers; Melulf, Senlis; Ber- thran, Bourdeaux. Compare Thierry, Re'cits des Temp* Mt'-rovingiens, the one writer who, by his happy selection and artistic skill, has made the Merovingian history readable (tome ii. p. 135). CHAP. II. ELEVATION OF MORAL TONE. 389 its consolation in what thus maintained its influence and superiority, and look down in compassion on the ignorance of the Teuton his ignorance even of the language of their sacred records, and of the service, of their religion ; the Romans would hold themselves the heaven-commissioned teachers of a race long des- O lined to be their humble and obedient scholars. We return to the general view of the conversion of the German races. The effect of this infu- Effects of . n rr\ i i i i i i -r conversion on sion ot 1 eutomc blood into the whole Jttoman Teutons, system, and this establishment of a foreign dominant people (of kindred manners, habits and religion, though of various descent) in the separate provinces of the Em- pire which now were rising into independent kingdoms, upon the general Christian society, and on the Chris- tianity of the age, demands attentive consideration. Though in each ancient province, and in each recent kingdom, according to the genius of the conquering tribe, the circumstances of the conquest and settlement, and the state of the Roman population, many strong differences might exist, there were some general results which seem to belong to the whole social revolution. In one important respect the Teutonic temperament coincided with Christianity in raising the moral tone. In all that relates to sexual intercourse, the Roman so- ciety was corrupt to its core, and the contagion had spread throughout the provinces. Christianity had probably wrought its change rather on the few higher and more distinguished individuals than on the whole mass of worshippers. Most of these few, no doubt, had broken the bonds of habits and manners by a strong and convulsive effort, not to cultivate the purer charities of life, but in the aspiration after virtue, unat- 890 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK HI. tainable by the many. Celibacy had many lofty minds and devoted hearts at its service, but it may be doubted whether conjugal fidelity had made equal progress. Christianity had secluded a certain number from the world and its vices ; but in the world itself, now out- wardly Christian, it had made in this respect far less impression. Not that it was without power. The On moral courts of the Christian Emperors, notwith- punty- standing their crimes, weaknesses, and in- trigues, had been awed, even on the throne, to greater decency of manners. Neither Rome, nor Ravenna, nor Byzantium, had witnessed, they would not have endured, a Nero or an Elagabalus. The females (be- lieving the worst of the early life of the Empress The- odora) were more disposed on the whole to the crimes of ambition, and political or religious intrigue, than to that flagrant licentiousness of the wives and mothers of the older Caesars. But the evil was too profoundly seated in the habits of the Roman world to submit to the control of religion of religion embraced at first by so large a portion, from the example of others, from indifference, from force, from anything rather than strong personal conviction, and which had now been long received merely as an hereditary and traditional faith. The clergy themselves, as far as may be judged, did not stand altogether much above the general level. They had their heroes of continence, their spotless ex- amples of personal purity ; but though in general they might outwardly submit to the hard law of celibacy, by many it was openly violated, by many more secretly eluded ; and, as ever has been, the denial of a legiti- mate union led to connections more unrestricted and injurious to public morality. Scarcely a Provincial CHAP. II. GERMAN MORALS. 391 Council but finds itself called upon to enact more strin- gent, and, it should seem, still ineffective prohibitions. Whether as a reminiscence of some older civilization, or as a peculiarity in their national character, German char- i rr\ iii i i i i acter in this the 1 eutons had always paid the highest re- respect. spect to their females, a feeling which cannot exist without high notions of personal purity, by which it is generated, and in its turn tends to generate. The colder northern climate may have contributed to this result. This masculine modesty of the German char- acter had already excited the admiration, perhaps had been highly colored by the language, of Tacitus, as a contrast to the effeminate voluptuousness of the Ro- mans marriages were held absolutely sacred, and producing the most perfect unity ; adulteries rare, and visited with public and ignominious punishment. 1 The Christian teachers, in words not less energetic, though wanting the inimitable conciseness of the Roman an- nalist, endeavor to shame their Latin brethren by the severity of Teutonic morals, and to rouse them from their dissolute excesses by taunting them with their de- grading inferiority to barbarians, heathens, and here- tics. Salvian must be heard with some reserve in his vehement denunciation against the licentiousness of the fifth century. He is seeking to vindicate God's provi- dential government of the world in abandoning the Roman and the Christian to the sway of the pagan and 1 " Inesse quinetiam sanctum aliquid et providum putant." Germ. viii. " Quanquam severa illic matrimonia, nee ullam morum partem magis laudaveris Ergo septa pudicitia agunt, nullis spectaculoruin illecebris, nullis conviviorura irritationibus corrupt* .... Nemo . . . illic vitia ridet, nee corrumpere et corrumpi saeculuni videtur. . . . Sic unum acci- piunt maritum, quomodo unum corpus unamque vitam, ne ulla cogitatio ultra, ne longior cupiditas ne tanquam maritum, sed tanquam matrimo- oium aruent." xviii. xix. 392 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK HI. the barbarian. "Among the chaste barbarian-, ue alone are unchaste: the very barbarians are shocked at our impurities. Among themselves they will not tol- erate whoredom, but allow this shameful license to the Romans as an inveterate usage. We cherish, they ex- ecrate, incontinence ; we shrink from, they are enam- ored of purity; fornication, which with them is a crime and a disgrace, with us is a glory." 1 Salvian describes the different races, who, though in other re- spects varying in their character, and some more con- spicuous than others for these virtues, were all never- theless far superior to the Romans. The Goths are treacherous, but continent ; the Alemanni less treach- erous, and also less continent; the Franks false, but hospitable ; the Saxons savagely cruel, but remarkable for chastity. 2 The Vandals, if Salvian is to be cred- ited, maintained their severe virtue, not only in Spain, but under the burning sun and amidst the utter deprav- ity of African morals, and in that state of felicity, lux- ury, and wealth which usually unmans the mind. They not only held in abomination the more odious and unnatural vices which had so deeply infected the habits of Greece and Rome, but all unlawful connec- tions with the female sex. 3 According to the same au- thority, they enforced the marriage of the public pros- 1 De Gubernat. Dei, 1. vii. p. 66. He draws the same contrast between the Roman inhabitants of Spain and their Vandal conquerors. 2 '* Gothorum gens perfida sed pudica est, Alemanni impudica sed minus perfida, Franci mendaces sed hospitales, Saxones crudelitate efferi, sed cas- titate venerandi." Ibid. 8 " Et certe ob e& tantum continentissimi ac modestissimi judicandi erant quos non fecisset corruptiores ipsa felicitas . . . igitur in tanta- affluent! a rerum atque luxuria, nullus eorum mollis effectus est ... abominati enim sunt virorum improbitates ; plus adhuc addo, abominati etiam foeminarum; horruerunt lustra ac lupanaria, horruerunt contactua concubitusque meretricum." Ibid. CHAP. II. STRINGENCY OF GOTHIC MORAL CODE. 393 titutes, and enacted severe laws against unchastity, thus compelling the Romans to be virtuous against their will. Under the Ostrogothic kingdom, the manners in Italy- might seem to revert to the dignified austerity of the old Roman republic. Theodoric indignantly reproves a certain Bardilas, who had married the wife of an officer (from his name also of Gothic blood) while the hus- band was absent with the army. He speaks of it as bringing disgrace on the age and on the Gothic charac- ter. 1 The Ostrogothic law is silent as to incest and the crime against nature, as if, in its lofty purity, it did not imagine the existence of such offences. This code was for the Goths alone ; the Romans were still amenable to their own law. 2 In the laws of Theodoric the Ger- man abhorrence of adultery continued to make it a capital crime ; the edict was inexorably severe against all crimes of this class : the seducer or ravisher of a free virgin was forced to marry her, and endow her with a fifth of his estate ; if married, he forfeited a third of his property to his victim ; if he had no prop- erty, he atoned for his crime by death : if the virgin was a slave, the criminal, being a free man, was de- 1 " In injuriara nostrorum temporum, adulterium simulator, matrimonii lege commissum." The husband's name was Patzena. It is amusing to hear the King of the Goths reminding unchaste women of the fidelity of turtledoves, who pine away in each other's absence, and remain in strictly continent widowhood: "Kespicite impudicae gementium turturum castis- Bunum genus, quod si a copula fuerit earn intercedente divisum, perpetusi se abstineutise lege constringit; " and this is a royal or imperial edict. 2 Sartorius, Essai sur 1'Etat des Peuples d'ltalie sous le Gouvernement des Goths (p. 95). "Odious as homicide is, it would be more odious to punish than to commit that crime in certain cases, as in that of open adul- tery. See we not that rams, bulls, and goats avenge themselves against their rivals ? Shall man alone be unable to preserve the honor of his bed ? Examine the cause of Candax ; if he only killed the adulterers who dis- honored him, remit all his penalties ; if he has slain innocent men, let him be punished." Var. i. 37. 894 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK IH. graded into a slave of the wife of the maiden's master, if he could not redeem his guilt by supplying two slaves; the rape of a free widow was subject to the capital punishment of adultery. The parents or guar- dians of a female who had suffered rape were bound to prosecute on pain of exile. In some provinces, it must be acknowledged, that the vices as well as the religion of Rome assert their unshaken dominion ; or rather there is a terrible inter- change of the worst parts of each character. It is diffi- cult to conceive a more dark and odious state of society than that of France under her Merovingian kings, the descendants of Clovis, as described by Gregory of Tours. In the conflict or coalition of barbarism with Roman Christianity, barbarism has introduced into Christianity all its ferocity, with none of its generosity or magna- nimity ; its energy shows itself in atrocity of cruelty and even of sensuality. Christianity has given to bar- barism hardly more than its superstition and its hatred of heretics and unbelievers. Throughout, assassinations, parricides, and fratricides intermingle with adulteries and rapes. 1 The cruelty might seem the mere inevitable re- sult of this violent and unnatural fusion ; but the ex- tent to which this cruelty spreads throughout the whole society almost surpasses belief. That King Chlotaire should burn alive his rebellious son with his wife and daughter is fearful enough ; but we are astounded even in these times with a Bishop of Tours burning a man alive to obtain the deeds of an estate which he coveted. 2 Fredegonde sends two murderers to assassinate Childe- bert, and these assassins are clerks. She causes the 1 See a fearful summary in Loebel, Gregor von Tours, pp. 60-74. a iii. 1. CHAP. II. MEROVINGIAN LICENTIOUSNESS. 395 Archbishop of Rouen to be murdered while he is chanting the service in the church ; and in this crime a Bishop and an Archdeacon are her accom- plices. She is not content with open violence, she administers poison with the subtlety of a Locusta or a modern Italian, apparently with no sensual design, but from sheer barbarity. As to the intercourse of the sexes, wars of conquest, where the females are at the mercy of the victors, espe- cially if female virtue is not in much respect, Merovingian would severely try the more rigid morals of time8 ' the conqueror. The strength of the Teutonic char- acter, when it had once burst the bonds of habitual or traditionary restraint, might seem to disdain easy and effemniate vice, and to seek a kind of wild zest in the indulgence of lust, by mingling it up with all other vio- lent passions, rapacity, and inhumanity. Marriage was a bond contracted and broken on the lightest occasion. Some of the Merovingian kings took as many wives, either together or in succession, as suited either their passions or their politics. Christianity hardly interferes even to interdict incest. King Chlotaire demanded for the fisc the third part of the revenue of the churches ; some bishops yielded ; one, Injuriosus, disdainfully re- fused, and Chlotaire withdrew his demands. Yet Chlotaire, seemingly unrebuked, married two sisters at once. Charibert likewise married two sisters : he, however, found a Churchman, but that was Saint Ger- manus, bold enough to rebuke him. This rebuke the King (the historian quietly writes), as he had already many wives, bore with patience. Dagobert, son of Chlotaire, King of Austrasia, repudiated his wife Gom- atrude for barrenness, married a Saxon slave Mathil- 396 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK IIL dis, then another, Regnatrude ; so that he had three wives at once, besides so many concubines that the chronicler is ashamed to recount them. 1 Brunehaut and Fredegonde are not less famous for their licen- tiousness than for their cruelty. Fredegonde is either compelled or scruples not of her own accord to take a public oath, with three bishops and four hundred nobles as her vouchers, that her son was the son of her hus- band Chilperic. The Eastern right of having a concu- bine seems to have been inveterate among the later . Frankish kings : that which was permitted for the sake of perpetuating the race was continued and carried to excess by the more dissolute sovereigns for their own pleasure. Even as late as Charlemagne, the polygamy of that great monarch, more like an Oriental Sultan (except that his wives were not secluded in a harem), as well as the notorious licentiousness of the females of his court, was unchecked, and indeed unreproved, by the religion of which he was at least the temporal head, of which the Spiritual Sovereign placed on his brow the crown of the Western Empire. These, however, seem to have been the royal vices of men gradually in- toxicated by uncontrolled and irresponsible power, plunging fiercely into the indulgences before they had acquired any of the humanizing virtues of advanced civilization. In such times the celibacy or even the continence of the clergy was not likely to be very severely observed. The marriage of bishops, if not general, was common. 3 Firmilio had a wife named Clara. There is an ac- 1 " Nomina concubinarum eo quod plures erant, increvit huic chronic* inseri." Fredegar. c. 60. 8 G. T. x. 10. The son of a bishop of Verdun (vi. 35). Daughter of bishop (viii. 32). Compare throughout Loebel, Gregor von Tours. CHAP. II. MILITARY ECCLESIASTICS. 397 count of some strange cruelties practised by a bishop's wife. 1 Yet clerical incontinence was not without rebuke from above. Gregory tells a strange story of the pax with the consecrated host leaping out of a deacon's hands, and flying through the air to the altar. All agreed that the clerk must be polluted. He confessed, it was said, to several acts of adultery. 2 If, however, with some exceptions, more especially this great exception of the Frankish monarchs, Chris- tianity found an unexpected ally in the higher moral tone of the Teutonic races, the religion in other re- spects and throughout its whole sphere of conquest suffered a serious, perhaps inevitable deterioration. With the world Christianity began rapidly to barbar- ize. War was the sole ennobling occupation. Even the clergy, after striving for some time to be the pacific mediators between the conquerors and the conquered ; to allay here and there the horrors of war, at times by the awe of their own holiness and that of their relig- ion ; to keep the churches during the capture of a city as a safe sanctuary for the unarmed, the helpless, the women, and the children ; to redeem captives from slavery ; to mitigate the tyranny of the liege lord, who as a Christian, perhaps in the ardor of a new convert, was humbly submissive to their dictates ; even the clergy were at length swept away by the torrent. In 1 Of two hermits (viii. 39), one was drunken, one had a wife ! 2 One priest only, three women, one of whom was Gregory's mother, witnessed this miracle. Gregory was present, but the privilege was not vouchsafed to him. " Uni tantum preshytero, et tribus mulieribus, ex quibus una mater mea erat, haec videre licitum fuit ; cteri non viderunt. Aderam fateor, et ego huic festivitati, sed hsec videre non merui." De Glor. Martyr, vol. ii. p. 361. 398 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. the fifth century we find bishops in arms, and at the head of fighting men ; and though at first the common feeling protested against this desecration, though bear- ing arms was prohibited by the decrees of councils ; yet where, as in some cases, the wars in which they might engage were defensive, and for the preservation of the most sacred rights of man ; the step once taken, the sight once familiarized to this incongruous confii- o o sion of the armed warrior and the peaceful ecclesiastic, the evil would grow up with fatal rapidity. When the ecclesiastical dignities and honors, from their wealth and authority, began to tempt the barbarians, who would no longer leave them to the exclusive posses- sion of the Romans, those barbarians would be the more disposed to assume them, if they no longer absolute- ly imposed inglorious inactivity or humiliating patience. While on the other hand, the barbarian invested in the priesthood would more jealously justify himself for thus, in one sense, descending from his high place as a warrior, by retaining some of the habits and character of the free German conqueror. At length, though at a much later period, the tenure of land implying mili- tary service, as the land came more and more into the hands of the clergy, the ecclesiastic would be embar- rassed more and more by his double function ; till at length we arrive at the Prince Bishop, or the feudal Abbot, alternately with the helmet and the mitre on his head, the crozier and the lance in his hand ; now in the field in the front of his armed vassals, now on his throne in the church in the midst of his chanting choir. 1 1 The first bishops who appeared in arms, and actually slew their ene- mies, shocked Gregory of Tours. " Salarius et Sagittarius (nitres atque CHAP. II. DONATIONS TO THE CLERGY. 399 All tilings throughout this great social revolu- tion tended to advance and consolidate the sacerdotal power. The clergy, whether as among the Goths and other Arian nations, who had their own bishops, or among the Franks, where they were reverenced for their intellectual as well as their spiritual superiority, became more completely a separate and distinct cor- porate body, filling up their own ranks by their own election, with less and less regard even to the assent (if the laity ; for the barbarous laity, of another race, ceased to pretend to any share of the election of the clergy. They possessed more completely the power of ecclesiastical legislation. In the 'confusion and breaking up of all ancient titles to property, more would be constantly falling into their hands. The barbarians for the good of their souls would abandon more readily lands which they had just acquired by the sword, and of which they had hardly learned the value ; while the Romans, in perpetual danger of being forci- bly despoiled, would more easily make over to the safer custody of Churchmen, lands which under such protec- tion they might more securely cultivate. Already in France the kings are jealous of their vast acquisitions ; King Chilperic hated the clergy for this reason, and was hated by them with emulous intensity. He com- episcopi qui non cruce ccelesti muniti, sed galea ant lancea sseculari armati, multos manibus propriis quod pejus est, interfecisse referuntur." iv. 41 Compare v. 17. Merovingian France still offers the most startling anom- alies. "While thus advancing in power, their persons are not sacred in these wild times. The Bishop of Marseilles is exposed to cruel usage. Even the strong feeling of caste has lost its influence. They are murdered and burned with as little remorse as the profane. Gregory, who stands up on some occasions for their inviolability, on others despondingly acquiesces in their fate; if not in its justice, in its being too much in the common order of things to shock public feeling. Some of them, by his own account, richly deserved their doom. 400 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. plained that all the wealth of the crown was swallowed up by the Church. 1 The Church revenged itself by- consoling visions of Chilperic's damnation. The juris- diction of the bishops, at first confined to strictly relig- ious concerns, would gradually extend itself, perhaps from confidence in their superior justice, their intel- lectual superiority, the absence or the deficiency of the administrators of the Roman law, under which every- where the Romans still lived. Where other magistrates o were suppressed, or had forfeited or abandoned their functions, they would become the sole magistrates. Causes regarding property, bequests, and others of a more intricate kind, which might perplex the greater simplicity of the barbaric codes, or embarrass the straightforward justice of barbaric tribunals, would be referred to their superior wisdom. The bishops thus gradually became more independent of their college of presbyters; they grew into a separate order in the State as well as in the Church. Nor can it be wondered that partly in self defence, partly for his own relative aggrandizement, the weak- er and conquered Roman, conscious of his intellect- ual superiority especially the Roman ecclesiastic should abuse his power, and make, as it were, reprisals on the rude and ignorant barbarian conqueror. 2 His own religion would become more and more supersti- tious, for the more superstitious the more awful. Art and cunning are the natural and constant weapons of 1 " Aiebat enim plerumque, ecce pauper remanet fiscus noster, ecce divitiae nostrae ad ecclesias translate: nulli penitus nisi soli episcopi regnant; peri thonos noster, et translator est ad episcopos civitatum." vi. 46. 2 The Jews were their rivals in wealth. Cantinus, the cruel Bishop of Tours, has large money dealings with the Jews. Eufranius borrows large urns of the Jews to buy the same bishopric. iv. 35. CHAP. II. DONATIONS TO THE CLERGY. 401 enfeebled civilization against strong invading barbarism. Throughout the period the strongest superstitious ter- rors cross the most lawless and most cruel acts. 1 There are several curious instances in the Frankish annals in which the ecclesiastical kindred speaks more strongly to the alarmed conscience than that of blood to the heart. Those who without compunction, murder their nearest relatives, their children or their husband, have some reluctance to shed the blood of those whom they have held over the baptismal font. Brunehaut spares Borthefrid because she has been godmother to his daughter. The ecclesiastics must have been almost more than men, certainly far beyond their time, to have resisted the temptation of what would seem innocent or benefi- cent fraud, to overawe or to control the ignorant bar- barian. The good Bishop Gregory of Tours is himself con- cerned in an affair in which the violence and religious fears of King Chilperic singularly contrast with the subtlety of the ecclesiastics. Chilperic sends a letter to St. Martin of Tours requesting the Saint to inform him whether he might force Meroveus out of the sanctuary. It will hardly be doubted that he received an answer ; and that the majesty of the sanctuary suffered no loss. St. Martin of Tours was the great oracle of the Franko- Latin kingdoms : 2 kings flock to his shrine to make their offerings, to hear his judgments. No two cities 1 A bishop of Rheims gives a safe conduct under oath on a chest of relics ; but having first stolen away the relics, holds the oath not binding. Fredegar. c. 97. Eichhorn quotes a similar fraud of Hatto, Archbishop of Maintz. i. p. 514. 2 Michelet writes in his flashing way, " Ce que Delphes e"tait pour la Grece. VOL. i. 26 402 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK HL in the north of France, not even the royal residences, approached the two great ecclesiastical capitals, Rheims and Tours. Lands and wealth were poured at the feet of the Church. Dagobert bestowed twenty-seven ham- lets or towns on the monastery of St. Denys. 1 His son bestowed on St. Remaclus of Tongres twelve square leagues in the forest of Ardennes. 2 The Church of Rheims possessed vast territories, some of which it may have received from the careless and lavish bounty of Clovis himself; much more, by a pious anachronism, was made to rest on that ancient and venerable tenure. 8 1 Gesta Dagobert. c. 35. 8 This subject is resumed when the clergy are considered as co-legislators with the Teutonic kings and people. * Vit. St. Sigebert. Austras., c. 4. Script Franc. See the curious passage in Frodoard, quoted by Michelet. CHAP. m. OSTROGOTHIC KINGDOM. 403 CHAPTER III. THEODORIC THE OSTROGOTH. THE Ostrogothic kingdom of Italy shows the earliest and not the least noble form of this new so- Ostrogothio ciety, which grew out of the yet unfused kin s dom - elements of the Latin and Teutonic races. To the strong opposition between the barbarian and Roman parts of the community was added the almost strong- er contrast of religious difference. The Sovereign of Italy, the civil monarch of the Papal Diocese, was an Arian. Theodoric's invasion of Italy was the migration of a people, not the inroad of an army. 1 His Goths were accompanied by their wives and children, with all the movable property which they had possessed in their settlements in Pannonia. Theodoric had extorted from the gratitude and the fears of the Eastern Emperor, if not a formal grant of the kingdom of Italy, a permis- sion to rescue the Roman West from the dominion of Odoacer. The Herulian king, after two great battles, and a siege of three years in Ravenna, wrested from Theodoric a peace, by the terms of which the Herulian and the Gothic monarchs were to reign over Odoacer 1 Compare, on the number of the Gothic invaders, Sartorius, Essai sur 1'Etat Civil et Physique des Peuples d'ltalie sous le Gouvernement dee Goths, note, page 242. 404 LATIN CHRISTIAITCTY. BOOK III. Italy, in joint sovereignty. Such treaty could not be lasting. Odoacer, either the victim of treachery, or his own treacherous designs but anticipated by the superior craft and more subtle intelligence of Theodoric, was assassinated at a banquet. 1 The Herulians were dis- possessed of the third portion of the lands which they had extorted from the Roman proprietors, and dis- persed, some into Gaul, some into other parts of the Empire. The Gothic followers of Theodoric took their place, and Theodoric, the Ostrogoth, commenced a A.D. 493-526. reign of thirty-three years, in which Italy reposed in peace under his just and vigorous, and pa- rental administration. Throughout the conquest, and the establishment of the Gothic kingdom, the increasing power and impor- tance of the Christian ecclesiastics forces itself upon the attention. They are ambassadors, mediators in trea- ties, decide the wavering loyalty or instigate the revolt of cities. Even before the expiration of the Empire, Glycerius abdicates the throne, and retires to the bish- opric of Salona, not, it should seem, from any strong Bishops em- religious vocation, or weariness of political ployed. intrigue. He is afterwards concerned in the murder of another of his short-lived successors, the Emperor Nepos, and is promoted, as the reward of his services, to the Archbishopric of Milan. Epiphanius, the Bishop of Pavia, bears to Theodoric at Milan the surrender and offer of allegiance from that great city. 1 The most probable view of this transaction is, that the Herulian chief- tains, impatient of the equal dominion of the Goths, had organized a for- midable insurrection, of which Odoacer, possibly not an accomplice, wa* nevertheless the victim. The Byzantine writers, Procopius, MaaeUinus betray their hatred. Ennodius and Cassiodorus of course favor Theodoric Gibbon declares against him. CHAP. III. BISHOPS EMPLOYED. 405 John, the Bishop, was employed by Odoacer to nego- tiate the treaty of Ravenna. 1 Before this time, when- ever a difficult negotiation occurred, Epiphanius was persuaded to undertake it. He had been ambassador from Ricimer to Anthemius, from Nepos to Euric the Visigoth. Theodoric admired the dignified beauty and esteemed the saintliness of character in the Catholic Epiphanius, and perhaps intended that his praises of the bishop should be heard in Pavia, where from his virtues and charities, he enjoyed unbounded popular- ity : " Behold a man whose peer cannot be found throughout the West : he is the great bulwark of Pa- via ; to his care I may intrust my wife and children, and devote myself entirely to war." 2 Epiphanius was permitted to plead the cause of the Herulians who had risen in arms in the north of Italy after the death of Odoacer. The eloquence of the Bishop arrested the inexorable vengeance or justice of Theodoric. He was employed even on a more apostolic mission to rescue from slavery those who had been sold or had fled into slavery beyond the Alps. Gundebald the Burgundian and his chieftains melted at the persuasive words of Epiphanius, who entered Pavia at the head of 6000 bond-slaves, rescued by his influence from sla- very. Epiphanius made a third journey to Ravenna, to obtain a remission of taxes in favor of his distressed people. 3 The Ostrogothic kingdom was an intermediate state between the Roman Empire and the barbarian mon- 1 Procop. 1. i. c. i. p. 9, Edit. Bonn. 2 Ennodii Vita Epiphan. 3 Ennodius says of Epiphanius, " Inter dissidentes principes solus esset, qui pace frueretur amborum." p. 1011. He even overawed the fierce Kujjians, at one time masters of Pavia. 40 G LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK I1L union of the archies. It was the avowed object of Theod- ncM oric to fuse together the Teutonic vigor with the Roman civilization, to alloy the fierceness of the Gothic temperament with the social culture of Italy. 1 The Romans still held many of the chief civil offices. Liberius, Symmachus, Boethius, Cassiodorus, were the ministers of the Gothic king. Yet the two elements of the society had no tendency to assimilation or union , the justice and wisdom of the king might mitigate, he im could not reconcile this discord, which could only be finally extinguished by years of mu- tual intercourse, by intermarriages, and above all by perfect community of religious faith. The Gothic and the Roman races stood apart in laws, in usages, in civil position, as well as in character. Possessors, by the right of conquest, of the one-third of the lands in Italy, of which they exacted the surrender, and for which they tacitly engaged to protect the whole from foreign invasion, 2 the Goths settled as an armed aristoc- racy among a people who seemed content to purchase 1 " Ii semper fuerint (Gothi, sc.) in laudis medio constituti, ut et Ro- manorum prudentiam caperent, et virtutem gentium possiderent. . . . Consuetude nostra feris mentibus inseratur donee truculentus animus vivere velle consuescat." Cassiod. Var. Epist. iii. 23. In another pas- sage he exhorts the Goths to put on the manners of the toga, and to cast off those of barbarism. " Intelligite homines non tarn corporea vi quam ratione pneferri." Lib. iii. Epist. 17. When he invaded Gaul, Theodoric declared himself the protector of the Romans: "Delectamur jure Romano vivere quos annis vindicamus. . . . Nobis propositum et, Deo juvante, sic vivere, ut subject! se doleant nostrum dominium tardius acquisisse." iii. 43. But the most clear and distinct indication of his views is in the formula for the appointment of the Count of the Goths : " Unum vos amplectatur vivendi votum, quibus unum esse constat imperium." The anonym. Vales, says that the poor Roman (miser) affected to be a Goth, the rich (utilis) Goth to be a Roman. 8 " Vos autem Romani magno studio Gothos diligere debetis, qui in pace numerosos vobis populos faciunt, et universam rempublicam per bella de- feudunt." Cassiod. vii. 3. CHAP. III. DIVISION OF LANDS. 407 their security at the price of one third of their posses- sions. This transfer was carried on with nothing of O the violence and irregularity of plunder or confiscation, but with the utmost order and equity. It was, in truth, but a new form of the law of conquest, which Rome had enforced, first upon Italy, afterwards on the worl.l. Nor was it an obsolete and forgotten hardship, the ex- pulsion of a free, and flourishing, and happy peasantry from their paternal homesteads, and hereditary fields ; they were only like those more partial no doubt, but more cruel ejectments, when the conquering Triumvir, during the later republic, confiscated whole provinces, and apportioned them among his own sol- Division of diery. 1 The followers of Odoacer had already, lands " if not to so great an extent, enforced the same surren- der, and the Goth only expelled the Herulian from his newly acquired estate. Large tracts in Italy were ut- terly desolate and uncultivated almost the whole under imperfect culture. 2 This, in the best times of the Roman aristocracy, had been the natural and re- corded consequence of the vast estates accumulated by one proprietor, and cultivated by slaves or at best by poor me'tayers, and was now aggravated by the general ruin of that aristocracy, the difficulty of maintaining slaves, and the effects of long warfare. This revolu- tion at least assisted in breaking up these overgrown properties, combining as it did with constant aliena- 1 Theodoric considered that he had succeeded to the right of the Roman people in apportioning land : he prohibited the forcible entrance upon farms without authority. 2 "Vides universa Italiae loca originariis viduata cultoribus." Read the whole speech of Theodoric to Epiphanius of Pavia on the desolation espec- ially of Liguria. Ennod. Vit. p. 1014. "Latifundia perdidere Italiam," the axiom of all the Roman economists. 408 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. tions to the Church, and afterwards to monasteries. Agriculture in Italy received a new impulse, 1 the more necessary, as it ceased to command foreign resources. The harvests of the East, and of Egypt and Libya, had long been assigned to the maintenance of the new capital ; and Western Africa, desolated by the Van- dals, no longer poured in her supplies. Theodoric watched with parental solicitude the progress of agri- culture, and the irregular and uncertain supplies of corn to his Italian subjects, who were now thrown on their own resources. His correspondence is full of orders on this important subject. Italy began to ex- port corn. The price, both of corn and wine, fell to a very moderate amount. 2 The Gothic king claimed all the imposts formerly paid to the imperial treasury ; the Curias were still re- sponsible for the collection, but Theodoric inculcated moderation in the exaction of the imperial claims. 3 The Goths appear to have been liable to the same taxes with the Romans. 4 The clergy had as yet no Theodoric. immunities. Theodoric himself aspired to be the impartial sovereign of both races. In him met 1 It is curious that most of these edicts prohibit exportation. See Cassi- odorus. Var. Lib. i. 31, 34, 35 (a strange document in point of style). Lib. ii. 12, is a prohibition of the export of bacon, an important article of food; 20 gives orders to send corn from Ravenna to Liguria, which was Buffering famine. The Gothic army in Gaul was supported by the prov- ince, not from Italy (iii. 41, 2), and during a famine Southern Italy and Sicily relieved Gaul (iv. 5, 7). On the other hand, Theodoric endeavored to obtain corn from Spain for the supply of Rome ; but it seems the dealers had found a better market in Africa (v. 35). 2 " Sexaginta modios triticorum in solidum ipsius tempore fuerunt, et vinum triginta amphora in solidum." Anon. Vales. Without ascer- taining the exact relative value, we may infer that these were unusually low prices. Var. i. 19, iv. 19. iv. U. CHAP. in. THEODORIC. 409 and blended the Roman and the Goth : in peace he ex- changed the Gothic military dress for the purple of the Roman Emperor. 1 He preserved the ancient titles both of the Republic and of the Empire. He appointed Consuls, Patricians, Quaestors, as well as Counts of largesses, of provinces, and some of the more servile titles of the East. 2 The conqueror was earnestly de- sirous to secure for his Italian subjects the blessings of peace : though his arms were employed in Gaul for thirty out of thirty-three years of his reign, Italy, under his dominion, escaped the ravages of war. 3 The police was so strict throughout Italy, that merchants thronged from all parts. A man might leave his silver or gold as safely on his farm as in a walled city. 4 He bequeathed peace to his successors ; he en- Peace of couraged all the arts of peace. The posts Italy ' were arranged on a new and effective footing. 5 The great roads, the bridges, the ruined walls, and falling buildings were restored to their ancient strength and splendor. Verona, Pavia, 6 above all Ravenna, were adorned with new palaces, porticos, baths, amphithea- tres, basilicas, and, doubtless, churches. In the latter 1 Muratori, Annal. d' Italia, iv. 380. 2 See the sixth book of the Epistles. 8 Ennodius says, in Vit. Epiphan. " Cujus post triumphum spoliatum vagina gladium nullus aspexit." p. 1012. "Ergo praeclarus et borne voluntatis in omnibus, qui regnavit annos xxxiii. cujus temporibus felicitas est sequuta Italiam per annos xxx. ita ut etiam pax pergentibus esset (Pergentibus successoribus ejus)." Wagner's note, Anonym. Vales. 4 Anonym. Vales. 5 Epist. i. 29, iv. 47, v. 5. 6 Anonym. Vales. This writer, in his admiration of the golden age of Theodoric, declares that he did not repair the gates of the cities, as, being oow never closed, the inhabitants entering and going out by night as well as by day, they had become of no use. " Hoc per totam Italiam augurium habebat, ut nulli civitati portas faceret." 410 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK IH city Theodoric avowedly aimed at rivalling the magnif- icence of Rome ; but Rome was not plundered or sac- rificed to the new capital. The care of Theodoric was extended to the restoration of her stately but in- jured edifices. 1 The Cloacae, which excited the won- der of the barbarians, and distinguished Rome from all other cities, were to be repaired entirely at the public cost. 2 The water from the aqueducts was no longer to be directed to private use, for the turning of mills, or irrigation of gardens, but devoted to the general bene- fit of the citizens. 3 The prefect of the city and his lieutenant, the Count of Rome, and the public archi- tect 4 were especially charged to keep up the forests of stately buildings, the statues which peopled the city, the herds of equestrian images. 6 In these terms the barbarians expressed their astonishment at the yet in- exhausted treasures of art in the imperial city. The florid panegyric of Theodoric describes the aged city as renewing her youth ; noble edifices were completed nearly as soon as planned. Theodoric is almost a second Romulus as it is greater to ward off the fall, than to have commenced the foundations of a city. 6 i Var. i. 21. Compare ii. 34. 3 Var. iii. 30. Var. iii. 31. 4 On the general policy of Theodoric in this respect, " Decet principem cura, quse ad rempublicam praestat augendam, et vere dignum cst regem aedificiis palatia decorare. Absit enim ut ornatui cedanius veterum, qui impares non sumus beatitudini sseculorum.' 1 Var. i. 6. "Decora facies iniperii, testimonium preconiale regnorum." Var. vii. 5. 6 " Mirabilis sylva msenium, populus statuarum, greges equorum." Var. vii. 5: compare vii. 13, 16. These latter are the formularies for the appointment of the Comes Romanus, and the architect of the public works. Ennod. apud Sirmond. p. 967. 8 Theodoric commands marmorarii to be sent from Ravenna to Rome: these were workers in mosaic (we hear nothing of painters or sculptors), which art the barbarians seem to have especially admired. " Qui eximii CHAP. III. THEODOEIC. 411 When Theodoric appeared in Rome, the Emperor might seem to revive in greater power and majesty than he had displayed since the days of Theodosius the Great. The largesses of corn were distributed, though to a smaller population, with a liberality which rivalled the earlier days of the Empire. 1 Though himself taking no pleasure in savage or idle amusements, the barbaric king, considering such sub- 'ects not quite beneath the care of the sovereign, per- haps not without some politic design to occupy the proud and turbulent metropolis, indulged his subjects with their ancient spectacles, in such pomp as to recall the famous names of Trajan and Valentinian. 2 The gladiators alone had been suppressed by the influence of Christian opinion ; and even if humanity had not won this triumph, Rome had no longer barbarian cap- tives, whom she could devote to the carnage of these mimic wars. But the arena was still open to the com- bats of wild beasts. 3 The pantomimes, of which alone Theodoric speaks with interest, were frequent and splendid. 4 The chariot races were attended with all the old passionate ardor, and the contending colors were espoused with fanatic zeal by the opposite factions, divisa conjungunt et venis colludentibus illigata naturalem faciem lauda- biliter mentiantur. . . . De arte veniat, quod vincat naturam, discoloria crusta marmorum gratissima picturarum varietate texantur." Var. i. 6. 1 Anonym. Vales. Compare the formulary for the appointment of the Prsefectus annonae. 2 Anonym. Vales. The edicts are prefaced with a kind of apology. ' Licet inter gloriosas reipublicae curas . . . pars minima videatur, princi- pem de spectaculis loqui, tamen pro amore reipublicse Romans non pigebit has cogitationes intrare." Var. i. 20. 8 Var. v. 42, where the feritas spectaculi is reproved. Among Theodoric's buildings is mentioned an amphitheatre at Pavia. 4 He calls it a wonderful art, which is often more expressive than lan- guage. Var. i. 20. 412 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. on which the Sovereign, though he did not condescend to take a part, looked with indulgence. He allowed the utmost license to the expression of public feeling, and strongly reproved the officious or haughty interference of the Senate for attempting to repress this legitimate freedom. 1 But Theodoric, in his religious character, is the chief object of our study. The Christian religious . . -, , , . , .1 rule. sovereign must nnd his proper place in the history of Christianity. The King of the Ostrogoths not merely held together in peace and amity the two races, the Roman and the Barbarian, but even the Orthodox and the Arian reposed throughout his reign, if not in friendly quiet, at least without any violation of the public peace. It was fortunate, perhaps, that in a state so divided, the Sovereign was of the religion of the few. He escaped the temptation to persecute, since it would have been idle to suppose that he could persuade or compel so strong a majority to embrace his detested opinions. If the wise spirit of toleration had not led him to moderate measures, the good sense of the Sovereign would have compelled him to respect the inveterate tenets of the larger, the more intellectually powerful part of his subjects. Still, though his Byzan- tine education might have warned Theodoric against the danger, if the Sovereign should plunge too deeply into ecclesiastical affairs, his forbearance was neverthe- 1 " Mores autem graves in spectaculo quis requirit ? Ad circum nesciunt convenire Catones." i. 27. It is evident that the senate and the people had taken different sides. The senators are reproved for introducing their armed slaves among the audience. On the other hand, the complaint of a senator of personal insult was to be carried before the praetorian prefect. There is a remarkable tone of good-humored moderation in all the edicts compare Var. i. 27, 30 to 33. CHAP. III. THEODOKIC'S IMPARTIALITY. 413 less extraordinary, considering the all-searching, all- pervading activity of his administration ; and that the religious supremacy had been so long a declared pre- rogative of that Imperial power, which had now passed into his hands. Imperial edicts since the days of Constantine had been solicited, respected, enforced by the hierarchs so long as they spoke the dominant doctrine ; they had become part of the code of the Empire ; even when adverse to the prevailing opinion, they had been always supported by one faction at least, and received with awe by the more indifferent multi- tudes. The doctrine that the clergy, the bishops, or the Roman Pontiff, were the sole legislators of Chris- tianity, was so precarious and undefined, that we still cannot altogether withhold our admiration from the wisdom of Theodoric. The Arianism, indeed, of the Goths had not the fresh ardor or burning zeal of recent proselytism. It was a kind of religious accident, arising out of their first conversion, which happened to take place during the reign of an Arian Emperor, and through Arian missionaries. It had settled into a quiet hereditary faith. There was no peculiar congeniality in its tenets with the Teutonic mind, which was rather disposed to receive what it was taught with implicit faith ; and, though no doubt averse to the subtleties of the Greek theology, neither comprehended, nor cared to comprehend, these controversies. It was content to adhere to the original creed, 1 or, possibly, might feel 1 Salvian is inclined to judge the heresy of the barbarians with charity; perhaps that he might inveigh more fiercely against the vices of the Catholic Romans. " Barbari quippe homines, immo potius hirnanae erudi- tionis expertes, qui nihil omnino sciunt. nisi quod a doctoribus suis audiunt. quod audiunt, sic sequuntur . . . haeretici ergo sunt, sed non scientes." De Gubernat. Dei, lib. v. 414 LATIX CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. some pride in differing from the abject race, over it asserted its civil and military superiority. The serene impartiality of Theodoric's government Tbeodorfc'8 in religious affairs extorts the praise of the tapartuiitjr. mos t zealous Catholic. 1 He attempted nothing against the Catholic faith. Towards the close of the Gothic monarchy, the royal ambassadors to Belisarius defied their enemies to prove a case in which the Goths had persecuted the Catholics. 2 -Theodoric treat- ed the Pope, the Bishops, and Clergy, with irrave respect: in the more distinguished, such as Epipha- nius, he ever placed the highest esteem and confidence. We shall behold him showing as much reverence, and even bounty, to the Church of St. Peter, as though he had been a Catholic. The poor who were dependent on that Church were maintained by his liberality. 8 The Arian clergy also shared in the tolerant sentiments of their King. Of their position, character, influence ; of the churches they built or oc- cupied ; of their services, of their processions, of their ceremonies ; of any aggression or intrigue on their part ; of any collision, which we might have supposed inevitable with the Latin clergy, history, and history entirely written by the Catholics, is totally silent ; and that silence is the best testimony, either to their unex- ampled moderation, as the religious teachers of the few indeed, but those few the conquerors and rulers, or to the wiser policy of the King, which could constrain even 1 u Nihil contra religionem catholicam tentans," thus writes the anonj- mous historian, himself a devont Catholic. Ennodius, in praising the religion, forgets the Arianism of Theodoric. Paneg. p. 971. Anonym. Vales. * Procop. de bell. Gothic, ii. c. 6. Procop. Hist. Arcan., p. 145, edit. Bonn. CHAP. IH. THEODORIC'S IMPARTIALITY. 415 honest religious zeal. Theodoric himself adhered firmly but calmly to his native Arianism ; but, all the conver- sions seem to have been from the religion of the King ; even his mother became a Catholic ; l and some other distinguished persons of the court embraced a different creed without forfeiting the royal favor. 2 Theodoric was the protector of Church property, 3 which he him- self increased by large grants. 4 This property, with some exceptions, was still h'able to the common im- posts. His wise finance would admit no exemptions, but in gifts he was prodigal to magnificence. The clergy were amenable to the common law of the Empire, and were summoned before the royal courts (the stern law would not be eluded) for all ordinary crimes ; 5 but all ecclesiastical offences were left to the ecclesiastical authorities. 6 Nor, although the Herulian 1 " Mater Theodorici, Erivileva dicta, catholica quidem erat qua in baptismo Eusebia dicta." Anonym. Vales. 2 Note of Yalesius to Anonym, at the end of Wagner's Ammianus Marcellinus, page 399. Var. x. 34 a. 26. These cases belong to the suc- cessors of Theodoric. With Gibbon, I reject the story of his beheading a Catholic priest for turning Arian in order to gain his favor! It is most probable that the man had been guilty of some capital crime, and sought to save his life by apostacy. It was not improbably either Theodoras or Count Odoin, who had formed a conspiracy against him in Rome, and was beheaded for his treason : compare Hist. Miscel. p. 612. 8 Var. iv. 17, orders to his general Ibas in Gaul to restore certain lands to the Church of Xarbonne. * " If," he writes to Count Geberic, " in our piety, we bestow lands on the church, we ought to maintain rigidly what she possesses already." Var. iv. 20. 5 Januarius, Bishop of Salona, is sued for a debt, though for lights for the church ; a Bishop Peter for the restitution of an inheritance ; the Priest Laurence for sacrilegious violation of a tomb in search of treasure ; Antony, Bishop of Pola, for the restitution of a house : compare Du Roure, Hist, de Theodoric, i. p. 358. 6 See the celebrated privilege accorded to the clergy of Rome by Atha- laric. Var. viii. 24. This, however, was no more than arbitration. "Ex- ceptos a tramite justitise non patimur inveniri." Cassiod. ii. 29. Yet 416 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK m. Odoacer had claimed and exercised the right of con- firming the Papal election, did Theodoric interfere in those elections until compelled by the sanguinary tumults which distracted the city. Even then he inter- fered only as the anxious guardian of the public peace, and declined the arbitration between the conflicting claims, which both parties, hoping for his support, endeavored to force on the reluctant monarch. The feuds of the Roman clergy, which broke out on the customary occasion of the election of a new Pope, and brought them to the foot of their Arian sovereign, A.D. 498. ma y b 6 traced back to a more remote source. H^tu^for Anastasius, as has been seen, during his short the Popedom. p Ont ificate, had deviated into the paths of peace and conciliation. He had endeavored by mild- ness, and by no important concession (he insisted not on the condemnation of Acacius), to reunite the Churches of Rome and Constantinople. This un- wonted policy had apparently formed, two parties in the Roman clergy, one inclined to the gentler measures of Anastasius, the other to the sterner and more inex- orable tone of his predecessors. Each party elected Dee.ia. their Pope, the latter the Deacon Symma- A.D. 499. c hus, the former the Archpresbyter Lau- rentius. 1 The rival Pontifls were consecrated on the same day, one in the Lateran Church, the other in that of St. Mary. At the head of the party of Laurentius, stood Festus or Faustus Niger, the chief of the Senato- rial order. He had been the ambassador of Theodoric at Constantinople, to demand the acknowledgment of Theodoric, from respect, was unwilling to punish a priest " Scelus quod Doa pro sacerdotal! honore relinquimus impunitum." iv. 18. 1 Anastasius died Nov. 17. Muratori, sub ann. CHAP. III. CONTESTED ELECTION FOR POPEDOM. 417 the Goth as King of Italy. He had succeeded in his mission ; perhaps had been prevailed upon to attempt the reconciliation of the two Churches, either by per- suading the acceptance of the Henoticon by the Roman clergy, or more probably on the terms of compromise approved by Pope Anastasius. The two factions en- countered with the fiercest hostility ; the clergy, the senate, and the populace were divided ; the streets of the Christian city ran with blood, as in the days of republican strife. 1 The conflicting claims of the prel- ates were brought before the throne of Theodoric. The simple justice of the Goth decided that the bishop who had the greater number of suffrages, and had been first consecrated, had the best right to the throne. Symmachus was acknowledged as Pope : he held a synod at Rome which passed two memorable decrees, one almost in the terms of the old Roman law, severely condemning all ecclesiastical ambition, all canvassing, either for obtaining subscriptions, or administration of oaths, or promises for the papacy during the life- time of the Pope ; 2 the other declared the election to be in the majority of the clergy, thus virtually abro- gating the law of Odoacer. Laurentius (the rival Pope was present at this synod) subscribed its de- 1 Each party charged the other with these cruelties. The author of the Hist. Micell. asserts that Festus and Probinus, of the party of Laurentius, slew in the midst of Rome the greater part of the clergy and a great num- ber of citizens : a fragment of a writer on the other side (published by the impartial Muratori) ascribes these acts of violence, slaughter, and pillage, with many other vices, to Symmachus. Compare Annal. d' Ital. sub arm. 498. 2 It was the language of the law de Ambitu, applied to ecclesiastical distinctions. It is enacted " propter frequentes ambitus quorundam, et ecclesiae puritatem, vel populi collisionem, qua molesta et iniqua incom- petenter episcopatum desiderantium generavit aviditas." Labbe, Concil., p. 1313. VOL. i. 27 418 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. crees, 1 and returned to the more peaceful, perhaps to a wise man, the more enviable bishopric of Xoceva. During this interval of peace, Theodoric for the in first time visited the imperial city. He was Rome. March - _-. ~ . ., i /> , . AJ>. 499. met by Pope Symmachus at the head of his clergy, by the Senate, which still numbered some few old and famous names, Anicii, Albini, Marcelli, and by the whole people, who crowded with demonstra- tions of the utmost joy around their barbarian sover- eign. Catholic and Arian, Goth and Roman, mingled their acclamations. Theodoric performed his devotions in St. Peter's with the fervor of a Catholic. In the Senate he swore to maintain all the imperial laws, the rights and privileges of the Roman people. He cele- brated the Circensian games, in commemoration of all his triumphs, with the utmost magnificence ; ordered a distribution of one hundred and twenty bushels of corn annually to the poor, and set apart two hundred pounds of gold for the restoration of the imperial palace. The Bishop Fulgentius, witness of the splendor of Theod- oric's reception, breaks out into these rapturous words : " If such be the magnificence of earth, what must be that of the heavenly Jerusalem ! " 2 Theodoric re- mained in Rome six months, and then returned to Ravenna. During all this period, and the three or four follow- ing years, the faction of Laurentius were . . watching their opportunity to renew the strife.* * Baronius sab ann. Muratori has some doubts. * Anonym. Vales. Vita B. Fulgentii. * There are two accounts of these transactions, one that of Anastasius Bibliothecarius, or the anonymous papal biographer, favorable to Symma- chus; the other the anonymous Veronensis, published by Muratori. I have endeavored to harmonize them. Both agree that some years elapsed be tween the accession of Symmachus and this new contest. CHAP. III. TUMULTS IN SOME. 419 Fearful charges began to be rumored against Symma- chus. no less than adultery, 1 and the alienation of the property of the see. Faustus, his implacable adyersary, with the Consul Probinus and great part of the Senate, supported these criminations. The accusation was brought before the judgment-seat of Theodoric, sup- ported by certain Roman females of rank, who had been suborned, it was said, by the enemies of Symma- chus. Symmachus was summoned to Rayenna, and confined in Rimini. But finding the preju- Tumultg ^ dices in Rayenna darkening against him, he Rome - escaped and returned to Rome. Laurentius had also secretly entered the capital. The sanguinary tumults bet \veen the two factions broke out with greater fury ; priests were sacrilegiously slam, monasteries fired, and even sacred virgins treated with the utmost indignity. The Senate petitioned the King to send a * 503. visitor to judge the cause of the Pontiff. A royal commission was issued to Peter, Bishop of Altino. But instead of a calm mediator between the conflicting parties, or an equitable judge, the visitor threw himself into the party of Laurentius. 2 The possessions of the Church were, in part at least, seized and withholden from Symmachus ; he was commanded to give up the slaves of his household that they might be examined, 3 it should seem, by torture according to the ancient usage. 4 1 Anonym. Veron. confirmed by Ennodius, p. 1366. 2 Knnod. Apologet. pro Synod-, p. 987. 8 This corresponded with the two heads of accusation. The forma provided against the alleged alienation of the church property, the latter referred to that of adultery. * This is a remarkable fact, in the first place, showing that slaves formed the household of the Pope, and that, by law, they were yet liable to torture. This seems clear from the words of Ennodius, "Sed, credo, replicabitis- 420 LATIN CHEISTIANITY. BOOK HI. Theodoric, still declining the jurisdiction over these Synods of ecclesiastical offences, summoned a synod of Italian prelates to meet at Rome. The synod held two successive sessions, and throughout their pro- ceedings may be traced their consciousness of their embarrassing position, which is increased as the reports of these proceedings have passed through later writers. 1 They were assembled under the authority of a layman, an heretical sovereign, too powerful to be disobeyed, and acting with such cautious dignity, justice, and impartiality as to command respect. They were as- sembled to judge the supreme Pontiff, the Metropolitan of the west, the asserted, and by most acknowledged, head of Christendom. Symmachus himself had the prudence to express his concurrence in the convocation of this synod. At the first session he set forth to attend the Council. He was attacked by the adverse party, showers of stones fell around him ; many presbyters and others of his followers were severely wounded ; the Pontiff himself only escaped under the protection of the Gothic guard. The final, named the Palmary, synod was held in some edifice or hall in the palace called by that name ; of this assembly the accounts are some- veritatem qnam sponte prolate in illis vox habere non poterat, hanc diver- sis cruciatibus e latebris suis religiosus tortor exegerat, ut dum pcenis cor- pora solverentur, qua; gesta fuisse noverat aniina non celaret.'' Ennodius is so obscure and figurative that he may seem to say, in the next sentence, that this proceeding was illegal, perhaps contrary to the canons. He ap- pears to consider it most contumelious that ecclesiastics should be judged on servile evidence. 1 The whole question of the number and dates of the synods held at this time is inextricably obscure. I chiefly follow Muratori. The ?ynodus pal- maris is usually considered the fourth. One, in all probability two, were held by Symmachus before this new strife. The fourth was apparently a continuation of the third, but held in a different place unless the third was one held by Peter of Altino. CHAP. TIL DECREE OF PALMARY SYNOD. 421 what more full and distinct. Throughout appears the manifest struggle in the ecclesiastical senate between the duty of submitting to the King, who earnestly Decree of the => ' . J Palmary urges them to restore peace to Kome and to Synod. Italy, and the reluctance to assume jurisdiction over the Bishop of Rome. Some expressions intimate that already the Bishop of Rome was held to be exempt from all human authority, and could be judged by God alone. If the Pope is called in question the whole episcopacy of the Church is shaken to its foundation. 1 Symmachus, however, had the wisdom to suppress all jealousy of a Council 2 whose authority alone could completely clear him of these formidable accusations, and which he probably knew to be favorably impressed with his innocence. With the full authority of a synod of one hundred and twenty bishops he resumed the pontifical throne, without having compromised his dig- nity by thus condescending to their jurisdiction. In the wording of the sentence the Council claims at once the authority of the Holy Ghost, yet confines the jus- tification of Pope Symmachus to immunity and freedom from censure before men ; 8 it leaves to the secret coun- 1 " In sacerdotibus cseteris potest si quid forte nutaverit, reformari : at si papa urbis voeatur in dubium, episcopatus videbitur, non jam episcopus, vacillare." Avit. ad Senat. apud Labbe, p. 1365. Avitus uses this argu- ment to the senators of Rome, " Nee minus diligatis in ecclesia nostra sedem Petri, quam in civitate apicem mundi;" but Avitus acknowledges all priests, even the Pope, to be amenable to secular tribunals, of course for secular offences, " quia sicut subditos nos esse terrenis potestatibus j ubet arbiter coeli ; staturos nos ante reges et principes in quacunque accusatione pryedicens; ita non facile datur intelligi, qua vel ratione, vel lege ab in- ferioribus (inferior in ecclesiastical order) eminentior judicetur." 2 " Judicia et iste voluit, amavit, at t rax it, ingressus est; et quod posset fideli corda doloris justi aculeis excitare, venerando coucilio etiam contra Be si mereretur, indulsit." Ennod., p. 981. 3 " Quantum ad homines respicit (quia totum causis obsidentibus supe- ius designitis, constat arbitrio divino fuisse dimissum) sit immuuis et 422 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK IIL sel of God the ultimate decision which they might not presume to pronounce ; l nevertheless, with inconsis- tency, which it is difficult to understand, they seem to grant permission to the Pope to offer the divine mys- teries to the Christian people in all the churches of his jurisdiction. 2 Content with having restored peace to the Roman AHaire of the see > Theodoric kept aloof from the religious dissensions which brooded in deepening dark- ness over the east. The Gothic king was devoting himself, dare we not say, to the more Christian office of maintaining the peace, securing the welfare, promot- ing the civilization, lightening the financial burdens of his people, 3 in exercising for the benefit of Italy, the liber, et Christians plebi sine aliqua de objectis oblatione, in omnibus ecclesiis suis, ad jus sedis suse pertinentibus, tradat divina mysteria." Labbe, p. 1325. * Considering the horror in which the crime of adultery was held in an ecclesiastic, we can scarcely suppose, either that the severe Theodoric would not have driven him from his presence, or that an assemblage of prelates would have attempted to shield a pontiff, of precarious and dis- puted title, without full and conclusive evidence of his guiltlessness. 2 The decisions of this synod were indeed impeached by the enemies of Symmachus, and Ennodius found it necessary to vindicate them in an apology, as he thought, eloquent, and therefore in parts altogether unin- telligible, at least so as to give but obscure glimpses of the facts. He would seem, perhaps only figuratively, to retort the charge of adultery against the partisans of Laurentius. p. 992. At the close, Ennodius per- sonifies Rome, who has still some compunctious feelings for the inevitable damnation of all her older heroes. " Qua Curios, Torquatos, Camillos, quos Ecclesia non regeneravit, et reliquos misi, plurimae prolis infcecunda mater, ad Tart arum, dum exhaustis emarcui male fceta visceribus; quia Fabios servata patria non redemit, Deciis multo sudore gloria parta nil pnvstitit profligata est operum sine fide innocentia: cruninosis junctus est, a-qui observantissimus Scipio." p. 993, apud Sirmond. * " Sensimus auctas illationes, vos addita tributa nescitis. Ita utcumque ub admiratione perfectum est, ut et fiscus crescebat, et privata utilitas nulla damna perferret." Var. ii. 16. The panegyric of Ennodius must be read with that reserve which these eloquent adulations suggest ; but, on Hie other hand, it must be remembered that Ennodius was a Catholic and a bishop. CHAP. III. AFFAIRS OF THE EAST. 423 virtues of wisdom, justice, and humanity. His foreign wars in Pannonia, with a horde of the Bulgarian race, in Gaul, in defence of his kindred the Visigoths against 7 O O the ambitious Franks, brought fame to the king, with- out disturbing the repose, or interrupting the progress of improvement in Italy. Far different was the state of the East ; the long religious quarrel in which the Em- peror Anastasius had been engaged, had shaken its throne to the base, it needed only a successful insur- rection to degrade it to still lower humiliation. The Pope Symmachus watched no doubt with pro- found interest the holy war which had now broken out in the East. The polemic controversies had become the causes or pretexts of revolt and battles. The formid- able Scythian Vitalianus (with whom Theodoric had some political connection on account of the hostilities in which he had been involved on the Dacian frontier with the Eastern empire) had raised the standard of rebellion and of orthodoxy against the aged Anastasius. Symmachus did not live to witness the sad latter years of the Emperor Anastasius ; the revolt of Vitalianus ; the hollow peace on the hard conditions of religious submission ; the full acceptance of the council of Chal- cedon, the restoration of the exiled Catholic Bishops, and the summoning an (Ecumenic Council at Heraclea. His successor Hormisdas a reaped the fruits of the hu- miliation of the eastern Emperor, and be- PopeHor . came, though at first the vassal, at last the misdas - humble siibject of the Arian Theodoric, the dictator of the religion of the world. Anastasius in his helpless state souo-ht the mediation not of the civil but of the O religious sovereign of Italy. He might justly fear 1 Hormisdas, Pope from July, 514, to Aug. 6, 523. 424 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK in. .o. 6W. Theodoric, himself had once some years be- fore entered into suspicious alliance with Clovis the Frank, he had meditated or threatened a descent on the coast of Italy. The Emperor addressed a letter to Hormisdas, the fame of whose mild disposition tempt- ed him to renew a correspondence broken off by the harshness of former Popes. But Hormisdas, while he warmly approved the Emperor's disposition to peace and unity, declined this flattery at the expense of his predecessors. Yet, on the whole, the language of the Pope's reply was moderate, neither dissembling nor as- serting in too haughty terms the pretensions of his See. The proposed Council of Heraclea came to nothing ; a Council in the East, under present circumstances, suit- ed the policy neither of the Pope, nor of the Emperor. 1 jniy s, sis. Four ambassadors, the Bishops Ennodius and Fortunatus, the Presbyter Venantius, with Vitah's a Papal Em- deacon, set forth in the name of Pope Hor- Uwy to Con- . . _. i mi misdas to Constantinople. 1 heir instructions are extant, a remarkable manual of ecclesiastical diplo- macy in a nice and difficult affair. In the question- able and divided state of the Eastern clergy, espe- cially of Constantinople, as to orthodoxy, the ambas- sadors were to receive their personal advances with decent courtesy, lest the episcopal character should be lowered in the estimation of the laity ; but to avoid all intimate intercourse with men, who might at least be heretics; to receive no presents, not even provisions, only means of conveyance ; to incur no obligations, and to decline all invitations to feasts, until they could all 1 The story in Theophanes as to the perfidy of Anastasius in these pro- ceedings, is altogether inconsistent with the whole course of events, as ap- pears from existing documents. CHAP. III. PAPAL EMBASSY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 425 meet together at the great feast of the Holy Eucharist. In Constantinople they were to go at once to the lodg- ings provided by the Emperor, but to avoid all inter- course with their own partisans, till they had presented their credentials to the Emperor. 1 Besides these cre- dentials they were armed with letters to Vitalianus, letters however so cautiously worded, that they might acknowledge the possession of them, and though stead- ily declining to surrender them to the Emperor, might permit them to be read to Vitalianus in the presence of an imperial commissioner. Their instructions, how they were to fix the wavering Emperor, and extort concession after concession, are marked with the same subtle and dexterous policy. They were to demand, I., his unequivocal assent to the Council of Chalce- don, and to the letters of Pope Leo. If he yielded this point, they were to express their gratitude and kiss his breast, and then, II., to require him to demand the same assent from all the clergy of the East. If he should assert the general orthodoxy of the clergy, and their disposition to quiet submission, if affairs had not been thrown into confusion by certain unadvised let- ters of Pope Symmachus, they were to declare that those letters, now in their hands, contained only general ex- hortations to accept the Council of Chalcedon. They were to press this point with prayers and tears, to re- mind the Emperor of God, and of the day of judgment. Should the Emperor reply, " What would you have ? 1 There was a preliminary caution that, as it was customary in Constan- tinople for all persons admitted to the emperor on ecclesiastical business to oe presented by the bishop, they were to omit, if possible, receiving this courtesy from Timotheus, and if he should officiously thrust himself in the ivay, and enforce the right of presentation, to declare that they were di- rectly accredited to the emperor alone. 426 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. I receive the Council of Chalcedon, and the letters of Leo : " they were to elude any assent to this protest, unless he would issue his imperial letters compelling a general union with the Church of Rome. Should the Emperor say, " Will you then receive the Bishop of Constantinople into communion ? " Here was the nicest point of all, to avoid the recognition of either of the contending prelates, and so to bring the absolute nomination of the Bishop of Constantinople under the cognizance of the proposed Council, over which Coun- cil was to preside the representative of Rome. The instructions even anticipate a dangerous objection, which might occur to Anastasius, that the rival prel- ate, Macedonius, was a notorious heretic. This, they were to rejoin, is a question to be calmly considered when the Church is restored to unity. " What," should the Emperor say, " is my city to be without a bishop? " " The canons," they are to answer, " provide remedies for such a difficulty." But these inexorable terms were not all. Anastasius was not only to be compelled to be a persecutor. Besides the acceptance of the Council of Chalcedon, and the Leonine letters by the Emperor, and the compulsory enforcement of obedience from the clergy, were demanded from the Emperor, as to be rat- ified by the Council, III. The public anathema of NIAS- torius, Eutyches, Dioscorus, and also of their followers, (the maintainers of the Henoticon,) Timotheus jElu- rus, Peter of Alexandria, Acacius, formerly Bishop of Constantinople, and Peter of Antioch. IV. The immediate recall from exile of all ecclesiastics in com- munion with Rome, the causes of their respective ban- ishments to be examined by the Apostolic See. V. The judgment of those accused of persecuting the Catholics CHAP. m. PROCEEDINGS OF ANASTASIUS. 427 to be in like manner submitted to the court of Rome. On the full acceptance of these terms, Hormisdas con- sented to honor the future Council with his personal presence, not to deliberate but to ratify his own solemn determinations. But Anastasius was not reduced so low as to submit to these debasing conditions. The condemnation of Acacius was unpopular at Constantinople, the memory of the Bishop dear and sacred to a large party. Anas- tasius chose this point of resistance. He accepted on his own part the Council of Chalcedon, but why should the living be kept excommunicated from the Church on account of the dead ? The terms of Hormisdas could not be enforced without much bloodshed. 1 A.D. 507. The embassy returned to Rome. Anastasius continued to temporize. An imperial embassy appeared in Rome, accredited to the Senate as well as to the Pope. It en- treated the intervention of that venerable body with the glorious Theodoric to unite the afflicted Christian Church and Empire. Hormisdas treated these lay am- bassadors, who presumed to interfere in ecclesiastical affairs, with supercilious contempt. The churches of Illyria, of which the opinions had as yet hung in doubt, had now given their unqualified adhesion to Hormisdas and the Council of Chalcedon. Far from retracting, he rose in his demands ; he condescended indeed to send a second legation, Ennodius, Bishop of Pavia, and Peregrinus, Bishop of Misenum, to Constantinople. His answer by them was a vehement and implacable invective against the memory of Acacius. 2 That Bish- 1 " Grave esse dementia nostra judicat de ecclesia venerabili propter mortuos vivos expelli, nee sine mult a effusione sanguinis scimus posse ea. ^uae super hoc scribitis, ordinari." Epist. Anastas. Labbe, p. 1432. 2 Epistola Hormisdse apud Labbe. 428 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK IB. op's communion with the followers of Dioscorus and of Eutyches infected him with their most heinous guilt. All who hated those heretics, must hate Acacius. The crime of Acacius was darker than that of the original authors of the heresy. The condemnation of Acacius, the unpardonable Acacius Acacius who had claimed equality with the Pope was now the only obstacle to the peace between Eastern and Western Christendom, a consummation to which the West, even the remotest Gaul (so wrote Hormisdas, alluding to the Catholic Franks) looked forward with eager interest. Anasta- sius was now more secure upon his throne, his formida- ble subject, Vitalianus, had lost his power. To his honor, he would not abandon even the memory of Aca- cius, who had been guilty only of firmly carrying out the Emperor's scheme of toleration ; he broke off all further communication with the merciless Prelate. " We may submit to insult, we may endure that our decrees be annulled, but we will not be commanded. 1 Hormisdas must await the accession of a new Emperor Justin, before the Churches of Rome and Byzantium are reunited by the sacrifice of him, who besides his communion with Eutychians, had dared to equal him- self with the successor of St. Peter." But with the age and decay of Anastasius the strength of the Chalcedonian party increased rapidly. Timotheus, the Bishop of Constantinople, gave hopes at least, that he would secure himself by timely conces- sion. Hormisdas addressed encouraging letters to the Catholic bishops, and though Anastasius ventured to punish with severity certain monks who strove to stir up rebellion, he dared not to resent this treasonable i Epist. Anastas. Labbe, p. 1460. CHAP. III. ACCESSION OF JUSTEST. 429 correspondence with his subjects. The monks in Syria, of that party, appealed from the Emperor, whom they accused of contemptuously rejecting their humble sup- plications for protection and redress against their rivals, charged with the massacre of their brethren in the O church, to the representative of St. Peter and St. Paul. 1 The strife ended with the death, if we are to believe Baronius, the damnation of Anastasius. The death of an old man, at least of eighty-one, more likely eighty-eight years of age, was ascribed to the visible O J O J vengeance of God. There was a terrible tempest, and that tempest transported away the affrighted soul of the Emperor, or struck him dead by its lightning. His death was revealed to a saint at a great distance, who communicated the awful fact to three of his brethren, intimating at the same time that he himself was sum- O moned to appear before the tribunal of God within ten days, to bear witness against the Emperor. 2 This Elias departed before the end of ten days on his chari- table errand, so necessary to enlighten Omniscience as to the deeds of a mortal man. So deeply had the pas- sion of hatred, offering itself to the heart in the garb of religious zeal, infected the Christian mind, that Car- dinal Baronius, reviving the inexorable resentment which had slept for centuries, calls upon the Church to sing a hymn of rejoicing over this new Pharaoh, this Emperor, thus, for his resistance to the Pope, judged, damned, and thrust down into hell. Justin, a rude unlettered Dacian peasant, seized the throne of Constantinople ; and there was an instan- 1 Relatio Archimandrit. et Monach. ii. Syria? apud Labbe, 1461 8 Baronius, sub ann. 518, with his authorities. 430 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III Accession of taneous religious revolution in the Byzantine 9,' sis. court and city, and throughout the East. Jus- tin, though ignorant, was known to be of unbending orthodoxy. Only six days after his proclamation, the July is. Emperor, with his wife Lupicina, who had been his slave and concubine, and who took the more decorous name of Euphemia, entered the great church. The populace broke out in acclamations, " Long life to the new Constantino and the new Helena." Their clamors ceased not with these loyal expressions : " Away with the Manicheans, proclaim the Council of Chalcedon." They demanded the degradation of Severus of Antioch, immediate reconciliation with Rome, and even that the bones of the Manicheans (the Emperor Anastasius and his party) should be torn up from their sepulchres. John of Cappadocia, the Pa- triarch of Constantinople, a man of servile mind, though unmeasured ambition, had acquiesced without remonstrance in all the measures of Anastasius. He now ascended the pulpit, declared his adhesion to the four great Councils, especially that of Chalcedon. The populace summoned him to utter his anathema against Severus ; the Prelate obeyed. The next day was celebrated a festival in honor of the Council of Chalcedon. John of Cappadocia hastily assembled a Council of forty bishops, which confirmed all the de- mands of the rabble ; Justin ratified their decrees by an imperial edict, commanding the recall of all the exiled bishops, and the expulsion of those who had usurped their sees. A second edict disqualified all heretics from holding civil or military office. The whole East followed the example of the capital, and became orthodox with the orthodox Emperor. Hera- CHAP. m. CLOSE OF THE SCHISM. 431 clea, Nicea, Nicomedia, Gangra, Jerusalem, Ptolemais, Tyre, restored the Chalcedonian bishops. Cloge of ^ Antioch shook off the yoke of Severus. schism Thessalonica and Alexandria alone made resistance, but were awed into submission. The death of the Eunuch Amantius, who had aspired to dispose of the empire, which he could not usurp himself; by whose gold, intrusted to him for other purposes, Justin had bought the crown ; had been demanded as a sacrifice by the populace, and was readily conceded by Justin, his treason being aggravated by his notorious Mani- cheism. Theocritus, whom he had intended to raise to the empire, shared his unpopularity and his doom. But Vitalianus, the pillar of orthodoxy, met no better fate ; he was treacherously invited to Constantinople, pro- moted to the highest dignity, and in the seventh month of his consulate assassinated by the agents of Justin- ian, the Emperor's nephew, now clearing the way for his own accession to the throne. Even before these necessary precautions for the security of his reign, the zealous Emperor had opened negotiations with Rome. 1 All opposition shrunk away. Hormisdas had the satis- faction not merely of compelling, by the aid of the Emperor, the whole East to accept his theologic doc- trines, but his anathemas also of the living and of the dead. At the demand of his legates, the names of Acacius, and all who communicated with him, those of the Emperors Zeno and Anastasius, were erased from the diptychs. John the Patriarch vainly strag- gled to save the blameless names of Euphemius and Macedonius from the same ignominy : they were in- cluded with the rest (they were severely orthodox, but 1 The first letter of Justin was dated August 1; the second, September 7. 432 LATDT CHRISTIANITY. BOOK HI. they had been guilty of acknowledging Acacius and his successor as legitimate patriarchs) ; l yet, never- theless, the East has continued to reverence them as of undoubted orthodoxy. John however contrived a happy expedient to elude the direct recognition of the supremacy of Rome, by declaring that the Churches of old and new Rome were one. He assumed, by the March 28, permission of Justin, the yet pregnant title A.D. 619. o oecmnenjc Patriarch. So closed the schism which had lasted for thirty-five years. Latin and Greek Christianity held again one creed East and West were at peace. Theodoric had stood aloof, whether in contemptuous at indifference, or, as he might suppose, intent theheiehtof . . . . prosperity, on nobler objects, from all these intrigues, embassies, and negotiations. He left his subject, the Bishop of Rome, to assert, as he might, his ecclesiasti- cal superiority over Constantinople ; to league with the rebellious subjects of Byzantium against the ea-tern Emperor ; to treat with Justin almost as an indepen- dent sovereign. Theodoric was now at the height of his fame and power, his kingdom of its peace and felic- ity. His dominion extended without rival, without opposition, from the Alps to Calabria. His sovereignty extended over the ancient provinces of Noricum and Pannonia, and some large adjacent, if not distinctly bounded territories ; over the whole south of France, and even parts of Spain. But not all the victories. m>t all the virtues, not the wisdom, justice, and moderation of Theodoric, nor the prosperity of Italy under his rule, could secure his repose, or enable him to elnsi- his reign without strife, injustice, persecution, and blood- 1 Compare Walch, vii. p. 109. CHAP. HI. CATHOLICISM. 433 shed. His firm character might overawe the elements of civil dissension, the jealousy of the two races which formed his subjects, and the feeble impatience of Rome under the barbarian sway. It was religious strife which broke up the quiet of his life and reign, and per- haps, by imbittering his temper in the decline of his days, by awakening suspicions not altogether ground- less, and fears not without warrant, led to the crimes which have so deeply sullied his memory, the death of Boethius and of Symmachus. Notwithstanding the natural repugnance of the Romans to a foreign sway, and the secret dissatisfaction with which the Emperor of the East must have beheld the West alto- Catholicism, gether severed from the Roman Empire, yet Theodoric the Goth might have lived and ruled, and transmitted his sceptre in peace to his posterity ; but an orthodox empire would not repose in unreluctant submission under an Arian. It was the unity of the Church, upon the accession of Justin, which endangered his government. Heresy, at the head of a prosperous kingdom, and a powerful fleet and army in the West, had commanded respect, so long as Eutychianism, or the no less odious compulsory toleration of the Henoti- con, sate on the throne of Constantinople. Catholi- cism had concentrated all its hatred on the Manicheans, as they were called, who refused the Council of Chal- cedon ; but no sooner were those dissensions healed, than it began to resent, to look with holy jealousy upon, and to burn with fiery zeal against the older heterodoxy ; it would no longer brook the equality of the detested Arians. The first aggression was confined to the East. Jus- tin in a terrible edict commanded all Mani- A.D. 523 VOL. i. 28 434 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK in. cheans to leave the empire on pain of death ; all other heretics, who were ranked with pagans and Jews, were incapacitated for all civil and military offices, excepting the Goths, and other foreign soldiers in the service of the empire. 1 The exception might seem intended to lull the jealousy of Theodoric ; yet the Arians of the East could not but see that this, hard measure as it was, was only the beginning of the persecution ; they looked to the Sovereign of Italy for protection, for the continued possession of that tacit exemption which they had long enjoyed, from the intolerant rigor in force against other heretics. It was precisely at this junct- ure that rumors were spread abroad of dangerous speeches at least concerning their independence of the Gothic yoke, of the assertion of the liberties of Rome having been ventured in the capital. Vague intelligence reached Ravenna, of an actual and wide- spread conspiracy which involved the whole Senate ; Rumora of but f which Albums, the most distinguished conspiracies. o f ^ R oman patricians, was the head. In- dignation, not without apprehension, at this sudden, and, as it appeared, simultaneous movememt of hos- tility, seized the soul of Theodoric. The whole cir- cumstances of his position demand careful considera- tion. Nothing could be more unprovoked than the religious measures of Constantinople, as far as they menaced the West, or assailed the kindred of Theod- oric in the East or even those who held the same faith. His equity to his Catholic and Arian subjects was unimpeachable ; to the Pope he had always shown respectful deference ; he had taken no advantage of the contention for the Pontificate to promote his own 1 Theophanes. Cedrenus in loc. CHAP. 111. CATHOLICISM. 435 tenets. Even as late as this very year, he A.B. 523. iii i i /-ii f o T Of Theodoric's had bestowed on the Church or ot. I eter two reign 31. magnificent chandeliers of solid silver. But the Catho- lics resented, no doubt, the unshaken justice with which Theodoric had protected the Jews. 1 At Rome, at Milan, and at Genoa the Jews had been The Jews, attacked by the irrepressible hostility of the Catholics : their synagogues had been burned or destroyed, 01 their property unjustly seized. Theodoric compelled the restoration of the synagogues at the public expense. The Catholics had taken the pretext of the demolition of a small chapel dedicated to St. Stephen at Verona, probably for the fortification or embellishment of the city, as another indication of aggression on the part of Theodoric. 2 These were slight but significant signs of the growing hostility. Nor was it in the East alone that Catholicism menaced the life of Arianism. The Council of Epaona, in Burgundian Gaul, at which bishops from the territories of Theodoric had met, had passed severe canons closing the churches of the Arians. Though Clovis was now dead, orthodoxy was still the battle-cry of the Franks ; in all the Gothic king- doms the government might dread the prayers, if not the more active interference of the Catholic clergy on the side of their enemies. It was in connection with the bad feeling, which caused and was no doubt aggravated by the demolition of the chapel in Verona, that Theodoric took the strong measure of totally disarming the Roman popu- 1 Hist, of the Jews, v. iii. p. 115. 2 Gibbon supposes that Theodoric may have been anathematized from the pulpit of that chapel. 436 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK HI. lation. He prohibited them from bearing any offensive weapons ; the only instrument permitted was a small knife, for the common purposes of life. No less doubtful and menacing was the aspect of Bute of civil affairs. The heir of Theodoric was a Theodoric'i ., . TT . ,, . _, . . fcmiiy. child. His gallant son-m-law Eutlians, the hopeful successor to his valor, his wisdom, as well as his religious opinions, was now dead. Notwithstanding all her virtues and her accomplishments, Amalasuntha, his only daughter, as a female could hardly cope with the difficulties of the times, sole guardian of a boy-king. Theodoric knew that the Emperor of the East in his pride, still considered the barbarian king as his vassal, as originally holding Italy by his grant, and so, no doubt, claimed the power of revoking that grant. The Goths might be safe from hostile aggression, so long as the aged Justin, who was sixty-eight years old, at his accession, occupied the throne: but he could not be ignorant of the character, the unmeasured and un- scrupulous ambition, the unbending orthodoxy of Jus- tinian. Theodoric's prophetic sagacity might well anticipate the events which in a few years would not merely endanger, but extinguish the Italian kingdom of the Goths. It was at this juncture, when the Emperor of the East might be at least suspected of designs, if he had not committed overt acts, in order to recover and reunite the severed empire; when he might seem to be enlisting all the religious and all the Roman sym- pathies of Theodoric's subjects in a kind of initiatory treason, in a deep, if yet silent and inactive dissatisfac- tion, that these dark rumors began to spread of secret intelligence between the senate of Rome- and the East. CHAP. III. BOETHIUS. Men, it is asserted by Boethius himself, of infamous character, yet who had held, and who afterwards held high offices of trust and honor, accused Albinus, the chief of the Senate, of disloyal correspondence with Constantinople. Albinus was the friend of Boethius. Boethius the senator, the patrician, the descendant and Boetwns. head of the noble Anician family, who connected him- self with the old republic by the name of Manlius ; the philosopher, the theologian, the consummate master of all the arts and sciences known at that period had been raised to the highest civil honors ; not only had he himself received the ensigns of the Consulate, but the father had seen his two sons in the same year raised to that honor, which still maintained its traditionary grandeur in the Roman mind. On the day of their inauguration, Boethius, too, pronounced a panegyric on his munificent Gothic sovereign, and displayed his own magnificence by distributing a noble largess to the people at the games. In his pubh'c capacity Boethius had declared himself the protector of the Romans against the oppressions of Theodoric's ministers. He had repressed the extortions of Cunegast, the more violent tyranny of Treguella, the chamberlain of The- odoric's household (these names betray their Gothic origin). By a dangerous exercise of his authority he had rescued many unfortunate persons from the rapac- ity of the barbarians ; he had saved the fortunes of many other provincials from private exaction, and from unjust and inordinate taxation. He had opposed the Praetorian Praefect in certain measures, by which a famine in Campania would have been greatly aggra- vated ; on this act he had received the public approba 438 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. tion of the King. He had plucked Paullinus, a man of senatorial rank, from the very jaws of those hounds of the palace, who had already in hope devoured his confiscat- ed estate. Such, according to Boethius himself, WITH his merits towards his own countrymen, the causes of the hostility towards him among the Gothic courtiers of Theodoric. And even under the rigid equity of The- odoric, such abuses might be almost inevitable in that form of society. Boethius hastened to Verona to con- front the accuser Cyprianus, the great referendary, when he heard the accusation of treason against Albinus, 1 charges and in the face of the Emperor declared, " If Aibinus. Albinus is criminal, I and the whole Senate are equally guilty." The generous boldness of Boe- thius awoke no admiration or sympathy in the heart of Theodoric. Instead of saving his friend, Boethius was involved in his ruin. Three persons, one of whom Basilius (according to Boethius) had been dismissed ignominiously from the royal service, and whom pov- erty drove to any crime ; two others, Opilio and Gau- dentius, who had been exiled, had taken refuge in the sanctuary of a church, and had been threatened, if they should not leave Ravenna in a certain number of days, with branding in the forehead, were admitted as wit- nesses against Boethius. He was accused of more than hoping for the freedom of Rome. His signature, forged as he declared, was shown at the foot of an address, inviting the Emperor of the East to reconquer Italy. 2 Boethius was refused permission to examine 1 Gibbon says that Albinos was only accused of hoping the liberty of Rome. The Anonym. Vales, declares the charge to have been of treason- able correspondence with the East 2 The specific charges against Boethius were, that he had endeavored to maintain inviolate the authority of the senate ; that he had prevented an CHAP. III. CORRESPONDENCE OF EAST AND WEST. 439 the informers. He admits the latent, but glorious treason of his heart. " Had there been any hopes of liberty, I should have freely indulged them. Had I known of a conspiracy against the King, I should have answered in the words of a noble Roman to the frantic Caligula, you would not have known it from me." The King, now, in the words of Boethius, eager to involve the whole Senate in one common ruin, 1 con- demned Boethius to imprisonment. He was incar- cerated in Calvenzano, a castle between Milan and Pavia. 2 In the mean time the religious aifairs of the East became more threatening to the kinsmen, and to those who held the same religious creed with Theodoric. The correspondence between the monarchs Correspond . had produced no effect. Theodoric had writ- | e t ^ t d ween ten in these words to Justin : " To pretend West- to a dominion over the conscience, is to usurp the pre- rogative of God ; by the nature of things the power of sovereigns is confined to political government ; they have no right of punishment but over those who dis- turb the public peace; 3 the most dangerous heresy is that of a sovereign who separates himself from part of his subjects, because they believe not according to his belief." Golden words ! but mistimed above twelve hundred years. informer from forwarding certain documents inculpating the senate to the king ; that he had been privy and assenting to an address from the senate to the Emperor of the East. 1 Avidus communis exitii. 2 The narrative of these events is perplexed by making, as many writer^ (following the Anonym. Vales.) have done, the death of Boethius immedi fttely consequent upon his imprisonment. But he had time during that im orisonment to write the De Consolat. Philosophise. 8 Cassiod. ii. 6, iii. 28. 440 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK UL Justin coolly answered, that he pretended to no authority over men's consciences, but it was his pre- rogative to intrust the public offices to those in whom he had confidence ; and public order demanding uni- formity of worship, he had full right to command the churches to be open to those alone who should conform to the religion of the state. The Arians of the East were thus stripped of all offices of honor or emolu- ment, were not only expelled from the Catholic churches, but their own were closed against them, and they were exposed to all the insults, vexations, and per- secutions of their adversaries, who were not likely to enjoy their triumph with moderation, or to repress their conscientiously intolerant zeal. Great numbers who held but loosely to their faith, conformed to the state religion ; the more sincere appealed in the strong- est terms to the protection of Theodoric. TLe King of Italy at first maintained something of his usual calm moderation ; he declined all retaliation, to which he had been incessantly urged, on the orthodox of the West. He determined on an embassy to - Constantinople to enforce upon the Eastern E m pe ror the wisdom of mutual toleration , the ambassador whom he selected for this mission ol peace was the Pope himself, not the vigorous Hormis- das, but John the 1st. who had quietly succeeded to the See of Rome on the death of that Prelate. 1 This extraordinary measure shows either an overweening reliance in Theodoric on his own power, or a confidence magnanimous, but equally unaccountable, a confidence bordering on simplicity, that for his own uninterrupted exercise of justice, humanity, and moderation he had a 1 John, Pope, August 13, A.D. 5-23. CHAP. III. THEODORIC AND THE POPE. 441 right to expect the return of fidelity and gratitude. Could he fondly suppose that the loyalty of the Pope would be proof against the blandishments of the Eastern court, that the Bishop of Rome would be zealous in a cause so directly at issue with his own principles ? The Pope summoned to Ravenna, was instructed to demand of Justin the reopening of their churches to the Arians, perfect toleration, and the restoration to their former faith of those who on com- pulsion had conformed to the Catholic religion. 1 To the Pope's remonstrances and attempts to limit his mediatorial office, to points less unsuited to his character, Theodoric angrily replied, by commanding the envoys instantly to embark on the vessels which were ready for the voyage. 2 The Pope, attended by five other bishops and four senators, set forth on a mission of which it was the ostensible object to obtain indulgence for heretics, heretics under the ban of his Church, here- tics looked upon with the most profound detestation. Hitherto the Pope had remained in his unmoved and stately dignity within his own city. Excepting in the case of the exiled Liberius, he had hardly ventured further than the court of Ravenna, or on such a service as that of Leo to the camp of Attila. The Pope had not even attended any of the great Councils. Aware, as it might almost seem, that much of the awe which attached to his office, arose from the seat of his author- ity, he had but rarely departed from the chair of St. Peter ; and but recently Hormisdas had demanded the unconditional submission of the Emperor of Constanti- 1 This seems the meaning of the sentence hi the Anonym. Vales. " ut teconciliatos hseretieos in catholics restituat religione." p. 626. 2 Their names in the Anonym. Vales. 442 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK HI. nople to his decrees, as the price of his promised con- descension to appear at a Council in that city. The Pope was received in Constantinople with the Pope John in most flattering honors, as though he had been pie- St. Peter himself. The whole city, with the Emperor at its head, came forth to meet him with tapers and torches, as far as ten miles beyond the gates. The Emperor knelt at his feet and implored his March 30, 625. benediction. On Easter day he performed the service in the great Church, Epiphanius the Bish- op ceding the first place to the more holy stranger. It was hinted in the West that the Pope had placed the crown on the head of Justin. But of the course and the success of his negotiations all is utterly confused and contradictory. By one account, now abandoned as a later forgery, he boldly confirmed the Emperor in the rejection of all concessions, and himself consecrated all the Arian Churches for Catholic worship. 1 By another, he was so far faithful to his mission, as to obtain liberty of worship, and the restitution of their Churches to the Arians. The Emperor refused only the restoration of those Arians who had embraced the Catholic faith. 2 Ah 1 that is certainly known is, that John the Pope on his return was received as a traitor imprUon- by Theodoric, thrown into prison, and there mentand * . . /> i -ur i death of the highest ecclesiastic or the \\ est lan- John. e May is. 636. guished for nearly a year, and died. But be- fore his return, the deep and wide spread conspiracy, which Theodoric had discovered, or supposed that he had discovered, led to the death of a far greater 1 Baronius rested this on a supposititious letter of Isidorus Mercator; this letter is exploded by Pagi, sub ann. 526. * Anonym. Tales, p. 627. Histor. Miscell. apud Muratori. CHAP. III. BOETHIUS. 443 man, Boethius, and subsequently to that of the vir- tuous father-in-law of Boethius, the Senator Sym- maclms. Boethius had lightened the hours in his dreary confinement by the composition of his Boethius's famous book, the Consolation of Philosophy, Philosophy, the closing work of Roman literature. Intellectually, Boethius was the last of the Romans, and Roman letters may be said to have expired with greater dignity in his person, than the Empire in that of Augustulus. His own age might justly wonder at the universal accomplishments of Boethius. Theodoric himself, writing by the hand, and no doubt in the pe- dantic language of his minister Cassiodorus, had paid homage to his knowledge. " Through him Pythagoras the musician, Ptolemy the astronomer, Nicomachus the arithmetician, Euclid the geometer, Plato the theo- logian, Aristotle the logician, Archimedes the mechani- cian, had learned to speak the Roman language." Boe- thius had mingled in theologic controversy, had dis- cussed the mysterious question of the Trinity without any suspicion of heresy, and steered safely along the narrow strait between Nestorianism and Eutychianism. He is even said, for a time, to have withdrawn to the monastic solitudes, and to have held religious inter- course with Benedict of Nursia, and his followers. All this constitutes the extraordinary, the peculiar character of the Consolation of Philosophy, which appears as the last work of Roman letters, rather than as eminent among Christian writings. It is equally surprising that in such an age and by such a man, in his imprisonment and under the terrors of approaching death, Consolation should be found in Philosophy rather than in Religion ; that he should have sought 444 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK IIL his examples of patience in Socrates with his hemlock cup, or among the arguments of the Garden or the Porch, rather than in the Gospel or the Legends of Christian martyrdom. From the beginning of the book to the end, there is nothing distinctly Christian ; its religion is no higher than Theism ; almost the whole might have been written by Cicero in exile, or by Marcus Antoninus under some reverse of fortune. The long and enduring popularity of the Consolation of Philosophy during the dark ages completes the singular and anomalous character of the work itself. This all-accomplished, all-honored man was not only Deth of torn away from his library, inlaid with ivory iua ' and glass, from the enjoyment of ample wealth and as ample honor, from the esteem of his friends and the love of his family, left to pine in a re- mote and lonely prison, and then released by the pub- lic executioner the manner of his death, if we are to trust our authorities, was peculiarly inhuman. He was first tortured, a cord was tightly twisted round his forehead, whether or not to extort confession of his suspected treason ; and he was then beaten to death with a club. 1 Nor was the vengeance of Theodoric satiated with the blood of Boetm'us. Theodoric, dreading the in- fluence of Symmachus, the head of the Senate, a man of the highest virtues ; and suspecting, lest, in his in- Bymmachus. dignation at the death of his son-in-law, he should engage or had engaged in some desperate plot against the Gothic kingdom, summoned him to Ra- My is, 626. venna, where his head was struck off by the executioner. 2 This was followed by the imprisonment l Anonym. Tales, p. 626. * Anonym. Tales, p. 627. CHAP. HI. VENGEANCE OF THEODORIC. 445 of Pope John, and his death. Throughout these mel- ancholy scenes, the historian is reduced to a sad alter- native. He must either suppose that the clear intellect and generous character of Theodoric had become en- feebled by age ; his temper soured by the sudden and harassing anxieties, which seemed to break so unsea- sonably on the peace of his declining years, and the in- gratitude of his Roman subjects for above thirty years of mild and equitable rule; those subjects now would scarcely await his death to attempt to throw off the yoke, and would inevitably league with the East against his infant heir. Theodoric, therefore, blinded by un- worthy suspicions, yielded himself up to the basest informers, and closed a reign of justice and humanity, with a succession of acts, cruel, sanguinary, and wan- tonly revengeful. Or, on the other hand, he must con- clude, that notwithstanding his protestations of inno- cence, Boethius and his friends, dazzled by patriotic visions of the restoration of the Roman power, or, what is less likely, considering the philosophic tone of his religion, by orthodox zeal, had tampered at least with the enemies of the existing government ; and that the Roman Senate looked forward in more than quiet prophetic hope, in actual traitorous correspondence, to that invasion from the East, which took place not many years after the death of Theodoric. Both views are perhaps true. Theodoric was a father, a Goth. Kings discriminate not between the aspirations of their sub- jects for revolt, and actual plans for revolt ; they are bound to be far-sighted; their vision becomes more jealously acute, the more remote and indistinct the objects ; treason in men's hearts becomes treason in act. On the other hand, insolent Roman vanity, stern 446 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK in. religious zeal, were not likely to be coldly, timorously prudent ; desires, hopes would find words ; words eager hearers, hearers become informers ; and informers are not too faithful reporters. Goths, Arians, courtiers, might, even with no dishonest or sinister intent, hear conspiracy in every boast of Roman freedom, in every reminiscence of Roman pride. Theodoric was now in his 74th year ; almost the last act of his reign was the nomination of the successor of John. His interposition was enforced by the fierce contentions which followed the death of that prelate. His choice fell on Felix, a Samnite, a learned and a blameless man. But the clergy and the people, who pope Felix, we re agitated with strife, threatening the conJfrated peace of the city, and a renewal of the July 12. bloody scenes at the election of Laurentius and Symmachus, united in stern resistance to the nom- ination, in which they had been allowed no voice. 1 Theodoric in his calm wisdom came to an agreement to regulate future elections an agreement, which in theory subsisted, till the election of the Pope was transferred to the College of Cardinals. The Pope was to be chosen by the free suffrages of the clergy and people, but might not assume his office till con- firmed by the sovereign. For his confirmation the Pope made a certain payment to be distributed among the poor. On this understanding the clergy and the city acquiesced in the nomination of Pope Felix. 2 1 Cassiod. Var. viii. 15. This nomination was absolute. Atliularic writes thus: " Oportebat enim arbitrio boni prim-ipis (Tin-ode. rk-i) obediri, qui sapienti deliberatione pertractans, quamvis in alun>\ r< //'<,/< w, talcm visas est pontificem delegisse, ut nulli merito debeat di-)>luvre. . . . Recepistis itaque virum, et divin& gratia probabiliter institutum, et regali examinations laudatum." 3 He took quiet possession of the throne July 12, 526. CHAP. III. DEATH OF THEODOEIC. 447 Theodoric died in the month following the peaceful accession of Felix to the Pontifical throne. Death of M*I T Theodoric The glory of Ins reign passed from the mem- Aug. 526. ory of man with the peace and prosperity of Italy. But the hatred of his heretical opinions survived the remembrance of his virtues. He is said to have com- mitted to a Jew, named Symmachus Scolasticus, the framing of an edict, for the expulsion of the Catholics from all their churches ; l a statement utterly irrecon- cilable with his judicious and conciliatory conduct on the election of the Pope. Theodoric, it was observed, died by the same disease which smote the heresiarch Arius in the hour of his triumph. The Greek histo- rian of the Gothic war, who may be taken as repre- senting the Byzantine aversion to the memory of The- odoric, has described him as dying in a terrific agony of remorse at his own crimes. A large fish was placed before Theodoric at his supper. The King Fate after beheld in it the gory head of Symmachus, death ' with the teeth set and gnawing the lower lip, and the eyes rolling in a fierce frenzy, and sternly menacing his murderer. Theodoric, shivering with cold, rushed to his chamber ; he called for more clothes to be heaped upon his bed, but nothing could restore the warmth of life ; he sent for his physician, and bitterly, and in an agony of tears, reproached himself with the death of Symmachus and of Boethius. 1 He died a few days after; and even Procopius adds, that these were the first and the last acts of injustice committed by The- odoric against his subjects. But later visionaries did not the less pursue his soul to its eternal condemnation ; 1 Anonym. Vales. ; Agnell. in Vit. Pontefic. Ravennat 2 Procop. de bello Gothico, i. pp. 11, 12. 448 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. he was seen by a hermit hurled by the ministers of the divine retribution into the volcano of Lipari : volcanoes in those days were believed to be the openings to hell. 1 Ravenna still, among the later works of Justinian and the Byzantine Exarchs, preserves some memorials of the magnificence of Theodoric. Of his stately pal- ace remain but some crumbling and disfigured walls. Byzantine art has taken possession of his churches ; Justinian and Theodora still dimly blaze in the gold and purple of the mosaics. 2 The monument of The- odoric, perhaps the oldest work of Christian art, is still entire, marking some tendency to that transition from the Roman grandeur of bold and massy arches to the multiplicity of mediaeval details. Yet in these remains nothing can be traced which realizes those singular ex- pressions of Cassiodorus, so prophetic it might seem of what was afterwards characteristic of the so-called Gothic architecture the tall, slender, reed-like pil- lars, the lofty roof supported, as it were, by clustered lances. 3 1 Gregor. i. Dialog, iv. 36. On this work, see hereafter. 2 If we may trust a passage in Agnelli (Vit. Pontefic. Ravenn. apud Mu- ratori, iii. p. 95), the church of San Vitale, erected in a city the capital of an Arian sovereign, was unequalled in its splendor, we presume in the West. It cost 26,000 golden solidi. Taking the golden sol id us (accordine to Dureau de la Malle, Economic Polit. des Kmnains, i. p. 40) at 15 francs 10 c., about 12*. &/., between 15,000 and 16,000. 3 "Quid dicimus columnarum junceam proceritatem. . . . Erectis hastil- ibus contineri moles illas sublimissimas fabricarum." Cassiod. via. 15. CHAP. IV. EMPIRE OF JUSTINIAN. 449 CHAPTER IV. JUSTINIAN. HISTORY scarcely offers a more extraordinary con- trast than that between the reign and the character of the Emperor Justinian. Under the nephew, colleague, and heir of Justin, the Roman Empire ap- Empire of ... . . . Justinian. pears suddenly to resume her ancient majesty A.D. 527. and power. The signs of a just, able, and vigorous administration, internal peace, prosperity, conquest, and splendor surround the master of the Roman world. The greatest generals, since the days perhaps of Tra- jan, Belisarius and Narses appear at the head of the Roman armies. Persia is kept at bay, during several campaigns if not continuously successful, yet honorable to the arms of Rome. The tide of barbarian conquest is rolled back. Africa, the Illyrian and Dalmatian prov- inces, Sicily, Italy, with the ancient Capital, are again under the empire of Rome ; the Vandal kingdom, the Gothic kingdom fall before the irresistible generals of the East. The frontiers of the empire are defended with fortifications, constructed at enormous cost ; l but become necessary now that Roman valor had lost its spell of awe over the human mind ; and that the per- petual migrations and movements from the North and 1 Procopius de ^Edificiis, passim. The first book describes the ecclesias- tical buildings of Constantinople; the rest the fortifications and defensive buildings throughout the empire. VOL. i. 29 450 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. the East were continually propelling now and formidable nations against the boundaries of the Roman world. Justinian aspires to be the legislator of mankind ; a vast system of jurisprudence embodies the wisdom of an- cient and of imperial statutes, mingled with some of the benign influences of Christianity, of which the author might almost have been warranted in the pie- sumptuous vaticination, that it would exercise an unre- pealed authority to the latest ages. The cities of the empire are adorned with buildings, civil as well as relig- ious, of great magnificence and apparent durability, which, with the comprehensive legislation, might recall the peaceful days of the Antonines. The empire, at least at first, is restored to religious unity : Catholicism resumes its sway, and Arianism, so long its rival, dies out in remote and neglected congregations. In Spain alone it is the religion of the sovereign. The creator of this new epoch in Roman greatness, at least he who filled the throne during its creation, the Emperor Justinian, unites in himself the most opposite vices, insatiable rapacity and lavish prodigality, in- tense pride and contemptible weakness, unmeasured ambition and dastardly cowardice. He is the uxorious slave of his empress, whom, after she had ministered to the licentious pleasures of the populace as a courte- san, and as an actress, in the most immodest exhibitions (we make due allowance for the malicious exaggera- tions in the secret history of Procopius), in defiance of decency, of honor, of the remonstrances of his friends, and of religion, he had made the partner of his throne. In the Christian Emperor seem to meet the crimes of those, who won or secured their empire by the assassi- nation of all whom they feared, the passion for public CHAP. IV. THE EMPRESS THEODORA. 451 diversions without the accomplishments of Nero or the brute strength of Commodus, the dotage of Claudius. Constantinople might appear to retrograde to paganism. The peace of the city and even the stability of the em- pire are endangered not by foreign invasion, not at first by a dangerous rival for the throne, nor even by relig- ious dissensions, but by the factions of the Circus, the partisans of the Blue and of the Green, by the colors worn in the games by the contending charioteers. Jus- tinian himself, during the memorable sedition, the Nike, had nearly abandoned the throne, and fled before a des- picable antagonist. " The throne is a glorious sepul- chre," exclaimed the prostitute whom he had raised to that throne, and Justinian and the empire are saved by her courage. This imperious woman, even if from ex- haustion or lassitude she discontinued, or at least con- descended to disguise those vices which dishonored her husband, in her cruelties knew no restraint. And these cruelties, exercised in order to gratify her rapacity, if not in sheer caprice, as a substitute for that excitement which had lost its keenness and its zest, are almost more culpable indications of the Emperor's weakness. This meanness of subservience to female influence becomes the habit of the court, and the great Belisarius, like his master, is ruled and disgraced by an insolent and profli- gate wife. Nor do either of them, in shame, or in con- scious want of Christian holiness, stand aloof from the affairs of that religion, whose precepts and whose spirit they thus trample under foot. Theodora, a bigot with- out faith, a heretic, it might almost be presumed, with- out religious convictions, by the superior strength of her character, domineers in this as in other respects over the whole court, mingles in all religious intrigues, 452 LATIN CHRISTIANITY". BOOK III. appoints to the highest ecclesiastical dignities, sells the Papacy itself. Her charities alone (if we except h -r masculine courage, and no doubt that great ability which mastered the inferior mind of her husband), if they sprung from lingering womanly tenderness, or that inextinguishable kindness which Christianity sometimes infuses into the hardest hearts, if they were not de- signed as a deliberate compromise with heaven for her vices and cruelties, may demand our admiration. The feeling which induced the degraded and miserable vic- tim of the lusts and contempt of men to found, per- haps, the first penitentiaries for her sisters in that wretched class, as it shows her superior to the base fear of awakening remembrances of her own former shame, may likewise be considered as an enforced homage to female virtue. Even in Theodora we would discover the very feeblest emotions of Christianity. Justinian aspires too to be the legislator not of the empire alone, 1 but of Christendom, enacts ordinances for the whole Church ; and unhappily, not content with establishing the doctrines of Nicea and Chalcedon as the religion of the Empire, by his three Chapters replunges Christen- dom into religious strife. The reign of Justinian, during the period between the death of Theodoric and the conquest of Italy, was occupied by the Persian and African Avars, and the commotions arising out of the public A.D. 626-533. ganjgg m Constantinople. The only event which commands religious interest is the suppression of the schools in Athens. That last vain struggle of 1 I have studied, besides the ordinary authorities, a life of Justinian by Ludewig. Hal. Salic. 1731. To the great lawyer the vices and weak- nesses of Justinian are lost in admiration of his jurisprudence. CHAP. IV. SUPPRESSION OF SCHOOLS AT ATHENS. 453 Grecian philosophy against Christianity, which had so signally failed even with an Emperor Julian at its head ; that Platonic theism which had endeavored to give new life to paganism, by enlisting the imagination in its ser- vice, and establishing a sensible communication with the unseen world ; which, in order to command the in- nate superstition of mankind, had allied itself with mag- ic : and which still (its better function) promulgated noble precepts of somewhat dreamy morality ; suppression r . . * of Schools at was not allowed to expire like a worn-out vet- Athena, eran in peaceful dignity. It was forcibly expelled from the ancient groves and porches of Athens, where re- cently, under Proclus, it had rallied, as it were, for a last gleam of lustre ; it was driven out by the impa- tient zeal of Justinian. Seven followers of Proclus, it is well known, sought a more hospitable retreat in Persia ; but the Magianism of that kingdom was not much more tolerant than the Christianity of the East. Philosophy found no resting-place ; and probably few of her disci- ples could enjoy the malicious consolation which might have been drawn from the manner in which she had long been revenging herself on Christianity by sug- gesting, quickening with her contentious spirit, and aid- ing with all her subtleties of language those disputes, which had degraded the faith of Jesus from its sublime, moral, and religious dictatorship over the human mind. Justinian, when he determined to attempt the recon- quest of Africa, might take the high position of the vindicator of the Catholics from long, cruel, and almost unrelenting persecution. The African Catholics had enjoyed a short gleam of peace during the reign of Hilderic, who had deviated into toleration, unknown to the Arianism of the Vandals alone ; he had restored 454 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. about two hundred bishops to their churches. The Catholics might behold with terror the overthrow of the just Hilderic by the stern Gilimer, and might rea- sonably dread a renewal of the dark days of the great persecutors, of Thrasimund and of Hunneric. The voices of those confessors, who are said to have spoken clearly and distinctly after their tongues had been cut out down to the root ; who might be heard to speak publicly (for one of them was a deacon) by the curious or the devout in Constantinople itself, might excite the compassion and animate the zeal of Justinian. 1 The 1 This is the one post-apostolic miracle which appears to rest on the strong- est evidence. If we are to trust Victor Vitensis, we cannot take refuge in the notion that their speech was imperfect. Of one at least, the Deacon Eeparatus, he asserts that he spoke both clearly and distinctly. The words of Procopius are uKpaivel rf) Qwy. If we listen to ./Eneas of Gaza, it is equally impossible to recur to the haste, or slovenly execution of the punish- ment by the barbarian executioner: he states, from his own ocular inspec- tion, that the tongue had been torn away by the roots. Victor Vitens. v. 6; Ruinart, p. 483, 487; ./Eneas Gazensis in Theophrasto in Biblioth. Pair, viii. p. 664, 665; Justinian, codex i. tit. xxvii. ; Marcelli in Chronic. Pro- cop, de Bell. Vandal, i. 7, p. 385; Gregor. Magn. Dialog, iii. 32. The question is, the credibility of such witnesses in such an age. A recent traveller has furnished a curious illustration of this one post-apostolic mira- cle which puzzled Gibbon. The writer is describing Djezzar Pasha's cruel- ties: "Each Emir was held down in a squatting position, with his hands tied behind him, and his face turned upwards. The officiating tefukutchy now approached his victim; and standing over him, as if about to extract a tooth, forced open his mouth, and, darting a hook through the top of the tongue, pulled it out until the root was exposed : one or two passes of a razor sufficed to cut it out. It is a curious fact, however, that the tonyues grew again sufficient for the purposes of speech," Colonel Churchill's Lebanon, vol. iii. p. 384. A friend has suggested this more extraordinary passage: " Zal Khan (condemned by Aga Mohammed Khan to lose his eyes) loaded the tyrant with curses. ' Cut out his tongue ' was the second order. This mandate was imperfectly executed ; and the loss of half this member deprived him of speech. Being afterwards persuaded that its bring cut close to the root would enable him to speak so as to be under- stood, he submitted to the operation, and the effect has been, that his voice, though indistinct and thick, is yet intelligible to persons accustomed U> converse with him. This I experienced from daily intercourse. He CHAP. IV. CONQUEST OF AFRICA. 455 frugal John of Cappadocia, the minister of Justinian, remonstrated against an expedition so costly and so un- certain in its event as the invasion of Africa. His appre- hensions seemed justified by the disastrous and ignomin- ious failure of that under Basiliscus. But John was silenced by a devout bishop. The holy man had seen a vision, which commanded the Catholic Emperor to proceed without fear to the rescue of his Catholic brethren. Africa, subdued by the arms of Belisarius, returned at once under the dominion of the Oonquest of empire and of Catholicism. The Vandal Africa - Arianism had made no proselytes among the hereditary disciples of Cyprian and Augustine, the hearers of Ful- gentius and of Augustine's scholars. Persecution had its usual effect when it stops short of extermination ; it had only strengthened the inflexible orthodoxy of the province. One imperial edict was sufficient A.D. 533. to restore all the churches to the Catholic worship. Donatism, which still survived, though included under often spoke to me of his sufferings. . . ." Sir John Malcolm adds, that he is " ignoranjt of anatomy, . . . but the facts are as stated, and I had them from the very best authority, old Zal Khan himself." Sketches of Persia, ii. p. 116. This mutilation, in fact, is common in the East. I have the authority of Sir John Macneill, " that he knew several persons who had been subjected to that punishment, who spoke so intelligibly as to be able to transact business. More than one of them, finding that my curiosity and interest was excited, showed me the stump.' 1 '' Sir John Macneill's description of the mode of operation fully coincides with the following opinion of the most distinguished surgical authority in England : " There seems to me nothing mysterious in the histories of the excision of the tongue. The mod- ification of the voice forming articulate speech is effected especially py the motions of the soft palate, the tongue, and the lips, and partly by means of the teeth and cheeks. The mutilation of any one of these organs will affect the speech as/if? 1 as that organ is concerned and no farther, the effect being to render the speech more or less imperfect, but not to destroy it altogether. The excision of the whole tongue is an impossible operation." What Colonel Churchill attributed to the growth of the tongue is explained in mother manner. 456 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. the same condemnation, was endowed with more obsti- nate vitality, and was hardly extinguished before the final disruption of Africa from the great Christian sys- tem by Mohammedanism. The Ostrogothic kingdom of Theodoric, in the mean time, was declining through internal dissension ; the inevitable consequence of female sway, and that of a king too early raised to the throne, too soon eman- cipated from his mother's control by the mistaken fondness of the Goths, who, while they desired to Ostrogothic educate him as a warlike Amala among his kingdom. noble peers, abandoned him to the unchecked corruption of Roman manners. Rome conquered Athalaric by her vices. Premature debauchery wasted Death of the bodily frame, and paralyzed the intellect Athaianc. Q t^e young Gothic king. Even the all- accomplished Amalasuntha, who spoke the languages of all her subjects with the most exquisite perfection, and, in some degree, blended the virtues of both races, yet wanted somewhat of the commanding strength of character which hallowed the noble Teutonic female. In an evil hour, while her son was sinking towards the Marriage and grave, she bestowed her hand and the king- death of 1-1 i mi I a. dom on her cousin, the unworthy Iheodo- tus. Theodotus, master of the crown, imprisoned Amalasuntha, and soon put her to death. He then witigee dragged out a few years of inglorious sov- ereignty, till the indignant Goths wrested away the sceptre to place it in the hands of the valiant Witiges. Justinian watched the affairs of Italy without "ce- traying his ambitious designs ; but all who were dissat- isfied with the state of affairs, turned their eyes to the CHAP. IV. BONIFACE II. 457 East. Amalasuntha at one time had determined to abandon the kingdom, to place herself under the pro- tection of Justinian : the fleet was ready to sail to Dyrrachium. Constant amicable intercourse was still taking place between the Catholic clergy of the East and West, between Constantinople and Rome, between Justinian and the rapid succession of Pontiffs, who occupied the throne during the ten years between the death of Theodoric and the invasion of Italy. Felix IV. had just been acknowledged as Pope when Theodoric died ; his peaceful pontificate Pope Feiix lasted four years. The contests for the Pa- 526-530. pacy were not prevented by the agreement under Theodoric. A double election took place on the death of Felix. The partisans of either faction were pre- pared for a fierce struggle, when the timely death of his rival Dioscorus left Boniface II. in undisputed possession of the throne. Yet so exasperated October 14. -r, . , , Boniface II. were me parties, that Boniface would not A.D. 530. allow his competitor to sleep in his grave ; he fulmi- nated an anathema against him as an anti-Pope, and compelled the clergy to sign the decree. It was re- voked during the next pontificate. Boniface was of Gothic blood, 1 perhaps promoted by the Gothic party. He attempted a bold measure in order to get rid of the disgraceful and disastrous scenes of violence A.D. 531. and bribery, which now seemed inveterate in the Papal elections. He proposed that during his lifetime the Pope should nominate his successor ; he proceeded to designate Vigilius, a deacon, who afterwards ascended the Papal throne. An obsequious Council ratified this 1 He was the son of Count Sigisbult or Sigisvult, though called a Roman by Anastasius. Anastas. hi Vit. 458 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. extraordinary proceeding. Both parties, however, equally resented this attempt to wrest from them their A.D. 532. undoubted privilege, and thus to reduce the Papacy to an ordinary inheritance at the disposition of its possessor. In a second Council they showed their repugnance and astonishment at the daring innovation. The Pope acknowledged his own decree to be an act of treason against ecclesiastical and even civil law, burned it in public, and left the election of his suc- cessor to proceed in the old course. 1 There were again at the death of Boniface fierce strife, undisguised bribery, and shame and horror after all was over. Remedies were sought for this ineradicable disease. Dec. si, 532. On the death of Boniface, the Roman Senate resumed some of its ancient authority, and issued an edict prohibiting these base and venal proceedings, during which the funds designed for the poor were loaded with debts, even the sacred vessels sold for these simoniacal uses. Athalaric confirmed this edict. 2 John II., whose former name was Mercurius, ruled for three years. During his papacy arrived a splendid embassy from the East, with magnificent offerings, golden vessels, chalices of silver, jewels, and curtains of cloth of gold for the Church of St. Peter. The pretext was a deferential consultation with the Pope, concerning A.D. 634. the sleepless monks, who were still not with- out some Nestorian tendencies. At the same time 1 Anastas. in Vit, and Labbe, p. 1690. 8 " Ita facilitates pauperum extortis promissionibus ingravasse, ut (quod dictu nefas est) etiam sacra vasa emptioni publics viderentur exposita." Athalar. Reg. Epist. apud Labbe, p. 1743. This law annulled all bargains made for the appointment to bishoprics. It declared the offence to be sac- rilege; and limited the payments to the chancery on contested elections, for the papacy to 3000 golden solidi, for archbishoprics or bishoprics to 2000 The largess to the poor was restricted to 500. CHAP. IV. AGAPETUS. 459 came an ambassador to Theodotus, now Ostrogothic King, with expostulations, or rather imperious me- naces, on alleged violations of the treaties -between the Gothic kingdom and the Empire. During the short and troubled reign of Theodotus, Justinian received petitions from all parts of Italy, and from all persons, lay as well as clerical, with the air and tone of its Sovereign. The aged Agapetus had succeded to the Roman See before Justinian prepared for the actual in- Agapetus. vasion of Italy. In the agony of his fear June 3 ' 635 ' Theodotus the Goth had recourse to the same measure which Theodoric had adopted in his pride. He per- suaded or compelled the Pope to proceed on an em- bassy to Constantinople, to ward off the impending danger, to use his influence and authority lest a Roman and orthodox Emperor should persist in his attempt to wrest Italy and Rome from a barbarous Arian ; and Theodotus commanded the Prelate to be the bearer of menaces more befitting the herald of war. He was to declare the determination of the Goth, if Jus- tinian should fulfil his hostile designs, to put the Senate to the sword, and raze the city of the CaBsars to the ground. 1 Like his predecessor, Agapetus was received with the highest honors. Justinian had already suspended, for a short time, his warlike preparations ; but Agapetus found affairs more within his A . 1-1 i i -i i T i i Q Const province, which enabled him to display to tinopie. the despot of the East the bold and independent tone assumed even against the throne by the ecclesias- tics of the West. The See of Constantinople was vacant. The all-powerful Theodora summoned Anthi- 1 The embassy was in Constantinople, Feb. 2, 536. Constan- 460 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III mus, bishop of Trebisond, to the Metropolitan diocese. Anthimus was suspected as tainted with Eutychian opinions. Agapetus resolutely declined to communi- cate with a Prelate, whose appointment not merely violated the Canon against translation from one see to another, but one likewise of doubtful orthodoxy. The venal partisans of Anthimus and of Theodora insin- uated countercharges of Nestorian inclinations against the Bishop of Rome. 2 Agapetus, in a conference, condescended to satisfy the Emperor as to his own unimpeachable orthodoxy. Justinian sternly com- manded him to communicate with Anthimus. " With the Bishop of Trebisond," replied the unawed ecclesi- astic, "when he has returned to his diocese, and ac- cepted the Council of Chalcedon and the letters of Leo." The Emperor in a louder voice commanded him to acknowledge the Bishop of Constantinople on pain of immediate exile. " I came hither in my old age to see, as I supposed, a religious and a Christian Emperor, I find a new Diocletian. But I fear not Kings' menaces, I am ready to lay down my life for the truth." The feeble mind of Justinian passed at once from the height of arrogance to admiration and respect : he listened to the charges advanced by Aga- petus against the orthodoxy of Anthimus. In his turn the Bishop of Constantinople was summoned to render an account of his theology before the Emperor, convicted of Eutychianism, and degraded from the see. Mennas, nominated in his room, was consecrated by the Pope. Thus one patriarch of Constantinople was de- Apni 22, 536. graded, another promoted by the influence, if not by the authority (the distinction was not marked, 1 Libellus de Reb. Gestis ab Agap. ad Constant, apud Baronium, 536. CHAP. IV. ROME SURRENDERED TO BELISAEIUS. 461 as in later theologic disputes) of the Bishop of Rome. Agapetus did not live long to enjoy his triumph ; he died at Constantinople ; his funeral rites were cele- brated with great magnificence ; his body sent to Rome. His memory was venerated alike in the East and in the West. But the next few years beheld the Papacy degraded from its lofty and independent dignity. Rome Justinian con " i i i f -i i -n luers Italy was now within the dominions ot the sole Lin- ami Rome. peror of the world. Belisarius, in his unchecked career of conquest, had subdued Africa, Sicily, Naples ; he entered undefended Rome as its master. 1 The Pope became first the victim, then the base instrument of the temporal power. Rome, now a city of the Eastern Empire, was brought at once within the sphere of the female intrigues of Constantinople ; one Pope, Silverius, suffered degradation ; another, the most doubtful char- acter who had yet sat on the throne of St. Peter, receiv- ed his appointment through the arts of the infamous Theodora, and suffered the judicial punishment of his weaknesses and crimes, persecution, shame, remorse. Silverius, the new Pope, was the son of the former Pontiff Hormisdas, the legitimate son, born before the father had taken holy orders. Silverius was Rome sm- Bishop of Rome by command of Theodotus, yet undegraded from the Ostrogothic throne. 2 But the Romans saw with undisguised but miscalculating pride, the Roman banners, floating over the army of Belisarius, approach their walls. The Pope dared (the Goths were in confusion at the degradation of The- 1 See the war in Gibbon, ch. xli. 2 Sine deliberatione decreti, Vit Sylv. Confer. Marcell. Chron. Jaffe Begesta, sub ann. 536. He was consecrated June 8. ! ,2 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK IIL odotus, and the elevation of Witiges) to urge the Romans to send an ambassador to hail the deliverer of the city from the barbaric Goth. 1 The Bishop of Rome received the General of the East, and, as it were. restored Rome to the Roman empire. Belisarim v, a< lord of the Capitol, and at once the consequence of Rome's subjugation to the East broke upon the Pope and upon Rome. Theodora had never abandoned her hopes of promoting her favorite, Anthimus, to the See of Constantinople ; she entered into a league with the Deacon Vigilius, who had accompanied the Pope Aga- vigiiiiu. petus into the East. Vigilius was a man of unmeasured ambition, and great ability ; 2 he had been designated as his successor by Pope Boniface ; and when the unanimous voice of the clergy and the people wrested from Boniface the usurped right of nominating his successor, Vigilius was left to brood over other means of obtaining the pontificate. The compact pro- posed by the Empress, and accepted by the unscrupu- lous Vigilius, stipulated on her part the degradation of Silverius, and a large sum of money, no doubt to secure his election, and to consolidate his interest in Rome ; on that of the ecclesiastic, no less than the condemna- tion of the Council of Chalcedon, and the acknowledg- ment of Anthimus, as Bishop of Constantinople. The degradation of Silverius was intrusted not to the all- powerful Belisarius alone, but to the surer hands of his wife Antonina, the accomplice of the Empress in all her intrigues of every kind, and her counterpart in the 1 MoAumz & abrovf ZA&ptof elf TOVTO kvrrytv, 6 rfiode TTK nofeus ha- Utepevf. Procop. de B. G. i. c. 14. * " Lubenter ergo suscepit Vigilius permissum ejus, aniore episcopates et turi.'' Liberal. Breviar. c. sxii. CHAP. IT. VIGILIUS. 463 arbitrary power with which she ruled her glorious but easy husband. The Pope Silverius was accused of treasonable correspondence with the Goths, witnesses were suborned to support this improbable charge against him who had yielded up the city to the con- queror. Belisarius, it is said, endeavored to save the Pope from degradation, by inducing him to February, accede to the wishes of Theodora, to con- March) ^ demn the Council of Chalcedon, and to communicate with Anthimus. The resolution of Silverius, who firmly rejected these propositions, left him the defence- !>.-< victim of Vigilius and of Antonina. The successor of St. Peter was rudely summoned to the Pincian Palace, the military quarters of Belisarius. In the chamber of the General sat Antonina on the bed, with her husband at her feet. " What have we done," ex- claimed the imperious woman, " to you, Pope Silverius, and to the Romans, that you should betray us to the Goths?" In an instant the pall was rent from his shoulders by a subdeacon, he was hurried into another room, stripped of the rest of his dress, and clad in that of a monk. The clergy who accompanied him were informed of his degradation in a few careless words, " The Pope Silverius is deposed, and is now a monk." The most extraordinary part of this strange transaction is the utter ignorance of Justinian of the whole in- trigue. From Patara, the place of his banishment, Silverius made his way to Constantinople, and to the amazement of the Emperor preferred his complaint of the unjust violence with which he had been expelled from his See. Justinian commanded his instant return to Rome. If, on further investigation, it should appear that he had been unjustly accused of treason, he was 464 LATIN* CHRISTIANITY. BOOK HI. to be reinstated in his dignity. The sudden reappear- ance of Silverius in Rome (he had outsailed the mes- sengers of Theodora) embarrassed for a time, only for a short time, the unscrupulous Vigilius, and his more than imperial patrons. By the influence of Antonina, Silverius was delivered up to his rival, and banished by him who aspired to be the head of Christendom, to the island of Pandataria, infamous as the place of exile to which the worst heathen emperors had consigned the victims of their tyranny. On this wretched rock Sil- verius soon closed his life, whether in the course of nature or by violent means, seems to have been known with no more certainty in his own days than in ours. 1 Vigilius was now, by command of Belisarius, 2 the violins undisputed Pontiff of Rome. 3 He had paid Pope. A.D. 544. already a fearful price for his advancement, false accusation, cruel oppression, perhaps murder. At Rome he declares his adhesion to the four councils and to the letter of Leo ; he approves the anathema of Mennas of Constantinople against the Munophy- sites. 4 But four years after, Theodora demanded, and Vigilius dared not refuse, the rest of his unholy cove- nant, at least the base and secret adoption of all her heretical opinions. In a letter still extant, 5 but con- 1 An.istasii rita. Liberatus writes briefly and significantly, 4i Solus in- gressus a suis ulterius non est visus." Breviar. c. xxiii. 2 'Erspov Se apxiepia. oMyu ixrrepav BtyiAww wopa /torfffr^daro. So writes the Greek Procopius of Belisarius. * The date of his accession is a point of grave dispute. If it is reckoned from his first nomination to the see, he can only be held an uncanonical usurper of an unvacated see, and that nomination must have been null and void. A second election therefore has been supposed; but of this event there is no accredited record. It is impossible so to connect the broken links of the spiritual genealogy. 4 A.I). 540, September 17. Mansi. ix. 35, 38. 6 The letter is given by Liberatus. One main argument against its an- CHAP. IT. T1GILIUS POPE. 465 tested on account of its damning effect on one who was, or who afterwards became Pope, rather than from any mark, either external or internal, of spuriousness, Vigilius gave his deliberate adhesion to Eutychianism. The busy and restless theology of the East had now raised a new question, and Justinian aspired to the dignity of a profound divine, and a legislator of Chris- tian doctrine as well as of Christian civil affairs. He plunged with headstrong zeal into the controversy. 1 The Church was not now disturbed by the sublime, if inexplicable, dogmas concerning the nature of God, the Persons of the Trinity, or the union of the divine and human nature of Christ ; concerning the revela- tions of Scripture, or even the opinions of the ancient fathers : the orthodoxy or heterodoxy of certain writ- ings by bishops, but recently dead, became the subject of Imperial edicts, of a fifth so called CEcumenic Coun- cil, held at Constantinople, and a religious war between the East and the West. Under the name of the three Chapters, the Emperor and the obsequious Council thenticity is, that he was never charged with it by his enemies or by Jus- tinian. But it was a private letter to Theodora, and contains this sentence, " Oportet ergo, ut haec quse vobis scribo, nullus agnoscat." The letter may not have come to light till after the death of Theodora. But, with some mistrust of their own feeble critical arguments, the high papal writers assert that Vigilius, when he wrote this letter, was only an antipope and a schis- matic. His subsequent legitimate election arrayed him in perfect Christian faith and virtue. He became officially orthodox. Binii not. in Liberatum. Dupin ventures to say that Liberatus is better authority than either Baronius or Binius. 1 Justinian had already made an essay of his theological powers. In Palestine the controversy concerning the opinions of Origen had broken out again, and caused violent popular tumults. Pelagius, the legate of the Pope, and the Patriarch of Constantinople Mennas, urged the interference of Justinian. The emperor threw himself headlong into the dispute, and issued an encyclic letter, condemning the Origenists : the imperial anathema was subscribed by Mennas and many other bishops of Constantinople. VOL. i. 30 403 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK HI condemned certain works of Theodorus of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrus, and Ibas of Edessa. 1 These writ- ings, though questionable as the source of, or as infected with Nestorianism, had passed uncondemned by the Council of Chalcedon. The imperial edict usurped the form of a confession of faith, and trespassed on the exclusive right of the clergy to anathematize the holders of erroneous doctrines. Great part of the submissive or consentient East received the dictates of the imperial theologian ; the West as generally and resolutely re- fused compliance. Vigilius was peremptorily sum- A.D. 544. moned to Constantinople. He set forth, loaded with the imprecations of the Roman people, and assailed with volleys of stones, as the murderer of Silverius, and a man of notorious cruelty. It was said that he had killed one of his own secretaries in a fit of passion, and caused his nephew, the son of his sister, to be scourged to death. " May famine and pestilence pursue thee ; evil hast thou done to us, may evil overtake thee wherever thou art." A strong guard protected his person first to Sicily, and thence after near two years' delay to Constantinople. His departure from Rome was fortunate for himself, fortunate pei'haps for the dignity of the Papacy. Dur- ing his absence, Rome was besieged by the Goths. A supply of corn sent by Vigilius from Sicily was inter- 1 The condemnation of the three chapters implied at least a covert cen- sure of the Council of Chalcedon. I. The fathers of that council had re- ceived Theodoret into communion, and, content with his condemnation of Nestorius, had not demanded his retractation of his writings against Cyril of Alexandria. II. They had inserted in their proceedings a letter from Ibas of Edessa to the Persian Maris, in which he highly praised Theodorus of Mopsuestia, the master of Nestorius, blamed Cyril, and accused the Council of Ephesus as having too hastily condemned Nestorius. Anastas. in Vita. CHAP. IV. VIGILIUS AT CONSTANTINOPLE. 467 cepted on the Tiber by the barbarians ; the Bishop Valentinus, who accompanied it, was summoned before the savage conqueror, and appearing to prevaricate, was mutilated by cutting off both his hands. It was fortu- nate on another account : Constantinople alone wit- nessed the weakness and tergiversations of Vigilius, who at least three times pliantly yielded to, and then desperately resisted the theologic dictatorship of Jus- tinian ; three times condemned the three Chapters, three times recanted his condemnation. Constanti- nople alone witnessed the personal indignities, the per- secutions of which reports, perhaps exaggerated, reached the West, but which were neither rendered glorious to a servant of Christ by Christian blamelessness (the sense of which might have allayed their bitterness) or by Christian meekness and resolution, which might have turned them to his honor and to his peace. He had the sufferings, but neither the outward dignity nor the inward consolation of martyrdom. It was a perilous crisis for a Prelate so ambitious, yet so double-minded, so trammelled by former obligations, and so bound by common guilt to one of the A.D. 548. contending parties. For there was division in the court ; Justinian and Theodora, as throughout in re- ligious interests, were on opposite sides ; the East and the West were irreconcilably adverse. Vigilius was emboldened by his honorable reception in Constanti- nople ; the Emperor and the Pope are said to June 11, 584. have wept, when they first met. 1 The death of Theo- dora soon relieved Vigilius from some part of his embar- rassment. Yet he miscalculated his power, and dared to resist the Imperial will ; he refused to condemn the 1 Anastas. in Vit. 468 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK HI. three Chapters. He even ventured to address the Em- peror under the favorite appellation, bestowed on all imperial opponents of ecclesiastical authority, as a new Diocletian. He excluded from his communion Men- nas, the Patriarch of Constantinople; he excommuni- cated Theodoras of Cesarea, and even the departed Empress herself. Mennas threw back the anathema, and on his side excommunicated the Pope. Vigilius was ere long obliged to withdraw his censures, and to reconcile himself with the rival Prelate. Scarcely, indeed, had many months passed before the Pope at the head of a Council of seventy bishops, issued his A..648. infallible anathema against the three Chap- ters. The West at once threw off its allegiance, and refused to listen to the ingenious sophistry with which Vigilius attempted to reconcile his solemn judgment with his former opinions. Illyricum, Africa with all her old dauntless pertinacity, even his own clergy revolted against the renegade Pope. He revoked his imprudent concessions, recanted his recantation, and prevailed on the Emperor to summon a Council, in order, it should seem, either to obtain the support of the Council against the Emperor, or to compel the Western bishops to give up their resistance. The Eastern prelates assembled in great numbers at the Council, the Western stood aloof. Vigilius refused to sanction or recognize the Council in the absence of the Western bishops. Justinian, indignant at the delay, promulgated a new edict, condemning the three Chap- ters in still stronger terms on his own plenary au- thority. Vigilius assembled as many bishops as he could collect, solemnly protested against the usurpation of ecclesiastical authority, and cut off from his com- CHAP. IV. FYTT.F. OF YIGHIUS. 469 munion all who received the edict. But a Byzantine despot was not to be thus trifled with or boldly bearded in his own capital, and the Eastern bishops refused to hold communion with the successor of St. Peter. Ap- prehensive of violence, the Pope took refuge in a sanctu- ary ; but neither the Emperor nor his troops were dis- posed to reverence the sacred right of asylum. They attempted to drag him forth by the feet, he clung to the altar, and being a large and powerful man, the pillars of the baldachin gave way, and the whole fell crumbling upon him. 1 The populace could not behold without compassion these personal outrages, heaped on a venerable ecclesiastic ; the imperial officers were obliged to retire and leave Vigilius within the church. He was persuaded, however, on certain terms to leave his sanctuary. Again he suffered, according to rumors propagated in the West, still more barbarous usage ; he was said to have been dragged through the city with a rope round his neck, and reproached with his crimes and cruelties, then committed to a common dungeon, and kept on the hardest prison diet, A.D. 552. bread and water. A second time escaped to his sanc- tuary, and from thence by night fled over the sea to Chalcedon. There he took refuge in the more awful and inviolable sanctuary of Saint Euphemia. The Emperor condescended to capitulate on honorable terms with the Prelate. He revoked his edict, and left the three Chapters to the decrees of the Council. Vigilius had promised to be present at the Council ; but dared not confront alone the host of Eastern bishops who com- 1 Vigilius himself relates the former outrage, but does not mention par- ticularly the other indignities : but he says, " Dum mnlta mala intolerabilia ssepius pateremur quae jam omnibus nota esse confidimus." Epist. En- :yd. apud Labbe, p. 330. 470 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. posed it. The Council, according to the dominant sentiment of the East, renewed the condemnation of the three Chapters. Vigilius with difficulty collected A.B. 653. sixteen Western bishops, issued a protest against the decree, and a Constitution, solemnly ac- quitting the three Chapters of heresy. The wrath of the Emperor was again kindled ; l Vigilius was once more seized and sent in exile to the dreary and solitary rock of Proconnesus. There his courage or his pa- tience failed. Alarming reports reached him, that his name was to be struck out of the diptychs ; that orders were preparing for Rome to elect a new bishop. He intimated that now, at length, on more studious examination, he had detected the subtle and latent errors which had so long escaped his impeccable judg- A.D. 554. ment, and was prepared with a Constitution, condemnatory of those baneful writings. He was re- called to Constantinople, obtained leave, after his full June 7, 554. submission, to return to Rome, but died in Sicily of the stone, before he could reach his see. Such was the miserable fate of a Pope who came into direct collision with the Imperial despotism of Constantinople. A Prelate of unimpeachable charac- ter, uncommitted by base subserviency to the court, and who had not owed his elevation to unworthy means, or one of more firm religious courage, might have escaped some portion of the degradation and contempt endured by Vigilius ; but it is impossible not to ob- serve again how much the Papal power owed to the position of Rome. Even its freedom, far more its 1 Theodorus of Cesarea was the ecclesiastic who ruled the mind of Jus- tinian. See the imperfect anathema and sentence of deposition against nim. Labbe. PELAGIUS. 471 authority, arose out of its having ceased to be the seat of Imperial government, and the residence of the Em- peror. During the conquest of Italy by the Eastern Emperors, and for some time after, the Pope was not confronted indeed in Rome by a resident Emperor, but summoned at the will of the Emperor to Constanti- nople, or in Rome rebuked before a victorious general, or an Exarch, who, though he held his court at Ra- venna, executed the commands of a sovereign accus- tomed to dictate, rather than submit to ecclesiastical power. At scarcely any period did the papal authority suffer greater degradation, or were the persons of the Popes reduced to more humiliating subserviency. Nor is this passive humiliation, which, by the patient dig- nity with which it is endured, may elevate the char- acter of the sufferer ; he is mingled up in the intrigues of the court, and contaminated with its base venality. He is hardly more independent or authoritative than the Patriarch of Constantinople. The successor of Vigilius was Pelagius I. Pelagius had been the legate or ambassador of Vigilius A.D.SSG. at the court of Constantinople. He had won the favor of Justinian, and accumulated considerable wealth. He returned to Rome, a short time before it was be- sieged by Totila ; and the wealth, obtained it might seem by doubtful means in the East, was nobly dis- pensed among the poor and famishing inhabitants of the beleaguered city. Pelagius during the popedom of Vigilius had been employed on the most important services. When the Goths again contested the domin- ion of Italy, he had undertaken an embassy in the name of the Romans to avert the wrath of Totila ; he had been received with stately courtesy, but dismissed 472 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. with no concession on the part of the Goth. 1 After the capture of the city, when the victorious Totila t'lircivd the church of St. Peter to perform his devotions, he- was met again by Pelagius, with the Gospel in his hands. " Have mercy on thy subjects," implored the earnest priest. "Now," tauntingly replied Totila, " you condescend to appear as a suppliant." " God," answered Pelagius, " has made us your subjects, be merciful to us on that account." His calm and sub- missive demeanor arrested the wrath of the con- queror. Rome owed to his intercession the lives of her citizens, and the chastity of her females. Mas- sacre and violation were arrested ; the discipline of the Goths respected the command of their king. Pelagius A.D M9. was sent by Totila as his ambassador to Con- stantinople to demand peace, under the menace, that the Goth, if Justinian persisted in his hostility, would destroy Rome, and put the Senate to the sword. 2 Pe- lagius again in Constantinople, adhered as a faithful partisan to Vigilius, with him he resisted the theologic tyranny of Justinian ; and, if he did not share his hard usage and exile, was left to neglect and misery. With Vigilius, having shown himself too pliant to the impe- rial doctrines, he returned to Rome, and on the death of Vigilius, by the command of Justinian, was elevated to the See. 8 But now in Rome, all his former benefac- tions to the city were forgotten in his treacherous abandonment of the orthodoxy of the West, and his servile compliance with the will of the Emperor ; he could not assemble from all the reluctant order three 1 Procop. de Bell. Gothic., iii. 16. 2 Procop. de Bell. Gothic., iii. 20. 8 According to Victor Turon, he at first defended, then recalled from ex- ile, condemned the three chapters (ap. Roncagl. ii. 377). CHAP. IV. PELAGIUS. 473 bishops for the ceremonial of his consecra- June 7, 656. tion ; it was performed by two bishops and a presby- ter. 1 His favor with Justinian exposed him to worse, doubtless to unjust suspicions. He was accused of having been the instigator in Constantinople of all the cruelties suffered by Vigilius. The monks, many of the clergy, and of the nobility of Rome, withdrew from his communion. Even when Xarses reconquered Rome, the avowed protection of the Emperor's victo- rious representative could not restore the public con- fidence to Pelagius. The Pope, with the general by his side, went in solemn procession, chanting a Litany, to the Church of St. Peter; and there Pelagius as- cended the chancel, and holding above his head the Book of the Gospels, and the Cross, solemnly declared that he had never wrought or suggested any evil against Vigilius. Pelagius added, and to this he demanded the assent of the people, a strong denunciation of all, who from the door-keeper up to the bishop should at- tempt to obtain any ecclesiastical office by simony. 2 Rome, after this expurgation, acquiesced in the rule of her Pontiff. But the Western bishops could not forgive his adhesion to the fifth Council of Constanti- nople, whose decrees had in some degree impeached those of the great Council of Chalcedon. Even in Italy the bishops of Tuscany would not admit his name into their sacramental liturgy. Pelagius bitterly re- proached them with thus yielding to vulgar clamor; by separating themselves from the communion of an Apostolic See they had separated themselves from the communion of all Christendom. But he thought it 'necessary to declare his unreserved acceptance of all 1 Victor Turon., apud Roncagl. 2 Marcell. Chronic, apud Roncagli. 474 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III the four great Councils (maintaining a prudent silence as to the fifth), and the Letter of his predecessor Leo. Whoever should not be content with this declaration, might demand further explanation from the Pope himself. Yet he condemned all that his predecessors had condemned, venerated as orthodox all that tlu-y re- ceived, especially the saintly prelates, Theodoret and Ibas. 1 The Pope addressed a letter to the whole Christian world, in which, after reasserting his allegi- ance to the four Councils, he attempted to justify the fifth as in no way impeaching the authority of Chalce- don. A new royal theologian, Childebert, king of the Franks, entered the field, and required a more explicit statement. With this the Pope condescended to com- ply ; he sent his confession of faith to the Kinir, with an admonition to the orthodox sovereign to exercise vigilance over all heretics within his dominions. Still some obstinate dioceses, chiefly of Venetia and Istria, refused communion with all who adhered to the Synod of Constantinople. Pelagius had recourse to the all- powerful Narses to enforce submission ; the most re- fractory, the Bishop of Aquileia and the Bishop of Milan, who had uncanonically consecrated that prelate, were sent prisoners to Constantinople. On the death of Pelagius, 2 Rome waited in obse- quious submission the permission of the Emperor to July 14, 560. inaugurate her new Pope, John III. The period between the accession of John III. and that of Gregory the Great is among the most barren and obscure in the annals of the papacy. One act of mis- judging authority, and one of intercession, are recorded during the pontificate of John. He received, accord- 1 Musi. ix. 17. * Pelagius died 560. CHAP. IV. THE EUXUCH NAKSES. 475 ing to the permission of the Frankish King, Gunthram, the appeal of two bishops, Salonius of Embrun and Sagittarius of Gap, 1 who had been deposed for crimes most unbefitting their order by a synod at Lyons. These -were the first Christian bishops who had ap- peared in arms, the prototypes of the warlike and robber-prelates of later times. The Pope urged their restoration, the King assented : but the rein- stated prelates returned to their lawless and unepis- copal courses, and were again degraded by the common indignation. The act of intercession was more worthy of the head of Western Christendom. The Eunuch Nar- A.. 552-567. ses had ruled Italy and Rome as Exarch for fifteen years since the conquest, with vigor and justice. Justinian and Theodora had gone to their account ; the throne of the East was occupied by Justin the younger. But the province groaned under the rapac- ity of Narses. Petitions were sent to Constantinople with the significant words, that the yoke of the bar- barian Gauls was lighter than this Roman tyranny. Narses was superseded by the Exarch Longinus, insult was added to his degradation. " Let him to his dis- taff," is the speech ascribed to the imperious wife of the Emperor Justin the younger. "I will weave her such a web as she will find it hard to unravel," re- joined the indignant Eunuch. He returned to Naples, from whence he entered into negotiations with the terrible Lombards, who had once already invaded Italy. Revolt, with Narses at its head, threatened the peace of Italy. The Pope undertook an embassy to Naples, appeased the wrathful Eunuch, who return- 1 Ebrodonum. Vapincum. 476 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III ed to Rome, and closed his days as a peaceful subject of the empire. The few years of the pontificate of Benedict I. were Benedict i. occupied with the miseries of the Lombard Junes, 574. j nv asion. His successor Pelagius II. in those disastrous times was consecrated without awaiting the sanction of the Emperor. 1 Pelagius in vain endeavored NOT. 27, 688. to reduce the bishops of the north of Italy to accept the fifth Council of Constantinople. Some who were now under the Lombard dominion paid no regard to his expostulations; a synod at Grado re- jected his mandates, and the bishops defied the power of the Exarch, through whom Pelagius sought to awe them to submission. Yet Pelagius, in one respect, maintained all the haughtiness of his See. The A.D. 688. Bishop of Constantinople had again assumed the title of CEcumenic Patriarch, the assumption was confirmed by a Council at Constantinople. Pelagius protested against this execrable, sacrilegious, diabolic A.D. 590. usurpation : but in Constantinople his invec- tives made no impression. Pelagius was succeeded by Gregory the Great. Since the conquest of Italy the Popes had been the humble subjects of the Eastern Emperor. They were appointed, if not directly by his mandate, under his influence. They dared not assume their throne with- out his permission. The Roman Ordinal of that time declares the election incomplete and invalid till it had received the imperial sanction. 2 Months elapsed, in the case of Benedict ten months, before the clergy ventured to proceed to the consecration. 1 Sine jussione Principis, Vit. Pelag. II. * Compare Schroeck, xvii. p. 236. CHAP. IT. OVERTHROW OF THE GOTHIC KINGDOM. 477 Pelagius II. was chosen when Rome was invested by the Lombards ; for this ignominious reason he had been consecrated without the consent of the Emperor. The conquest of Italy by the Greeks was, to a great extent at least, the work of the Catholic clergy. Their impatience under a foreign and an Arian yoke is by no means surprising; nor could they anticipate that the return to Roman dominion would be the worst evil yet endured by Italy. Rome suffered more under the al- ternate sieges and alternate capture by the Byzantines and the Goths than it had from A'laric or even Gen- seric, as much perhaps as in its later sieges bv Robert Guiscard, and by the Constable Bourbon. The feeble but tyrannical Exarchs soon made Italy regret the just, if oppressive and ungenial rule of the Goths. The overthrow of the Gothic kingdom was to Italy an un- mitigated evil. A monarch like Witiges or Totila would soon have repaired the mischiefs caused by the degenerate successors of Theodoric, Athaluric and o ' Theodotus. In their overthrow began the fatal policy of the Roman See, fatal at least to Italy (however, by the aggrandizement of the Roman See, it may have been, up to a certain time, beneficial to northern Chris- tendom), which never would permit a powerful native kingdom to unite Italy, or a very large part of it, under one dominion. Whatever it may have been to Chris- tendom, the Papacy has been the eternal, implacable foe of Italian independence and Italian unity ; and so (as far as independence and unity might have given dignity, political weight, and prosperity) to the welfare of Italy. On every occasion the Goths, the Lom- bards, as later the Normans and the House of Arra- gon, found their deadliest enemies in the popes. As 478 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. now from the East, so then from beyond the Alps, they summoned some more remote potentate, Charle- magne, the Othos, Charles VIII., Charles of Anjou, almost always worse tyrants than those whom they overthrew. From that time servitude, servitude to the stranger, was the doom of Italy. To Rome herself, the foreign sovereign (the tyranny of the Eastern Em- peror and his Exarchs was an admonition of what the transalpine emperors might hereafter prove) was hardly less dangerous than a native and indigenous sovereign would have been. And if the papacy had been more confined to its religious power, less tempted or less com- pelled to assume temporal as well as ecclesiastical su- premacy, that power had been immeasurably greater, as less involved in political strife, less exposed to that kind of personal collision with the temporal monarchy, in which a sovereignty which rests on the awe and rev- erence of men must suffer ; it might have maintained its ecclesiastical supremacy over obedient and tributary Christendom, even held as vast possessions on the ten- ure not of a temporal princedom, but of an ecclesiasti- cal endowment ; and thus more entirely ruled the minds of men by confining its authority to that nobler and, for a time at least, more unassailable province. Rome, jealous of all temporal sovereignty but her own, for centuries yielded up, or rather made Italy a battle field to the Transalpine and the stranger ; and at the same time so secularized her own spiritual suprem- acy as to confound altogether the priest and the poli- tician, to degrade absolutely and almost irrevocably the kingdom of Christ into a kingdom of this world. CHAP. V. FIRST EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 479 CHAPTER V. CHRISTIAN JURISPRUDENCE.! CHRISTIANITY had been now for more than two cen- turies the established religion of the Roman Empire ; it was the religion of all those independent kingdoms which were forming themselves within the dissevered provinces of Rome. Between the religion and the laws of all nations must subsist an intimate and indis- soluble connection. During all that period the vast and august jurisprudence of Rome had been constantly en- larged by new imperial edicts or authoritative decrees, supplementary to, or corrective and interpretative of, the ancient statutes. I. The jurisprudence of the old Roman Empire at first admitted, but only in a limited degree, this modi- fying power of Christianity. The laws which were purely Christian were hardly more than accessory and supplementary to the vast code which had accumulated from the days of the republic, through the great law- yers of the empire, down to Theodosius and Justinian. But the complete moral, social, and in some sense polit- ical revolution, through Christianity, could not be with- 1 Let me not be suspected of the vain ambition of emulating Gibbon'a splendid chapter on Roman Law, which has become the text-book in uni- versities (see my edition of Gibbon). My object is more narrow and limited; and appeared necessary to the history even of Latin Christianity; to show the interworking of Christianity into the Roman jurisprudence. 480 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK HI. out influence, both as creating a necessity for new laws adapted to the present order of things, or as control- ling, through the mind of the legislator, the general temper and spirit of the legislation. A Christian Em- First effects peror could not exclude this influence from ity. his mind, either as affecting his moral appre- ciation of certain obligations and transgressions, or as ascertaining and defining the social position, the rights and duties, of new classes and divisions of his subjects. Under Christianity a new order of men of a peculiar character, with special privileges, immunities, and functions, had grown up throughout the whole society ; new corporate bodies, the churches and the monaster- ies, had been formed, holding property of every kind by a new tenure ; certain offences in the penal code were now looked on with a milder or more severe aspect; a more strict morality had attempted to knit more closely some of the relations of life ; vices which had been tolerated became crimes against social order ; and an offence, absolutely new in the extent of odious- ness in which it was held, and the rigor with which it was punished, Heresy, or dissent from the dominant religion, in all its various forms, had been introduced into the criminal jurisdiction, not of the Church only, but of the Empire. The imperial legislation could not refuse, it was not inclined to refuse, to take cognizance of this novel order of things, and to adapt itself to the necessities of the age. II. The Barbaric Codes, which embodied in written Barbaric statutes the unwritten, immemorial, and tra- ditionary laws and usages of the Teutonic tribes (the common law of the German forests), assum- ing their positive form after the different races had sub- CHAP. V. CHRISTIAN JURISPRUDENCE. 481 mitted to Christianity, were more completely interpen- etrated, as it were, with Christian influences. The unlettered barbarians willingly accepted the aid of the lettered clergy, still chiefly of Roman birth, to reduce to writing the institutes of their forefathers. Though these codes therefore, in their general character and main principles, are essentially Teutonic in their broad principles are deduced from the free usages of the old German tribes yet throughout they are mod- ified by Christian notions, and admit a singular infu- sion, not merely of the precepts of the New Testa- ment, but of the positive laws of the Old. But III. Christianity had its own peculiar and special jurisprudence. The Christian com- Christian ju- munity, or rather the separate communities, ns P rudence had originally exercised this power of internal legisla- tion. They held each its separate tribunal, which ad- judicated not only on religious matters, but, as an acknowledged wise and venerated arbitrator, in civil litigation. This legislation and administration of law had gradually become vested in the clergy alone ; and, instead of each community ruling its own internal con- cerns, and presiding over its own separate members, the Church, as chiefly represented by the bishops, either in local or national synods, or in general coun- cils, enacted statutes or canons, considered binding on the whole Christian world. The sanctions of this Christian jurisprudence were properly altogether relig- ious : they rested on opinion, on the voluntary submis- sion of each individual mind to spiritual authority. Their punishments and rewards were properly those of the life to come. The only punishments in this world were those of the penitential discipline, or excommuni- VOL. I. 31 482 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK HI cation from the Christian society, which was tanta- mount, with all who believed salvation to be the exclu- sive privilege of the Church, to a sentence of eternal damnation. Those who braved that disfranchisement who either, as the Jews, never had entered within the community, or as holding heretical opinions had renounced it were rightfully beyond its jurisdiction. The legislators and administrators of the laws had lost all cognizance over those upon whose faith or whose fears they had no hold. These were outlaws, who, as they blindly or obstinately disclaimed the inestimable privileges of the Church, could not be amenable at least to its temporal penalties. Unhappily the civil and canon, the Imperial and Christian, legislation would not maintain their respective boundaries. This arose partly from the established constitutional doctrine of Rome, that the Republic (now the Emperor) was the religious as well as the civil head of the Empire ; partly from the blindness of Christian zeal, which thought all means lawful to advance the true, or to sup- press erroneous, belief; and therefore fell into the irrec- oncilable contradiction of inflicting temporal penalties by temporal hands for spiritual offences. Athanasius 8npremcj hailed and applauded the full civil supremacy of the state when it commanded the exile of Arius ; contested, resisted, branded it as usurping tyr- anny, when it would exact obedience from himself. Thus, though the Councils were the proper legislative senates of Christianity, so long as the Empire lasted in the West, even later; and in the East down to the latest times ; the Emperors enacted and enforced the observation of the ecclesiastical as well as of the civil law. Theodosius and Gratian define or ratify the defi- CHAP. V. CODE OF JUSTINIAN. 483 nition of doctrines, declare and condemn heietics. Jus- tinian is a kind of Caliph of Christianity, at once in the authoritative tone and in the subjects which he Comprehends under his decrees he is a Pope and an Emperor. In the barbaric codes there is the same ab- solute supremacy of the sovereign law in theory the same, but restricted by the more limited royal power, and the peculiar relation of the clergy to tribes newly converted to Christianity. Where there is a strong monarchy, it assumes a dominion scarcely less full and complete than under the Christian Emperors. Charle- magne, in his imperial edicts, is at once the legislator of the Church and of the State. Thus then in Christendom there are three systems of jurisprudence, the Roman Law, the Barbaric Three 8yg _ or Teutonic Law, the Law of the Church tem30fu " r this hist, as yet but young, humble and limited in its pretensions, a discipline rather than a law, or confined, in a great degree, to the special observance of the cler- gy- I. The Emperor Justinian, having now reunited the Eastern and Western Empires, aspired to be Ju< , tiniaa the legislator of the world ; on Christendom code ' and on the Roman Empire, according to his notions com- mensurate, he would bestow a full, complete, indefeasible Code of Law. Of the barbaric codes, if even in their initiatory growth or existence, the Roman law, which still held the whole Roman world to be its proper dominion, would be as disdainfully ignorant, as if they were yet the usages of wild tribes beyond the Rhine or the Danube. Even over the Church or Canoni- cal Jurisprudence it would assert, as will immedi- ately appear, majestic superiority ; it would admit, con- 484 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK HI. firm, sanction such parts as might demand the supivme imperial intervention, or require imperial authority. Justinian aspired to consolidate in his eternal le^i-la- Neeessity for tion all the ancient and modern statu: consolidation , , . ,, , . of iw*. the realm. 1 he necessity tor a complete and final revisal an authoritative reconstruction and har- mony of the vast mass of republican, senatorial, impe- rial decrees, or those accredited interpretations of the law which had become law, and were admitted in the courts of justice had long been acknowledged. The Roman jurisprudence must become a Code ; the decis- ions of the great lawyers must be selected, distributed mder proper heads, and rules be laid down for the superiority of some over othei's. This jurisprudence comprehended unwritten as well as written law. The unwritten were the ancient Roman traditions, and the principles of eternal justice. The sources of the writ- ten law were the XII Tables, the Laws of the Repub- lic, whether Senatus-Consults or Plebiscites, the de- crees of the Emperors, the edicts of the Praetors, and the answers of the learned in the law. 1 Already at- tempts had been made to systematize this vast, multifa- rious, and comprehensive jurisprudence in the Grego- rian, Hermogenian, and finally the Theodosian codes. But the enormous mass of laws which had still accu- mulated, the conflicting decisions of the lawyers, the oppugnance of the laws themselves, seemed to demand this ultimate organization of the whole ; and in Tri- bonian and his Byzantine lawyers, Justinian supposed that he possessed the wisdom, in himself the power and authority, to establish forever the jurisprudence of Rome. 1 Responsa prudentum. CHAP. V. CODE OF JUSTINIAN. 485 But the change which has come over the Roman Empire is manifest at once. That Justinian Justinian a /-i i , -n -in n Christian is a Christian Emperor appears in the front of emperor, his jurisprudence. Before the august temple of the Roman law, there is, as it were, a vestibule, in which the Emperor seats himself as the religious legislator of the world in its new relation towards God. The Chris- tian Emperor treats all mankind as his subjects, in their religious as well as in their civil capacity. The Emper- or's creed, as well as his edicts, is the universal law of the Empire. That which was accessory in the code of the former Christian Emperors, and in the Theodosian code fills two supplementary books, stands in the front, and forms the Preface to that of Justinian. His code opens with the Imperial Creed on the Trinity, and the Impe- rial Anathema against Nestorius, Eutyches, Apollina- ris. Justinian declares indeed that he holds the doc- trine of the Church, of the Apostles and their succes- sors. He recognizes the authority of the four great Councils. He even acknowledges the supremacy of the Roman Church, and commands all Churches to be united with her. At the time of the publication of the code, John III. was Bishop of Rome ; but he had been appointed under the Exarch, his inauguration had sub- missively awaited the Emperor's approbation. Rome therefore, it was hoped, had become, notwithstanding the rapid advance of the Lombards, an integral, an in- separable part of the Empire. Justinian legislates therefore for Rome as for the East. But though the Emperor condescends thus to justify the orthodoxy of his creed, it is altogether of his absolute, uncontrolled, undisputed will that it is law. It might seem indeed that the clergy were the subjects, as first in rank, 486 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. whose offices, even whose lives, must first be regulated by imperial legislation. In the following chapters the appointment, the organi- zation, the subordination, the authority of the ecclesias- Laws for the tical, as of the civil magistrates of the realm, ciergy. j g ^g^ned to emanate from, to be granted, limited, prescribed by, the supreme Emperor. Excom- munication is uttered indeed by the ecclesiastics, but according to the imperial laws and with the imperial warrant. He deigns indeed to allow the canons of the Church to be of not less equal authority than his laws ; but his laws are divine, and those divine laws all met- ropolitans, bishops, and clergy are bound to obey, and, if commanded, to publish. 1 The hierarchy is regulated by his ordinance. He enacts the superiority of the Metropolitan over the bishop, of the bishop over the abbot, of the abbot over the monk. Distinct imperial laws rule the monasteries. The law prescribes the or- dinations of bishops, the persons qualified for ordina- tion, 2 the whole form and process of that holy ceremo- ny. The law admitted no immunities in the Clergy for crimes committed against the state and against society. It took upon itself the severe superintendence of cler- ical morals. The passion for theatrical amusements, for the wild excitement of the horse-race and the com- bat with wild beasts, or even more licentious entertain- ments, had carried away many of the clergy, even of the bishops. A law, more than once reenacted and modified, while it acknowledged the power of the cler- 1 Toi)f . Cod. i. 14, 34. 2 Cod. i. 4, 27. 8 De Episcop. Audient. 488 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK in. the inspiration of Christianity a new order of magis- tracy. The law limited the number of clergy to be attached to each Church. This constitution was demanded in order to check that multiplication of the clergy which exhausted the revenues of the Church, and led to bur- densome debts. In the great Church at Constanti- nople the numbers were to be reduced to 425, besides 100 ostiarii. 1 The smaller churches were on no ac- count to have more than they could maintain. The State issued laws for the regulation of monas- teries. None were to be established without the con- sent of the Bishop. The Bishop elected the superior from the community. Slaves might be admitted as well as freemen. A probation of three years was required from all. A slave, if a runaway or thief, might be claimed by his master during those three tf years. When a monk, he could no longer be claimed, unless he abandoned the monastic life. All were to live in common, to sleep in one chamber. If a monk wished to leave his monastery he went forth a beggar ; the monastery retained all his property. If he entered into the army, it could only be into the lowest rank. No monk could leave one monastery for another. 2 1 60 presbyters, 100 male 40 female deacons, 90 subdeacons, 110 readers, 25 singers. Novell, iii. There is a curious law concerning interments in Constantinople. 1000 shops, or their rent, seem to have been bestowed on the church for the burial of the poor; they had a bier and the attendance of the clergy without charge. The rich paid according to their means and will ; there was a fixed payment for certain more splendid biers and more solemn attendance. Novell, xciii. 2 The Institutes acknowledge the Bishop, with the Defensor, to have cer- tain powers of appointing guardians. i. 20, 5. Justinian speaks of the modesty of his times. i. 22, 1. Two clauses (2, i. 8, 9) relate to churc-hes, &c., iii. 28, 7. Churches named. iv. 18, 8. Rape of nuns made a capi- tal crime. CHAP. V. NATURE OF BOMAN LAW. 489 Such were the all-comprehending ecclesiastical laws which the Emperor claimed the power to enact. In many cases he commanded or limited the anathema or the interdict. The obedient world, including the Church, acknowledged, at least by submissive obedi- ence, this imperial supremacy. It is not till Justinian has thus, as it were, fulfilled his divine mission of legislating for his subjects as Christians, that he assumes his proper function, his leg- islation for them as Romans, and proceeds to his earthly task, the consolidation of the ancient and modern stat- utes of the Empire. But the legislation of Justinian, as far as it was orig- inal, in his Code, his Pandects, and in his Institu- tions, within its civil domain, was still almost Koman law exclusively Roman. It might seem that Koman. Christianity could hardly penetrate into the solid and well-compacted body of Roman law ; or rather, the immutable principles of justice had been so clearly dis- cerned by the inflexible rectitude of the Roman mind, so sagaciously applied by the wisdom of her great law- yers, that Christianity was content to acquiesce in those statutes, which even she might, excepting in some re- spects, despair of rendering more equitable. Chris- tianity, in the Roman Empire, had entered into a tem- poral polity, with all its institutions long settled, its laws already framed. The Christians had in their primitive state no natural place in the order of things. That separate authority which the Church exercised over the members of its own community from its ori- gin, and without which the loosest form of society can- not subsist, was in no way recognized by the civil power ; they were the voluntary laws of a voluntary 490 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK HL association. But, besides these special law-, of their own, the Christians were in every respect subjects of the Empire. They were strangers in religion alone. After the comprehensive decree of Caracalla, they, like the rest of mankind within the pale of the Empire, became Roman citizens ; and the supremacy of the State in all things which did not concern the vital prin- ciples of their religion (for which they were still bound, if the civil power should exercise compulsion, to suffer martyrdom) was acknowledged, both in the West and in the East, both before and after the conversion of Constantine. The influence therefore of Christianity on the older laws of the Roman Empire could only be exercised through the mind of the legislator, now become Chris- tian ; and the general moral sentiment, which became more pure or elevated, might modify, and gradually mitigate, some provisions, or more rigidly enforce cer- tain obligations. The Roman law, in its original code, might seem indeed to take a pride in resting upon its antiquity and its purely Roman character ; it admits not the language, it appears even to affect a supercil- ious ignorance of the religion, of the people. 1 In the Institutes of Justinian 2 it requires keen observation to detect the Christianity of the legislator. Tribonian, the great lawyer, to whom the vast work of framing the whole jurisprudence was committed by the Em- 1 TLere are several quotations from Homer, not one allusion to any of the sacred writings of Christianity. 2 The Institutes are without those prefatory chapters of Christian legisla- tion contained in the Code. From those chapters we pass into the Roman Code, as into another land; and it demands our closest attention t>- now far, now that he has abandoned all the language of Christianity, the ipirit of the religion follows the emperor into the ancient realm. CHAP. V. LAW OF PERSONS. 491 peror, has incurred the suspicion of atheism, an accusa- tion which, just or not, is strong evidence that his work had refused to incorporate any of the statutes, and bore no signs of Christianity. The prefatory Christian laws, though now become fundamental, are altogether extra- neous to the old reenacted system. They are recorded laws before Tribonian assumes his functions. The Roman Law may be most conveniently consid- ered, in connection with the influence of Christianity, as it regards A. Persons : B. Property ; and C. Crime. 1 A. The law as regards Persons comprehends the ranks and divisions, and the relations of mankind to each other, sanctioned or recognized by the La law, with the privileges, rights, and immuni- 80n ties it may grant, the duties it may impose on each. In nothing is the stern and Roman character of the Justinian Code more manifest than in its full r^^^ recognition of slavery. Throughout, the broad and 8laTes ' distinction of mankind into freemen and slaves is the unquestioned, admitted groundwork of legislation. It declares indeed the natural equality of man, and so far is in advance of the doctrine which prevailed in the time of Aristotle, and is vindicated by that philosopher, that certain races or classes of men are pronounced by the unanswerable voice of nature, by their physical and intellectual inferiority, as designed for and irrevocably doomed to servitude. But this natural equality is ab- solutely and entirely forfeited by certain acknowledged disqualifications for freedom, by captivity in war, self 1 This in some degree differs from the division adopted by many writers from the Institutes of Justinian, nnder which the criminal law ranks as a jranch of the law of actions or obligations. 492 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK IH. rendition into slavery, or servile descent. Christianity had indeed exalted the slave to spiritual equality, as having the same title to the blessings, consolations, and promises of the Gospel, as capable of practising all Christian virtues, and therefore of obtaining the Chris- tian's reward. This religious elevation could not be without influence, besides the more generous humanity to which it would soften the master, on their temporal and social position. It took them out of the class of brute beasts or inanimate things, to be transferred like cattle or other goods from one master to another, which the owner might damage or destroy with as much im- punity as any other property ; and placed them in that of human beings, equally under the care of Divine Providence, and gifted with the same immortality. But the legislation of the Christian Emperor went no further. It makes no claim to higher humanity ; it does not attempt to despoil the pagan Emperors of the praise due to the first step made in that direction. It ascribes to the heathen sovereign, Antoninus, the great change which had placed the life of the slave under the protection of the law. Even his punishment was then restricted by legislative enactment. 1 But the abroga- tion of slavery was not contemplated even as a remote possibility. A general enfranchisement seems never to have dawned on the wisest and best of the Christian writers, notwithstanding the greater facility for manu- mission, and the sanctity, as it were, assigned to the act by Constantine, by placing it under the special superin- tendence of the clergy. The law of Justinian gave indeed, or recognized, a 1 Caius, i. 53 ; Just. Instit i. viii. 2. Constantine, in 312, had enlarged this law. C. Theod. de emend, serv., 1. 9, 1. CHAP. V. LAW OF SLAVERY. 493 greater value in the life of the slave. The ^ of edict of Antoninus had declared the master Slaver ^ who killed his own slave without cause, liable to the same penalty as if he killed the slave of another. 1 The Code of Justinian ratified the law of Constantino, which made it homicide to kill a slave with malice aforethought ; and it describes certain modes of barbar- ous punishment, by which, if death follows, that guilt is incurred. 2 The Code confirms the law of Claudius against the abandonment of sick and useless slaves ; it enjoins the master to send them to the public hospitals. These hospitals were open to slaves as well as to poor freemen. " In these times, and under our empire," writes Justinian, " no one must be permitted to exer- cise unlawful cruelty against a slave." The motive, however, for this was not evangelic humanity, but the public good, which was infringed if any man ill-used his property. 3 But while it protected the life, to a certain extent the person, of the slave, it asserted as sternly as ever his inferior condition. He was the property of his master. Whoever became a slave lost all power over his children. 4 His testimony could be received against his master only in cases of high treason. His union with his wife was still only concubinage, not mar- riage. 5 The slave had no remedy for adultery before the tribunals ; it was left to the master to punish the offence. A free woman who had unlawful connection 1 Caius, i. 53. 2 Cod. Just. ix. 14. 8 " Expedit enim reipublicae, ne quis re tud utatur male.' 1 Instit. i. viii. * Instit. i. 16, and ii. 9, 3. Cod. ix. 1, 20. 6 Contubernium, not connubium. 494 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. with her slave, according to the law of Constantine, not, as it seems, repealed by Justinian, was to be put to death, the slave to be burned alive. But the law of Constantine, confirmed in the West by Anthemius, which prohibited the union of a freeman and a slave, at least a freeman of a certain rank, under the penalty of exile and confiscation of goods, and condemned the female to the mines, appears to have been mitigated ; at least the law of Claudius, which condemned the free-woman who married a slave to servitude, was tem- pered to a sentence of separation. In the old Roman society in th: Eastern Empire this distinction between the marriage of the freeman and the concubinage of the slave was long recognized by Christianity itself. These unions were not blessed, as the marriages of 7 O their superiors had soon begun to be, by the Church. 1 Basil the Macedonian 2 first enacted that the priestly benediction should hallow the marriage of the slave ; but the authority of the Emperor was counteracted by the deep-rooted prejudices of centuries. Later laws appear to have attempted the reconcilement of the Christian privilege with the social distinction. The marriages of slaves were to be celebrated in the Church ; slaves and freemen were to receive the same nuptial benediction, without conferring freedom on the slave. 3 As late as the thirteenth century a mandate of Nicetas, archbishop of Thessalonica, excommunicates masters who refuse to allow their slaves to be married in the Church. * It was thought that the marriage before the church would of itself con- fer civil freedom. Biot, sur 1'Esclavage, p. 146. * A.D. 867-886. * Constitut. Imp. xi. Jus Gr. Roman, i. p. 145. Biot, p. 213. CHAP. V. THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY. 495 The trade in slaves was still a principal and recog- nized branch of commerce. Man was a mar- slave-trade, ketable commodity. The whole code of Justinian speaks of the slave as bearing a certain appreciable value, to be held by the same tenure, transferred by the same form, as other property. It was the weak- ness of Rome, not her humanity or her Christianity, which, by ceasing to supply the markets with hordes of conquered barbarians, diminished the trade ; and Roman citizens were sold, with utter disregard of 7 O their haughty privileges, by barbarian or Jewish slave- venders. Throughout Greek and Latin Christendom, however the Church, by its precept and example, might rank the redemption of Christian slaves from bondage as a high virtue, the purchase and the sale of men, as property transferred from vendor to buyer, was recognized as a legal transaction of the same valid- ity with the sale of other property, land, or cattle. The Christian family, in its more restricted sense, comprehending the relations of husband and The Christian wife, of parent and children, had been the famU J r - centre from which the Gospel worked outwards with all its beneficent energy on society. But Christianity, conscious of its more profound and extensive influence on morals, was in most respects content to rest without intruding into the province of laws. 1 It superadded its own sanctity to the dignity with which marriage had been arrayed by the older Roman law : it super- added its own tenderness to that mitigation of Parental the arbitrary parental power with which the P * 1 See throughout this chapter the Codes, Pandects, and Institutes. Of modern works, Gibbon's celebrated chapter, with Warnki'mig's notes; Fer- dinand Walter, Geschichte des Romischen Rechts, pp. 332 et seq. 496 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. more humane habits of later times, and the wisdom of the great lawyers, had controlled the despotism of the Roman father. The Roman definition of marriage Marriage. might almost satisfy the lofty demands of Christianity. Matrimony is the union of man and woman, constraining them to an inseparable cohabita- tion. 1 Polygamy had been prohibited by the Pneto- rian Edict with a distinct severity not to be found in the New Testament. 2 Marriage, in the oldest Roman law, was a religious rite. The purchase of the wife, the partaking of food together, 3 took place in the pres- ence of the pontiffs. These ceremonials were at no time absolutely necessary ; but even, under the Repub- lic, marriage was altogether, as to its validity, a civil contract. With the Christians marriage had resumed a more solemn religious character. Certain forms of espousals or of wedlock are among the most unques- tionable usages of the earliest Christian antiquity. On marriage the Christian is taught to take counsel of the bishop. 4 Some kind of benediction in the Church, or 1 " Nuptise autem sive matrimonium est viri et mulieris conjunctio, iiuK- viduam vita? consuetudinem continens." Instit. i. ix. 1. 2 " Neminem qui sub ditione sit Roman! nominis binas uxores habere posse vulgo patet; cum etiam in Edlcto Prcetoris hujusmodi viri infamia notati sint: quam rein competens judex inultam esse mm patietur." Cod. v. tit. 5, 2. The silence of the New Testament as to polygamy, excepting in the doubtful text about the bishop, has been the subject of much learned contest and inquiry. The desuetude into which it had fallen among the Jews, and its prohibition by Roman manners, if not by Roman laws, ac- counts for this silence, in my opinion most fully, considering the popular character of our Lord's teaching and that of his apostles. 8 Coemptio et confarreatio. The confarreatio was the more solemn form of marriage, and could only be annulled by certain tremendous rites, which represented as it were the death of the contracting parties. Fcstus, Defar- reatio. It had fallen into disuse with the extinction of the older families. The other two forms of marriage-contract were coemptio nnd usus. * Ignat. Epist. ad Polycarp. This passage is found in Mr. Cureton's Byriac version. CHAP. V. MARRIAGE. 497 in the presence of the community, gave its peculiar holiness to the marriage ceremony. 1 Christianity did not decline some of the gayer and more innocent usages of Jewish and heathen marriages the crowns, the ring, the veil of the virgin. Still, the Christian might hal- low his union by the benediction of the Church ; the betrothal or the espousals might take place in the pres- ence of the religious community ; 2 yet the Roman citizen was bound only by the civil contract. On this alone depended the validity of the marriage, the legit- imacy and right of succession in the children. The Church, or the clergy representing the Church, had no jurisdiction in matrimonial questions till after the legis- lation of Justinian. It was never perfect and supreme in the East ; in the West it grew up gradually with the all-absorbing sacerdotal power. As to incestuous marriages, marriages within the more intimate degrees of relationship, Christianity might repose upon the rigor of the Roman prohibited law. 3 There was no necessity to recur to degrees - the books of Moses. That law prohibited the union of brothers with sisters, of uncles and aunts with neph- ews and nieces : it did not proscribe that of cousins german. 4 The Roman law extended this prohibition 1 Tertull. ad Uxor. ii. c. 2-9; de Monogam. c. 11. "Unde sufficiamus ad enarrnndam felicitatem ejus matrimonii, quod ecclesia conciliat, et con- firmat oblatio, et obsignat benedictio," &c. &c. : compare August!, Denk- wiirdigkeiten, x. p. 288. 2 This was a voluntary rite, superinduced by Christian manners upon the law of the realm. 8 On forbidden marriages, Gaius i. 58-62 ; Ulpian, v. 6 ; Collat. Leg. Mosaic, vi. 4-17; J. C. de Nupt. 5, 4, 1 to 5. * Plutarch, Quaest. Rom. 6; Cicer. pro Cluent. 5; Capitol. M. Antonin. The Emperors Arcadius and Honorius married their cousins. Instit. i. x. The old law (Caius, Instit. p. 27) allowed a man to marry his niece on the brother's, not on the sister's, side. The Emperor Claudius availed himself VOL. i. 32 498 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. to connections formed by affinity and by adoption. Connections formed by marriage were as sarn d :l * those of natural kindred, and an union with an adopted brother or sister was as inflexibly forbidden as in the case of blood. But of the few passages in the Code of Justinian Spiritual re- which reveal the Christian legislator, that 8hip8 ' extraordinary one stands out in peculiar con- trast, which extends the prohibited degrees to spiritual relationship. But the manner, almost as it were fur- tive, in which this prohibition is introduced, shows how it grew out of the existing state of Roman feeling. The jealous law had prohibited, besides the incestuous degrees of relationship, the union of a guardian, or the son of a guardian, with his ward. 1 But a man might marry an alumna whom he had educated as a slave, but to whom he had afterwards granted liberty. 2 The education as a slave implied that he had not towards her the affection of a parent. No one, however, would be so impious as to marry one whom he had brought up in his house as a daughter. On this principle it was that, whether brought up in his family or not, the sponsorship in baptism implied an affection so tender and parental as to render such a marriage unholy. of this privilege. The Roman law, in fact, was not greatly extended by the canon law, the prohibitory degrees of which are summed up in these lines, Nata, soror, neptis, raatertera patris. et uxor, Et patrui conjux, mater, privigni, noverca, Uxorlsque soror, pririgni nata, nurusque, Atque soror patris conjungi lego vctantur. 1 Cod. Justin, v. 6, 1 et 7. 2 Cod. Justin, v. 4, 26. There were other civil prohibitions: marriage of freeman with slave (see above), with a freed man or woman, by the Julian law confined to senators and their children (Inst. 16, de Sponsal. ; Justinian Cod. de Nupt. 28, 5, 4), of senators with actors (Ulpian, xiii. 1, xvi. 2) or persons of infamous occupations, &c. &c. See Walter, p. 539. CHAP. V. MAERIAGE. 499 Roman pride and rigid Christian morality would concur in some of those prohibitions which interdicted free Romans from certain degrading or disreputable marriages. There could be no marriages with slaves: O O children born from that concubinage were servile. o The Emperor Valentinian further defined low and ab-* ject persons who might not aspire to laAvful union with freemen actresses, daughters of actresses, tavern- keepers, the daughters of tavern-keepers, procurers (lenones) or gladiators, or those who had kept a public shop. 1 The Roman law had gradually expanded from that exclusive patrician haughtiness which would not recog- ni/e the marriage with plebeians : it had admitted unions between all of Roman birth ; but till Roman citizen- ship had been imparted to the whole Roman Empire, it would not acknowledge marriage with barbarians to be more than concubinage. Cleopatra was called only in scorn the wife of Antony. Berenice might not pre- sume to be more than the mistress of Titus. The Christian world closed marriages again within still more and more jealous limits. Interdictory statutes declared marriages with Jews and heathens not only invalid but adulterous. The Councils condemned mar- riages with heretics in terms almost of equal rigor. The legislature was silent ; though Manicheans espe- cially, being outcasts by the law, marriages with them must have been of questionable validity. 2 1 All this, however, was in the spirit of the ancient Roman law. 2 Cod. Theodos. iii. 7, 2, ix. 7, 5, xvi. viii. 6; Cod. Justin, i. 9, 6. These law?, in the time of Augustine and Jerome, were by no means unnecessary. ''At mine plera-que contemnentes apostoli jussionem, junguntur gentiiibus et templa Christi idolis prostituunt, nee intelligunt se corporis ejus partem isse cujus et costse sunt." Hieroii. In Jovhi. i. 10: compare Augustin. 500 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK HI. Yet, however lofty the theory of the Roman lawyers DiTorce. as to the sanctity and perpetual obligation of marriage, it was practically annulled by the admitted right and by the inveterate usage of divorce. It was a contract which either party might dissolve, almost without alleged cause. In the older law, the wife being, like the rest of his family, the property of the husband, he might dismiss her at any time from his service. Even the law of the Twelve Tables admitted divorce. But the severer morals of the older Repub- lic disdained to assert this privilege. The sixth cen- tury of Roman greatness is said to have begun, before the public feeling was shocked by the repudiation of a virtuous but barren wife by Spurius Carvilius Ruga. 1 But in the later Republic the frequency of divorce was at once the sign, the cause, and the consequence of the rapid depravation of morals. Paulus ^Emilius dis- carded the beautiful Papiria with a scornful refusal to assign any reason. 2 Cato, Cicero, exchanged or dis- missed their wives. And the wives were not behind their husbands in vindicating their equal rights. Paula Valeria repudiated her husband without cause to be- come the wife of Decimus Brutus. 3 Au^istus might endeavor by laws and by immunities to compel or allure the reluctant aristocracy of Rome to marriage ; he might limit divorce by statute : 4 but his example more de fid. et oper. c. 19. They gradually, as heathenism expired, became less denunciatory against such marriages, but maintained and even increased their rigor against Jewish connections. Concil. Laodic. x. : but add xxxi.; Concil. Agath. Ixvii.; Concil. Arelat. xi. : U liber, xvi. xvii. 1 Dion. Hal. ii. 93; Val. Max. ii. 1; Aulus Gellius. iv. 3. Plutarch in Kama. * " My shoes are new and well-made, but no one knows where they pinch e." Plutarch. Vit, Paul. JLmil. Cic. ad Fam. See the lex Papia Poppaea. CHAP. V. DIVORCE. 501 powerfully counteracted his own laws. He compelled the husband of Livia to divorce her during a state of pregnancy, and by marrying her became the father of a doubtful offspring. Maecenas changed his wives as he changed his dress. 1 Seneca, in his lofty Stoic moral- ity, declares that the noble women of Rome calculated the year not by the Consuls, but by their husbands. 1 Juvenal, in the bitterness of his satire, might describe the husband discarding his wife for the slightest infirm- ity ; 3 Martial might point an epigram against these legal adulteries ; 4 and all these writers might dwell, and with licensed exaggeration, only, or principally, on the manners of the capital and those of the higher orders ; but throughout the Roman world there can be no doubt that this dissolution of those bonds which unite the family was the corroding plague of Roman society. Christianity must have subjugated public feeling to a great extent ; it must have overawed, and softened, and rendered attractive the marriage state by countless examples in every part of the Empire (like that so beautifully described by Tertullian), 6 far more than by its monastic notions of the superior dignity of virginity, before even Constantine could venture on his prohibitory law against divorce. Marriage was abso- lutely annulled by three causes, retirement to a monas- 1 " Qui uxorem millies duxit." Such is the hyperbole of Seneca, who hated, perhaps because he envied, the memory of Macenas. " Quotidians repudia." De Provid. c. 3. 2 Senec. de Benef. iii. 16. 8 Conlige sarcinulas, dicet libertus, et exi ; Jam gravis es nobis, et ssepe emungeris ; exi Ocius et propera : sicco venit altera naso. Sat. vi. 146. * " Quae nubit toties, non nubit, adultera lege est." vi. 7. * Ad uxor. ii. c. 9. 5 n 2 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK Hi. tic life, impotence, and captivity. The period at which captivity dissolved the tie, and permitted the husband or the wife to marry again, was differently defined in successive statutes. The divorce law of Constantino limited repudiation to three causes: against the hus- band, if he was a homicide, a magician, a violator of tombs. 1 In either of these cases the wife recovered her dowry. If she sued for a divorce for any other cause, she forfeited her dowry, her jewels, even to the bodkin of her hair, and was sentenced to deportation into a desert island. Against the wife the three crimes were adultery, witchcraft, or acting as procuress. If the husband repudiated her for one of these causes he retained the dowry ; if for any other the penalty was the forfeiture of the dowry. If he married again, the repudiated wife might enter his house and seize the dowry of the new bride. But the severity of this law was mitigated by Honorius, 2 its penalties abrogated by Theodosius the younger. This law, which is recited in the Code and in the Novelise of Justinian, adds to the causes which justify divorce : on the part of the wife, if the husband is guilty of adultery, high treason, or forgery, sacrilege, pillage of churches, robbery or harboring robbers, cattle-driving, man-stealing, hav- ing, to the disgrace of his family, connection with loose women in the sight of his wife, attempting her life by poison or violence, or scourging her in a manner insup- portable to a freewoman. On the part of the husband, besides all these, frequenting the banquets of strangers without his knowledge or consent, passing the night 1 Cod. Theod. de repud. iii. xvi. Novell, xvii. de repudiis ad calc. cod. Theodos. Eitter observes that the constitutions were not annulled by this edict, only the penalties. CHAP. V. COXCUBEN'AGE. 503 abroad without just cause or permission, or indulging in the Circus, the theatre, or the amphitheatre, without his leave. 1 The legislation of Justinian is obviously embarrassed with the difficulty of the question of repudiation : it reenacts, but with some hesitation, the severe statutes of Theodosius : a succession of new laws explains, re- stricts, or confirms the plainer language of the Code. Justinian, indeed, first extended the penalties of the laws against divorce to cases of marriage without dower : if the husband repudiated an undowered wife without just c?.use, he forfeited to her one fourth of his property. 3 But the successor of Justinian was com- pelled to sweep away all these provisions, and to re- store the liberty of divorce by mutual consent. The Emperor, as the law declares, was beset by complaints and remonstrances, that inextinguishable hatred was im- planted in families by these restrictions, that secret poisonings would become common : he resisted long, but was compelled to yield to the general clamor. The manners of Constantinople, perhaps of the Roman world, triumphed over the severer authority of the Church. Concubinage, a kind of inferior marriage, of which the issue were natural children not bastards, concubinage, had been, to a certain extent, legalized by Augustus. The Christian Emperors endeavored to give something of the dignity of legitimate marriage to this union, by enlaro-incr the rights of natural children to succession ; ~ .T" ~ but in the East it was not abolished, as a legal union, 1 Cod. v. xvii.; Pandects, xxiv. ii.; Novella, xxii. cxvii. cxxxiv. The Institutes avoid the subject. 2 Cod. v. xvii. ii. To the first causes were added, endeavor to procure Abortion, and indecent bathing in the public baths with men. 504 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. till the time of Leo the Philosopher; in the West it was perpetuated by the pride of the conquering nu-c-s, and in some respects by the practice of the clergy them- selves to a much later period. 1 That primeval constitution of Roman society, which Parent^ made each family a little state, with its pe- P wer - culiar sacrifices and peculiar jurisdiction, of which the father was Priest and King, had long fallen into disuse. The parental power, in theory absolute, had been limited by public feeling and long desuetude. Even under the old republic, Brutus and Manlius were magistrates and generals as well as fathers ; the execu- tion of their sons was a sacrifice to Roman liberty and to Roman discipline, not an exertion of parental author- ity. Erixo, a Roman knight in the time of Seneca, whose son died under his chastisement, was pursued through the forum by the infuriated people. 2 Alexan- der Severus limited the parental power by law. It was well perhaps for human nature that this change had taken place before the promulgation of Christianity. It was spared those domestic martyrdoms which might have taken place in many families. For that which the divine wisdom of its founder had foreshown was inevitable. Youth, in its prospective ardor, would be more prone to accept the new religion, than age, rig- idly attached to ancient and established usages. It is the constant reproach, with which the apologists of Christianity have to contend, that it nurtured filial dis- obedience, and taught children to revolt against the authority of parents. 3 But this conflict was over long 1 Ducange, art. Concubina. * Seneca de Clement L 14. * Tertull. Apologet. c. 3; Origen contra Cels.; Hieronjra. Epist ad Laetam. CHAP. V. INFANTICIDE. 503 before Christianity entered into Roman legislation. The life of the child was as sacred as that of the par- ent ; and Constantine, when he branded the murder of a son with the name of parricide, hardly advanced upon the dominant feeling. Some power remained of moderate chastisement, but even this was liable to the control of law. Disinheritance remained the only pen- alty which the father could arbitrarily inflict upon the son ; for by degrees that absolute possession of all the property of the son which of old belonged to the father had been limited. The peculium over which full power was vested in the son was extended by Augustus, Tra- jan, and Hadrian to all which he might acquire in military service, even to captives who became his slaves, to be disposed of by gift or will ; by Coustan- tine and later Emperors to all emoluments obtained in civil emplovments ; by Justinian to the inheritance, in certain cases, of the mother's property. Infanticide was thus a crime by law, but the sale and exposure of children, the most obstinate infanticide, vestige of the arbitrary parental power, aggravated by the increasing misery of the times, still contended with the humane severity of the laws, and the fervent denunciations of the Christian teachers. 1 The sale of children was prohibited by law, yet prevailed to late times. The Emperor Trajan had declared that a free- born child, exposed by its parents and brought up by a stranger, did not forfeit its liberty. 2 The Christian Emperor first declared exposure of infants a crime; 3 1 Athenagor. Apologet. Tertullian, Apologet. 9; Lactantius, D. I. vi. 20. 2 Pliny, Epist. x. 7. 8 The Cod. Justin, iv. 43, 1, confirmed the declaration of the law bj Dio- cletian. " Liberos a parentibus neque venditionis neque donationis titulo, aeque pignoris jure, aut alio quolibet modo, nee sub praetextu ignorantia 606 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. at the same time lie declared the children of such poor parents as should be unable to nourish them, children of the state, to be clothed and supported by the pub- lic treasury. This vast poor law could not have been carried into effect, or was necessarily modified by new laws, providing for children thus exposed. The stranger who took up such child and maintained it, might, according to a law of Theodosius the Great, bring it up as his own son, or as his slave. The father who had exposed his child, having abandoned his paternal power, could not reclaim it; he, however, who had sold his child through poverty might redeem it by paying the same price, or replacing it by another slave. But one of Justinian's supplementary laws both shows the unrepressed frequency of the practice, and by its strong language the profound sense of its inhumanity. It was now the custom to leave the chil- dren not merely in the streets, but in the churches, in order, no doubt, to appeal to the kindness of the clergy and the more pious worshippers. If, says the law, worn-out slaves, who are exposed by their masters, obtain their freedom, how much the rather freeborn infants ? But, as if aware that this was rather a penalty on the charitable person, who might undertake the care of such children (for whom it might be better to be brought up as slaves than left to perish), condign punishment is threatened, it is to be presumed the penal- ty for murder, against the guilty parties. It is probable, however, that the practices though not so clearly trace- accipientes, in a limn transferri posse, manifestissimi juris est." Yet in the life of Paphnutus by Jerome we read: " Mihi est maritus qui lismlis debiti gratifi, suspensus est et flagellatus, ac poenis omnibus cruciatu.s servatur in carcere. Tres autem nobis filii fuerunt, qui pro ejusdem debiti necessitate distracti sunt." CHAP. V. LAW OF PROPERTY. 507 able, expired but slowly in the East ; in the West it still required the decrees of Councils and the edicts of sov- ereigns to extirpate this pertinacious crime. 1 B. Christianity made no change in the tenure or succession to property. The Christian churches suc- ceeded to that sanctity which the ancient law Law of had attributed to the temples ; as soon as they P r P ert y- were consecrated they became public property, and could not be alienated to any other use. The ground itself was hallowed, and remained so even after the temple had been destroyed. This was an axiom of the heathen Papinian. 2 Gifts to temples were alike inalienable, nor could they be pledged ; the exception in the Justinian code betrays at once the decline of the Roman power, and the silent progress of Christian humanity. They could be sold or pledged for the redemption of captives, a purpose which the old Roman law would have disdained to contemplate. 3 The burial of the dead made ground holy. This consecration might be made by any private person ; but a public burial-ground became, in a certain sense, public prop- erty. 4 The great law of Constantine, which enabled the 1 Capit. vi. c. 142; Decret. Gregor. de exposit. lib. ii. 971, 972, 973. 2 Instit. ii. 1, 8. Papinian lived under the reign of Severus. 8 Property might be bequeathed in general terms for the redemption of captives, c. i. 3, 48. * Instit. ii. 1, 9. If the owner gave consent, a body might be interred in any ground, which thereby became sacred ; if the owner afterwards wished to withdraw his consent, he could not : his right was lost in the sanctity of the ground. Paolo Sarpi supposes, but quotes no authority, that the churches had even before Constantine received lands by bequest, but con- trary to law. They were confiscated by Diocletian. The following is a law of Diocletian and Maximian, A.D. 290: "Collegium, si nullo special! privi- legio subnixum sit, haereditatem capere non posse, dubium non est.' ' C- 8 de haered. instit. ; Sarpi Opere, iv. 71. 508 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. Christian churches to receive gifts and bequests, was but an extension or transference of the right belonging to heathen temples 1 and priesthoods, many of A\hich were endowed with large estates. 2 Even during the reign of Constantine some parts of the estates of the heathen temples were made over to the Christians ; but the private offerings of the faithful, by donation and by will, poured in with boundless prodigality. Already haeridipety, seeking inheritances by undue means, is branded as an ecclesiastical vice by the severer teachers, and restrained by law ; 3 already the abuses of wealth begin to appear. The Apostolic Constitutions enact that the property of the bishop should be kept distinct from that of his see, 4 his own he may be- queath by will to his wife, his children, or other heirs ; the property of the Church is to descend sacred and inviolate. Already bishops are reproached, as too much involved in worldly affairs ; Councils declare that they must be relieved from the administration of the temporal concerns of their churches ; a steward or oeconomus must be appointed in each church for this end. 5 The sovereigns, instead of endeavoring to set bounds to this tide of wealth which was setting into the Church, to the loss of the imperial exchequer, swelled it by their own munificence, as well as by the 1 A law in the Justinian code declares all gifts or bequests to heathen persons or places (i. e. priests and temples) null and void. Leo. 1. 11, 9. a On the church property of the ancients see the curious passage in Ap- pian. During the pressure of the Mithridatic war, Sylla sold as much of the property devoted to sacrifices as produced 9000 pounds of gold. De Bello Mithrid., c. xxii. 8 Hieronymus in Nepot., Epist. xxxiv. The law of Valentinian. See cage 68. 4 Apostol. Constit. can. 33. Chrys. Horn. Ixxxvi. in Mathaeum. Concil. Antioch. Synod. Chalced. can. 26. CHAP. V. CHURCH PROPEETY. 509 tenor of their laws. They dared not incur the re- proach at once of want of respect to the clergy, of parsimony to the poor, of stinting the magnificence of the edifices, now everywhere rising for the honor of God. These were the three acknowledged purposes to which were devoted the ecclesiastical revenues. The legislation of Justinian confirmed all the pro- visions of former Christian emperors for the security and enlargement of ecclesiastical wealth. A law of Leo and Anthemius was the primary palladium of Church property. It declared every kind of property in land, in houses or rents, in movables, in peasants or slaves, absolutely inalienable even with the concurrent consent of the bishop, the steward, and all the clergy. All such sacrilegious alienations by gift, bequest, or exchange, were absolutely null and void. The steward guilty of such alienation lost his office, and was bound to make good the loss out of his own property. The notaries Avho drew such deeds were condemned to per- petual exile ; the judges who confirmed them lost their office and forfeited all their property. 1 The lease or usufruct only could be granted under certain precise stipulations. A law of Valentinian and Marcian empowered all widows, deaconesses, or nuns to bequeath to any i "Nee si omnes cum religiose episcopo et oeconotno cleric! in eorurn pos- sessiomim alienationem consentiant." c. i. 2, xiv. This law, which wu originally limited to the church of Constantinople, was recnacted with some slight alterations by Anastasius and by Justinian. Constit. 7. Jus- tinian extended this law to the whole empire, including the West. Nov. 7. Const, ix. These two constitutions (c. i. 11, 24) gave the right of claim- ing bequests to the church for 100 years; this was artw w:\nls limited to 40. Nov. Constit. iii. 131-36. The emperor might, for the public good, receive church property in exchange, giving more valuable property. Nov. 7. 510 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK HI. church, chapel, body of clergy, monastery, or to the poor, the whole or any part of their property. Zeno enacted that any one who had bestowed any property on any martyr, prophet, or angel, to build a house of prayer ; in case he died before the work was finished, his heirs were bound to complete it. 1 The same applied to caravansaries, hospitals, or almshouses. The bishop or his officers might exact the completion to the full. 2 Justinian recognizes bequests simply to Jesus Christ, which might be claimed by the principal church of the city ; and bequest made to any archangel or saint, without specified place, went to the nearest church dedicated to that angel or saint. 3 Founders of churches possessed the right of patron- age, but the bishop might refuse an unqualified priest. 4 All church property was declared free from baser services, and from extraordinary contributions. Thus the Church might constantly receive and never depart from property; and thus began its immunities from public burdens. In the rapid change of mas- ters, undergone in far the larger part of the Roman world, property of all kinds was constantly accumu- lating in the hands of the Church, which rarely, ex- cept through fraud or force, relaxed its grasp. The Church was the sole proprietor, whom forfeiture or confiscation could never reach ; whose title was never antiquated ; before whose hallowed boundaries violence stood rebuked ; whom the law guarded again st her own waste or prodigality ; to whom it was the height of piety, almost insured salvation, to give or to be- queath, sacrilege to despoil, or to defraud ; whose 1 C. i. 2, xv. 2 c. i. 3, 45. Cod. i. 2, 26. < Nov. 123. Nov. Constit. 57, 2. CHAP. V. PENAL LAWS. 511 property if alienated was held under a perpetual curse, which either withered its harvest, or brought disaster 7 O and ruin on the wrongful possessor. C. The penal laws of the Roman Empire, except- ing in the inflexible distinction drawn between the freeman and the slave, were not immoderately severe, nor especially barbarous in the execution of punish- ment. In this respect Christianity introduced no great mitigation. The abolition of crucifixion as a punish- ment by Constantino was an act rather of religious reverence than of humanity. Another law of Con- stantine, if more rigorously just, sanctions the cruel iniquity, which continued for centuries of Christian legislation the torture. No one could be executed for a capital crime, murder, magic, adultery, except after his own confession, or the unanimous confession of all persons interrogated or submitted to torture. 1 Some crimes were either made capital or more rig- idly and summarily punished with death by the ab- horrence of Christianity for sensual indulgences. The violation of virgins, widows, or deaconesses professing a religious life, was made a capital offence, to be sum- marily punished. 2 The crime against nature, the deep reproach of Greek and Roman manners, was capitally punished. 3 But remarkable powers had been given by former Emperors, and enlarged by Justinian, or rather, it was made a part of the episcopal function, to "visit every 1 By the Justinian code, Nov. cxxiii. c. 31, torture (ftaaavoi) and were the punishment of any one who insulted a bishop or presbyter in the church. The disturbance of the sacred rites was a capital offence. 2 Cod. i. 3, 53. 8 Two bishops were publicly executed for this offence by Justinian. Fheophanes, p. 27. 512 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. month the state prisons, to inquire into the offences of all persons committed, and to admonish the civil authorities to proceed according to the law. 1 Private prisons were prohibited ; the bishop was empowered to order all such illegal places of confinement to be broken open, and the prisoners set free. 2 In certain points the bishops were the legal as well as the spiritual guardians of public morality. They had power to suppress gaming of certain prohibited kinds. 3 With the presidents of the provinces they might prevent women from being forced on the stage, or from being retained against their will in that dan- gerous and infamous profession. 4 If the president, in his office of purveyor for the public amusement, should be the person in fault, the bishop was to act of himself, either of his own authority or by appeal to the Em- peror. A new class of crimes, if not introduced by Chris- tianity, became multiplied, rigorously defined, merci- lessly condemned. The ancient Roman theory, that the religion of the State must be the religion of the people, which Christianity had broken to pieces by its inflexible resistance, was restored in more than its former rigor. The code of Justinian confirmed the laws of Theodosius and his successors, which declared certain heresies, Manicheism and Donatism, crimes against the State, as affecting the common welfare. The crime was punishable by confiscation of all proper- ty, and incompetency to inherit or to bequeath. Death did not secure the hidden heretic from prosecution? as in high treason, he might be convicted in his grave. Cod. 14,22. Cod. i. 4, 22. * Cod. h 4, 14. < De Episcop. Audient. ii. 4, 33. CHAP. T. HERETICS. 513 Not only was his testament Invalid, but inheritance could not descend through him. All who harbored such heretics were liable to punishment ; their slaves might desert them, and transfer themselves to an or- thodox master. 1 The list of proscribed heretics grad- ually grew wider. The Manicheans were driven still farther away from the sympathies of mankind ; by one Greek constitution they were condemned to capital punishment. Xear thirty names of less de- tested heretics are recited in a law of Theodosius the younger, to which were added, in the time of Justin- ian. Xestorians, Eutychians, Apollinarians. The books of all these sects were to be burned ; yet the formida- ble number of these heretics made, no doubt, the gen- eral execution of the laws impossible. But the Jus- tinian code, having defined as heretics all who do not believe the Catholic faith, declares such heretics, as well as Pagans, Jews, and Samaritans, incapable of holding civil or military offices, except in the lowest ranks of the latter ; 2 they could attain to no civic dignity which was held in honor, as that of the de- O / fensors, though such offices as were burdensome might be imposed even on Jews. 3 The assemblies of all her- etics were forbidden, their books were to be collect- ed and burned, their rites, baptisms, and ordinations prohibited. 4 Children of heretical parents might em- brace orthodoxy ; the males the parent could not disinherit, to the females he was bound to give an adequate dowry. 5 The testimony of Manicheans, of Cod. de Haeret. i. 5, 11. 2 There was an exception for the Goths in the service of the Empire. Cod. i. ix. 5. * Cod. i. 5, 21. Cod. i. 5, 21. VOL. i. 33 514 LATIN CHBISTIAXITY. BOOK HI Samaritans, and Pagans could not be received ; apos- tates to any of these sects and religions lost all their former privileges, and were liable to all penalties. 1 II. The Barbaric Laws 2 differed from those of the Barbaric empire in this important point. The Roman jurisprudence issued entirely from the will of the Emperor. 3 The ancient laws, whether of the Re- public or of his imperial predecessors, received their final sanction, as comprehended within his code: the answers of the great lawyers, the accredited legal maxims, obtained their perpetuity, and became the permanent statutes of the realm through the same au- thority. The barbaric were national codes, framed and enacted by the King, with the advice and with the consent of the great council of his nobles, the flower and representative of the nation. 4 They were 1 Cod. i. 7. 2 All the barbarian codes are in Latin, but German words are perpetually introduced for offices and usages purely Teutonic. Wergelda, Rachim- burg. See Eichhorn, Staats- und Rechtsgeschichte, i. p. 232. See curious extract from Lombard Law on manumission, p. 331. The collection which I have chiefly used is the latest, that of Canciani, Leges Barbarorum, Ven- ice, 1781. * Many Christians, even of honorable birth, according to Salvian, fled from the cruel oppressions of the Roman law, no doubt the fiscal part, and took refuge among the heathen barbarians. " Inter haec vastantur paupe- res, vidtue gemunt, orphan! proculcantur, in tantum ut imilti eorum et non obscnris natalibus editi et liberaliter instituti ad hostes fujjiunt. ne persecu- tionis publicte afflictione moriantur, qtuerentes scilicet apud barbaros Koiua- num humanum, quia apud Romanes barbaram inhumanitatem ferre non possunt. Et quamvis ab his, ad quos confugiunt, discrepent ritu. disc-re- pent lingua, ipso etiam, ut ita dicam, corporum atque induviarum barbari- carum fcetore dissentiant, malunt tamen in barbaris pati cult urn di-.-imilein quam in Romanis injustitiam ssevientem." De Gub. Dei, lib. v. 4 " Hoc decretum est apud Regem et principes eju?, et apud cvnctumpop- vlum Christianum, qui infra regnum Merovingorum consi.tunt." Praef. ad Leg. Ripuar. The Salic law is that of the Gens Francerum inclyta, among whose praises it is that they had subdued those Romans, who burned or slew the martyrs, while the Franks adorn their relics with gold and precious stones. Prsef. ad Leg. Salic. CHAP. V. LAWS OF THEODORIC AND ATHALARIC. 515 the laws of the people as well as of the King. As by degrees the bishops became nobles, as they were summoned or took their place in the great council, their influence becomes more distinct and manifest : they are joint legislators with the King and the nobles, and their superior intelligence, 1 as the only lettered class, gives them great opportunity of modi- fying, in the interest of religion or in their own, the statutes of the rising kingdoms. This, however, was of a later period. The earliest of these codes, the Edict of Theodoric, is so entirely Roman, that it can scarcely be called barbaric juris- 2m( prudence. It is Roman in its general pro- Uric ' visions, in its language, in its penalties ; it is Roman in the supreme and imperial power of legislation as- sumed by the King: there is, in fact, no Ostrogothic code. The silence as to ecclesiastical matters in the edicts of Theodoric and Athalaric arises from the peculiar position of Theodoric, an Arian sovereign in the midst of Catholicism dominant in Rome and throughout Italy. 2 But there is a singular illustra- tion of the theory of ecclesiastical power, as vested in the temporal sovereign. The Arian Athalaric, the son of Theodoric, at the request of the Pope him- self, issues a strong edict against simony, which by his command is affixed, with a decree of the Senate to the same effect, before the porch of St. Peter's. The 1 The first instance of this is in the preface to the code of Alaric. " Util- itates populi nostri propitia divinitate tractantes, hoc quoque quod in legi- bus videbatur iniquum meliori deliberatione corrigimus, ut omnis legnm Romanarurn et antiqui juris obscuritas, adhibitis sacerdotibus et nobilibus viris. in lucem inteUigentia meKoris deducta resplendeat." 2 There are some provisions favorable to the church borrowed from the Roman law. The church inherited all the property of clergy dying intes- tate. xxvii. : apud Canciani, i. p. 15. 516 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK HI points in which the Ostrogothic edict departs from the Roman law are : I. The stronger difference drawn between the crimes of the nobles and of the inferior classes. Already the Teutonic principle of estimat- ing all crimes at a certain pecuniary amount, accord- ing to the social rank of the injured person, the wehrgelt, is beginning to appear, as well as its con- sequence, that he who could not pay by money must pay by his life. 1 False witness is punished with death in the poor, by a fine in the rich ; the incendiary is burned alive if a slave or serf, 2 if free he has only to replace the amount of damage ; should he be insolvent, he is condemned to beating and exile. Wizards, if of honorable birth, were punished with exile ; if of humbler descent, with death ; while a freeborn adul- teress was sentenced to death, in a vile and vulgar woman the crime was venial. 8 In seduction, the se- ducer was obliged to marry the woman ; if married, to endow her with a third of his estate ; if ignoble, he suffered death. 4 II. The edict, in the severity of its punishments, exceeds the Roman law, especially, as might be expected among the Goths, in all crimes re- lating to the violation of chastity. Capital punish- ments were multiplied, and capital punishments almost unknown to the Roman law. The author of sedition in the city or the camp was to be burned alive. 6 The male adulterer was to be burned, the female capitally punished. 6 Death was enacted against pagans, sooth- sayers, lowborn wizards ; against destroyers of tombs, against kidnappers of freemen, against forgery, against the judge who sentenced contrary to law ; 7 against i xc. 1. xcvii. colonus. 8 Ixii. * lix. otii. Ixi. 7 H. CHAP. V. CLERGY CO-LEGISLATORS. 517 robbery of churches, or forcibly dragging persons thence, death. 1 Not only were adulterers capitally punished, but whoever lent his house for the perpetration of the crime, or persuaded the woman to its perpetration. 3 Rape of a free-woman or virgin was death, which ex- tended to all who were aiding or abetting. Parents neglecting to prosecute for rape on a girl under age were condemned to exile. The consenting female suf- fered death. 3 The law of divorce, however, remained Roman : it admitted the same causes, and was limited by the same restrictions. 4 The Edict of Athalaric against concu- binage reduced the children of the freeborn concubine to slavery. The slave concubine was in the power of the matron, who might inflict any punishment short of bloodshed. Polygamy was expressly forbidden. 5 The Lombard laws are issued by King Rotharis, 6 with the advice of his nobles. 7 The Burgundian, in their whole character, are intermediate between the Roman and Barbaric jurisprudence. The bishops first appear as co-legislators among the Visigoths. Already in France Alaric the Visigoth adopts the Cle rgy ^ abridgment of the Roman law, by the ad- legisla vice of his priests as well as of his nobles. 8 But it is 1 CXXV. 2 xxxix. So also the Lombard Law, ccxii. A man might defend himself from a charge of adultery by an oath or by his champion. ccxiv. 8 xvii. xviii. *liv. 5 vii. vi. 6 The laws of Rotharis were written seventy-six years after the invasion of Italy by the Lombards. The Lombards, it must be remembered, were still Arians. The church, therefore, is not co-legislative with the nobles. 1 " Cum primatibus meis judicibus." Prsefat. in Canciani, vol. i. 8"Adhibitis sacerdotibus ac nobilibus viris;" compare Canciani, in 518 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK HL in Spain, after the Visigoths had cast off their Arian- ism, that the bishops more manifestly influence the whole character of the legislation. The synods of To- ledo were not merely national councils, but parlia- ments of the realm. 1 After the ecclesiastical affairs had been transacted, the bishops and nobles met to- gether, and with the royal sanction enacted laws. 2 The people gave their assent. The King himself is subject to the Visigothic law. The unlawful usurper of the Crown is subject to ecclesiastical as well as to civil penalties, to excommunication as well as to death. Even ecclesiastics consenting to such treason are to be involved in the interdict. These ecclesiastical lawgiv- ers, while they arm themselves with great powers for the public good, claim no immunity. Bishops are lia- ble to fines for disregard of judges' orders. 3 The clergy are amenable to the same penalty for contumacy as the laity. 4 But great powers are given to the bishops to restrain unjust judges, even the counts. 6 The terrible laws against heresy, and the atrocious juridical persecu- tions of the Jews, already designate Spain as the throne and centre of merciless bigotry. The Salic law proclaims itself that of the noble na- Pradat. p. xiii. Eichhorn, not reckoning the Edict of Theodoric, arranges the codes thus: I. Lex Visigothica the origin of the Fuero Juzgo which, however, has many late additions. II. Lex Salica. III. The Bur- trundian. IV. Ripuarica, Ale.mannica, Bavarica. These betray higher kingly power. * Canciani, iv. p. 52. a Leges Visigoth, ii. 1, 6. ii. 1, 18, ibid. * ii. 1. 29, 30. 6 In the Visigothic code the observance of the Sunday and of holydays i appointed by law. The holydays were fifteen at Easter, seven before, seven after. The Nativity, Circumcision, Epiphany, Pentecost, Ascension, and certain days at harvest and vintage time. CHAP. V. TEUTONIC KINGS AND LAWS. 519 tion of the Franks, lately converted to the saiic law. Catholic faith, and even while yet barbarians untainted with heresy. In a later sentence it boasts that it has enshrined in gold and precious stones the relics of those martyrs whom the Romans burned with fire, slew with the sword, or cast to the wild beasts. 1 But it is the law of the King and the nobles : the bishops are not named, perhaps because as yet the higher clergy were still of Roman descent. Still, however the Teutonic kings and Teutonic leg- islators at first perhaps in their character of conquerors, assumed supreme dominion over the Church as well as over the State, and the subject bishops bowed before the irresistible authority. St. Remigius violated a can- on of the Church on the ordination of a presbyter at the command of Clovis. 2 Among the successors of Clovis no bishop was appointed without the sanction of the Crown. 3 Theodoric, son of Clovis, commanded the elevation of St. Nicetius to the see of Treves. 4 The royal power was shown in the shameless sale of bishoprics. 5 The nomination or the assent of the clergy and the people was implied in the theory of the election, but often overborne by the awe of the royal authority. 6 The Council of Orleans, which condemned 1 Apud Canciani, vol. ii. see p. 370. 2 " Scribitis canonicum non fuisse quod jussit Praesul regionum, custos patriae, gentium triumphator illud injunxit." Epist. S. Remigii; Bouquet iv. p. 52. 8 Planck, ii. 114. A.D. 529. 4 " Eum ad episcopatum jussit accersiri." Gr. Tur. 6 " Jam tune germen illud iniquum cceperat fructificare, ut sacerdotium aut venderetur a regibus, aut compararetur a clericis." Greg. Tur. Vit Pair. vi. 3. 6 " Ut nulli episcopatum prsemiis aut comparatione liceat adipisci : sed cum vobmtate regis juxta electionem cleri ac plebis," &c. A.D. 549. ConciL Can. 10 520 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. the sale of bishoprics, fully acknowledged the suprem- acy of the royal will. A few years later a Council at Paris endeavored to throw off the yoke. It declared the election to be in the clergy and the people. It dis- claimed the royal mandate, and condemned the bishop who should dare to obtain ordination through the King to be excluded from the fellowship of the bishops of the province. 1 But the fierce Frankish sovereigns, while they appeared to accede to these pretensions, tramp- led them under foot. The right seems to follow them in their career of conquest. Dalmatius, Bishop of Rhodez, in his last will, besought the King, under the most terrible adjurations, not to grant his office to a foreigner, a covetous person, or a married man. 2 In 562 a synod, held under Leontius, Archbishop of Bordeaux, deposed the Bishop Emerius, as consecrated by a decree of King Chlotaire without his sanction. When the new Bishop Herculius presented himself at Paris, " What ! " exclaimed King Charibert, " do men think that there is no son of Chlotaire to maintain his father's decrees, that ye dare to degrade a bishop ap- pointed by his will ? " He ordered the rash intruder to be thrown into a cart strewn with thorns, and so sent into banishment ; the Bishop Emerius to be rein- stated by holy men. 3 He fined the synod. The royal 1 " Xullus civibus invitis ordinetur episcopus, nisi quern populi et cleri- corum electio plenissima qusesierit voluntate. Nonprincipit imperio, neque per quamlibet conditionem, contra metropolis voluntatein vel episcoporum provincialium ingeratur. Quod si per ordinatumem reginm honoris i~tius culmen pervadere aliquis nimia temeritate praesumpserit, a comprovinciali- bus loci ipsius episcopus recipi nullatenus mereatur, quern indebite ordina- tum agnoscunt." Can. viii. 2 Gregor. Tur. v. 47. 8 Gregor. Tur. iv. 26. Loebel observes that Gregory, from his expres- sion, "Et sic principis ultus est injuriam," thought the king in the right. CHAP. Y. AMENABILITY OF THE CLERGY. 521 prerogative was perpetually asserted down at least to the time of Charlemagne. 1 In the Gothic kingdom of Spain, so long as it was Arian, the kings interfered not in the appointment of bishops. Their orthodox successors left, it should seem, affairs to take their own course. 2 But towards the close of the seventh century the Council of Toledo acknowledged the King as invested with the right of electing bishops. 3 Ecclesiastical synods were only held by royal permission. Their decrees required the royal sanction. 4 This theory may be traced through the nu- merous synods for ecclesiastical purposes in Gaul, be- tween the conquest and the close of the sixth century. 6 In Spain the custom appears distinctly recognized even under Arian kings. 6 As under the Roman law no one could elude civil office by retreating into holy orders. No decurion could be ordained without special permission. No free- man could be ordained in the Barbaric kingdoms with- 1 See instances in Loebel. King Guntran, in 584, rejected (it seemed an extraordinary case) gifts for episcopal appointments. "Non est principatus nostri consuetude sacerdotium venundare sub pretio, sed nee vestrum cum prsemiis comparare : ne et nos turpis lucri infamia notemur, et vos mago Simoni comparemini." Greg. Tur. vi. 39. 2 Pope Hilarius laid before a synod at Rome a letter of the Tarragonian bishops complaining that in the other provinces of Spain episcopal elections had ceased. The bishop nominated his successor hi his testament. Baron, sub ann. 466. 8 " Quod regiffi potestatis sit episcopos eligere." 4 Planck, ch. ii. p. 125; from 511 to 590, were held twenty-one Gallic synods : most of them have permission " gloriosissimi regis," or some such phrase. 5 Planck, note, page 130. 6 King Theudes, in 531, permits the orthodox bishops " in Toledanam orbem convenire, et qucunque ad ecclesiasticam disciplinam pertinerent licere, licenterque dicere." Isid. in Chron. ad A.D. 531. 522 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III out the consent of the king, because thereby the king lost his military service. 1 Below the sovereign power the people maintained the right of the joint election of bishops with the clergy. This old Christian usage would fall in with the Teutonic habits. As the Teutons raised their king upon the buckler, and proclaimed him with the assent of the freemen of the tribe, so the acclamation of the peo- ple ratified or anticipated the nomination of the bishop. 2 The clergy enjoyed no immunity from the laws of the land. 3 In criminal cases two successive Councils, at Macon and at Poictiers, 4 acknowledged that for all criminal offences, as homicide, robbery, witchcraft, to which the latter adds adultery, they were amenable to the civil jurisdiction. 5 At a later period the presence of the bishop was declared necessary. 6 If indeed the awe of the clergy might repress, or the obstinate claim to immunity embarrass, the ordinary judge, the royal authority was neither limited by fear nor scruple. 7 Nu- 1 Cone. Aurelian. A.D. 511, can. 6. confirmed by a capitulary, A.D. 805. 1. c. 114. Marculf. i. 19. Praceptum de Clericatu. Planck, 159. 2 For the usage under the Roman dominion in Gaul, from the earlies period to the fifth century, see Raynouard, Histoire du Droit Municipal ec France, i. ch. xxvi. It continued to the twelfth century. 8 The appeal of the clergy to the civil courts for the redress of ecclesias- tical grievances was strictly forbidden. Concil. Tolet. iii. 13. Cone. Paris. A.D. 589. c. 13. Council under St. Recared, enacted, " Ne amplius liceat clericis conclericos suos relicto Pontifice ad judicia secularia pertrahere." A.D. 589. c. 13. * Concil. Matiscon. A.D. 581. Concil. Pictav. 8 According to Gregory of Tours, Count Leudastes of Tours had, almost every day, when he sat injustice, priests brought before him in chains. Lib. v. c. 49. Capit. i. 23. 1 At the end of the sixth century, the civil authorities in Spain took upon them to enforce clerical continence. They visited the houses of the clergy, and took out all suspicious females. With the consent of the bishops, CHAP. V. AMENABILITY OF THE CLERGY. 523 merous instances occur of bishops treated with the most cruel indignity by the fierce Frankish sovereigns' for real or imputed crimes. 1 At times indeed they sub- mitted to the tardier process of a previous condemna- tion by an ecclesiastical synod. Praetextatus, Bishop of Rouen, was accused by King Chilperic as an accom- plice in the rebellion of his son, before a synod in Paris. Prsetextatus was in danger of being dragged from the church and stoned by the Franks. The bish- ops were prepared to utter the ban. But his defence was undertaken by the historian, Gregory of Tours. Neither fear nor bribery could deter the intrepid advo- cate from maintaining the innocence of the bishop. 2 When the King could not obtain his condemnation, 3 O 7 either the tearing his holy vesture, or the imprecation of the 108th Psalm against him, or even his exclusion from Christian communion, Pra3textatus was suddenly hurried away to prison ; on his attempt to escape, grievously beaten and sent into exile. 4 This transac- tion, notwithstanding its melancholy close, shows some growing respect for ecclesiastical tribunals in cases even of high treason. The Spanish kings threaten bishops with royal as well as ecclesiastical censure. 5 There were appeals from ecclesiastical synods to the Crown ; in some cases the royal authority interposed who seem to have approved of this procedure, they might seize the women as slaves. Concil. Hispal. 3. 1 Greg. Tor. vi. 24. 2 " Ducentas argenti libras promisit, si Praetextatus, me impugnanta opprimeretur." 8 Gregory himself admits the supremacy of the king over the clergy. "Si quis de nobis, o rex, justitia tramitem transcendere voluerit a te corrigi potest; si vero tu excesseris, quis te corripiet? " * Greg. Tur. v. 18. Planck, ii. 188. 524 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK IH to mitigate or to relieve from ecclesiastical penal- ties' 1 But there is a strong converse to this subjection of the Church to the power of the King or the nobility. Already in the sixth and seventh centuries, the bishops appear in all the great assemblies of the people. 2 They have a voice in the election of the King; before long, his coronation becomes a religious ceremony. It was not, according to one theory, that they succeeded the Druids of Gaul and the Teutonic priests in their dig- nity (the Druids and their religion had long ceased to maintain any influence, the German priests do not appear to have formed a part of the great warlike mi- grations of the tribes), nor that the bishops claimed the privilege of all free Franks to give their suffrage in the popular assembly. There were few of these regu- lar parliaments ; they were rather great councils sum- moned by the king. The position of the Bishops, their influence with the people, their rank in public estimation, their superior intelligence, designated them as useful members of such council. The later Gothic kings of Spain felt even more awe of the clergy : they had been rescued by their zeal, not merely from the terrible retribution which awaited heathenism, but from that of heresy. Their conversion to orthodoxy showed the power which the Latin clergy had obtained over their minds ; and they would hasten to lay the 1 See the curious Hist of the Royal nuns (Greg. Tur. x. 20), and the ex- communication of Archbishop Sisibert of Toledo: " Ut in fine vit tantum communionem accipiat, excepto, si regia pietas antea eum absolvendum crediderit." A.D. 693. Planck, p. 194. * According to Eichhom, the first manifest " Concilium mixtum " was in A.D. 615. From this emanated the constitutions of Chlotaire H. which recognized the temporal powers of the hierarchy. i. p. 520. CHAP. V. EPISCOPAL AUTHORITY. 525 first fruits of their gratitude, submission, and reverence, at the feet of the clergy. Nor were the affairs discussed at these great councils strictly defined. There was no distinct line between civil and religious matters. This distinction belongs to a later period of civilization. The clergy were not unwilling to obtain the royal or the national assent to their spiritual decrees. The king naturally desired the intelligence, the love of order, the authority, the influence of the clergy, to ratify his civil edicts. The reciprocal rights of each party had been as yet too little contested to awaken that sensitive jealousy of interference which grew up out of centuries of mutual aggression. But if in the great public assemblies the bishops had already taken this rank, each in his city held an au- thority partly recognized by law, partly resting on the general awe and reverence. 1 As in the East, the bishop had a general superintendence over the courts of law. He had, if not always the presidential, a seat in the judicial tribunal. 2 He was, if not by statute, by uni- versal recognition, what the defensor had been in the old municipal system, only with all the increased influ- ence of his religious character. To him the injured party could appeal in default of justice. He was the patron, the advocate of the poor. He had power to punish subordinate judges for injustice in the absence of the king. In Spain the Bishops had a special charge to keep continual watch over the administration of justice, 8 1 So King Chlotaire ordained. Greg. Tur. vi. 31. 2 On the residence of the bishops in the cities, its effect on the great increase in the power of the bishop, and on the freedom of the cities, com- pare Thierry. R^cits. Me"rovingiens, i. 266. 8 "Ex decreto domini regis simul cum sacerdotali concilio conveniant ut discant quam pie et juste cum populis agere debeant." Concil. Tolet. iii. 38. 526 LATIX CHRISTIANITY. BOOK IIL and were summoned on all great occasions to instruct the judges to act with piety and justice. 1 Thus the clergy stood between the two hostile races in the new constitution of society the reconcilers, the pacifiers, the harmonizers of the hostile elements. They were Latin in general in descent, in language, yet comprehending both races under their authority and influence ; admitted to the councils of the Kings, and equal to the count or the noble in estimation ; controlling one race by awe, looked up to by the other as their natural protectors ; opposing brute force by moral and religious influences ; supplying the impo- tency of the barbaric law to restrain oppression and iniquity (where every injury or crime had its commu- tative fine) by the dread of the religious interdict and the fears of hell ; stooping unconsciously to the super- stition of the times, but ruling more powerfully through that superstition. They were the guardians and pro- tectors of the conquered, of the servile classes, whose condition was growing worse and worse, against the privileged freemen ; enduring, mitigating, when they could not control, the wild crimes of t lie different petty kings, who were constantly severing into fragments the great Prankish monarchy, and warring, intriguing, assassinating for each fragment. The Bishops during all that period, in Spain, in France, in Italy making every allowance for the legendary and almost adoring tone in which their histories have descended to us appear as the sole representatives of law, order, and 1 " Sint prospectore* episcopi qualiter judices cum populis aj*ant, ut ipsoa pr.-vmoiiitos corrigant, aut insolentiam eorum principum aurilm.* iniiottscant. Quod si correptos emendate nequiverint, et ab ecclesia et a communion* lospendant." Ibid.: compare Leg. Visigoth, ii. 1, 29, 30; Synod. Tolet A.D. 633, can. 32. CHAP. V. RIGHTS OF PERSONS. 527 justice, as well as of Christian virtue and humanity. There is even a cessation of religious persecution, ex- cept against the Jews. After the extinction of Arian- ism, the human mind had sunk into such inactivity and barrenness that it did not even produce a new heresy. Except the peculiar opinions of Felix and Elipandus, and those of Adelbert and Clement in Gaul, down to the time when the monk Gotschalk started the question of predestination, the West slumbered in unreasoning orthodoxy. A. The Barbaric codes, like the Roman, recognized slavery as an ordinary condition of mankind. 1 Man was still a marketable commodity. The captive in war became a slave ; and it was hap- baric py for mankind that he became so, otherwise the wars which swept over the whole world, civilized and un- civilized, must have been wars of massacre and exter- mination. The victory of Stilicho over Rhadagaisus threw 200,000 Goths or other Germans into the market, and lowered the price of a slave from twenty-five pieces of gold to one. 2 The well-known story of the Anglo-Sax- on youths who excited the compassion of Pope Grego- ry I. shows that in his time the public sale of slaves was still common in Rome. The redemption of captives that is the repurchase of slaves in order to restore them to freedom is esteemed an act of piety in the West as in the East. The first prohibition of this traffic, both by law and by public sentiment, was confined to the sale l The church lived according to the Roman law: " Legem Romanam qui ecclesia vivit." Eichhom, i. 297. In the Ripuarian law the wehrgeld of the clergyman was at first according to his birth, " Servus ut servum ; " fterwards according to his ecclesiastical rank. Ibid. * Orosius. vii. 37. 528 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK IH. of Christians to pagans, Jews, and in some cases to heretics. The Jews were the great slave-merchants of the age. 1 But it was the religion rather than the per- sonal freedom which was taken under the protection of the law. The capture and sale of men was part of the piratical system along all the shores of Europe, espe- cially on the northern coasts. The sale of pagan prisoners of war was authorized by Clovis after the defeat of the Alemanni ; by Charlemagne after that of the Saxons ; by Henry the Fowler, as to that unhappy race which gave their name to the class the Slaves. 2 The barbarian codes seem to acknowledge the le- MarrUges of g^ty ^ marriages between slaves, and their religious sanctity ; that of the Lombards on the authority of the Scriptural sentence, " Whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder." All unlawful connection with married or unmarried slaves is forbidden. 8 The slave who detected his wife in adul- tery might, like the freeman, kill the two criminals. 4 Still, however, they were slaves. The law interfered to prohibit marriages between the slaves of different masters. If the marriage took place without the con- sent of the master, the slave was punishable, by the Salic law, either by a mulct of threepence, or was to receive a hundred stripes. The later laws became more lenient, and divided the offspring between the two masters. The barbarian codes were as severe as the Roman in prohibiting the debasing alliance of the freeman with 1 Hist, of Jews, iii. * Compare Biot, p. 185, De 1' Abolition de 1'Esclavage ancien en Occident Paris, 1840. * Lex Salic, tit. xxviiL 4 Lex Salic, xxviii. 5. CHAP. V. MARRIAGE OF PREEMEX AND SLAVES. 529 the slave. The Salic and Ripuarian law Marriage of condemned the freeman guilty of this degra- siaTS 6 " dation to slavery ; l where the union was between a free- woman and a slave, that of the Lombards 2 and that of the Burgundians 3 condemned both parties to death ; but if her parents refused to put her to death, she became the slave of the crown. The Ripuarian law condemned the female delinquent to slavery ; but the woman had the alternative of killing her base-born husband. She was offered a distaff and a sword. If she chose the distaff, she became a slave ; if the sword, she struck it to the heart of her para- mour, and emancipated herself from her degrading con- nection. 4 The Visigothic law condemned the female who had connection with or wished to many her own slave, or even a fieedman, to death. 5 For the same offence with the slave of another, both were punished with a hundred stripes. For the fourth offence the woman became the handmaid of the slave's master. The Saxon law still more sternly interdicted all mar- riages below the proper rank, whether of nobles, free men, or slaves, under pain of death. The laws of the Lombards and of the Alemanni were more mild. The latter allowed the female to separate from her slave husband on certain conditions, if she had not degraded herself by any servile occupation. 6 1 Lex Sal. xxix. v. 3 : Lex Ripuar. Iviii. 9. 2 ccxxii. Tit. xxxv. 2. 4 Lex Ripuar. Iviii. 18. 5 Lex Visigoth, iii. ii. 2. Adam. Brem.. Hist. Eccles. i. 5. By the Bavarian law, a slave commit- ting fornication with a free-woman was to be given up, to be put to death if they pleased, to the parents, and not to pay any mulct: " quia talis pr- sumptio excitat inimicitias in populo." ii. be.. VOL. I. 3-t 530 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. Under the barbarian as under the Roman law, the slave was protected chiefly as the property of his mas- ter. All injury or damage was done to the thing rather than the person, and was to be paid for by a mulct to the owner, not a compensation to the sufferer. 1 By the edict of Theodoric, he who killed the slave of another might be prosecuted for homicide, or sued by a civil process for the delivery of two slaves in place of the one killed. 2 But slaves bore the penalty of their own offences, and even of those of their masters. If guilty of acts of violence, though under their masters' orders, they suffered death. 3 The slave was not to be tortured, except to prove the guilt of his master, un- less the informer would pay the master his value. If bought in order to suppress his evidence, he might be repurchased at the same price, and put to the torture. 4 The right -of life and death still subsisted in the master. According to some of the barbaric codes, here retro- grading from the Roman, he had full power to make away with his own property. This usage, noticed by Tacitus as common to the German tribes, continued to 1 In the Burgundian law, the murder of a slave is only punished by a fine, according to his value.* The humaner Visigothic code distinctly pro- hibited the murder of a slave. The punishment was fine and infamy. An- other law recognized the image of God in the slave, and therefore inter- dicted his mutilation. 2 The Burgundian law shows that the artisans in the mingled Roman and barbarian society were chiefly slaves. " Quicunque vero eervuin suum au- rificem, argentarium, ferrarium, fabrum serarium, sartorem vel sutorem, in publico adtributum artificium exercere permiserit," &c. Tit. xxi. * Art. Ixxvii. 4 Art. c. ci. By the Bavarian law, if a slave was unjustly put to the tor- ture, the false accuser of the slave was to give another slave to the master If the slave died under torture, two.t * Tit. x.; Legen Visigoth, vl. v. 12; Law of Egi<;a, yi. v. 13. t Tit. Yiii. 18, 1, 2: compare Burgundian law, Tit. rii. CHAP. V. EMANCIPATION OF SLAVES. 531 the Capitularies of Charlemagne. That code adopts the Mosaic provisions. 1 Under Lewis the Debonnaire and Lothaire, the arbitrary murder of a slave was pun- ished by excommunication or two years' penance. 2 The runaway slave was the outcast of society. At first he was denied the privilege of asylum. 3 It was a crime to conceal him ; he might be seized anywhere ; punished by his master according to his will ; and according to some codes he might be slain in case of resistance. The influence of the Church appears in some singular and contradictory provisions. 4 The Churches themselves were slaveholders. 5 There were special provisions to protect their slaves. By the law of the Alemanni, whoever concealed an ecclesiastic's slave was condemned to a triple fine. 6 In the Bava- rian law, whoever incited the slave of a church or a monastery to flight, must pay a mulct of fifteen solidi, and restore the slave or replace him by another. The Church gradually claimed the right of asylum for fugi- tive slaves. The slave who had taken refuge at the altar was to be restored to his master only on his promise of remitting the punishment. 7 As under the Roman law, peculiar solemnity at- tached to the emancipation of the slave in the church 1 Exod. xxi. 20, 21. 2 Dachery, Spicileg. Addit. ad Cap. c. 49; Biot, p. 286 8 Edict. Theodor. Ixx. ; Leg. Longobard. cclxxxii. < Lex Salica; Lex Ripuar,xiv. 6 " Non v' era anticamente Signor Secolare, Vescovo, Abbate, Capitolo di Canonici, e Monastero, che non avesse al suo servigio mold servi.' Manumission was more rare among the clergy than among secular masters, because it was an alienation of the property of the church. Muratori, Ant ftaliane, Diss. xv. 6 Lex Alemann. 3. 1 Concil. Aurelian. : compare the Visigothic law, ix. 1, de fagitivis. 532 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III and before the priest ; and emancipation thus became an act of piety. So in some of the Teutonic co<: in the Visigothic, emancipation before the parish priest was an ordinary act recognized by the law. It wa< a common form that it was done by the pious man for the remedy or the ransom of his soul. 1 Easter was usually the appointed time for this public manumission in the churches ; and no doubt the glad influences of that holy season awoke the disposition and the emulation, in many Christian minds, of conferring the blessing of freedom upon their slaves. Gregory the Great seems to have been the first who enfranchised slaves on the pure and noble principle of the common equality of mankind. But the great change in the condition of the servile order arose chiefly from other causes, besides the influ- ence of Christianity. This benign influence operated no doubt in these indirect ways to a great extent, first on the mitigation, afterwards on the abolition of domes- tic slavery; but it was perhaps the multiplication of slaves which to a certain extent slowly wrought its own remedy. The new relations of the different races / consequent on the barbaric conquests, the habits of the Teutonic tribes settled within the Empire, the attach- ment of the rural or praedial slave to the soil, the change of the slave into the serf, which became uni- versal in Europe, tended in different ways to the general though tardy emancipation. The serf was immovable as the soil : he became as it were part of it, 1 Leges Visigoth, v. vii. : compare note of Canciani, and the loth Dis- sertation of Muratori. This began early both in East and West. " Sen-urn tuum manumittendum manu ducis in ecclesiam. Fit silentium. Libellus tune reciUtur, aut fit desiderii tui prosecutio." S. August. Serra. xxxi. U was done pro remedio, or pro mercede anima? BUS. CHAP. V. BURGUXDIAN LAW OF DIVORCE. 533 and so in some degree beyond the caprice or despotism of his master. Already under the Empire, the sys- tem of taxation had affixed the peasant to the soil : the owner paid according to the number of heads of slaves, as he might of cattle. Whether the cultivators were originally born on the estate ascribed to them, or set- tled upon it, they were equally irremovable. No one could sell his estate, and transfer the slaves to another property. The estates of the Church were no doubt, as they yet enjoyed no immunity of taxation, subject to the same laws. It may be generally said that the whole cultivation of the Roman empire was conducted, if not by slaves, by those whose condition did not really differ from slavery. The emancipation began at a pe- riod in the Christian history, centuries later than that at which we are arrived at present. 1 The barbaric codes, as well as the edict of Theod- oric, 2 retained the high Teutonic reverence for the sanctity of marriage. In the Burgundian law, adultery was punishable by death. 3 In all cases it rendered the woman infamous. A widow guilty of incontinency could not marry again at least could not receive dower. In the Visigothic code the adulteress and her paramour were given up to the injured husband, to be punished according to his will : he might put them to death. 4 The law of divorce under the Burgundian law 1 Tit. xl.-xlviii.: compare the Justinian code "De agricolis et censitis et colonis." Law of Constantius, i. Law of Valentinian and Valens. "Omnes omnino fugitives adscriptitios, colonos vel inquilinos, sine ullo sexus, muneris conditionisque discrimine ad antiques penates, ubi censiti itque educati natique sunt, provinciis prsesidentes redire compellant." On the change of the slave into the serf in the Carlovingian times, compare Lahuerou, Institutions Carlovingiennes, page 204 et ieq. 2 See above. 8 Tit. Ixviii. and Hi. 4 Leges Visigoth, iii. iv. 14 et seq. 534 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK m. was Roman, excepting that the woman who divorced her husband without cause, according to an old German usage as to infamous persons, was smothered in mud. 1 Among the Visigoths, divorce was forbidden, except- ing for adultery. Incest, by the Visigothic law, was extended to the sixth degree of relationship. Rape was punished by confiscation of property, or failing that, by reduction to slavery. 2 This code contained a severe statute against public prostitutes, rendering them liable to whipping. Incontinence in priests was corrected by penance ; the woman was to be whipped. The former statute was in that stern tone towards unchastity which in the Goths Salvian contrasts with the impurity of Roman manners. 3 The later laws seem gradually to soften off into mulcts or compositions for these as for other crimes. But among the yet un-Romanized Saxons, down to the days of St. Boniface, the maiden who has dishonor- ed her father's house, or the adulteress, is compelled to hang herself, is burned, and her paramour hung over the blazing pile ; 4 or she is scourged or cut to pieces with knives by all the women of the village till she is dead. 1 Necetur in Into, xxxiv. 1. " Ignavos et imbelles et corpore infames cceno ac palude injecta super crate, mergunt." Tacit. Germ. c. xii. 2 Tit. iii. vi. Unnatural crimes were punished by castration. By the Bavarian law, whoever took away a nun to marry her committed adultery. " Scimus ilium crimini obnoxium esse qui alienam sponsam rapit. quanto magis ille obnoxius est criinini qui Christi usurpavit sponsam." xii. 1. * iii. iv. 17. " Esse inter Gothos non licet scortatorem Gothum, soli inter eos praejudicio nationis ac nominis permittuntur impuri esse Romani." Salvian.de Gub. Dei. vii. Lahuerou, however, observes: "Voyez quelle ^norme disproportion la loi met entre les obligations et les devoirs des deux e"poux! Le man peut tre infidele autant de fois et a tel degre" qu'il le voudra, sans que la femme ait le droit de s'en plaindre." The Ger- man woman was in fact, though in a less degree than the Roman, the prop- erty of her husband. Lahuerou, Institutions Carlovingiennes, p. 38. * A.D. 743. Bonifac. Epist. ad Ethelbal. Reg. Mercia. CHAP. V. LAW OF PROPERTY. 535 B. In the barbaric as in the Roman code, the law of property might seem enacted with the special view of securing to the Church wealth which ^vof prop. could not but be constantly accumulating, erty- and could never diminish. Every freeman might leave his property to the Church. No duke or count had a right to interfere. The heir who ventured to reclaim such dedicated property was liable to the judg- ment of God and to excommunication, recognized in o more than one code. 1 The freeman might retain to himself and so enjoy the usufruct during his own life, and leave his heirs beggars. The proofs of such dona- tions were all to the advantage of the Church. The O barbaric codes left the clergy to secure the inalienabili- ty of their property by their own laws. At first, and until the bishop began to be merged in the temporal feudatory, it was comparatively safe in its own sanctity. In the division of the conquered lands by the barba- rians, the Church estates remained sacred. The new converts could not show their sincerity better than by their prodigality to the Church. Clovis and his first successors, ignorant of the value of their new acquisi- tions, awarded large tracts of land with a word. St. Remigius received a great number of lands to be dis- tributed among the destitute churches. Their successors complained of this thoughtless prodigality. Already they had discovered that the royal revenues had been transferred to the Church. 2 The whole Teutonic law, which appointed certain compensations for certain srimes, would have suggested, had suggestion been nec- 1 Lex Alemann. et Lex Burgund., in initio. 2 " Ecce, aiebat Rex, pauper remansit fiscus noster, et divitiae nostrae ad jcclesias sunt translatae." Greg. Tur. vi. 46. 536 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK HI. essaiy, the commutation system of the Church. God, like the freeman or the King, might be propitiated by the wehrgeld; the penance of the Christian be con sated by a pecuniary mulct. Already Queen Fivde- gunde satisfies the conscience of two hesitating murder- ers whom she would employ to assassinate her brother- in-law, King Sigebert, by the promise of large alms to the Church, in order to secure them from hell or pur- gatory. 1 So rapidly and alarmingly was the Church in France becoming rich, that King Chilperic passed a law annulling all testaments in which the Church was con- stituted heir ; but Gunthran, not long after, repealed the sacrilegious statute, and these murderous and adul- terous and barbarous kings and nobles were again ena- bled to die in peace, confident in the remission of their sins by the sacrifice of some portion of their plunder (the larger the offering the more secure) on the altar of God. 2 But the barbarous times which bestowed so lavishly were by no means disposed superstitiously to respect the property of the Church. It was often but late in life that the access of devotion came on, while through all the former part, either by right of conquest, by terror, or by bribery, the barbarian had not scrupled to seize back consecrated land. Even kings were obliged to ratify and solemnize their own grants by synods or by nation- al assemblies. 8 The deepening of the imprecations ut- 1 Gesta Francorum. Planck, ii. 199. 2 All the laws acknowledged the right of alienating some portion from the rightful heir, "pro remedio animse," or "in remissionem peccatorum." There are legal formula: in Marculf to this effect. Some codes, however, prohibited the absolute disinheritance of the right heir for the good of the church. Eichhorn, p. 359: compare 363 etseq. * In a synod at Valence, King Gunthran demanded the ratification of CHAP. V. BAEBARIC CRDHXAL LAW. 537 tered by these synods against robbers of the Church shows their necessity. These lands began to be guarded by all the terrors of superstition ; wild legends every- where spread of the awful and miraculous punishments which had fallen on such offenders. 1 In a few centu- ries the deliverer of Europe from the Mahommedan yoke, Charles Martel, was plunged into hell, and re- vealed in his torments to the eyes of men, as a standing and awful witness to the inexpiable sin of sacrilege. The property of the Church as yet enjoyed no im- munity from taxation. Gradually special exemptions were granted. At length the manse of the church (a certain small farm or estate) was entirely relieved from the demands of the state. Even the claim to absolute freedom from contribution to the public expenses was of a much later period. 2 C. The criminal law of the barbaric codes tended more and more to the commutation of crime or crimina i Uw injury for a pecuniary mulct. High treason of barbarian - alone, compassing the death of the King, corresponding with the enemies of the realm, or introducing them within its frontier, was generally a capital crime. Yet in the Visigothic code the capital punishment of treason could be commuted for putting out the eyes, shaving the hair, scourging, perpetual impris- onment, or exile, with confiscation and attainder, and in all the gifts which he, his wife, and daughters had bestowed on the church. All plunderers of this property "anathemate perpetui judicii divini plec- tendi atque supplicii aeterni obnoxii tenendi sunt." King Dagobert confirmed his legacies in a parliament, the legacies which he had be- queathed "memor malorum quae gesserit." Planck, 203. 1 Gregory of Tours is full of such tales. 2 Planck, ii. ch. vii. King Chlotaire, in 540, demanded a third part of the revenue of the church as an extraordinary loan. Greg. Tur. iv. 2. 538 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK EL this case the criminal could not make over his property to the Church. 1 Such donations were void. But of all crimes the King had power of pardon with the con- sent of the clergy and the great officers of his palace. The Bavarian law adds sedition in the camp to acts of treason, but even this might be forgiven by the royal mercy. 2 As to other crimes, except adultery and in- cest, it was Teutonic usage, not Christian humanity, which abrogated the punishment of death. In the Bur- gundian law homicide is still a capital crime ; but grad- ually the life of every man below the King is assessed, according to his rank, at a certain value, and the wehr- geld may be received in atonement for his blood. 3 Even the sacred persons of the clergy had their price, which rises in proportionate amount with their power and influence. By the Bavarian law, should any one kill a bishop lawfully chosen, 4 a tunic of lead was to be fitted to the person of the bishop, and the commutation for his murder was as much gold as that tunic weighed : if the gold was not to be had, the same value in money, slaves, houses, or land ; if the offender had none of these, he was sold into slavery. Nor was it life only which was thus valued ; every wound and mutilation ot each particular member of the body was carefully regis- tered in the code, and estimated according as the man was noble, freeman, slave, or in holy orders. The slave alone was still h'able to capital punishment for certain l Lex Visigoth, vi. 1, 2. * " Et Hie homo qui hsec commisit benignmn impntet regem aut ducem si ei vitam concesserit." Lex Bavar. ii. iv. 3. 8 Parricide alone, by the Visigothic law, was punished by the same death as that inflicted. * " Si quis episcopum quern constituit rex, vel populus elegit." Lex Bavar. xi. 1. CHAP. V. THE CHURCH AN ASYLUM. 539 offences j 1 the Visigothic code condemned him to be burned. 2 Torture was not only, according to Roman usage, to be applied to slaves, but even to freemen in certain cases. 3 The privilege of asylum within the Church is recog- nized in most of the barbaric codes. 4 It is asserted in the strongest terms, and in terms impregnated with true Christian humanity, that there is no crime which may not be pardoned from the fear of God and reverence foi the saints. 5 As yet perhaps the awe of the Christian altar only arrested justice in its too hasty and vindictive march, and in these wild times gave at least a tempo- rary respite, for the innocent victim to obtain liberty that he might plead his cause against the fierce popu- lace or the exasperated ruler, for the man of doubtful guilt to obtain a fair trial, or for the real criminal to suffer only the legal punishment for his offence. As yet the priest could not shield the heinous criminal. By the Visigothic code he was compelled to surrender the homicide. 6 With the ruder barbarians the sanctity of holy places came in aid of the sacerdotal authority ; and in those savage times no doubt the notion that it O was treason against God to force even the most flagrant criminal from his altar, protected many innocent lives, and retarded the precipitancy even of justice itself. 7 1 Or scourging, for theft, by the Burgundian law. iv. 2. a Lex Visigoth, iii. iv. 14. 8 Lex Visigoth, vi. 1, 2, ii. iv. 4. 4 On the subject of asylum, compare the excellent dissertation of Paolo Sarpi, De jure Asylorum. Opera, iv. p. 191. 6 " Nulla sit culpa tarn gravis, ut non remittatur, propter timorem Dei et reverentiam sanctorum." Lex Barar. vii. 3. It was an axiom of the Ro- wan law, " Templorum cautela non nocentibus sed laesis datur a lege." Justin. Novell, xvii. 7. 6 Lex Visigoth, vi. v. 18. * See Greg. Tur. vii. 19 ; iv. 18. 540 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. The right was constantly infringed by violent kings or rulers, but rarely without strong remonstrance from the clergy ; and terrible legends were spread abroad of the awful punishments which befell the violators of the sanctuary 1 . Already, in the earliest codes, appears the abroga- tion of the ordinary tribunals of justice by appeal to arms, and to the judgment of God: even the Bur- gundian law admits the trial by battle. 2 The ordeal is a superstition of all nations and of all ao-es. God is summoned to bear miraculous witness O in favor of the innocent, to condemn the guilty. 8 The Ripuarian law admits the trial by fire, 4 the Visigothic by redhot iron. 6 The Church, at a later period, took the ordeal under its especial sanction. There was a solemn ritual for the ceremony. 6 It took place in the church. The scalding water, the redhot iron, or the ploughshare were placed hi the porch of the church i Restrictions were placed on this undefined right In a capitular of 779 " Homicidae et caetc-ri rei, qui mori debent legibus, si ad ecclesiam con- fugerint, non ezcusentur, neque eis ibidem victus detur." Titxlv. * Compare Calmet and Grotius on Numbers v. 31, for the instances from classical antiquity. Pliny and Solinus mention two rivers, which either by scalding or blinding, detected perjury. H. N. xxxi. cap. xviii. 2. r HflV ff ETOLfUM KOl pWpOVf alpftV XtpWV, KOI TTVp 6dp-lV, Kai tfeOVf OpKUflOTtlv, rb fajTE ipaaai, fa/rc ry fyveiAevai rd irpdyfia fiovfavoavTi (Ofr' elpyaafiivu. SophocL Antig. 264 " Et medium freti pietate per ignem Cultores multft premiums Testigia prunl." Virg JEneid. xi. 787. * Tit xxx. 6 Lex Visigoth, ri. 1, 3. See the very curious note of Canciani, and quotation from the Constitutions of Baeca on this passage. See the very remarkable ritual in Canciani, ii. 453. CHAP. V. THE ORDEAL. 541 and sprinkled with holy-water. All the most awful mysteries of religion were celebrated to give greater terror and solemnity to the rite. Invention was taxed to discover new forms of appeal to the Deity ; swear- ing on the Gospels, on the altar, on the relics, on the host; plunging into a pool of cold water, he who swam was guilty, he who sunk innocent ; they were usually held by a cord. There were ordeals by hot water, by hot iron, by walking over live coals or burn- ing ploughshares. 1 This seems to have been the more august ceremony for queens and empresses under- gone by one of Charlemagne's wives, our own Queen Emma, the Empress Cunegunda. The ordeal went down to a more homely test, the being able to swallow consecrated bread and cheese. The new crimes which the Christianity of these ages had introduced into the penal code of the Empire found their place in the barbaric codes. At first, indeed, they were left to the cognizance of the clergy, and to be visited by ecclesiastical penalties. The Arianism of the primitive Teutonic converts compelled the toler- ation of the laws, and retained a kind of dread of touching on such subjects in the earlier codes ; but in proportion as the ecclesiastics became co-legislators, i The ordeal was condemned in later days by many popes as tempting God: by Alexander IT., Stephen X., Honorius III. Muratori thought that it was abolished in the twelfth century. Canciani quotes later instances. That of Savonarola, a real ordeal, might suffice. Even Canciani seems to look back upon it with some lingering respect : " Ego reor Deo Opt. Max. ilns placuisse majorum nostrorum simplicitatem et fidem quam recentio- rum sapientum acutissimam philosophiam." Vol. ii. p. 293. Greg. Tu- ron. de Martyr. 69, 70. All the ritualists, Martene, Mabillon, Ducange, under the different words, Muratori in two dissertations, one on the ordeal, one on duel, furnish ample citations. Almost all, however, are later than hese primitive barbaric laws. 542 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK HI. heresies became civil crimes, and liable to civil punish- ments. 1 The statutes of the orthodox Visigothic kings, so terrible against the Jews, were not more merciful to heretics. The Franks were from the first the army of orthodoxy ; heretics were traitors to the state, as well as rebels against the Church, confederates of hostile Visigoths, or Burgundians, or Lombards. Witchcraft was a crime condemned by the Visi- gothic law. 2 Its overt acts were causing storms, invo- cation of demons, offering nightly sacrifices to devils. The punishment was 200 stripes, and shaving the head. Consulting soothsayers concerning the death of the King was punished in a freeman by stripes and confiscation of property, and perpetual servitude : wiz- ards guilty of poisoning suffered death. III. But external to and independent of the Im- perial Law and the constitutions of the new western kingdoms was growing up the jurisprudence of the Church, commensurate with the Roman world, or rather with Christendom. Every inhabitant of the Christian empire, or of a Christian kingdom, \vas sub- ject to this second jurisdiction, which even by the sentence of outlawry which it pronounced against heretics, assumed a certain dominion over those who vainly endeavored to emancipate themselves from its yoke. The Church as little admitted the right of sects to separate existence, as the empire would endure the establishment of independent kingdoms or republics within its actual pale. Of this peculiar jurisprudence of the Church the clergy were at once the legislature 1 Laws of Recared, xii. 2, 1. 8 Lex Visigoth, vi. 2, 3. There was a singular provision against judges consulting diviners in order to detect witches. CHAP. V. ECCLESIASTICAL JURISPRUDENCE. 543 and the executive. This double power tended more and more to concentration. In the State all power resided in the Emperor alone ; the unity of the empire under a monarch inevitably tended to that of the Church under one visible head. As the clergy more and more withdrew itself into a privileged order, so the bishops withdrew from the clergy, the Metropoli- tans rose above the bishops, and the Bishop of Rome aspired to supreme and sole spiritual empire. Had Rome remained the capital of the whole world, the despotism, however it might have suffered a perpetual collision with the imperial power, ruling in the Eternal City, would probably have become, as far as ecclesias- tical dignity, an acknowledged autocracy. A people habituated for centuries to arbitrary authority in civil affairs would be less likely to question it in religion. The original independence of the Christian character which induced the first converts in the strength of their faith to secede from the manners and usages as well as the religious rites of the world, to form self- governed republics, as it were, within the social system this noble liberty had died away as Christianity became a hereditary, an established, an universal re- ligion. Obedience to authority was inveterate in the Roman mind ; reverence for law had sunk into obedience to despotic power ; arbitrary rule seemed the natural condition of mankind. This unrepining, unmurmur- ing servility could not be goaded by intolerable taxation to resistance. Nothing less than religious difference could stir the mind into oppugnancy, and this differ- ence was chiefly concentred in the clergy: when a heretic was in power the orthodox, when the orthodox the heretic, alone asserted liberty of action or of 544 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK III. thought. In all other respects the law of the Church, as enacted by the clergy, was received with implicit submission. In the provinces, as the Presidents, or Prefects, or Counts, in their regular gradation of dig- nity, ruled with despotic sway, yet were but the repre- sentatives of the remote and supreme central power, so the Bishops, Metropolitans, Patriarchs rose above each other, and culminated, as it were, to some distant point of unity. The Patriarchates had been fixed in the greatest cities of Europe, Asia, and Africa. These were the seats likewise of the highest provincial govern- ments ; the other chief provincial cities were usually the seats of local administration, and of the metropolitan sees ; and so the stream of public business, civil and ecclesiastical, was perpetually flowing to the same centre. It was at once the place at which all that re- mained, the shadow, as it were, of the old popular assemblies, as well as the ecclesiastical synods, were convened ; appeals came thither from all quarters, imperial mandates were issued to the province or theme. On this principle Constantinople continued still to rise in influence ; Alexandria for above a cen- tury resisted, but resisted in vain, the advancement uf the upstart unapostolic See. The new Rome asserted her Roman dignity against the East, while on every favorable opportunity she raised up claims to indepen- dence, to equality, even to superiority, against the elder Rome, now a provincial city of the Justinian empire. Rome was the sole Patriarchate of the West, the head and centre of Latin Christianity. Rome stood alone, almost without rival or reclamation. Raven- na, as the seat of empire under the exarchs, might aspire to independence, to equality; her pretensions CHAP. V. ROME THE CENTRAL POWER. 545 were soon pnt down by her own impotence and by common opinion. Wherever the Latin language was spoken there was no rival to the supremacy of Rome. The African churches, distracted by the Donatists, oppressed and persecuted by the Arian Vandals, re- vived but as the churches of a province of the Eastern empire. -Carthage was still one of the great cities of the world, her bishop the acknowledged head of the churches in Africa. But the African Church, though obedient to the East, after Justinian's conquest, and just emerging into ascendency over the Arians, had neither ambition nor strength to assert independence. Of the Teutonic kingdoms founded within the ancient realm of Rome, three had been destroyed during the sixth century, those of the Ostrogoths in Italy, of the Vandals in Africa, of the Burgundians in France. Of the four which survived, the Lombard was still Arian, the Anglo-Saxon was heathen and not yet con- solidated into one kingdom ; those of the Visigoths in Spain and of the Franks in Gaul, if still of uncertain boundaries, and frequently subdivided in different pro- portions, accepted the supremacy of Rome as part of the Catholicism to which one had returned after a long apostacy, with all the blind and ardent zeal of a new proselyte; the other, whose war-cry of conquest had been the Catholic faith, would bow down in awe-struck adoration before the head of that faith. The Latin clergy, who had made common cause with the Franks, would inculcate this awe as the most powerful auxil- iary to their own dominion. In the West the state of ecclesiastical affairs tended constantly to elevate the actual power of the single Patriarchate. The election of the bishops in the Ro- VOL. i. 35 546 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK m. man provinces and in the new Teutonic kingdoms was in the clergy and the people. Strife constantly arose ; the worsted party looked abroad for aid ; if they found it not with the Metropolitan, they sought still further ; and as the provincial of old appealed to Rome against the tyranny of the civil governor, so the clergy against the bishop, the bishop against the Metropolitan. They fled in the last resort to what might seem to be an im- partial, at least might be a favorable tribunal. But throughout these kingdoms there was another The ciergy strong bond to Rome the common interest I * tfn ' of the Latin part of the community against the foreign and Teutonic. The old Roman aristocracy of the provinces, except in some municipal towns, per- ished or were degraded from their station by the new military aristocracy of the conquerors. But the clergy could not but continue, it has been seen that they did continue, for a considerable period to be Roman. They were thus a kind of peaceful force, bound to- gether by common descent, and still looking to Rome as their parent. Nothing is known of the Arian clergy who accompanied the Goths, the Vandals, or the Lom- bards, and kept up the tradition of the heterodox faith, whether they too were chiefly Roman, or had begun to be barbarian. 1 The rare collisions which are recorded, the general toleration, except among the Vandals in 1 In the CoIIatio Episcoporum, where Avitus of Vienne challenged the Arian clergy to bring their conflicting doctrines to the issue of a public disputation, the head of the Arian clergy is named Boniface. The Arians (it is a Catholic account) were struck dumb, or replied only in unmeaning clamors ; one sentence alone betrays the ground they took ; they stood on the Scripture alone; the Catholics were pnestigiatores; did they mean workers of false miracles? "Sufficere sibi se habere script uram, quae sit fortior omnibus praestigiia." The conference was in the year 419. D'Ach- ery, iii. p. 304. CHAP. V. ROME THE CENTRAL POWER. 547 Africa, might lead to the conclusion that they were the Teutonic clergy of a Teutonic people, each contentedly worshipping apart from each other, as under its sepa- rate law, so under its separate religion, until the superior intelligence, the more ardent activity of the orthodox Latins, brought over first the kings and nobles, as Re- cared in Spain and the later Lombard kings, afterwards the people, to the unity of the Church. The toleration of the Arians, and even writers like Orosius admit that in Gaul the Goths and Burgundians treated the ortho- dox Christians as brothers, was, after all, but indiffer- ence, or ignorance that there was another form of Christianity besides that which they had been taught. 1 It was more often that the Catholics provoked than suffered persecution wantonly inflicted. 2 That submis- sion which the Roman paid to the clergy out of his innate and inveterate deference for law, if not from servility, arose in the Teuton partly from his inherent awe of the sacerdotal character, partly from his con- scious inferiority in intellectual acquirements. 3 No doubt already the Latin of the ordinary Church ser- vices had become, and naturally became more and more, a sacred language. 4 The Gothic version of the 1 Orosius, vii. 33. There was a kind of persecution of some bishops in Aquitaine. Sidon. Apoll. vii. 6. Modaharius the Goth, a citizen, not a clergyman, is named by Sidonius The name sounds like Latinized Teu- tonism. Of Euric, Sidonius says, " Pectori suo catholici mentio nominis acet." At this time the bishoprics of Bordeaux and eight others were vacant, no clergy ordained, the churches in ruins, herds pasturing on the grass-grown altars. 2 See on the confederacy of the orthodox bishops in Burgundy with the Franks, ch. ii. 8 Compare Paullus Diaconus on the conversion of the Lombards, iv. 44. * I cannot refrain from quoting the observations of a modern writer : " Christianity offered itself, and was accepted by the German tribes, as a law ind as a discipline, as an ineffable, incomprehensible mvsterv. Its fruits 648 LATIN CHBISTTANITY. BOOK HI. Scriptures was probably confined to that branch of the nation for which it had been made by Ulphilas : it could not have been disseminated widely. The Latin clergy, even if they had the will, could not, during the for- mation of the various dialects or languages which grew up in Europe, have translated the sacred books or the services of the Church into the ever-shifting and blend- ing dialects. Till languages grew up, recognized as their own by nations, there could be no claim to a ver- nacular Bible or a vernacular Liturgy. Latin would establish a strong prescription, a prescription, in fact, of centuries ; and that, as on the one hand it would tend to keep the clerical office chiefly in the hands of those of Latin descent, would likewise preserve the unity of which the centre was Rome. 1 Rome throughout this period is still standing in more lonely preeminence: from various circumstances, per- haps from the continually shifting boundaries of the kingdoms, the Metropolitan power, especially in Gaul, only centuries later, if ever, assumed its full weight. On the other hand, that of the bishops over the infe- rior clergy became throughout the western kingdoms more arbitrary and absolute. The bishop stands alone, the companion and counsellor of kings and nobles, the were, righteousness by works (Werkheiligkeit), and belief in the dead word. But in a barbarous people it is an immense advance, an unappreci- able benefit. Ritual observance is a taming, humiliating process; it is submission to law; it is the acknowledgment of spiritual inferiority; it implies self-subjection, self-conquest, self-sacrifice. It is not religion in its highest sense, but it is the preparation for it." Bitter, Geschich., Christ. Philos. i. p. 40. 1 Planck supposes that for half a century after the conversion of the Franks the bishops were, without exception, Latin; about 566 appears a Meroveus, Bishop of Poitiers. Greg. Tor. ix. 40; Planck, ii. 96. In the eighth century the clergy were chiefly from the servile class. p. 159. CHAP. V. GROWTH OF EPISCOPAL PREEMINENCE. 649 judge, the ruler ; the College of Presbyters, the ad- visers, the coordinate power with the bishop, has en- tirely disappeared. It is rarely at this period that we discern in history the name of any one below the episcopal rank. Even in the legends of this age we scarcely find a saint who is not a bishop, or at least, and that as yet but rarely, an abbot. 1 The monas- teries at first claimed no exemption from the episcopal autocracy : they aspired not yet to be independent, self-governed republics. The primitive monks, laymen in every respect, would have shrunk from the awful assertion of superiority to the common law of subjec- tion. The earlier councils prohibited the foundation of a monastery, even of a solitary cell, without the permission of the bishop. Gradually monks were or- dained, that the communities might no longer depend for the services of religion on the parochial clergy ; but this infringement on the profound humility of the monk was beheld with jealousy by the more rigid. St. Benedict admits it with reserve and caution. It was not till splendid monasteries were founded by relig- iously prodigal nobles, kings, and even prelates, and endowed with ample territories and revenues, that they were withdrawn from the universal subordination, received special privileges of exemption, became free communities under the protection of the King, or of the Pope. 2 The lower clergy were in fact in great numbers ordained slaves, slaves which the Church did not choose at hazard from the general servile class, but from her own serfs, and who were thus trained to 1 Planck, ii. 368. 2 Compare M. Guizot, Civilisation Moderne, Lecon XT., who has traced the change, and cites the authorities with his usual sagacity and judgment. 550 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK HI habits of homage and submission. The first Franks or Goths who entered into holy orders would hardly be tempted by a less prize, or stoop to a lower dignity, than that of a bishop, except as far as it might be necessary to pass rapidly through the lower orders. The clergy were so entirely under the power of the bishop that a Spanish council thinks it necessary and seemly to secure them from arbitrary blows and stripes. 1 The ecclesiastical jurisprudence, therefore, was en- tirely, as well as the administration of the law in its more solemn form, in the bishops. They alone at- tended the synods or councils, they alone executed the decrees. Their mandate or their sanction was neces- sary for every important act of religion. The whole penitential system was under their con- trol and rested on their authority. Private confession might be received, absolution for private offences be granted by the priest : public or notorious crimes could be remitted by the bishop alone. This ecclesiastical jurisprudence had its specific laws Penitential as ordinances for the government of the cler- gy ; its more general statutes, which em- braced all mankind. Every man, barbarian or Roman, under whichever civil law he lived, freeman or slave, was amenable to this code, which had the penitential system for its secondary punishment ; excommunica- tion, which in general belief, if the excommunicated died unreconciled, was tantamount to eternal perdition, for its capital punishment. The excommunication as 1 " Ne passim unnsquisque episcopus honorabilia membra sua presbyteros live Levitas, prout voluerit et complacuerit, verberibus subjiciat et dolori." Syn. Bracar. iv. A.D. 675, can. 7. CHAP. V. DELINQUENCIES OF THE CLERGY. 551 yet was strictly personal: it had not grown into the interdict which smote a nation or a country. Of this twofold law, that over the clergy and that over the laity, the administration of the first was absolutely in the bishops that of the second only more remotely, and in the last resort. The usual pen- alties were different. The sacred person of the priest had peculiar privations and penalties, in some respects more severe, in others more indulgent, chastisements. The attempt to reconcile the greater heinousness of the offence in the sinful priest with the respect for his order, led at times to startling injustice and contradic- tion. 1 The delinquent clerk might be deprived for a time of his power of administrating sacred things ; Delinquency he might be thrown back, an unworthy and of the cler sr- a despised outcast, into the common herd of men, or rather lower than the common herd (for the inefface- able ordination held him still in its trammels, in its re- sponsibility, though he had forfeited its distinctions and its privileges), but even then the mercy of the Church provided courses of penance more or less long and aus- tere, by which, in most cases, he might retrieve the past, and rise, to some at least, of his lost prerogatives. The monasteries, in later times, became a kind of penal settlements, where under strict provisions the exile might expiate his offences, work ou| the redemption of his guilt, if not permitted to return to the world, at i Throughout the Penitentials, the penalties are heavier on the clergy than the laity. For murder, a clerk did penance for ten years, three on oread and water; a layman three, one on bread and water. The clergy too were punished according to their rank, where one in inferior orders has 3ix, a deacon has seven, a priest ten, a bishop twelve years penance. Mo- rinus. 552 LATIX CHRISTIANITY. BOOK HI. least die in peace ; at all events his degradation was concealed from a babbling and censorious world. The law administered by the clergy, throughout the or the rest Christian polity, comprehended every moral of the com- . . L . J munity. or religious act ; and what act or man could be beyond that wide and undefined boundary ? What- ever the Church, whatever the individual clergyman, declared to be sin (the appeal even to the bishop was difficult and remote), was sin. The timid conscience would rarely dare to judge for itself: the judge there- fore was at once the legislator, the expounder of the law, the executioner of the law. 1 This law had its capital punishment excommuni- cation, which absolutely deprived of spiritual life. Ex- communication, in its more solemn form, was rarely pronounced by lower than bishops. 2 It was the weapon with which rival bishops encountered each other, which they reserved for enemies of high rank. It was the sentence of Councils only which cut off whole sects from the communion of the Church. But excommunication in a milder form the tem- porary or the enduring deprivation of those means of grace without which salvation was hopeless, the refusal of absolution, the key which alone opened the gates of heaven was in the power of every priest : on his judgment, on his decree, hung eternal life, eternal death. lu ltaqne postquam crlminum omnium occultorum po-na quibiHihet presbyteris concessa est, libelli Poenitentiales praeter cannnes conditi sunt in quibus hsec omnia distincte in simpliciorum presbyternnim irratiam ct ne- cessariam instructionem enarrabantur, ut prtnitentiarum Emponendarum officio deftitii possent." Morinus. This work of Mnrinus de Prcnitentil affords ample and accurate knowledge on Jhe history of the Penitential law, and of the different penitentials which prevailed in the v churches. * Public penance was at first only adjudged by the bishops. Sirmond- je Poenit Public. ; Opera, vol. iv. CHAP. V. THE PENITENTIALS. 553 But though this, like all despotic irresponsible power, or power against which the mass of mankind had no refuge, was liable to abuse, was often no doubt abused, it was still constantly counteracted by the Penitentials which as wisely (lest men should break the yoke in utter despair) as mercifully, were provided by the relig- ious code of Christianity. The Penitentials were part of the Christian law ; how early part of the written law, is not quite clear ; nor were they uniform, or in fact established by any universal or central authority that of Pope or Council ; l but they were not the less an admitted customary or common law, a perpetual silent control on the arbitrary power of the individual priest, a guarantee as it were to the penitent, that if he faithfully submitted to the appointed discipline, he could not be denied the inappreciable absolution. The Penitentials thus, by regulating the sacerdotal power, confirmed it ; that which might have seemed a hard capricious exaction became a privilege ; the mercies of the law were indissolubly bound up with its terrors. However severe, monastic ; unchristian, as enjoining self-torture ; degrading to human nature, as substitut- ing ceremonial observance for the spirit of religion; debasing instead of wisely humiliating ; and resting in outward forms which might be counted and calculated (so many hours of fasting, so many blows of the scourge, so many prayers, so many pious ejaculations, for each offence) yet as enforcing, it might be, a rude and harsh discipline, it was still a moral and religious discipline. It may have been a low, timid, dependent 1 The three oldest were the Penitentials of Archbishop Theodore of Can- terbury, of Bede, and the Roman. That of Rabanus Maurus obtained in Germany. Mormus. 554 LATIN CHRISTIANITY. BOOK IH virtue to which it compelled the believer, yet still vir- tue. It was a perpetual proclamation of the holiness and mercy of the Gospel. It was a constant preaching, on one hand, it might be of an unenlightened, super- stitious Christianity, but still of Christianity. Yet, on the other hand, it was a recognition of a divine law, submission to a religion which might not be defied, which would not be eluded a religion which would not deny its hopes to the worst, but would have at least resolutions, promises of amendment the best security which it could obtain from the unreasoning and fal- lible nature of man. It aspired at least to effect that which no human law could do, which baffled alike im- perial and barbaric legislation, to impose constraint on the unchristian passions and dispositions. When sacer- dotal religion was, if not necessary, salutary at least to mankind, it was the great instrument by which the priesthood ruled the mind of man. If it increased the wealth of the clergy, it was wealth much of which lawless possessors, spoilers, robbers, had been forced to regorge. If it invested them with an authority as dangerous to themselves as to the world, that authority was better than moral anarchy. However adminis- tered, it was still law, and Christian law, grounded on the eternal principles of justice, humanity, and truth. 1 1 It will hereafter appear in our History how the penitential system degenerated into commutations for penance by alms (alms being only part >{ the penance, compensated for prayer), fasting, and other religious observ- ances; alms regulated indeed by the rank and wealth of the transgressor, but with full expiatory value; commutations became indulgences; indul- gences, first the remission of certain penitential acts, then general reinis-ions of sins for definite periods, at length for periods almost approximating to eternity; and these for the easiest of religious duties, visits to a certain church, above all ample donations. END OF VOL. I. Widdletorfs Editions of Choice Standard Works. MILMAN'S HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY. A HANDSOME LIBRARY EDITION. THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY. From the Birth of Christ to the Abolition of Paganism in the Roman Empire. 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Though the Jewish people are especially called the people of God, though their polity is grounded on their religion, though God be held the aut! their theocracy, as well as its conservator and administrator, yet the Jewish nation is one of the families of mankind ; their history is part of the world's history. The func- tions which they have performed in the progress of human development and civilization are so important, so enduring ; the veracity of their history has been made so entirely to depend on the rank which they are entitled to hold in the social scale of mankind ; their barbarism has been so fiercely and contemptuously exaggerated, their premature wisdom and humanity so contemptuously depreciated or denied ; above all, the bar- riers which kept them in their holy seclusion have long been so utterly prostrate; friends as well as foes, the most pious Christians as well as the most avowed enemies of Christian faith, have so long expatiated on this open field, that it is as impossible, in my judgment, as it would be unwise to limit the full freedom of inquiry. " Such investigations, then, being inevitable, and, as I believe, not only inevita- ble, but the only safe way of attaining to the highest religious truth, what is the rinht, what is the duty of a Christian historian of the Jews (and the Jewish hi-t'-ry has, I think, been shown to be a legitimate province for the historian) in such ii.. The views adopted by the author in early days he still conscientiously maintains. These views, more free, it was. then thought, and bolder than common, he dares to say not irreverent, have been his safeguard during a long* and not unreflective life against the difficulties arising out of the philosophical and historical researches of our times ; and from such views many, very many, of the best and wisest men whm it has been his blessing to know with greater or less intimacy, have felt relief from pressing doubts, and found that peace which is attainable only through perfect freedom of mind." Extract from Authors Prefact. Uniform -with " History of the Jeius" MILMAN'S HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY. New and Revised Edition. 3 Volumes, crown Svo. Cloth, $5.25; half calf, $10.50. And MILMAN'S LATIN CHRISTIANITY. 8 Volumes, crown Svo. Cloth, $14.00; half calf, $28.00. For sale at principal Bookstores throughout the country, and mailed by Publisher on receipt of Price. W. J. WIDDLETON, PUBLISHER, 27 Howard Street, New Tork. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. f Recetpi D2343 9/77