SECTION A view of the reign of Constantine, and the establishment of Christianity as the religion of the Roman empire.

A.D. 306 TO AT the commencement of the fourth century of the Christian tara, the Roman empire was under the dominion of four monarchs; of whom two, viz. Dioclesian and Maximin Herculeus were of superior rank, and each distinguished by the title ofAUGUSTUS; while the other two, Constantius Chlorus and Maximinus Galerius, sustained a subordinate dignity, and were honored with the humbler appellation ofCAESARS.

Dioclesian was raised to the throne in the year 284, consequently had swayed the imperial scepter sixteen years; but, though much addicted to superstition, he entertained no aversion to the Christians; and during this period they had enjoyed a large portion of outward peace. Constantius Chlorus, to whose lot it fell to exercise the sovereign power in Gaul and the western provinces, was a mild and amiable prince, under whose government we find no traces of persecution. He had himself abandoned the absurdities of Polytheism, and treated the Christians with benevolence and respect. The principal offices of his palace were executed by Christians. He loved their persons, esteemed their fidelity, and entertained no dislike to their religious principles. This alarmed the Pagan priests, whose interests were so intimately connected with the continuance of the ancient superstition, and who, apprehending, not without reason, that, to their great detriment, the Christiall religion was becoming daily more universal and triumphant throughout the empire, addressed themselves to Dioclesian, whom they knew to be of a timorous and credulous disposition, and by fictitious oracles and other perfidious stratagems, endeavored to engage him to persecute the Christians. The treacherous arts of a selfish and superstitious priesthood failed, however, fbr some time, to move Dioclesian. Their recourse was next had to Maximinus Galerius, one of the Caesars, who had married the daughter of Dioclesian; a prince, whose gross ignorance of every thing but military affairs, was accompanied with a fierce and savage temper, which rendered him a proper instrument for executing their designs. Stimulated by the malicious insinuations of the heathen priests, the suggestions of a superstitious mother, and the ferocity of his own natural temper, he importuned Dioclesian in so urgent a manner, for an edict against the Christians, that he, at length, obtained his horrid purpose. It seems to have been the practice of the Roman emperors about this time, to take up their residence occasionally at Nicomedia, the capital of the province of Bythinia—the place from whence Pliny addressed his celebrated letter to Trajan. This city, for its beauty and greatness, has been compared to Rome, Antioch, and Alexandria; but, what is more to our purpose, it abounded with Christians, even from the days of the apostles (1 Peter 1:1). Dioclesian having taken up his abode at Nicomedia, Galerius, his son-in-law, had come to spend the winter with him. In the year 302, the latter prevailed upon his colleague to grant an edict for pulling down all the places of worship belonging to the Christians, to burn all their books and writings, to deprive them of all their civil rights and privileges, and render them incapable of any honors or civil promotion. This first edict, though rigorous and severe, did not extend to the lives of the Christians, for Dioclesian was much averse to slaughter and bloodshed. It was, however, merely a prelude to what was to follow; for, not long after the publication of this first edict, a fire broke out at two different times in the palace of Nicomedia, where Galerius lodged with Dioclesian. The former, though in all probability the real incendiary, threw all the odium of this upon the Christians, as an act of revenge; and the credulous Dioclesian, too easily persuaded of the truth of this charge, caused the most inhuman torments to be inflicted upon multitudes of them at Nicomedia.

Soon after this, a new edict was issued, ordering all the bishops, pastors, and public teachers, throughout the empire, to be apprehended and imprisoned; hoping, probably, that if the leaders could be once effectually silenced, their respective flocks might be easily dispersed. Nor did his inhuman policy stop there; for, a third edict was presently issued, by which it was ordered, that all sorts of torments should be employed, and the most intolerable punishments resorted to, in order to force the disciples of Jesus to renounce their profession, and sacrifice to the heathen gods. The consequence was, that an immense number of persons became the victims of this cruel stratagem throughout every part of the Roman empire, except those who had the felicity to be placed under the mild and equitable government of Constantius Chlorus. The shameful manner in which multitudes of them were punished, it would be difficult to relate without violating the rules of decency; and, in the present day, would scarcely obtain credit; while others were put to death, after having their constancy tried by tedious and inexpressible torments; and not a few sent to the mines, where they were doomed to linger out the remains of a miserable life in poverty and bondage.

In the third year of this horrible persecution (A.D. 304,) a fourth edict was published by Dioclesian, at the instigation of Galerius, commissioning the magistrates to force all Christians, without distinction of rank or sex, to sacrifice to the gods, and authorizing them to employ all sorts of torments, with the view of driving them to this act of apostasy. The diligence and zeal of the Roman magistrates in the execution of this inhuman edict, ultimately reduced the Christian profession to a very low ebb; for this horrid persecution lasted ten years.

The rigorous edicts of Dioclesian were strictly and cheerfully executed by his associate Maximian, who had long hated the Christians, and who delighted in acts of blood and violence. It is the remark of Gibbon, when speaking of Maximian and Galerius, that the minds of those princes had never been enlightened by science. Education had never softened their temper. They owed their greatness to their swords; and in their most elevated fortune they still retained their superstitious prejudices of soldiers and peasants. Maximian swayed the scepter over the provinces of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, where he gratified his own inclination by yielding a rigorous obedience to the stern demands of Dioclesian.

A learned French writer, Monsieur Godeau, computes that in this tenth persecution , as it is commonly termed, there were not less than seventeen thousand Christians put to death in the space of one month. And that “during the continuance of it, in the province of Egypt alone, no less than one hundred and fifty thousand persons died by the violence of their persecutors; and five times that number through the fatigues of banishment, or in the public mines to which they were condemned. Galerius now no longer made a secret of his ambitious designs. He obliged Dioclesian and Maximian to resign the imperial dignity, and got himself declared emperor of the east, resigning the west, for the present, to Constantius Chlorus, at that time in Britain, with the ill state of whose health he was well acquainted.

But Divine Providence was now preparing more tranquil times for the church; and, in order to this, it confounded the schemes of Galerius, and brought his counsels to nothing. In the year 306, Constantius Chlorus, finding his end approaching, wrote to Galerius to send him his son Constantine, who had been kept as all hostage at court. The request was refused; but, coming to the ears of young Constantine, and aware of the danger of his situation, he resolved to attempt his escape, and seizing a favorable moment, he made the best of his way for Britain, and, to prevent pursuit, is said to have killed all the post horses on his route. He arrived at York just in time to witness the death of his father Constantius, who had in the meantime nominated his son as his successor; and the army, without waiting to consult Galerius, immediately pronounced Constantine emperor of the west, in the room of his father — a proceeding which must have stung the tyrant to the heart, who was nevertheless obliged to submit, and even to confirm the appointment with the outward marks of his approbation.

Not long after this (A.D. 311,) Galerius himself, the author of all this series of complicated suffering to the Christians, was reduced to the brink of the grave by a dreadful and lingering disease, in which he suffered horrors that no language can express. “The frequent disappointments of his ambitious views,” says Gibbon, “the experience of six years of persecution, and the salutary reflections which a lingering and painful distemper suggested to the mind of Galerius, at length convinced him that the most violent efforts of despotism are insufficient to extirpate a whole people, or to subdue their religious prejudices.” Desirous of repairing the mischief that he had occasioned, he published in his own name, and in those of Licinius and Constantine, a general edict, which after a pompous recital of the imperial titles, proceeded in the following manner: “Among the important cares which have occupied our minds, for the utility and preservation of the empire, it was our intention to correct and re-establish all things according to the ancient laws and public discipline of the Romans. We were particularly desirous of reclaiming, into the way of reason and nature, the deluded Christians who had renounced the religion and ceremonies instituted by their fathers, and presumptuously despising the practice of antiquity, had invented extravagant laws and opinions according to the dictates of their fancy, and had collected a various society from the different provinces of our empire. The edicts which we have published, to enforce the worship of the gods, having exposed many of the Christians to danger and distress, many having suffered death, and many more, who still persist in their impious folly, being left destitute of any public exercise of religion, we are disposed to extend to those unhappy men the effects of our wonted clemency. We permit them, therefore, freely to profess their private opinions, and to assemble in their conventicles without fear of molestation, provided always that they preserve a due respect to the established laws and government. By another rescript, we shall signify our intentions to the judges and magistrates; and we hope that our indulgence will engage the Christians to offer up their prayers to the Deity whom they adore , for our safety and prosperity , for their own, and for that of the republic.” This important edict was issued and set up at Nicomedia, on the 13th April, 311; but the wretched Galerius did not long survive its publication; for he died about the beginning of May, under torments the most excruciating, and in the nature of his complaint and manner of his death, very much resembling the case of Herod. After his death, Maximin succeeded him in the government of the provinces of Asia. In the first six months of his new reign he affected to adopt the prudent counsels of his predecessor; and, though he never condescended to secure the tranquillity of the church by a public edict, he caused a circular letter to be addressed to all the governors and magistrates of the provinces, expatiating on the imperial clemency, acknowledging the invincible obstinacy of the Christians, and directing the officers of justice to cease their ineffectual prosecutions, and to connive at the secret assemblies of those enthusiasts .

In consequence of these orders, says Gibbon, great numbers of Christians were released from prison, or delivered from the mines. “The confessors, singing hymns of triumph, returned into their own countries; and those who had yielded to the violence of the tempest, solicited with tears of repentance, their re-admission into the bosom of the Church.” This treacherous calm, however, was of short duration. Cruelty and superstition were the ruling passions of the soul of Maximin — the former suggested the means, the latter pointed out the objects of persecution. He was devoted to the worship of the Pagan deities, to the study of magic, and to the belief of oracles. Happily, while this bigoted monarch was preparing fresh measures of violence against the Christians with deliberate policy, a civil war broke out between himself and his colleague Licinius, which occupied his whole attention; and his defeat and death taking place soon after, delivered the Christians from this last and most implacable of their enemies.

The government of the Roman world, which, a few years before, had been administered by no less than six emperors at one time, now became divided between Constantine and Licinius, who immediately granted to the Christians permission to live according to their own laws and institutions, a privilege which was still more clearly ascertained by an edict drawn up at Milan, in the year 313. By this edict, every subject of the empire was allowed to profess either Christianity or Paganism unmolested. It also secured the places of Christian worship, and even directed the restoration of whatever property they had been dispossessed by the late persecution.

The rival princes, however, were not long in seeking or finding occasion to turn their arms against each other, in the issue of which Licinius fell, and left his competitor in the undisturbed possession of the empire.

No character has been exhibited to posterity in lights more contradictory and irreconcilable than that of Constantine. Christian writers, transported with his profession of their faith, have magnified his abilities and virtues to excess, and thrown an almost celestial splendor over every part of the portrait; while the Pagan historians have spread their gloomy shades upon the canvas, and obscured every trait that was great and amiable.

The circumstances attending his conversion to Christianity, are too familiar to most readers, to render any thing like a minute detail of them proper in this place. His father Constantius had shown himself very favorably disposed towards the Christians, and Constantine gave early indications of a desire to protect and favor its professors. If we may credit his own assertion, he had been an indignant spectator of the savage cruelties which had been inflicted by the hands of the Roman soldiers, on those citizens whose religion was their only crime. In the east and in the west he had seen the different effects of severity and indulgence; and as the former was rendered still more odious by the example of Galerius, his implacable enemy, the latter was recommended to his imitation by the authority and advice of a dying father. These tolerant principles were displayed alike both towards Pagans and Christians, before the emperor had avowed any peculiar attachment towards the latter. It is true, nevertheless, that he did not always maintain this state of indifference; he appears evidently to have been convinced of the folly and impiety of the Pagan superstition, which induced him to exhort all his subjects earnestly to embrace the gospel, and at length to employ all the force of his authority to abolish the ancient heathen worship.

According to his own account, he was marching at the head of his army, from France into Italy, against Maxentius, on an expedition, which he was fully aware, involved in it his future destiny. Oppressed with extreme anxiety, and reflecting that he needed a force superior to arms, for subduing the sorceries and magic of his adversary, he anxiously looked out for the aid of some deity, as that which alone could secure him success.

About noon, when the sun began to decline, whilst praying for supernatural aid, a luminous cross was seen by the emperor and his army, in the air, above the sun, inscribed with the words, “BY THIS CONQUER,” at the sight of which, amazement overpowered both himself and the soldiery on the expedition with him. He continued to ponder on the event till night, when, in a dream, the author of Christianity appeared to him, to confirm the vision, directing him, at the same time, to make the symbol of the cross his military ensign. Constantine vanquished his adversary; and no sooner was he made master of Rome, by the destruction of Maxentius than he honored the cross by putting a spear of that form into the hand of the statue erected for him at Rome. He now built places for Christian worship, and showed great beneficence to the poor. He encouraged the meeting of bishops in synods — honored them with his presence, and employed himself continually in aggrandizing the church. He removed the seat of empire to Byzantium, which he embellished, enlarged, and honored with the name of Constantinople; and prohibited, by a severe edict, the performance of any Pagan rites and ceremonies throughout the city. His religious zeal augmented with his years; and towards the close of his life, several imperial edicts were issued for the demolition of the heathen temples, and the prevention of any sacrifices upon their altars. He was on the other hand, scrupulously attentive to the religious rites and ceremonies which were prescribed by the Christian clergy. He fasted; observed the feasts in commemoration of the martyrs, and devoutly watched the whole night on the vigils of the saints. And in his last illness, he summoned to the imperial palace at Nicomedia, several Christian bishops, fervently requesting to receive from them the ordinance of baptism, and solemnly protesting his intention of spending the remainder of his life as the disciple of Christ. He was accordingly baptized by Eusebius, bishop of that city: after which he entirely laid aside his purple and regal robes, and continued to wear a white garment till the day of his death, which, after a short illness, took place on the 22d of May, in the year 337, at the age of sixty-four, having reigned thirty-three years. The extraordinary occurrences of the life of Constantine produced an entire change in the whole of the Christian profession. Its friends were now no longer called to endure patiently the hatred of the world — to take up their cross, and press after a conformity to Christ in his sufferings, and through much tribulation, to enter his kingdom; but they were to bask in the sunshine of worldly prosperity, enjoying the smiles of the great, and connecting with their profession the riches and honors of this present world — the baneful effects of which began speedily to develop themselves. So long as the Christians were persecuted by the heathen on account of their faith and practices, they were driven to the gospel as their only source of consolation and support; and they found it every way sufficient for their utmost need. The animating principles which it imparted, raised their minds superior to the enjoyments of this world, and in the hope of life and immortality, they were happy, even if called to lay down their lives for the sake of their profession. And, herein, the power of their religion was conspicuous. It was not with them an empty speculation, floating in the mind, destitute of any influence upon the will and the affections. While it induced them to count no sacrifice too costly which they were called to make for the gospel’s sake, they were led by it to exercise the most fervent Christian affection one towards another — to sympathize tenderly with each other in all their sorrows and distresses — and by bearing one another’s burdens, they fulfilled their Lord’s new command of brotherly love. This was the prominent feature in Christianity during the first three centuries. The writings of the apostles and evangelists all breathe this amiable spirit, and abound with exhortations to cultivate this God-like disposition; and so conspicuous was the exercise of it among the primitive Christians that it was commonly remarked by their enemies, and recommended by them as worthy of imitation.

Such, however, is the depravity of human nature, that, as they enjoyed any intervals from persecution, they became more profligate in their morals and more litigious in their tempers. But now that the restraint was wholly taken off by Constantine, the churches endowed, and riches and honors liberally conferred on the clergy; when he authorized them to sit as judges upon the consciences and faith of others, he confirmed them in the spirit of this world — the spirit of pride, avarice, domination, and ambition — the indulgence of which, has, in all ages, proved fatal to the purity, peace and happiness of the kingdom of Christ. This inconsistent conduct of the leading men among them, in professing a religion, the prominent characteristics of which are humility and self-denial, and at the same time aspiring after the pleasures and the honors of this world, seems to have forcibly struck the very heathens themselves. Hence, an historian of the latter class, who lived shortly after the time of Constantine, remarks concerning the bishops of Rome, “It would be well if, despising the magnificence of the city, they would imitate some of the bishops of provincial towns, whose temperance in eating and drinking, plainness of apparel, and looking above the world, recommended them to the deity as his true worshippers.” Now they began to new-model the Christian church, the government of which was, as far as possible, arranged conformably to the government of the state. The emperor himself assumed the title of bishop — and claimed the power of regulating its external affairs; and he and his successors convened councils, in which they presided, and determined all matters of discipline. The bishops corresponded to those magistrates whose jurisdiction was confined to single cities; the metropolitans to the proconsuls or presidents of provinces; the primates to the emperor’s vicars, each of whom governed one of the imperial provinces. Canons and prebendaries of cathedral churches took their rise from the societies of ecclesiastics, which Eusebius, bishop of Verceil, and after him Augustine, formed in their houses, and in which these prelates were styled their fathers and masters. This constitution of things was an entire departure from the order of worship, established under Divine direction by the apostles of Christ in the primitive churches. In fact, scarcely any two things could be more dissimilar than was the simplicity of the gospel dispensation from the hierarchy established under Constantine the Great. “Let none,” says Dr.

Mosheim, alluding to the first and second centuries, “confound the bishops of this primitive and golden period of the church, with those of whom we read in the following ages. For though they were both designated by the same name, yet they differed extremely, in many respects. A bishop, during the first and second centuries, was a person who had the care of one Christian assembly, which, at that time, was, generally speaking, small enough to be contained in a private house. In this assembly, he acted not so much with the authority of a master, as with the zeal and diligence of a faithful servant. The churches also, in those early times, were entirely independent; none of them subject to any foreign jurisdiction, but each one governed by its own rulers and its own laws.

Nothing is more evident than the perfect equality that reigned among the primitive churches; nor does there ever appear, in the first century, the smallest trace of that association of provincial churches, from which councils and metropolitans derive their origin.” 10 To which we may add, that the first churches acknowledged no earthly potentate as their head.

This had been expressly prohibited by their Divine Master. “The kings of the Gentiles,” said he, “exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise an authority upon them are termed benefactors. But with you it shall not be so; — let him that is greatest among you be as the younger, and he that is chief, as he that doth serve.” (Luke 22:25,26) Again, “Be not ye called Rabbi; for one is your Master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father upon the earth; for one is your father who is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters; for one is your Master, even Christ. But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant; and, whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased, while he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” (Matthew 23:3-12) These divine maxims, which are in perfect unison with the whole tenor of the New Testament, were entirely disregarded by the ecclesiastics who undertook to new-model the constitution of the Christian church, under the auspices of Constantine, and whom, as a matter of courtesy, they condescended to make its earthly head. But to proceed.

Thus restored to the full exercise of their liberty, their churches rebuilt, and the imperial edicts every where published in their favor, these new bishops immediately began to discover what spirit they were of. As their several revenues increased, they grew more ambitious, less capable of contradiction, more haughty and arrogant in their behavior, more quarrelsome in their tempers, and more regardless of the simplicity and gravity of their profession and character. Constantine’s letters afford abundant proof of the jealousies and animosities that reigned among them.

Adverting to a violent quarrel which had taken place between Miltiades, bishop of Rome, and Coecilianus, bishop of Carthage, in which the principals had enlisted a host of their colleagues as their respective auxiliaries, he states to them, that it was a very grievous thing to him to see so great a number of persons divided into parties, and the bishops disagreeing among themselves. He earnestly wishes to compose their differences; but in spite of all his efforts, they persisted in their quarrels — which drew from him a pathetic complaint, that those who ought to have been the foremost in maintaining a brotherly affection and peaceable disposition towards each other, were the first to separate from one another in a scandalous and detestable manner, giving occasion to the common enemies of Christianity to scoff and deride them.

To put an end to such factious and disgraceful proceedings, he summoned a council to meet at Arles in France, in order, if it were possible, to bring to a friendly and Christian compromise this long pending altercation. He himself condescended to be present on the occasion, and exerted all his influence to restore peace and harmony among them, but with little effect.

He had unfortunately sown the seeds of strife and contention, by his liberal endowment of churches, and by the riches and honors that he had conferred upon the bishops, and he was now reaping the fruit of his folly.

Had this first of the Christian emperors, rested satisfied with the primary edict which he published in favor of the Christians, he had acted the part of a wise, good, and impartial governor. That decree, without particularizing any sects or parties, gave full liberty to all of them, both Christians and Pagans, to follow whatever religious profession seemed to them most eligible. But that liberty was of no long duration, and was soon abridged in reference to both Christians and Heathens. For, although in that edict he had commanded that the places of worship and other effects should be restored to Christians in general, it was soon followed by another, which restricts this grant to “ THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.” After this, in a letter to Miltiades, bishop of Rome, complaining of the differences fomented by the African bishops, he tells him, that he had so great a reverence for “the catholic church,” that he would not have him suffer, in any place, any schism or difference whatsoever to exist. There are in his letters many things which savor of the same spirit, and which can leave us in no doubt, that, by “the catholic faith and church” we are to understand that which was approved by those bishops who had the greatest interest in his favor.

And with regard to his treatment of the Pagans, it was in flagrant violation of the first principle of Christianity, as well as of the excellent edict which he had formerly issued. He prohibited by law 11 the worship of idols in cities and country — commanded that no statues of the gods should be erected, nor any sacrifices offered upon their altars, and sent into all the provinces Christian presidents, forbidding the Pagan priests to offer sacrifice, and confirming to the former the honors due to their characters and stations; thus endeavoring to support the kingdom of Christ, which is not of this world, by means altogether worldly, viz. the prospects and rewards of worldly honor and preferment.

It can excite no surprise, that those persons who could advise the issuing of these edicts, to suppress the ancient religion of the empire, should be against tolerating any sects among themselves that should presume to differ from them on any articles of the Christian faith or discipline. For nothing can be more evident than that, if the civil magistrate is vested with authority to prohibit religious opinions, or punish the abettors of them, merely because in his view they are erroneous, it must necessarily follow, that he has an equal right to punish a professing Christian whose sentiments or practices differ from his own, as he would have to punish those of a Pagan or Mahommedan. If the magistrate’s jurisdiction extend to his exercising a control over the human mind in one instance, it will be impossible consistently to deny it to him in any other; and as his own judgment is, in all cases, the authorized standard of what is truth and error, in religion, he bears the sword, on this principle to punish every deviation from that standard which he has erected, whether found in Christian, Jew, or Pagan. Thus, if Constantine and his bishops were justified in abolishing heathenism by the civil power, because they believed it erroneous, Dioclesian and Gallienus with their priests, were equally right in prohibiting Christianity by civil laws, because they believed it to be not only false and impious, but blasphemy against their gods, and even as bordering upon atheism itself.

It has been well remarked by a sensible writer, that “men have been very long in discovering, and even yet seem scarcely to have discovered, that true religion is of too delicate a nature to be compelled, by the coarse implements of human authority and worldly sanctions. Let the law of the land restrain vice and injustice of every kind, as ruinous to the peace and order of society; for this is its proper province: but let it not tamper with religion, by attempting to enforce its exercises and duties. These, unless they be free-will offerings, are nothing; they are worse [than nothing.] By such an unnatural alliance, and ill-judged aid, hypocrisy and superstition may, indeed, be greatly promoted; but genuine piety never fails to suffer.” The sentiments of primitive Christians for the first three centuries, in reference to the divinity of the Savior, were generally speaking, pretty uniform; nor do there appear to have been any public controversies regarding this leading article of the Christian faith. But a dispute now arose which may be said to have involved all Christendom in a flame. It originated in the church of Alexandria, in Egypt, between Alexander and Arius, two of the pastors of that church, and soon spread itself into other churches, inflaming bishops against bishops, who, under the pretext of supporting divine truth, excited tumults, and fomented the most deadly strifes and hatreds towards each other. These divisions of the prelates set the people together by the ears, and the dispute was managed with such violence, that it involved the whole Christian world, and gave occasion to the heathens to ridicule the Christian religion upon their public theatres. The occasion of this dispute, which is well known by the name of “THE ARIAN CONTROVERSY,” seems to have been simply this. Alexander, one of the prelates of that church, speaking upon the subject of the Trinity, had affirmed that there was “an unity in the Trinity, and particularly that the Son was co-eternal, and consubstantial, and of the same dignity with the Father.” Arius objected to this language, and argued that “If the Father begat the Son, he who was begotten must have a beginning of his existence; and from hence, says he, ‘tis manifest that there was a time when he (the Son) was not,” etc.

It is wholly incompatible with the object of this history to discuss points of Christian doctrine; but the reader will, probably, excuse a few remarks on this extraordinary controversy. It is scarcely possible for any one who entertains a reverential regard for the great God, not to be struck with the presumption of poor, finite, erring mortals, daring to investigate, in the rash and inconsiderate manner that was now done, a subject of such awful import as the modus of the divine existence. We no sooner turn our thoughts to this question than our feeble capacities are overwhelmed with the immensity of the subject. Reason, in its most improved state, can carry us but a little way in our discoveries of God; and, if we are wise, we shall receive in simplicity of mind, every information which the great First Cause hath been pleased to afford us concerning himself in his holy word.

There, indeed, we learn with certainty, what may be also inferred from the works of creation and providence, that there is a God, who at first called the universe into being, and who still upholds and governs all things. But the works of creation and providence could never teach us, what the Scriptures make abundantly plain, — that there is in this one immense being, a distinction of Father, Word, and Spirit — a distinction which lies at the foundation of the whole economy of our redemption. Men in the pride of their hearts, may ask, how can these things be? But we are under no obligation to explain that point to them. And, indeed, it will be early enough for them to put the question, when they shall have explained how body , soul , and spirit constitute one individual human person. Every child may see that this distinction pervades the whole of divine revelation, and especially the New Testament. TheFATHER is always represented as sustaining the majesty of the Godhead; as the great moral Governor of the world, giving laws to his creatures, enforced by the sanctions of the rewards and punishments of a future state. TheWORD is described as becoming incarnate to accomplish the purposes of the Father’s love in the redemption of the guilty. And theHOLY SPIRIT as the efficient agent, carrying into effect the purpose of the Father and the grace of the Son, on the hearts of the elect. But then it never leads us to conceive of theSON OF GOD, abstractedly from his incarnation.THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH, or assumed a human body, and thus “that holy thing which was born of the Virgin, was theSON OF GOD.” (Luke 1:31-35; John 1:14) The doctrine of “eternal generation” was unknown to the inspired writers, and, unquestionably, hatched in the school of Alexandria. Happy had it been for the Christian world, could they have rested satisfied with the simple doctrine of divine revelation on this sublime subject; not seeking to be wise beyond what is written. Much as I dislike the character of Athanasius, it is only due to him to say, that he has in a few words said all that can with propriety be said on this subject. “The Father,” says he, “cannot be the Son, nor the Son the Father; and the Holy Ghost is never called by the name of the Son, but is called the Spirit of the Father and of the Son. The Holy Trinity is but one divine nature and one God. This is sufficient for the faithful; human knowledge goes no further. The Cherubims vail the rest with their wings.”

But let the reader mark how these ecclesiastical combatants represent each other’s opinions. Arius in a letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia, thus states the sentiments of Alexander. “God is always and the Son always — the same time the Father, the same time the Son — the Son co-exists with God unbegottenly, being ever begotten, being unbegottenly begotten — God was not before the Son, no not in conception, or the least point of time, he being ever God, ever a Son — For the Son is out of God himself.”

Alexander, on the contrary, in a letter to the bishop of Constantinople, gives us the doctrine of Arius in the following words. “There was a time when there was no Son of God, and that he who before was not, afterwards existed, being made, whensoever he was made, just as any man whatsoever; and that therefore he was of a mutable nature, and equally receptive of vice and virtue,” etc.

If these things were publicly taught and avowed, by these men, as each represents the other’s sentiments, every sober man will surely think that they both merited severe reprehension, for leaving the plain language of scripture, and introducing terms of their own invention into a doctrine of pure revelation, and at last dividing the whole of Christendom on account of it.

Numerous expedients were tried to bring Alexander and Arius to one mind, the emperor himself condescending to become a mediator between them; but all attempts proved fruitless. He wrote letters to them at Alexandria, exhorting them to lay aside their differences and become reconciled to each other. He informs them that he had diligently examined the rise and progress of this dispute, and that he found the occasion of the difference to be very trifling and not worthy such furious contentions; and that therefore he promised himself, his mediation for peace would have its desired effect. He reminds Alexander that “He required from his presbyters a declaration of their sentiments concerning a silly, empty question — and Arius, that he had imprudently uttered what he should not even have thought of, or what at least he should have kept secret in his own bosom; that questions about such things ought not to have been asked; if asked, should not have been answered; that they proceeded from an idle itch of disputation, and were in themselves of so high and difficult a nature, as that they could not be exactly comprehended or suitably explained. And that to insist on such points before the people could produce no other effect than to make some of them talk blasphemy, and others turn schismatics.” This, unquestionably, was excellent advice, but religious animosities are not so easily removed; and the ecclesiastical combatants were too warmly engaged to listen to such salutary counsel. Finding all other resources ineffectual, the emperor was at length under the necessity of issuing letters to the bishops of the several provinces of the empire, enjoining them to assemble together at Nice, in Bythinia, which was accordingly done, A.D. 325. This is what goes by the name of “The First General Council.” The number of bishops was three hundred and eighteen, besides a multitude of presbyters, deacons, acolythists, and others, amounting in the whole to two thousand and forty-eight persons. The ecclesiastical historians inform us, that in this vast collection of the bishops, some were remarkable for their gravity, patience under sufferings, modesty, integrity, and eloquence, yet they all agree that there were others of very opposite characters. On the day appointed for holding the council, the bishops and inferior clergy were assembled in the largest room in the palace, rows of seats being placed on each side of it; and all having taken their places, they waited, standing in respectful silence for the emperor, who, being preceded by several of his friends, at length made his appearance, as Eusebius says, like an angel of God, exceeding all his attendants, in size, gracefulness, and strength; and dazzling all eyes with the splendor of his dress; but showing the greatest humility and modesty in his manner of walking, gesture, and behavior. Having taken his station in the middle of the upper part of the room, near a low chair that was covered with gold, he did not sit down, till the fathers desired it.

All being now seated, says Eusebius, the bishop whose place was the first on his right hand (Maimbourg informs us it was Eustathius, patriarch of Antioch,) rose, and addressing the emperor, gave thanks to God on his account, congratulating the church on its prosperous condition, brought about by his means, and particularly in the destruction of the idolatrous worship of Paganism. Then sitting down, the emperor himself addressed the company in Latin, expressing his happiness at seeing them all met on so glorious an occasion as the amicable settlement of all their differences, which, he said, had given him more concern than all his wars; but that these being at an end, he had nothing more at heart than to be the means of settling the peace of the church; and he concluded with expressing his earnest wish that they would, as speedily as possible, remove every cause of dissension, and lay the foundation of a lasting peace. What he said in Latin was interpreted to the fathers in Greek.

Immediately after this speech, this excellent emperor was witness to a scene which must have afforded him a very unpromising prospect as to the success of his project for peace. For before they entered upon the discussion of any thing that related to the great object of their meeting, the bishops began with complaining to the emperor of each other, and vindicating themselves. To every thing that was said, he gave a patient hearing, and by his mildness and great address, speaking to them in Greek (which he was in some measure able to do) he at length prevailed upon them to come to an agreement, says Eusebius, not only with respect to their private differences, but also with regard to the two great objects of their assembling — the rule of faith as it respected the Arian controversy, and the time of celebrating Easter.

Socrates says, that the bishops having put into the emperor’s hands written libels, containing their complaints against each other, he threw them all together into the fire, advising them, according to the doctrine of Christ, to forgive one another as they themselves hoped to be forgiven.

Sozomen says, that the bishops having made their complaints in person, the emperor bade them reduce them all into writing, and that on the day which he had appointed to consider them, he said, as he threw all the billets unopened into the fire, that it did not belong to him to decide the differences of Christian bishops, and that the hearing of them must be deferred till the day of judgment. However, the emperor ultimately succeeded in restoring them to some degree of temper; and they consequently proceeded in good earnest to draw up a creed, which they were all required to subscribe, as the only true and orthodox faith, and which, from the place where they were assembled, bears the title of theNICENE. 17 The principal persons who appeared on the side of Arius, and assisted him in the public disputation, were Eusebius of Nicomedia, Theognis of Nice, and Maris of Calcedon; and the person who chiefly opposed them and took the part of Alexander, was Athanasius, then only a deacon in the church of Alexandria, but much confided in by the bishop, and of whom more will be said hereafter.

No sooner were the decrees and canons of the council drawn up, than they were sent to Sylvester, then bishop of Rome, who, in the thirteenth council of Rome, at which were present two hundred and seventy-five bishops, confirmed them in these words: “We confirm with our mouth, that which has been decreed at Nice, a city of Bythinia, by the three hundred and eighteen holy bishops, for the good of the catholic and apostolic church, mother of the faithful. We anathematize all those who shall dare to contradict the decrees of the great and holy council, which was assembled at Nice, in the presence of that most pious and venerable prince, the emperor Constantine.” And to this all the bishops answered, “We consent to it.” The council began their discussions on the 19th of June, and ended them on the 25th of August, of the same year (325) to the joy of Constantine, the defeat of Arius, and the triumph of the Athanasian party. Eusebius of Nicomedia, and sixteen other bishops, opposed the general sense of the council, and rejected the word consubstantial . But finding themselves in so small a minority, and that the emperor was determined to enforce respect to the decisions of the council, they all, except four, ultimately subscribed the confession of faith. The prevailing party then proceeded to excommunicate Arius and his followers, banishing the former from Alexandria. Letters were also written to all the churches in Egypt, Lybia, and Pentapolis, announcing their decrees, and informing them that the holy synod had condemned the opinions of Arius, and had fully determined the time for the celebration of Easter; exhorting them to rejoice for the good deed they had done, for that they had cut off all manner of heresy. When these things were ended, Constantine splendidly treated the bishops, filled their pockets, and sent them honorably home, exhorting them at parting to maintain peace among themselves, and that none of them should envy another who might excel the rest in wisdom or eloquence — that they should not carry themselves haughtily towards their inferiors, but condescend to, and bear with, their weakness; — a convincing proof that he saw into their tempers, and was no stranger to the haughtiness and pride that influenced some, and the envy and hatred that prevailed in others. 19 It requires not the spirit of prophecy to anticipate the effects which must flow from the disgraceful proceedings of this general council, though Constantine himself wrote letters, enjoining universal conformity to its decrees, and urges as a reason for it, that “what they had decreed was the will of God, and that the agreement of so great a number of such bishops was by inspiration of the Holy Ghost.” It laid the foundation for a system of persecution of a complexion altogether new — professed Christians tyrannizing over the consciences of each other, and, as will be seen in the sequel, inflicting torture and cruelties upon each other far greater than they had ever sustained from their heathen persecutors. The emperor’s first letters were mild and gentle, but he was soon persuaded into more violent measures; for out of his great zeal to extinguish heresy, he issued edicts against all such as his favorite bishops persuaded him were the authors or abettors of it, and particularly against the Novatians, Valentinians, Marcionists, and others, whom, after reproaching with being “enemies of truth, destructive counselors,” etc. he deprives of the liberty of meeting for worship, either in public or private places; and gives all their oratories to the orthodox church. And with respect to the discomfited party, he banished Arius himself, commanded that all his followers should be called Porphyrians (from Porphyrius, a heathen, who wrote against Christianity) 20 — ordained that the books written by them should be burnt, that there might remain to posterity no vestiges of their doctrine; and, to complete the climax, enacted that if any should dare to keep in his possession any book written by Arius, and should not immediately burn it, he should no sooner be convicted of the crime, than he should suffer death 21 Such were the acts of the last days ofCONSTANTINE THE GREAT.

SECTION THE SUBJECT CONTINUED From the death of Constantine the Great , to the close of the fourth century . A.D. 337 — 400. ON the decease of Constantine, the government of the Roman empire was distributed between his three sons. To Constantine the II. were assigned the provinces of Britain, Spain, and Gaul, now called France. To his brother Constans, Illyricum, Italy, and Africa; whilst Constantius inherited the east, comprehending Asia, Syria, and Egypt, with the city of Constantinople, to which his father had transferred the imperial residence, and consequently made it the seat of government.

In the year 340, a quarrel arose between the two first mentioned brothers, which ended in a war, and that war in the death of Constantine. Constans now added the dominions of the deceased prince to his own, and thereby became sole master of all the western provinces. He retained possession of this immense territory until the year 350, when Magnentius, one of his own officers, with the view of getting himself declared emperor, contrived to procure the assassination of Constans. The usurper, however, did not long enjoy the fruits of his perfidy; for Constantius, justly incensed by his rebellious conduct, marched an army against him, and repulsing him at the outset, Magnentius, transported with rage and despair at his ill success, and apprehending the most terrible and ignominious death from the resentment of the conqueror, put a termination to his own life. Thus, Constantius, in the year 353, became sole monarch of the Roman empire, which he governed until the year 361. Marching at the head of his army, in that year, to chastise the presumption of his own kinsman, Julian, whom the forces entrusted to his command in Gaul, had, in an hour of victory saluted with the title of Augustus, he was arrested by the hand of death, and expired at Mopsucrene in Cilicia, leaving the vacant throne to Julian.

None of the sons of Constantine the Great, inherited the spirit and genius of their father. They, nevertheless, so far trod in his steps, as to extend their fostering care to the Catholic religion, to accelerate its progress through the empire, and to continue to undermine and abolish the system of Paganism.

But the controversy which had arisen between Arius and Alexander, relative to the sonship of Christ, was far from being put to rest by the decision of the council of Nice. The doctrine of Arius, indeed, had been condemned by a very large majority — he himself was banished to Illyricum, and his followers compelled to assent to the confession of faith composed by the synod — his writings also had been proscribed as heretical, and the punishment of death decreed against all who were convicted of the crime of harboring them in their houses. But persecuting edicts cannot extend their dominion over the thoughts, and it is scarcely less difficult to impose an effectual restraint upon the tongue. Persecution has generally been found favorable to whatever cause it has been directed against; it somehow enlists the sensibilities of our nature on the side of the persecuted party; and disposes the mind to a more candid and impartial examination of the question in dispute, than we should otherwise possess.

It is perhaps too much to affirm with Dr. Middleton, that “truth was never known to be on the persecuting side;” 1 an impartial examination, however, of the opinions and proceedings of both Arians and Athanasians on this occasion, serves in some degree to justify the maxim, and convinces us that they were equally remote from the truth, even as they were alike well disposed to persecute each other in proportion as either party obtained the means of doing it. Only it is due to the orthodox party to say, that they took the lead in punishing heretics with death, and persuaded the emperor to destroy those whom they could not convert.

When the undivided government of the empire centered in the hands of Constantius, he evinced a strong predilection for the Arian side of the controversy, and Arianism became fashionable at court. The emperor favored only the bishops of that party. Paul, the orthodox prelate of the see of Constantinople, was ejected from his office by the emperor’s order, and Macedonius substituted in his room. This man adopted a scheme different from either party, and contended that the Son was not consubstantial , but of a like substance with the Father, openly propagating this new theory, after thrusting himself into the bishoprick of Paul; and thus, by the addition of a single letter, affecting to settle the whole dispute. Frivolous as was this distinction, it enraged the orthodox party, who, filled with rage and resentment, rose in a body to oppose Hermogenes, the officer whom Constantius had sent to introduce him unto his episcopal throne, burnt down his house, and drew him round the streets by his heels until they had murdered him.

Athanasius , who had rendered such essential service to Alexander, his bishop, in managing the dispute with Arius at the council of Nice, had, by this time, risen to great popularity, and in reality was become the oracle of the orthodox party. We are supposed to be indebted to him for the creed which bears his name, and which fills so eminent a place in the liturgy of our national church. Even to this day he is extolled by such respectable writers as Milner and Haweis, as a prodigy of evangelical light. But whatever may be said of the soundness of his speculative creed, he was evidently a man of aspiring views and of persecuting principles. In a letter to Epictetus, bishop of Corinth, alluding to some heretical opinions then prevalent, he says, “I wonder that your piety hath borne these things, and that you did not immediately put those heretics under restraint, and propose the true faith to them, that if they would not forbear to contradict they might be declared heretics, for it is not to be endured that these things should be either said or heard amongst Christians.” And upon another occasion, “they ought to be held in universal hatred ,” says he, “for opposing the truth,” — comforting himself that the emperor, when duly informed, would put a stop to their wickedness, and that they would not be long-lived. In one of his letters he exhorts those to whom he wrote, to “hold fast the confession of the fathers, and to reject all who should speak more or less than was contained in it. And, in his first oration against the Arians, he declares in plain terms, “that the expressing a person’s sentiments in the words of scripture, was no sufficient proof of orthodoxy, because the devil himself, used scripture words to cover his wicked designs upon our Savior, and that heretics were not to be received though they made use of the very expressions of orthodoxy itself.”

The Scriptures were now no longer the standard of the Christian faith.

What was orthodox, and what heterodox, was, from henceforward, to be determined by the decisions of fathers and councils; and religion propagated not by the apostolic methods of persuasion, accompanied with the meekness and gentleness of Christ, but by imperial edicts and decrees; nor were gainsayers to be brought to conviction by the simple weapons of reason and scripture, but persecuted and destroyed. It cannot surprise us, if after this we find a continual fluctuation of the public faith, just as the prevailing party obtained the imperial authority to support them; or that we should meet with little else in ecclesiastical history than violence and cruelties, committed by men who had wholly departed from the simplicity of the Christian doctrine and profession; men enslaved to avarice and ambition; and carried away with views of temporal grandeur, high preferments, and large revenues.

To dwell upon the disgraceful cabals, the violent invectives, and slanderous recriminations of those ruling factions, would afford little edification to the reader, and certainly no pleasure to the writer. Were we disposed to give credit to the complaints of the orthodox against the Arians, we must certainly regard them as the most execrable set of men that ever lived. They are loaded with all the crimes that can possibly be committed, and represented as bad, if not worse, than infernal spirits. And had the writings of the Arians not been destroyed, we should, no doubt, have found as many and grievous charges laid by them, perhaps with equal justice, against the Athanasians. Constantius banished Athanasius from his bishoprick at Alexandria, and wrote a letter to the citizens, in which he terms him “an impostor, a corrupter of men’s souls, a disturber of the city, a pernicious fellow, one convicted of the worst crimes, not to be expiated by his suffering death ten times ;” and a bishop, named George, was put into his see, whom this eloquent emperor is pleased to style “a most venerable person, and the most capable of all men to instruct them in heavenly things.” Athanasius, however, in his usual style, calls him “an idolater and hangman; and one capable of all kinds of violence, rapine, and murders;” and whom he actually charges with committing the most impious actions and outrageous cruelties.

The truth is, that the clergy of the Catholic church were now become the principal disturbers of the empire; and the pride of the bishops, and the fury of the people on each side had grown to such a height, that the election or restoration of a bishop seldom took place in the larger cities, without being attended with scenes of slaughter. Athanasius was several times banished and restored at the expense of blood. What shall we make of the Christianity of the man who could act thus, or countenance such proceedings? Had Athanasius been influenced by the benign and peaceable spirit of the gospel, he would at once have withdrawn himself from such disgraceful scenes, and preferred to worship God in the society of only a dozen day-laborers in a cellar or a garret, to all the honor and all the emolument which he could derive from being exalted to the dignity of archbishop of Alexandria, on such degrading conditions. One can scarcely forbear contrasting his conduct with the behavior of Him, whose servant he professed to be. “When Jesus perceived that they would come and take him by force, and make him a King , he departed again into a mountain alone.” John 6:15.

The fruits of the Spirit are not turbulence and strife; “but love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, fidelity, meekness and temperance; and they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts.” Galatians 5:22.

The orthodox were deposed, and the Arians substituted in their places, with the murder of thousands; and as the controversy was now no longer about the plain doctrines of uncorrupted Christianity, but about secular honors and dignified preferments, so the bishops were introduced into their churches and placed upon their thrones by armed soldiers. And when once in actual possession, they treated those who differed from them without moderation or mercy, turning them out of their churches, denying them the liberty of worship, fulminating anathemas against them, and persecuting them by every species of cruelty, as is evident from the accounts given by the ecclesiastical historians of Athanasius, Macedonius, George, and others. In short, they seem to have treated one another with the same implacable bitterness and severity, as their common enemies, the heathen, had ever exercised towards them, or as though they thought persecution for conscience-sake had been the distinguishing characteristic of the Christian religion, and that they could not more effectually recommend themselves as the disciples of Christ, than by devouring each other. This made Julian, the emperor, say of them, that he found by experience, that even the beasts of the forest are not so cruel as the generality of Christians then were to one another. Such was the wretched state of things in the reign of Constantius, which affords us little more than the history of councils and creeds differing from, and clashing with each other — bishops deposing, censuring, and anathematizing their adversaries, and the people divided into factions under their respective leaders, for the sake of words, of the meaning of which they understood nothing, and contending for victory even to bloodshed and death. Thus, as Socrates observes, “was the church torn in pieces for the sake of Athanasius and the word consubstantial !”

It probably would not be easy to sketch in few words a more striking picture of these times than that which is given us by Ammianus Marcellinus, who, having served in the armies, had the best opportunities of studying the character of Constantius. “The Christian religion, which in itself,” says he, “is plain and simple, he confounded by the dotage of superstition. Instead of reconciling the parties by the weight of his authority, he cherished and propagated by verbal disputes, the differences which his vain curiosity had excited. The highways were covered with troops of bishops, galloping from every side to the assemblies, which they called synods; and while they labored to reduce the whole sect to their own particular opinions, the public establishment of the posts was almost ruined by their hasty and repeated journies.” 2 It was certainly a very just, though severe censure, which Gregory Nazianzen passed upon the councils that were held about this time. “If I must speak the truth,” says he, “this is my resolution, to avoid all councils of the bishops, for I have not seen any good end answered by any synod whatsoever; for their love of contention, and their lust of power, are too great even for words to express .” 3 The skepticism of Gibbon has subjected him to an unmeasurable effusion of rancor from the clergy of his day; and far be it from me to stand forward the advocate of skepticism in any man; but I most cordially agree with that eminent writer, when he says, “the patient and humble virtues of Jesus should not be confounded with the intolerant zeal of princes and bishops, who have disgraced the name of his disciples .” So fascinating is the influence of worldly pomp and splendor upon the human mind, that it is not to be wondered at, that the see of Rome became at this time a most seducing object of sacerdotal ambition. In the episcopal order, the bishop of Rome was the first in rank, and distinguished by a sort of pre-eminence over all other prelates. He surpassed all his brethren in the magnificence and splendor of the church over which he presided; in the riches of his revenues and possessions; in the number and variety of his ministers; in his credit with the people; and in his sumptuous and splendid manner of living. Ammianus Marcellinus, a Roman historian, who lived during these times, adverting to this subject, says, “It was no wonder to see those who were ambitious of human greatness, contending with so much heat and animosity for that dignity, because when they had obtained it, they were sure to be enriched by the offerings of the matrons, of appearing abroad in great splendor, of being admired for their costly coaches, sumptuous in their feasts, out-doing sovereign princes in the expenses of their table.” This led Proetextatus, an heathen, who was praefect of the city, to say, “Make me Bishop of Rome , and I ’ll be a Christian too !”

In the year 366, Liberius, bishop of Rome, died, and a violent contest arose respecting his successor. The city was divided into two factions, one of which elected Damasus to that high dignity, while the other chose Ursicinus, a deacon of the church. The party of Damasus prevailed, and got him ordained. Ursicinus, enraged that Damasus was preferred before him, set up separate meetings, and at length he also obtained ordination from certain obscure bishops. This occasioned great disputes among the citizens, as to which of the two should obtain the episcopal dignity; and the matter was carried to such a height, that great numbers were murdered on either side in the quarrel — no less than one hundred and thirty-seven persons being destroyed in the very church itself! 5 But the very detail of such shameful proceedings is sufficient to excite disgust; and enough has been said to convince any unprejudiced mind of the absurdity of looking for the kingdom of the Son of God in the “Catholic Church,” as it now began to be denominated. “The mystery of iniquity,” which had been secretly working since the very days of the apostles, (2 Thessalonians 2:7,) had nevertheless been subject to considerable control, so long as Paganism remained the established religion of the empire, and Christians were consequently compelled to bear their cross, by patiently suffering the hatred of the world, in conformity to the Captain of their salvation.

But no sooner was this impediment removed by the establishment of Christianity, under Constantine, than “the Man of Sin” — “the Son of perdition” began to be manifest. Men were now found, professing themselves the disciples of the meek and lowly Jesus, yet walking after the course of this world, “lovers of their ownselves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, — traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God,” — having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.” (2 Timothy 3:3-5) And, as this state of things continued to increase in progressive enormity, until it ultimately brought forth that monstrous system of iniquity, denominated “MYSTERY,BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS, AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH” — described by the prophetic pen, as “the habitation of devils, — the hold of every foul spirit, — the cage of every unclean and hateful bird,” (Revelation 17:5; and 18:2) we may rest fully assured that the sheep of Christ, — those who heard his voice and followed his will (John 10:27), would see it their indispensable duty to separate themselves from such an impure communion, in obedience to the reiterated commands of God (2 Corinthians 6:14-18; 2 Timothy 3:5; Revelation 18:4).

It may be proper to remark, that long before the times of which we now treat, some Christians had seen it their duty to withdraw from the communion of the church of Rome. The first instance of this that we find on record, if we except that of Tertullian, is the case ofNOVATIAN, who in the year 251, was ordained the pastor of a church in the city of Rome, which maintained no fellowship with the Catholic party. It is a difficult matter, at this very remote period, to ascertain the real grounds of difference between Novatian and his opponents. Those who are in any tolerable degree conversant with theological controversy, will scarcely need to be apprised how much caution is necessary to guard against being misled by the false representations which different parties give of each other’s principles and conduct. Novatian is said to have refused to receive into the communion of the church any of those persons who, in the time of persecution, had been induced through fear of sufferings or death, to apostatize from their profession, and offer sacrifices to the heathen deities; a principle which he founded upon a mistaken view of Hebrews 6:4-6. We may readily conceive how interesting and difficult a subject this must have been to all the churches of Christ in those distressing times, and the danger that must have arisen from laying down any fixed rule of conduct that should apply to all cases that would come before them; or even verging towards an extreme on either side of this question. The following is the account given of Novatian by the late Mr. Robert Robinson, in his Ecclesiastical Researches, p. 126; and I the more readily submit it to the reader, because none who know Mr. Robinson, can, for a moment, suspect him of having any undue predilection for the principles of Novatian. “He was,” says he, “an elder in the church of Rome, a man of extensive learning, holding the same doctrine as the church did, and published several treatises in defense of what he believed. His address was eloquent and insinuating, and his morals irreproachable. He saw with extreme pain the intolerable depravity of the church. Christians within the space of a very few years were caressed by one emperor, and persecuted by another. In seasons of prosperity many persons rushed into the church for base purposes. In times of adversity, they denied the faith, and reverted again to idolatry. When the squall was over, away they came again to the church, with all their vices, to deprave others by their examples. The bishops, fond of proselytes, encouraged all this; and transferred the attention of Christians from the old confederacy for virtue, to vain shows at Easter, and other Jewish ceremonies, adulterated too with Paganism. On the death of bishop Fabian, Cornelius, a brother elder, and a violent partizan for taking in the multitude, was put in nomination. Novatian opposed him; but as Cornelius carried his election, and he saw no prospect of reformation, but on the contrary, a tide of immorality pouring into the church, he withdrew and a great many with him. Cornelius, irritated by Cyprian, who was just in the same condition, through the remonstrances of virtuous men at Carthage, and who was exasperated beyond measure with one of his own elders, named Novatus, who had quitted Carthage, and gone to Rome to espouse the cause of Novatian, called a council and got a sentence of excommunication passed against Novatian. In the end, Novatian formed a church, and was elected bishop. Great numbers followed his example, and all over the empire Puritan churches were constituted and flourished through the succeeding two hundred years.

Afterwards, when penal laws obliged them to lurk in corners, and worship God in private, they were distinguished by a variety of names, and a succession of them continued till the Reformation .”

The same author, afterwards adverting to the vile calumnies with which the catholic writers have in all ages delighted to asperse the character of Novatian, thus proceeds to vindicate him: “They say Novatian was the first Antipope; and yet there was at that time no pope, in the modern sense of the word. They call Novatian the author of the heresy of Puritanism; and yet they know that Tertullian had quitted the church near fifty years before, for the same reason, and Privatus, who was an old man in the time of Novatian, had, with several more, repeatedly remonstrated against the alterations taking place; and, as they could get no redress, had dissented and formed separate congregations. They tax Novatian with being the parent of an innumerable multitude of congregations of Puritans all over the empire; and yet he had no other influence over any, than what his good example gave him.

People every where saw the same cause of complaint, and groaned for relief; and when one man made a stand for virtue, the crisis had arrived; people saw the propriety of the cure, and applied the same means to their own relief. They blame this man, and all these churches for the severity of their discipline; — yet this severe discipline, was the only coercion of the primitive churches, and it was the exercise of this that rendered civil coercion unnecessary.

Some exclaimed, it is a barbarous discipline to refuse to readmit people into Christian communion, because they have lapsed into idolatry or vice. Others, finding the inconvenience of such a lax discipline, required a repentance of five, ten, or fifteen years; but the Novatians said, you may be admitted among us by baptism — or, if any Catholic has baptized you before, by re-baptism; but if you fall into idolatry, we shall separate you from our communion, and on no account readmit you. God forbid we should injure either your person, your property, or your character, or even judge of the truth of your repentance or your future state; but you can never be readmitted to our community, without our giving up the last and only coercive guardian we have of the purity of our [fellowship.] Whether these persons reasoned justly or not, as virtue was their object, they challenge respect, and he must be a weak man indeed, who is frighted out of it because Cyprian is pleased to say, they are the children of the devil.”

The doctrinal sentiments of the Novatians appear to have been very scriptural, and the discipline of their churches rigid in the extreme. They were the first class of Christians who obtained the name of (Cathari ) Puritans, an appellation which doth not appear to have been chosen by themselves, but applied to them by their adversaries; from which we may reasonably conclude that their manners were simple and irreproachable.

Some of them are said to have disapproved of second marriages, regarding them as sinful; but in this they erred in common with Tertullian and many other eminent persons. A third charge against them was, that they did not pay due reverence to the martyrs, nor allow that there was any virtue in their relics! — A plain proof of their good sense.

Novatian appears to have been possessed of considerable talents — Mosheim terms him, “A man of uncommon learning and eloquence;” — and he wrote several works, of which only two are now extant. One of them is upon the subject of the Trinity. It is divided into thirty-one sections: the first eight relate to theFATHER, and treat of his nature, power, goodness, justice, etc. with the worship due to him. The following twenty sections relate toCHRIST — the Old Testament prophecies concerning him — their actual accomplishment — his nature — how the Scriptures prove his divinity — confutes the Sabellians — shows that it was Christ who appeared to the patriarchs, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, etc.

The twenty-ninth section treats of theHOLY SPIRIT — how promised — given by Christ — his offices, and operations on the souls of men and in the church. The last two sections recapitulate the arguments before adduced. The work appears to have been written in the year 257; six years after his separation from the Catholic church. The other tract is upon the subject of “Jewish Meats,” addressed in the form of a letter to his church, and written either during his banishment or retreat in the time of persecution. It opens up the typical nature of the law of Moses, and while he proves its abolition, is careful to guard his Christian brethren against supposing that they were therefore at liberty to eat things sacrificed to idols. Dr. Lardner in his Credibility of the Gospel History , ch. 47 has been at considerable pains in comparing the various and contradictory representations that have been given of Novatian and his followers, and has exonerated them from a mass of obloquy, cast upon them by the Catholic party. Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, wrote many epistles or treatises respecting the sect of the Novatians, which afford abundant evidence that their rigid discipline was relished by many. Fabius, bishop of Antioch, in particular, was their friend and favorer. Marcian, bishop of Arles, was firm in the same principles in the time of Stephen, bishop of Rome. A church was formed at Carthage for the Novatian party, of which Maximus was the pastor. Socrates, the historian, speaks of their churches at Constantinople, Nice, Nicomedia, and Cotioeus in Phrygia, all in the fourth century — these he mentions as their principal places in the East, and he supposes them to have been equally numerous in the West. What were their numbers in these cities does not appear, but he intimates that they had three churches in Constantinople.

Though, therefore, Novatian and his principles were condemned by the Catholic party, at the time that Dionysius wrote the fore-mentioned letters concerning them to the bishop of Rome, he still continued to be supported by a numerous party in various places, separated from the Catholic church. They had among them some persons of considerable note, and of eminent talents. Among these were Agelius, Acesius, Sisinnius, and Marcian, all of Constantinople. Socrates mentions one Mark, bishop of the Novatians in Scythia, who died in the year 439. In fact, the pieces written against them by a great variety of authors of the Catholic church — such as Ambrose, Pacian, and others — the notice taken of them by Basil and Gregory Nazianzen — and the accounts given of them by Socrates and Sozomen in their ecclesiastical histories, are proofs of their being numerous, and that churches of this denomination were to be found in most parts of the world, in the fourth and fifth centuries. “The vast extent of this sect,” says Dr. Lardner, “is manifest from the names of the authors who have mentioned them, or written against them, and from the several parts of the Roman empire in which they were found.” All the ecclesiastical historians complain loudly of the schism that was made in the Christian church by the Novatians, whose difference from the Catholics respected matters of discipline only. But we should not be too hasty in joining issue with them in these lamentations. On the contrary, it may fairly admit of a doubt, whether this breach in the unity of the Christian church in that age, and other similar breaches that have taken place at different times, have not been productive, upon the whole, of the happiest effects. For besides promoting free inquiry and discussion, without which no subject can be well understood, this multiplication of sects has had a powerful tendency to counteract that overbearing authority which the whole Christian church united, could not have failed to possess, and which, if there had been no place of retreat from power, would have been insupportable. What would have been the terror of an excommunication from a church, and how would it have been possible to correct any abuse in such circumstances? That families and friends should be divided, and that those divisions should be the cause of so much animosity as they have often occasioned, is, no doubt to be lamented. But this is an evil that does not necessarily arise from sects in religion, but solely from the unreasonable spirit of bigotry in men, which cannot bear with patience that others should think or act differently from them — that bigotry, which a number of sects, and their necessary consequences, can alone cure. Private animosity was an evil inseparable from the promulgation of Christianity itself, and was distinctly foretold by its divine author. The excellent character of many of the Novatian Bishops, was of great use in exciting emulation among those of the Catholic Church, and in checking that abuse of power, which has often disgraced Christianity infinitely more than the divisions that are the subject of complaint. But to proceed.

Constantius, whose death has been already mentioned, was succeeded in the administration of affairs in the year 361, by his nephew Julian. This prince, during his infancy, had been entrusted to the care of Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia, to whom he was related on his mother’s side. But although considerable pains had been taken to instruct him in the principles of Christianity, the mind of Julian imbibed a partiality for the Pagan worship, which, however, he dexterously contrived to conceal until he had assumed the reins of government. Mr. Gibbon, not without probability, resolves this unhappy bias of the young prince’s mind into a disgust which he had taken at the manner in which the Arian controversy was carried on. “He was educated,” says he, “in the lesser Asia, amidst the scandals of the Arian controversy. The fierce contests of the Eastern bishops, the incessant alterations of their creeds, and the profane motives which appeared to actuate their conduct, insensibly strengthened the prejudices of Julian that they neither understood nor believed the religion for which they so fiercely contended.” 8 There is surely nothing incredible in this — the wonder would have been that, spectator as he was of such detestable squabbles, he should have retained any predilection for the Christians.

The apostasy of Julian (as the Catholic clergy delighted to call it) was carefully concealed during his minority; and, when first intimated, it was cautiously done among the adherents of the ancient Pagan worship. From the zeal and virtues of their royal proselyte, they fondly hoped the restoration of their temples, sacrifices, and worship, of which they had been in a considerable degree deprived during the reigns of Constantine and his sons. Probably they expected that the flames of persecution should again be lighted up against the enemies of their deities; while the Christians beheld with horror and indignation the apostasy of Julian. But the hopes of the former, and the fears of the latter, were disappointed by the prudent conduct of Julian, who, during his short reign, consulted the good of his subjects and the public tranquillity. Actuated by these motives, and apprehensive of disturbing the repose of an unsettled reign, he surprised the world by an edict, extending to all the inhabitants of the empire the benefits of a free and equal toleration — but he had seen enough of the intolerant principles of the Catholic clergy, to deprive them of the power of persecuting their fellow subjects. The Pagans were permitted to open all their temples, and were at once delivered from the oppressive laws and arbitrary exactions imposed upon them by Constantine and his sons. At the same time, the bishops and clergy, who had been banished by Constantius, were recalled from exile, and restored to their respective churches. Julian, who had paid considerable attention to their disputes, invited the leaders of the different parties to his palace, that he might enjoy the pleasure of witnessing their furious encounters. The clamor of controversy sometimes provoked him to exclaim, “Hear me! the Franks have heard me, and the Germans;” — but he soon discovered that he was now engaged with more obstinate and implacable enemies; and, though he exerted all the powers of his oratory to persuade them to live in concord, or at least in peace, he was perfectly satisfied he had nothing to fear from their union and co-operation.

There are two particulars in the reign of Julian which ought not to be passed over without being briefly adverted to. The first is, the extraordinary exertions which he made to restore the ancient superstitious worship. No sooner did he ascend the throne, than he assumed the character of supreme Pontiff, and became a perfect devotee to the rites of Paganism. He dedicated a domestic chapel to the sun, his favorite deity — his gardens were filled with statues and altars of the gods — and each apartment of his palace displayed the appearance of a magnificent temple.

He also endeavored, by his own zeal, to inflame that of the magistrates and people. “Amidst the sacred but licentious crowd of priests, of inferior ministers, and of female dancers, who were dedicated to the service of the temple, it was the business of the emperor to bring the wood, to blow the fire, to handle the knife, to slaughter the victim, and thrusting his bloody hands into the bowels of the expiring animal, to draw forth the heart or liver, and to read, with the consummate skill of a soothsayer, the imaginary signs of future events.” 9 Encouraged by the example of their sovereign, as well as by his exhortations and liberality, the cities and families resumed the practice of their neglected ceremonies. “Every part of the world,” exclaims one of their own writers, with transport, “displayed the triumph of religion — and the grateful prospect of flaming altars, bleeding victims, the smoke of incense, and a solemn train of priests and prophets, without fear, and without danger. The sound of prayer and of music was heard on the tops of the highest mountains; and the same ox afforded a sacrifice for the gods, and a supper for their joyous votaries,” This may give us some notion of what might have ensued had the life of Julian not been cut short.

The other circumstance alluded to, is the project which this emperor entertained of rebuilding the temple of Jerusalem. In a public address to the people of the Jews, dispersed throughout the provinces of his empire, he tells them, that he pities their misfortunes, condemns their oppressors, praises their constancy, declares himself their gracious protector, and expresses a hope, that after his return from the Persian war, he may be permitted to pay his vows to the Almighty in the holy city of Jerusalem.

It is probable that the vain and ambitious mind of Julian aspired to the honor of restoring the ancient glory of the temple. He knew the Christians were firmly persuaded that, by the coming of Christ, the typical dispensation had come to an end; and could he succeed in restoring the Jews to their city and the ritual of their worship, he might convert it into an argument against the faith of prophecy and the truth of revelation. He, therefore, resolved to erect, on Mount Moriah, a stately temple; and without waiting for his return from the Persian war, gave instructions to his minister Alypius, to commence without delay, the vast undertaking.

At the call of their great deliverer, the Jews, from all the provinces of the empire, repaired to Jerusalem. The desire of rebuilding the temple has, in every age, been a favorite project with them. In this propitious moment, says Gibbon, the men forgat their avarice and the women their delicacy; spades and pick-axes of silver were provided by the vanity of the rich, and the rubbish was transported in mantles of silk and purple. Every purse was opened in liberal contributions, every hand claimed a share in the pious labor; and the commands of a great monarch were executed by the enthusiasm of a whole people.

The joint efforts of power and enthusiasm were, however, on this occasion unsuccessful. I am aware that the reason of this is differently accounted for. Some resolve it wholly into the early death of Julian, and the additional circumstance of his successor being actuated by different religious principles. I shall, however, transcribe the account which is given of this extraordinary affair, not by a Christian, but by a heathen writer, who lived during the transaction, and wrote his book within twenty years of it — leaving the reader to make his own reflections on the subject.

Ammianus Marcellinus, detailing the history of his own times, says, “whilst Alypius, assisted by the governor of the province, urged with rigor and diligence the execution of the work, horrible balls of fire, breaking out near the foundations, with frequent and reiterated attacks, rendered the place, from time to time, inaccessible to the scorched and blasted workmen; and the victorious element continuing in this manner, obstinately and resolutely bent as it were, to drive them to a distance, the undertaking was abandoned.” 10 This “unexceptionable testimony,” as Gibbon candidly admits it to be, is also supported by Ambrose, bishop of Milan, in a letter to the emperor Theodosius — by the eloquent Chrysostom, who at the time was bishop of Antioch — and by Gregory Nazianzen, who published his account of this preternatural event before the expiration of the same year.

There are few of the Roman emperors, whose characters have been exhibited in more discordant lights, than that of Julian. His predilection for Paganism, or his prejudice against Christianity, or both, have given such a partial bias to the pen of Mr. Gibbon when recording the events of his reign, that he uniformly represents him as a virtuous and amiable monarch.

But there certainly were traits in his character of a very different nature.

Dr. Lardnet, whose impartiality has never been called in question, tells us, that Julian “had a certain levity of mind; was a great talker; very fond of fame; superstitious rather than properly religious; so addicted to sacrificing, that it was said the race of bulls would be destroyed if he returned victorious from Persia: and such was the multitude of his victims, that his soldiers, who partook of them, were frequently much disordered by excess in eating and drinking. He received the rising sun with blood, and attended him with blood at his setting. — By frequent devotions he engaged the gods to be his auxiliaries in war; worshipping Mercury, Ceres, Mars, Calliope, Apollo, and Jupiter. Libanius, complaining of the deities who had deserted him, says, “Which of them shall we blame? not one, but all, for none were neglected by him, neither gods nor goddesses. And is this the return,” says he, “for all his victims, for all his vows, for all the incense, and all the blood offered up to them, by day and by night?

Wherever there was a temple, continues the same writer, whether in the city, or on the hill, or on the tops of the mountains, no place was so rough or so difficult of access but he ran to it, as if the way had been smooth and pleasant.” “But though Julian was so devout and religious in his way, he could be much displeased when he was disappointed, and even angry with his gods, like other heathens. In the Persian war, having obtained some successes and expecting more, he prepared a grand sacrifice for Mars; but the omen not being favorable, he was greatly incensed; and called Jupiter to witness, that he would never more offer a sacrifice to Mars. This excess of superstition, it seems to me, is the proof of the want of judgment — a defect which appeared upon divers occasions and in many actions not altogether becoming the dignity of an emperor.” The conduct of Julian towards the Christians does not seem to have been characterized by all that impartiality which his admirers claim for him.

Sozomen, the historian, says, he ordered the strictest inquiry to be made after the estates that belonged to Christians, with a view to confiscate the whole of them, not hesitating to employ torture to come at the truth. He subjected the Christian clergy to the lowest services in the army — and threatened, that unless the Christians rebuilt the Pagan temples, he would not suffer THE GALILEANS to wear their heads ; and our historian observes, that if it had been in his power, and he had not been prevented by death, he would probably have been as good as his word. Though Julian forebore to persecute unto death, he could not, on several occasions, refrain from using insults, which sufficiently showed what he felt, and what he wished to do. When he was sacrificing in a temple at Constantinople, and Maris, the bishop of Chalcedon, a man respectable for his learning and for the part he had acted in public life, and now venerable for his age, happening to pass by, he abused him as an impious person, and an enemy of the gods. He had even the meanness to reproach him for his blindness, saying, “Will not your Galilean God cure you?” “The old man replied, I thank my God that I am deprived of sight, that I may not see your fall from piety.” On this occasion, Julian had so much command of himself, as to pass on without making any reply.

But notwithstanding his affectation of magnanimity, Julian was not always so much master of himself, as he appeared to be on this occasion.

While at Antioch, just before he set out on his expedition against Persia, two of the officers who usually attended upon his person, inadvertently complained, that by his orders, every thing in the city was polluted with the rites of heathenism, insomuch that the very fountains that supplied the city, and every thing sold in the market, bread, butcher’s meat, herbs, fruit, etc. had been sprinkled with lustral water, by which they were, as it were, consecrated to the heathen gods: such had been his insidious policy, in order to draw the people insensibly into idolatry.

These complaints coming to the ears of Julian, he ordered them to be brought before him; and interrogating them, as was his custom, with great familiarity, they frankly told him, that they had made those complaints; and that having been educated in the Christian religion, under his predecessors, Constantine and Constantius, they could not help being disgusted at seeing every thing contaminated with the rites of heathenism; but that this was the only thing in his reign of which they complained. At this he was so provoked, that he ordered them to be put to death with torture: pretending that it was not on account of their religion, but for their petulance in insulting their emperor.

About the same time, a deaconess, of the name of Pythia, who led the female singers, happening, as the emperor was passing by the doors of a place of worship, to be singing a psalm, and having, perhaps imprudently, pitched upon one of those in which the heathen gods and their worshippers are spoken of with contempt, he was so provoked that he sent for her; and, though she was very old, one of his guards struck her by his command, and in his presence, on both the cheeks, with such violence, that the blood gushed out. After a short reign of twenty months, Julian, who perished by the lance of a common soldier, while prosecuting the Persian war upon the banks of the Euphrates, was succeeded in the year 363 by Jovian, one of the officers of his army. He had been educated in the principles of Christianity, and as soon as he ascended the throne, transmitted a circular letter to all the governors of the provinces, securing the legal establishment of the Christian religion. The edicts of Julian were abolished, and ecclesiastical immunities restored and enlarged. The Catholic clergy were unanimous in the loud and sincere applause which they bestowed on Jovian, but they were yet ignorant what creed or what synod he would choose for the standard of orthodoxy. The leaders of the different factions were properly aware, how much depended upon the first impressions made on the mind of an untutored soldier, and they hastened to the imperial court. The public roads were crowded with Athanasian, Arian, Semi-arian, and Eunomian bishops, who struggled to outstrip each other in the race: the apartments of the palace resounded with their clamors, and the ears of the prince were assaulted, and perhaps astonished by the singular mixture of metaphysical argument and personal invective. He wisely recommended to them charity and concord, but referred the disputants to the decision of a future council.

The conduct of Jovian seems to have given the death blow to the prevalence of Paganism in the empire. “Under his reign,” says the historian of the Roman empire, “Christianity obtained an easy and lasting victory; and as soon as the smile of royal patronage was withdrawn, the genius of Paganism, which had been fondly raised and cherished by the acts of Julian, sunk irrecoverably in the dust . In many cities, the temples were shut or deserted; the philosophers who had abused the transient favor, thought it prudent to shave their beards, and disguise their profession; and the Christians rejoiced, that they were now in a condition to forgive or to revenge the injuries which they had suffered under the preceding reign.” Jovian, nevertheless, issued a wise and gracious edict, in which he explicitly declares, that though he should severely punish the sacrilegious rites of magic, his subjects might exercise with freedom and safety, the ceremonies of the ancient worship. “I hate contention,” says he, “and love those only that study peace;” declaring, that “he would trouble none on account of their faith, whatever it was; and that such only should obtain his favor and esteem, as should stand forward, in restoring the peace of the church.” The senate of Constantinople deputed an orator, of the name of Themistius, to express their loyal devotion to the new emperor. His oration is preserved, and merits particular attention, for the discovery which it inadvertently makes of the state of the established Catholic church at that period. “In the recent changes,” says he, “both religions have been alternately disgraced, by the seeming acquisition of worthless proselytes, of those votaries of the reigning purple, who could pass, without a reason and without a blush, from the church to the temple, and from the altars of Jupiter to the sacred table of the Christians.” 15 Could a volume give us a more striking picture of the wretched state to which the Christian profession was reduced in so short a time as half a century after its establishment?

Jovian reigned only one year. He appears to have been addicted to intemperance; for, after indulging himself in the pleasures of the table at supper, he retired to rest, and the next morning was found dead in his bed.

The throne of the empire now remained ten days vacant; but it was at length filled by two brothers, Valentinian and Valens, the former a distinguished officer in the army, who, thirty days after his own elevation, voluntarily associated his brother with him in the government of the empire, A.D. 364. Of both these princes, Mr. Gibbon says, that “they invariably retained in the purple, the chaste and temperate simplicity which had adorned their private life; and under their reign, the pleasures of a court never cost the people a blush or a sigh.” Though in a great measure illiterate themselves, they were great promoters of learning among their subjects. They planned a course of instruction for every city in the empire; and the academies of Rome and Constantinople, but more especially the latter, were considerably extensive.

The two emperors were of very different tempers, and took different courses in regard to religion. The former was of the orthodox party; but though he especially favored those of his own sentiments, he gave no disturbance to the Arians. Valens, on the contrary, was less liberal in his views, and persecuted all who differed from him. In the beginning of their reign, a synod was convened in Illyricum, which again decreed the consubstantiality of Father, Son, and Spirit. The emperors issued a circular letter, declaring their assent to this, and ordering that this doctrine should be preached — though they published laws for the toleration of all religious denominations, and even of Paganism. In the year 375, Valentinian died suddenly in a transport of rage, and Valens being sole emperor, was soon prevailed on by the artifice of Eudoxius, bishop of Constantinople, to take a decided part with the Arians, and to abandon his moderation, by cruelly persecuting the Orthodox. The first thing that fired his resentment was the conduct of these latter, who had solicited and obtained his permission to hold a synod at Lampsacus, for the amendment and settlement of the faith; when, after two month’s consultation, they decreed the doctrine of the Son’s being like the Father as to his essence , to be the true orthodox faith, and deposed all the bishops of the Arian party.

This highly exasperated Valens, who without delay, convened a council of the Arian bishops, and in his turn , commanded the bishops who composed the synod of Lampsacus to embrace the sentiments of Eudoxius the Arian: and upon their refusal, sent them into exile, transferring their churches to their opponents. After this, he pursued measures still more violent against them; some were commanded to be whipped, others disgraced, not a few imprisoned, and many fined.

But the most detestable part of his conduct was his treacherous and cruel behavior towards eighty of them, whom, under the pretense of sending them into banishment — a thing to which they had consented, rather than subscribe what they did not believe — he put on board a ship, and caused the vessel to be set on fire as it sailed out of the harbor, through which they all perished either by fire or water. These kinds of cruelty continued to the end of his reign, and there is no room to doubt that he was greatly stimulated to them by the bishops of the Arian party. It is a melancholy reflection, that the pity which such merciless treatment as this could not have failed to excite in every feeling mind, the orthodox should have deprived themselves of, by their own imprudence, in commencing the first assault upon the Arians. They ought to have remembered that divine maxim, “whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them;” for on most of those occasions it was only “the measure they meted that was measured to them again.”

But the conduct of Valens was not regulated by the strict rules of equity; for in this persecution he included the Novatians, whose churches he commanded to be shut up, and their pastors banished; although, so far as I can perceive, they took no part whatever in the squabbles that existed between the contending factions. Agelius, the pastor of the church in Constantinople, a man of admirable sanctity and virtue, and remarkable for his perfect contempt of money, was exiled. Yet he was restored not long after, and recovered the churches of his communion. Socrates, the historian, who seems to have been intimately acquainted with the affairs of the Novatians, says, that the toleration which this class of Christians at length obtained, they owed under providence to one Marcian, a presbyter of their church in Constantinople, a man of learning and piety, who tutored two daughters of the emperor. This historian particularly mentions the liberality and kindness which the Novatians exercised towards such of the orthodox party as were the subjects of persecution, while they themselves were tolerated, — a trait in their history which even Milner is obliged to admit “reflects an amiable lustre on the character of these Dissenters” 16 — and for showing which benevolence, they actually incurred the displeasure of the reigning party. Agelius presided over that church forty years, and died in the sixth year of the reign of Theodosius.

Before his death, some difference of opinion arose in the church relative to a successor. Agelius gave the preference to Sisinnius, 17 a person of great learning and talents, and consequently ordained him. The church had a great partiality for Marcian, who had been eminently instrumental in enabling them to weather the storm of persecution under Valens.

Distressed that any cause of murmuring should exist among them, Agelius immediately ordained Marcian to the episcopal office, and thereby restored harmony and concord.

After having reigned fourteen years, Valens lost his life in a battle with the Goths, A.D. 378, and was succeeded in the government of the empire by Gratian, the son of Valentinian. He was of the orthodox party; and after the death of his uncle Valens, he recalled those that had been banished — restored them to their sees, and sent Sapores, one of his captains, to drive the Arians, like wild beasts, out of all their churches. This emperor, soon after his accession to power, united with himself as colleague in the government, “the great Theodosius, a name celebrated in history, and dear to the Catholic church.”

Immediately on his advancement to the throne of the empire, Theodosius betrayed a warm zeal for the orthodox opinions. Hearing that the city of Constantinople was divided into different religious parties, he wrote a letter to them from Thessalonica, wherein he acquaints them, that “it was his pleasure , that all his subjects should be of the same religious profession with Damasus, bishop of Rome, and Peter, bishop of Alexandria, and that their church alone should be denominated “Catholic,” who worshipped the divine Trinity as equal in honor, and that those who were of another opinion should be called heretics, become infamous, and be liable to other punishments.” 18 And on his arrival in the imperial city, he sent for Demophilus, the Arian bishop, demanding to know whether he would subscribe the Nicene confession of faith, adding, “if you refuse to do it, I will drive you from your churches” — and he kept his word, for he turned him and all the Arians out of the city.

The more effectually to extinguish heresy, he in the year 383, summoned a council of bishops of his own persuasion to meet at Constantinople, in order to confirm the Nicene faith; the number of them amounted to an hundred and fifty, to which may be added, thirty-six of the Macedonian party. This is commonly termed the second Oecumenical or general council . They decreed that the Nicene faith should be the standard of orthodoxy, and that all heresies should be condemned. When the council was ended, the emperor issued two edicts against heretics; the first prohibited them from holding any assemblies; and the second, forbidding them to meet in fields or villages! And as though this were not sufficiently extravagant, he followed up this absurd procedure by a law, in which he forbade heretics to worship or to preach, or to ordain bishops or presbyters, commanding some to be banished, others to be rendered infamous and deprived of the common privileges of citizens. In the space of fifteen years he promulgated at least, fifteen several edicts against the heretics. It is some apology for him certainly that he did not often put these execrable statutes in force; and one would charitably hope that Sozomen and Socrates, who have recorded the history of these whimsical transactions, are correct in thinking that he only intended by them to terrify others into the same opinions of the Divine Being with himself.

But the zeal of Theodosius was not wholly absorbed in the establishment of uniformity among the professors of Christianity; he was equally anxious to extinguish the expiring embers of Paganism. About the year 390, he issued a law, in which he expressly states that “it is our will and pleasure, that none of our subjects, whether magistrates or private citizens, however exalted, or however humble may be their rank and condition, shall presume, in any city or in any place, to worship an inanimate idol, by the sacrifice of a guiltless victim.” 19 The act of sacrificing, and the practice of divination by the entrails of the victim, are declared a crime of high treason against the state which can be expiated only by the death of the guilty. The rites of Pagan superstition are abolished, as highly injurious to the truth and honor of religion; and luminaries, garlands, frankincense, and libations of wine are enumerated and condemned.

Such were the persecuting edicts of Theodosius against the Pagans, which were rigidly executed; and they were attended with the desired effect, “for so rapid and yet so gentle was the fall of Paganism, that only twenty-eight years after the death of Theodosius, the faint and minute vestiges were no longer visible to the eye of the legislator 20 .” 21 SECTION THE SUBJECT CONTINUED From the commencement of the fifth century to the establishment of the dominion of the popes.

A.D. 401-606 THE fall of Paganism, which may be considered as having begun to take place in the reign of Constantine, and as nearly consummated in that of Theodosius, is probably one of the most extraordinary revolutions that ever took place on the theater of this world. Their own writers have described it as “a dreadful and amazing prodigy, which covered the earth with darkness, and restored the ancient dominion of chaos and of night.” But the pen of inspiration has depicted the awful catastrophe in strains of much higher sublimity and grandeur, and, doubtless, upon very different principles “I beheld,” says the writer of the Apocalypse, “when he had opened the sixth seal, and lo, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.

And the heaven departed as a scroll, when it is rolled together: and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every freeman, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains — and said to the mountains and rocks, fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the lamb, for the great day of his wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand?” (Revelation 6:12-17) The same thing seems to be intended, when the writer says, “There was war in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in heaven; and the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world; he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.” (Revelation 12:7-9) In this highly-wrought figurative language we are taught to conceive of the dreadful conflict which subsisted between the Christian and heathen professions, the persecutions which for three centuries had been inflicted upon the former, with the issue of the whole, in the ultimate overthrow of the Pagan persecuting powers, and the subversion of that idolatrous system in the empire.

From the time of the establishment of Christianity under Constantine to the end of the fourth century, a period of more than seventy years, the disciples of Jesus were highly privileged. They were in general permitted to sit under their own vine and fig-tree, exempt from the dread of molestation. The Clergy of the Catholic church, indeed, persisted in waging a sanguinary and disgraceful contest with each other, about church preferments, and similar objects of human ambition; but, notwithstanding the squabbles of those men of corrupt minds, it must have been a season of precious repose and tranquillity to the real churches of Christ, which stood aloof from such scandalous proceedings, and kept their garments unspotted from the world.

There are few things more gratifying to the friend of TRUTH, than to have an opportunity of recording the disinterested labors of such as, under circumstances of discouragement, and frequently at the expense of all that men in general account valuable, have stood forth the champions of her noble cause, against a prevailing torrent of error. We have already adverted to the rise of the Novatianist churches, which stood firmly attached to the simple doctrine and order of the first Christian churches, and maintained a public testimony against the corrupt state of the Catholic party. Towards the close of the fourth century arose Lucifer, bishop of Cagliari, in the island of Sardinia, a man remarkable for his prudence, the austerity of his character, and the firmness of his mind in all his resolutions. Though he wrote in defense of the doctrine of the Trinity against the Arians, he refused all religious fellowship with both parties, on account of the corruption of their doctrine and the laxity of their discipline; while he and his followers were content to suffer the persecution of either party. About the same time rose up -AERIUS, the founder of a new sect, who propagated opinions different from those that were commonly received, and collected various societies throughout Armenia, Pontus, and Cappadocia. We are indebted to Epiphanius, bishop of Cyprus, who died early in the fifth century, for recording the discriminating tenets of this denomination of Christians. AErius was an elder of the church of Sebastia in Pontus; and, as Epiphanius, who undertook to confute him and all other heretics, informs us, obstinately defended four great errors. These were, 1. That bishops were not distinguished from presbyters or elders, by any divine right; for that, according to the New Testament, their office and authority were absolutely the same. 2. That it was wrong to offer up any prayers for the dead, which it seems was become customary in those days. 3. That there was no authority in the word of God for the celebration of Easter, as a religious solemnity; and 4. That fasts ought not to be prefixed to the annual return of days, as the time of Lent and the week preceding Easter.

Such seems to have been the heresy of AErius, and his writings in defense of which, we are told, met with the most cordial reception from his cotemporaries. “We know with the utmost certainty,” says Mosheim, “that it was highly agreeable to many good Christians, who were no longer able to bear the tyranny and arrogance of the bishops of this century.”

The reader, it is hoped, will excuse a remark or two upon this subject before we proceed. The learned historian, whom I have just quoted, informs us that — “The great purpose of AErius seems to have been that of reducing Christianity to its primitive simplicity;” he then adds, “a purpose indeed laudable and noble , when considered in itself; though the principles from whence it springs, and the means by which it is executed, are generally in many respects , worthy of censure, and may have been so in the case of this reformer.” 3 I cannot forbear subjoining the comment of his erudite translator, Dr. Maclaine, upon the text of this historian. “The desire,” says he, “of reducing religious worship to the greatest possible simplicity, however rational it may appear in itself, and, abstractedly considered, will be considerably moderated in such as bestow a moment’s attention upon the imperfection and infirmities of human nature in its present state. Mankind, generally speaking, have too little elevation of mind to be much affected by those forms and methods of worship in which there is nothing striking to the outward senses. The great difficulty here lies in determining the lengths which it is prudent to go in the accommodation of religious ceremonies to human infirmity; and the grand point is to fix a medium, in which a due regard may be shown to the senses and imagination, without violating the dictates of right reason, or tarnishing the purity of true religion. It has been said, that the church of Rome has gone too far in its condescension to the infirmities of mankind — and this is what the ablest defenders of its motley worship have alleged in its behalf. But this observation is not just; the church of Rome has not so much accommodated itself to human weakness, as it has abused that weakness, by taking occasion from it to establish an endless variety of ridiculous ceremonies, destructive of true religion, and only adapted to promote the riches and despotism of the clergy, and to keep the multitude still hoodwinked in their ignorance and superstition.” Now according to Dr. Mosheim’s manner of expressing himself on this subject, the reader will readily perceive, that, however much some of the friends of truth might labor to stem the torrent of corruption, and restore Christianity to its original simplicity, such attempts were almost certain to be condemned by both this eminent historian and his translator. With them nothing is more common than to extol the simplicity of gospel worship during the apostolic age, and in a few pages afterwards to censure the efforts of those who have labored to retrieve it from the corruptions to which the folly and wickedness of men have subjected it. Hence, we invariably find persons of this description ranked in the class of “heretics,” and reprobated as troublers of “the church!” The design of AErius, it is admitted, was laudable and noble in itself, nor is it affirmed that the means which he made use of were actually worthy of censure; but they may have been so . But, surely, a cordial attachment to the simplicity of primitive Christianity would have prompted the historian to evince some few grains of allowance for the conduct of AErius, even though in the prosecution of a “laudable and noble design,” he had been betrayed into some little indiscretion in regard to the means of effecting it, which, after all, in the present instance, is not pretended. This is only what might have been reasonably expected; since to impute, without evidence, the worst motives that can be assigned to the actions of men, is not the immediate operation of that charity which thinketh no evil. The learned translator, however, takes up the subject in a somewhat different point of view; for, upon his principle, the simplicity of gospel-worship, as established in the apostolic churches, must be considered as altogether unsuitable to the exigencies of human nature; for, that the constitution and worship of the first churches were remarkable for a divine simplicity, none will deny. Now if it be lawful for men to depart from this simplicity, and to accommodate the forms of Christian worship to the ignorance, infirmities, or prejudices of men, according as these may happen to prevail in different ages, then, indeed, a power to decree rites and ceremonies in matters of religion, is quite necessary to adapt the Christian profession to the incessant fluctuations of the state of this world; though it will not be very easy, when this right is once admitted, to show, on what principle the church of Rome can be condemned for going to an extreme in this matter; since, in that case, it is no divine rule that is to regulate our conduct, but the different fancies of men, as these respect human infirmities.

It is happy for simple Christians that their rule of duty is plain, though, unfortunately, not sanctioned by either the catholic or the reformed church. It is “not to admit into the worship of God, any thing which is either not expressly commanded, or plainly exemplified in the New Testament.” This was evidently the principle upon which AErius proceeded in opposing the superstitions of his time, and for which he deserves to be held in perpetual remembrance — it is the only principle which evinces a becoming deference to the wisdom and authority of God in the institution of his worship — and, it may be added, which secures the uniform regard of his people to the institutions of his kingdom, to the end of time.

The distinction between bishop and presbyter or elder, which AErius so strongly opposed, seems to have prevailed early in the Christian church; yet it is demonstrably without any solid foundation in the New Testament. “That the terms, bishop and elder are sometimes used promiscuously in the New Testament,” says Dr. Campbell, “there is no critic of any name who now pretends to dispute. The passage, Acts 20:17, etc. is well known. Paul, from Miletus sent to Ephesus, and called the elders of the church, saying, “Take heed to yourselves, and to all the church over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers (literally episkopouv bishops .) Similar to this is a passage in Titus, chap. 1:5. “For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders (wresbugterouv ) in every city. Ver. 7, “For a bishop (episkopon ) must be blameless.” In like manner the apostle Peter, 1 Epistle 5:1. “The elders (wresbugterouv ) which are among you, I exhort,” etc. Ver. 2. “Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof , (ewiskopoungev ) discharging the office of bishops .” 5 So much for the heresy of AErius as it respected the denial of any distinction between the office of bishop and presbyter. On the other three particulars of his heresy, it is, at this time of day, quite unnecessary for us to bestow a word in the way of apology.

Amongst the innumerable corruptions of Christianity which have prevailed in the Catholic church, there is none that makes a more conspicuous figure than the institution of monachism or monkery; and if traced to its origin, it will be found strikingly to exemplify the truth of the maxim that, as some of the largest and loftiest trees spring from very small seeds, so the most extensive and wonderful effects sometimes arise from very inconsiderable causes. In times of persecution, during the first ages of the church, whilst “the heathen raged, and the rulers took counsel together, against the Lord and against his anointed,” many pious Christians, male and female, married and unmarried, justly accounting that no human felicity ought to come in competition with their fidelity to Christ, and diffident of their own ability to persevere in resisting the temptations wherewith they were incessantly harassed by their persecutors, took the resolution to abandon their possessions and worldly prospects, and, whilst the storm lasted, to retire to unfrequented places, far from the haunts of men, the married with, or without, their wives, as agreed between them, that they might enjoy in quietness their faith and hope, and, exempt from temptations to apostasy, employ themselves principally in the worship and service of their Maker. The cause was reasonable, and the motive praise-worthy; but the reasonableness arose solely from the circumstances. When the latter were changed the former vanished, and the motive could no longer be the same. When there was not the same danger in society, there was not the same occasion to seek security in solitude. Accordingly, when persecution ceased, and the profession of Christianity rendered perfectly safe, many returned without blame from their retirement, and resumed their stations in society. Some, indeed, familiarized by time to a solitary life, at length preferred through habit, what they had originally adopted through necessity. They did not, however, waste their time in idleness; they supported themselves by their labor, and gave the surplus in alms. But they never thought of fettering themselves by vows and engagements; because, by so doing, they must have exposed their souls to new temptations, and, perhaps, greater dangers. It was, therefore, a very different thing from that system of monkery which afterwards became so prevalent, though, in all probability it suggested the idea of it, and may be considered as the first step towards it. Such signal sacrifices, not only of property, but of all secular pursuits, have a lustre in them, which dazzles the eyes of the weak, and powerfully engages imitation. Blind imitators, regardless of the circumstances which alone can render the conduct laudable, are often, by a strong perversion of intellect, led to consider it as the more meritorious the less it is rational, and the more eligible the less it is useful. The spirit of the measure comes in time to be reversed. What at first, through humble diffidence, appeared necessary for avoiding the most imminent danger, is, through presumption, voluntarily adopted, though in itself a source of perpetual peril. Such was the operation of the principle in the case referred to. Multitudes came in process of time to impose upon themselves vows of abstinence, poverty, celibacy, and virginity, solemnly engaging in an uninterrupted observance of those virtues, as they accounted them, to the end of their lives.

Every attentive reader of the Scriptures must see that they are far from countenancing this piece of superstition. Both Christ and his apostles kept up a free and open intercourse with the world;. and their writings abound with instructions to Christians, not to withdraw themselves from society, and shut themselves up in cloistered cells in a state of seclusion, but to fill up their respective stations usefully in civil society, performing all the social and relative duties of life in the most exemplary manner. Man was made for action; powers were given him for exertion, and various talents have been conferred upon him by Providence, as instruments not of doing nothing, but of doing good, by promoting the happiness both of the individual and of society.

Egypt, the fruitful parent of superstition, afforded the first example, strictly speaking, of the monastic life. Anthony, an illiterate youth of that country, in the times of Athanasius, distributed his patrimony, deserted his family and house, took up his residence among the tombs and in a ruined tower, and after a long and painful noviciate, at length advanced three days journey into the desert, to the eastward of the Nile, where discovering a lonely spot which possessed the advantages of shade and water, he fixed his last abode. His example and his lessons infected others, whose curiosity pursued him to the desert; and before he quitted life, which was prolonged to the term of a hundred and five years, he beheld a numerous progeny imitating his original. The prolific colonies of monks multiplied with rapid increase on the sands of Lybia, upon the Rocks of Thebais, and the cities of the Nile. Ever to the present day the traveler may explore the ruins of fifty monasteries, which were planted to the south of Alexandria, by the disciples of Anthony.

Inflamed by the example of Anthony, a Syrian youth, whose name was Hilarion, fixed his dreary abode on a sandy beach between the sea and a morass, about seven miles from Gaza. The austere penance in which he persisted forty-eight years, diffused a similar enthusiasm, and innumerable monasteries were soon distributed over all Palestine. In the west, Martin of Tours, “a soldier, a hermit, a bishop, and a saint,” founded a monastery near Poictiers, and thus introduced monastic institutions into France. His monks were mostly of noble families, and submitted to the greatest austerities both in food and raiment; and, such was the rapidity of their increase, that two thousand of them attended his funeral! In other countries, they appear to have increased in a similar proportion, and the progress of monkery is said not to have been less rapid or less universal than that of Christianity itself. Every province, and, at last, every city of the empire, was filled with their increasing multitudes. The disciples of Anthony spread themselves beyond the tropic, over the Christian empire of Ethiopia. The monastery of Bangor, in Flintshire, a few miles south of Wrexham, contained above two thousand monks, and from thence a numerous colony was dispersed among the Barbarians of Ireland; and Iona, one of the western isles of Scotland, which was planted by the Irish Monks, diffused over the northern regions a ray of science and superstition.

The monastic institution was not confined to the male sex. Females began about the same time to retire from the world, and dedicate themselves to solitude and devotion. The practice is alluded to in the earlier councils; but it is expressly ordained by the council of Carthage, A.D. 397, that orphan virgins shall be placed in a nunnery — and that the superior of the nunnery shall be approved by the bishop of the diocese. Widows, and children above six years of age, were admitted after a year’s probation.

They were strictly shut up in the monastery, and secluded from all worldly intercourse. They were neither allowed to go out, nor was any person permitted to come in unto them, nor even to enter the church whither they went to worship, except the clergy of approved reputation, who were necessary to conduct the religious services. None was allowed to possess property, for among them all things were common. They served themselves or helped one another. They made their own clothes, which were white and plain woolen — the height of the cap or head-dress was restricted to an inch and two lines — they were tasked daily, but forbidden to work embroidery, or to bleach their garments, assume any ornaments, or accommodate themselves to any fashion which they might happen to see or hear of in the world. The means of correction and discipline were reproof and excommunication; but the latter consisted only in separation from public prayers, and from the common table at meals, and if these failed to reclaim the delinquent, recourse was had to flagellation. These unhappy exiles from social life where impelled by the dark genius of superstition, to persuade themselves that every proselyte who entered the gates of a monastery, trod the steep and thorny path of eternal happiness.

The popular monks, whose reputation was connected with the fame and success of the order, assiduously labored to multiply the number of their fellow captives. They insinuated themselves into noble and opulent families, and the specious arts of flattery and seduction were employed to secure those proselytes, who might bestow wealth or dignity on the monastic profession. The lives of the monks were consumed in penance and solitude, undisturbed by the various occupations which fill the time and exercise the faculties of reasonable, active, and social beings. They passed their lives without personal attachments, among a crowd which had been formed by accident, and was detained in the same prison by force or prejudice. Their days were professedly employed in vocal or mental prayer: they assembled in the evening, and were awakened in the night for the public worship of the monastery; and to such a pitch was absurdity at length carried, that one class of them came ultimately to sink under the painful weight of crosses and chains, and their emaciated limbs were confined by collars, bracelets, gauntlets, and greaves of massy iron. The times of martyrdom were now passed, and of course that sort of courage and constancy could not be exerted; a method was therefore contrived of voluntary martyrdom, and persons of fanatical dispositions inflicted upon themselves as many pains and penalties as Pagan cruelty had invented. They left parents, wives, children, friends, families, and fortunes; they retired from the world, obliged themselves to a single and solitary life, and allowed themselves no more food, raiment, and sleep, than would barely support life.

The ethics of monks is a mere caricature of virtue, in which every feature is exaggerated, distorted, or out of place; and, as hath often happened in other matters, though the likeness is preserved, what is beautiful in the original is hideous in the copy. The doctrines of Christianity are divinely adapted to the state of man in this world, considered as a fallen and corrupted being. They exhibit a remedy for his moral depravity in the grand and interesting truths which the gospel proclaims as the objects of his faith, the ground of his hope, and the motives of his love and joy. But he is called to the exercise of self-denial, the mortification of his fleshly appetites, disconformity to the course of this world, patience under sufferings of various kinds, and in the way of well-doing to seek for glory, honor, and immortality in the world to come. In the system of monkery all these Christian virtues are carried to the most ridiculous extreme. About the middle of the fourth century, Gregory Nazianzen wrote an eulogy in praise of the monastic life, wherein he describes the manner in which it was practiced at Nazianzum. “There are some,” says he, “who loaded themselves with iron chains in order to bear down their bodies — who shut themselves up in cabins, and appeared to nobody — who continued twenty days and twenty nights without eating, practicing often the half of Jesus Christ’s fast — another abstained entirely from speaking, not praising God except in thought — another passed whole years in a church, his hands extended, without sleeping, like an animated statue.” Now, admitting the possibility of these things, how grossly must men’s notions of truth and rectitude be perverted, who can think that the all-wise Creator gave hands to any man to be kept in a position which unfitted them for being of use to himself or others — that he gave the faculty of speech, but not to be employed in communicating knowledge? Yet these things are the subject of panegyric even from the pen of Gregory Nazianzen, a person of unquestionable talents and virtue. “To go into a convent,” said Dr. Johnson, “for fear of being immoral, is, as if a man should cut off his hands for fear he should steal.” 10 To suffer with patience and fortitude, when called to it, for the cause of truth, is both virtuous and heroical; but the self-inflicted penances of the miserable hermit serve as a testimony of nothing so much as the idiocy or insanity of the sufferer; for with regard to God, they are derogatory from his perfections — they exhibit him as an object rather of terror than of love, as a tyrant rather than the parent of the universe.

One of the most renowned examples of monkish penance that is upon record, is that of St. Symeon, a Syrian monk, who lived about the middle of the fifth century, and who is thought to have outstripped all those that preceded him. He is said to have lived thirty-six years on a pillar erected on the summit of a high mountain in Syria, whence he got the name of “Symeon Stylites.” From his pillar, it is said, he never descended, unless to take possession of another; which he did four times, having in all occupied five of them. On his last pillar, which was loftier than any of the former, being sixty feet high and only three broad, he remained, according to report, fifteen years without intermission, summer and winter, day and night, exposed to all the inclemencies of the seasons, in a climate liable to great and sudden changes, from the most sultry heat to the most piercing cold. We are informed, that he always stood — the breadth of his pillar not permitting him to lie down. He spent the day till three in the afternoon in meditation and prayer; from that time till sun-set, he harangued the people, who flocked to him from all countries — they were then dismissed with his benediction. He would on no account permit females to come within his precincts, not even his own mother, who is said, through grief and mortification, in being refused admittance, to have died the third day after her arrival. In order to show how indefatigable he was in every thing that conduced to the glory of God and the good of mankind, he spent much time daily in the exemplary exercise of bowing so low as to make his forehead strike his toes, and so frequently, that one who went with Theodoret to see him, counted no fewer than twelve hundred and fortyfour times, when being more wearied in numbering than the saint was in performing, he gave over counting. He is said to have taken no food except on Sundays, and that all the last year of his life he stood upon one leg only, the other having been rendered useless by an ulcer. Instances of similar fanaticism abound in the pages of ecclesiastical history. Baradatus, in the same century, and, in all probability from similar motives, betook himself to a wooden coffer, or rather cage, in which he was so confined by its dimensions and form, that he was always bowed down in it, and could not stand upright. This mansion was placed on the top of a rock, where he was exposed to the sun, the rain, and all kinds of weather. Theodatus, the bishop of the diocese, unable to comprehend either the dignity or the utility of such sublimated virtue, cruelly obliged him to quit his cage, that he might live like other men. He complied; but to make compensation for one restraint that was taken off, he made choice of another, and devoutly abjured the use of his hands, in any way in which they could be serviceable either to himself or others. This he did by devoting them to remain always in one posture, extended towards heaven, probably in commemoration of the crucifixion. In this situation, it is said, that he lived in the open air disdaining to take shelter in any house, or building, from the inclemencies of the weather.

Extravagances the most marvelous, and the most frantic, such as dishonored the name of religion, and rendered men worse than useless, were considered as the most sublime attainments in the Christian life. And thus the demon of superstition, under the mask of superior piety, led men to counteract the designs of providence in the application of their natural powers. The Christian religion is disgraced by such fooleries, which assimilate it to the very worst of heathen superstitions.

Yet all the principal fathers of the Catholic Church, both Greek and Latin, employed their authority and eloquence in extolling the perfection of monkery, and recommending its practice. This they did by writing the lives of particular monks, celebrating their wonderful sanctity and miraculous gifts, and founding monasteries wherever they traveled. “There was a certain shadow of it,” says Bellarmine, its great advocate, “in the law of nature before the flood; a plainer expression of it under the Mosaic dispensation; but in the time of the apostles it came to perfection.”

Athanasius was one of the first, who, from the pattern of the Egyptian monasteries, introduced them into Italy and Rome where they had previously been held in utter contempt. It is amazing to read the flights of fancy in which the great oracles of the Catholic church, at that time, indulged, when recommending this stupid practice. Basil terms it “an angelical institution; a blessed and evangelic life, leading to the mansions of the Lord.” Jerome declares the societies of monks and nuns to be “the very flower and most precious stone among all the ornaments of the church.”

Chrysostom calls it, “a way of life worthy of heaven; not at all inferior to that of angels.” And Augustine styles them upon every occasion “the servants of God.” By the influence of these renowned fathers, all of whom flourished in the fourth and following century; and by the many lies and forged miracles which they diligently propagated in honor of the monks, innumerable monasteries, as they themselves tell us, were founded over the western world, but especially in Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, whose deserts were covered with them; and some of them in the fifth century, are said to have contained each five thousand monks at a time.

We find Chrysostom frequently haranguing also on the great blessings which the church reaped from the relics of the martyrs, and the daily miracles which were wrought by them; and he concludes one of his homilies on two female martyrs in the following manner: “With this ardor, therefore, let us fall down before their relics: let us embrace their coffins, for these may have some power, since their bones have so great an one; and not only on the day of their festival, but on other days also, let us fix ourselves as it were to them, and entreat them to be our patrons” — and on other occasions he exhorts his hearers “to dwell in their sepulchers, to fix themselves to their coffins; that not only their bones, but their tombs and their urns also over-flowed with blessings.” Basil informs us, that “all who were pressed with any difficulty or distress, were wont to fly for relief to the tombs of the martyrs; and whosoever did but touch their relics acquired some share of their sanctity.” In the beginning of the fifth century, Vigilantius, a learned and eminent presbyter of a Christian church, took up his pen to oppose these growing superstitions. His book, which unfortunately is now lost, was directed against the institution of monks — the celibacy of the clergy, — praying for the dead and to the martyrs — adoring their relics — celebrating their vigils — and lighting up candles to them after the manner of the Pagans.

Jerome, esteemed a great luminary of the Catholic church, who was a most zealous advocate for all these superstitious rites, undertook the task of refuting Vigilantius, whom he politely styles “a most blasphemous heretic,” comparing him to the Hydra, to Cerberus, the Centaurs, etc. and considers him only as the organ of the demon. He, however, furnishes us with all the particular articles of his heresy, in the words of Vigilantius himself, which are as follow: “That the honors paid to the rotten bones and dust of the saints and martyrs, by adoring, kissing, wrapping them up in silk and vessels of gold, lodging them in their churches and lighting up wax candles before them, after the manner of the heathens, were the ensigns of idolatry. That the celibacy of the clergy was a heresy, and their vows of chastity the seminary of lewdness. That to pray to the dead, or to desire the prayers of the dead, was superstitious; for that the souls of the departed saints and martyrs were at rest in some particular place, whence they could not remove themselves at pleasure, so as to be present every where to the prayers of their votaries. That the sepulchers of the martyrs ought not to be worshipped, nor their fasts and vigils to be observed; and lastly, that the signs and wonders said to be wrought by their relics and at their sepulchers, served to no good end or purpose of religion.”

These were the sacrilegious tenets, as Jerome calls them, which he could not hear with patience, or without the utmost grief, and for which he declares Vigilantius to be a detestable heretic, venting his foul-mouthed blasphemies against the relics of the martyrs, which were working daily signs and wonders. He tells him to go into the churches of those martyrs, and he would be cleansed from the evil spirit which possessed him, and feel himself burnt, not by those wax candles which so much offended him, but by invisible flames which would force that demon who talked within him, to confess himself to be the same who had personated a Mercury, perhaps, or a Bacchus, or some other of their gods among the heathen.”

Such is the wild rate, as Dr. Middleton well observes, at which this renowned father raves on through several pages. It may probably gratify the reader to see how Jerome refutes the arguments of Vigilantius; and he may take as a specimen the following passage. “If it were such a sacrilege or impiety,” says he, “to pay those honors to the relics of the saints, as Vigilantius contends, then the emperor Constantius must needs be a sacrilegious person, who translated the holy relics of Andrew, Luke, and Timothy to Constantinople; then Arcadius Augustus also must be held sacrilegious, who translated the bones of the blessed Samuel from Judea, where they had lain so many ages, into Thrace; then all the bishops were not only sacrilegious but stupid too, who submitted to carry a thing the most contemptible, and nothing but mere dust, in silk and vessels of gold; and lastly, then the people of all the churches must needs be fools, who went out to meet those holy relics, and received them with as much joy, as if they had seen the prophet himself, living and present among them, for the procession was attended by swarms of people from Palestine even unto Chalcedon, singing with one voice the praises of Christ, who were yet adoring Samuel, perhaps, and not Christ, whose prophet and Levite Samuel was. 14”15 Some readers may think the reasoning of Jerome not very conclusive on the question of relics; it is nevertheless certain that his voice prevailed over that of Vigilantius, and that this superstitious practice not only continued, but became more and more prevalent and popular. When the tombs of the Holy Land were exhausted, other tombs and countries supplied the increasing demand. Saints and martyrs were invented for the sake of their bones, and dreams and miracles were employed in the discovery of obscure names and of sacred graves till then unknown to some. To write the life of a saint, to make a pilgrimage to his tomb, to bring home fragments of his bones, of his coffin or of his clothes, or to erect a church to his memory, were acts not only honorable and meritorious, but frequently extremely lucrative. Scarcely any one deemed himself safe, especially on a journey or in times of danger, without some scrap of a relic in his possession. It was necessary to the security of every habitation, and to the comfort of every family, and neither church nor monastery was considered as duly consecrated, till it became the repository of the relics of some reputed saint; and, if his name were renowned, the church was crowded with supplicants for health, children, or prosperity: his priests were loaded with presents, and his treasury stored with donations of money and land.

Towards the close of the sixth century, the Greek empress made a pressing application to Pope Gregory I. for the body of the apostle Paul, to be placed in the church at Constantinople which had then recently been erected in honor of that apostle. Gregory wrote to her in reply, that she had solicited what he durst not grant; for, said he, “the bodies of the apostles Paul and Peter are so terrible by their miracles, that there is reason to apprehend danger, even in approaching to pray to them. My predecessor wanted to make some alteration on a silver ornament on the body of St. Peter, at the distance of fifteen feet, when an awful vision appeared to him, which was followed by his death. I myself wished to repair somewhat about the body of St. Paul, and with a view to that had occasion to dig a little near his sepulcher; when, in digging, the superior of the place raising some bones apparently unconnected with the sacred tomb, had a dismal vision after it, and suddenly died. In like manner, the workmen and the monks, not knowing precisely the grave of St. Lawrence, accidentally opened it; and having seen the body, though they did not touch it, died in ten days. Wherefore, Madam, the Romans in granting relics, do not touch the saints’ bodies: they only put a little linen in a box, which they place near them; after some time they withdraw it, and deposit the box and linen solemnly in the church which they mean to dedicate.

This linen performs as many miracles, as if they had transported the real body! In the time of pope Leo, some Greeks, doubting the virtue of such relics, he took a pair of scissors, as we are assured, and cutting the linen, forthwith the blood flowed from it. He, however, tells the empress, that he would endeavor to send her a few grains of the chain which had been on Paul’s neck and hands, and which had been found peculiarly efficacious, provided they succeeded, which was not always the case, in filing them off.” 16 This may suffice for giving the reader some idea of the deplorable state to which the “Holy Catholic Church” was reduced in the fifth and sixth centuries of the Christian era; and I therefore quit the subject to pass on to affairs of a different description.

SECTION Gothic invasion of the Roman empire — the city of Rome besieged and plundered — Settlement of the Barbarians in the empire — Establishment of the dominion of the popes.

A.D. 408-606 ON the death of the emperor Theodosius, the government of the Roman world devolved upon his two sons, Arcadius and Honorius, who, by the unanimous consent of their subjects, were saluted as the lawful emperors of the East, and of the West. Arcadius was then about eighteen years of age, and took up his residence at Constantinople, from whence he swayed the scepter over the provinces of Thrace, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt — comprising what was termed the Eastern Empire. His brother Honorius assumed, in the eleventh year of his age, the government of Italy, Africa, Gaul, Spain, and Britain, under the denomination of the Western. Their father died in the month of January, 395, and before the end of the winter in the same year, the Gothic nation was in arms; and, from the forests of Scythia, the savage warriors “rolled their ponderous waggons,” says one of their Roman poets, “over the broad and icy bank of the indignant river” — the Danube. But the genius of Rome expired with Theodosius. He was the last of the successors of Augustus and Constantine, who appeared in the field at the head of their armies, and whose authority was universally acknowledged throughout the whole extent of the empire.

Nothing could form a more striking contrast than the character of those Gothic tribes and that of the Romans at the period of which we speak.

The Barbarians, as they were called, breathed nothing but war — their martial spirit was yet in its rigor — their sword was their right, and they exercised it without remorse as the right of nature. Simple and severe in their manners, they were unacquainted with the name of luxury; any thing was sufficient for their extreme frugality. Inured to exercise and toil, their bodies seemed impervious to disease or pain; they sported with danger, and met death with expressions of joy. The Roman character was then reduced to the reverse of all this. Accustomed to repose and luxury, they had degenerated into a dastardly and effeminate race, overwhelmed with fear and folly, or, what was still more ignominious, with treachery. That enormous fabric, the Roman empire, had, for a succession of ages, groaned under its own unwieldy bulk, and every method had been resorted to, that human wisdom could devise, for the purpose of preventing the superstructure from crumbling into ruins. Theodosius had attempted to appease the invaders by voluntary contributions of money. Tributes were multiplied upon tributes, until the empire was drained of its treasure.

Another expedient was then adopted; large bodies of the Barbarians were taken into pay and opposed to other Barbarians. This mode of defense answered for the moment; but it terminated in the subversion of the empire. Already acquainted with the luxuries, the wealth, and the weakness of the Romans, they turned their arms against their masters, inviting their countrymen to come and share with them in the spoils of a people that were unworthy of so many accommodations. Immense hordes of these savage tribes poured into every part of the empire. Wherever they marched, their route was marked with blood. The most fertile and populous provinces were converted into deserts. The wretched inhabitants of those countries to the south of the Danube, submitted to the calamities, which, in the course of twenty years, were almost grown familiar to their imagination, and the various troops of Barbarians, who gloried in the Gothic name, were irregularly spread from the woody shores of Dalmatia to the walls of Constantinople. Under the bold and enterprising genius of Alaric, their renowned leader, they traversed without resistance the plains of Macedonia and Thessaly, stretching from east to west, to the edge of the sea shore. “The fertile fields of Phocis and Boeotia,” says Gibbon, “were instantly covered by a deluge of Barbarians, who massacred the males of an age to bear arms, and drove away the beautiful females, with the spoil and cattle to the flaming villages. Corinth, Argos, Sparta, yielded without resistance to the arms of the Goths, and the most fortunate of their inhabitants were saved, by death, from beholding the slavery of their families and the conflagration of their cities. This invasion, instead of vindicating the honor, contributed, at least accidentally, to extirpate the last remains of Paganism — and a system which had then subsisted eighteen hundred years, did not survive the calamities of Greece.” 2 Having completely ravaged the entire territory of Greece, Alaric proceeded to invade Italy, and the citizens of Rome were thrown into the utmost consternation at his approach. The emperor had taken up his residence in his palace at Milan, where he thought himself secured by the rivers of Italy, which lay between him and the Gothic chief. But the season happened to be remarkably dry, which enabled the Goths to traverse, without impediment, the wide and stony beds, whose center was faintly marked by the course of a shallow stream; and as Alaric approached the walls, or rather the suburbs of Milan, he enjoyed the satisfaction of seeing the emperor of the Romans flying before him. The danger to which the latter had been exposed, now urged him to seek a retreat in some inaccessible fortress of Italy, where he might securely remain, while the open country was covered by a deluge of Barbarians; and in the twentieth year of his age, anxious only for his personal safety, Honorius retired to the perpetual confinement of the walls and morasses ofRAVENNA. His example was imitated by his feeble successors, the Gothic kings, and afterwards the Exarchs, who occupied the throne and palace of the emperors; and, till the middle of the eighth century, Ravenna was considered as the seat of government and the capital of Italy.

During a period of six hundred and nineteen years, the city of Rome, the seat of government, had never been violated by the presence of a foreign enemy; but in the year 408, Alaric commenced the blockade of this proud metropolis. 3 By a skillful disposition of his numerous forces, he encompassed the walls, commanded the twelve principal gates, intercepted all communication with the adjacent country, and vigilantly guarded the navigation of the river Tyber, from which the Romans derived the surest and most plentiful supply of provisions. The first emotions of the nobles, and of the people, were those of surprise and indignation, that a vile Barbarian should dare to insult the capital of the world; but their arrogance was soon humbled by misfortune. The unfortunate city gradually experienced the distress of scarcity, and at length the horrid calamities of famine. The daily allowance of three pounds of bread, was reduced to one half — to one third — to nothing; and the price of corn still continued to rise in a rapid and extravagant proportion. The poorer citizens, unable to procure the necessaries of life, solicited the precarious charity of the rich; but private and occasional donations were insufficient to appease the hunger of a numerous people. The food the most repugnant to sense or imagination, the aliments the most unwholesome and pernicious to the constitution, were eagerly devoured, and fiercely disputed by the rage of hunger. A dark suspicion was entertained that some wretches fed on the bodies of their fellow creatures, whom they had secretly murdered, and even mothers are said to have tasted the flesh of their slaughtered infants!

Many thousands of the inhabitants of Rome expired in their own houses, or in the streets, for want of sustenance; and as the public sepulchers without the walls were in the power of the enemy, the stench which arose from so many putrid and unburied carcasses, infected the air; and the miseries of famine were succeeded and augmented by the contagion of a pestilential disease, and the proud and insolent Romans were at length compelled to seek relief in the clemency, or at least in the moderation of the king of the Goths.

The senate appointed two ambassadors to negotiate with the enemy.

When introduced into his presence, they declared, perhaps in a more lofty style than became their abject condition, that the Romans were resolved to maintain their dignity either in peace or war ; and that if Alaric refused them a fair and honorable capitulation, he might sound his trumpets and prepare for battle with an innumerable people, exercised in arms and animated by despair. “The thicker the hay, the easier it is mowed,” was the concise reply of the Barbarian, accompanied by a loud and insulting laugh, expressive of his contempt for the threats of an unwarlike populace, enervated by luxury before they were emaciated by famine. He then condescended to fix the ransom which he would receive as the price of his retreat from the walls of Rome. It was ALL the gold and silver in the city, whether it were the property of the state or of individuals; ALL the rich and precious moveables; and ALL the slaves that could prove their title to the name of Barbarians . “If such, O king, are your demands,” said they, “what do you intend to leave us?” “Your lives,” replied the haughty conqueror! They trembled and retired.

The stern features of Alaric, however, became insensibly relaxed, and he abated much of the rigor of his terms; for he at length consented to raise the siege on the immediate payment of five thousand pounds of gold — of thirty thousand pounds of silver — of four thousand robes of silk — of three thousand pieces of fine scarlet cloth — and of three thousand pounds weight of pepper. But the public treasury was exhausted; the annual rents of the nobles were intercepted by the calamities of war, the gold and gems had been exchanged, during the famine, for the vilest sustenance. Recourse was, therefore, obliged to be had to the hoards of secret wealth which had been concealed by the obstinacy of avarice, and some remains of consecrated spoils, which afforded the only means of averting the impending ruin of the city. As soon as the Romans had satisfied the rapacious demands of Alaric, they were restored, in some measure, to the enjoyment of peace and plenty. Before he withdrew his army from the gates of Rome, Alaric had stipulated for the payment of an annual subsidy of corn and money, which the treacherous Romans now sought to evade, and in the following year (409) the Gothic chief, resolving to punish their perfidy, a second time laid siege to their city. On this occasion, however, instead of assaulting the capital, he directed his efforts against the port of Ostia, one of the boldest and most stupendous works of Roman magnificence. This port or harbor, which was undertaken by Julius Caesar, and finished in the reign of Claudian, where the corn of Africa was deposited in spacious granaries for the use of the capital, had, by this time, insensibly swelled to the size of an episcopal city. As soon as Alaric was in possession of that important place, he summoned the city to surrender, declaring that a refusal, or even a delay, should be instantly followed by the destruction of the magazines, on which the lives of the Roman people depended. The clamors of the people, and the terror of famine, subdued the pride of the senate — they listened without reluctance to the proposal which Alaric made them, of placing a new emperor on the throne of the Caesars in place of the unworthy Honorius, and the suffrage of the Gothic conqueror bestowed the purple on Attalus, praefect of the city.

Attalus, however, was not long in evincing his incompetency for the duties of the high station to which he had been raised; and in the following year Alaric publicly despoiled him of the ensigns of royalty, and sent them as the pledge of peace and friendship, to Honorins at Ravenna. Some favorable occurrence, however, happening to turn up in the fortunes of this latter prince, just at that moment, the insolence of his ministers returned with it; and, instead of accepting the friendly overture of Alaric, a body of three hundred soldiers were ordered to sally out of the gates of Ravenna, who surprised and cut in pieces a considerable party of Goths, after which they re-entered the city in triumph. The crime and folly of the court of Ravenna was expiated a third time by the calamities of Rome.

Alaric, who now no longer dissembled his appetite for plunder and revenge, appeared in arms under the walls of the capital, and the trembling senate, without any hopes of relief, prepared by a desperate resistance, to delay the ruin of their country. But they were unable to guard against the secret conspiracy of their slaves and domestics, who, either from birth or interest, were attached to the cause of the enemy. At the hour of midnight, the Salarian gate was silently opened, and the inhabitants were awakened by the tremendous sound of the Gothic trumpet. 5 In the year 410, eleven hundred and sixty-three years after the foundation of Rome, the imperial city, which had subdued and civilized so considerable a part of mankind, was delivered to the licentious fury of the tribes of Germany and Scythia, who, during six days, pillaged the city of all its gold and jewels, stripped the palaces of their splendid furniture — the sideboards of their massy plate, and the wardrobes of their silk and purple, which were loaded on waggons to follow the march of the Gothic army — the most cruel slaughter was made of the Romans — the streets of the city were filled with dead bodies — the females were delivered up to the brutal lust of the soldiers — and many of the noblest edifices of the city destroyed by fire.

I have been induced to go more into detail on this subject, than I should otherwise have done, for the sake of giving the uninformed reader some general notion of the misery which resulted from the irruption of these Barbarian hordes into the Roman empire; and, because it ultimately proved the means of its subversion; but it is incompatible with my plan to pursue the matter further than just to add, that new invaders, from regions more remote and barbarous, drove out or exterminated the former colonists, and Europe was successively ravaged, till the countries which had poured forth their myriads, were drained of people, and the sword of slaughter weary of destroying. “If a man were called,” says Dr. Robertson, “to fix upon the period in the history of the world, during which the condition of the human race was most calamitous and afflicted, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Theodosius the Great (A.D. 395) to the establishment of the Lombards in Italy, (A.D. 571.)

The contemporary authors, who beheld that scene of desolation, labor, and are at a loss for expression, to describe the horror of it. The scourge of God , the destroyer of nations , are the dreadful epithets by which they distinguish the most noted of the barbarous leaders; and they compare the ruin which they had brought on the world, to the havoc occasioned by earthquakes, conflagrations, or deluges — -the most formidable and fatal calamities which the imagination of man can conceive.” The overwhelming progress of the Barbarians soon diffused its powerful effects throughout every part of Europe. In the course of the fifth century, the Visigoths took possession of Spain; the Franks of Gaul; the Saxons of England; the Huns of Pannonia; the Ostrogoths of Italy, and the adjacent provinces. New governments, laws, languages; new manners, customs, dresses; new names of men and countries prevailed, and an almost total change took place in the state of Europe. It is, no doubt, much to be lamented, that this revolution was the work of nations so little enlightened by science, or polished by civilization; for the Roman laws, though imperfect, were in general the best that human wisdom had then framed, and its arts and literature infinitely surpassed any thing found among rude nations, or which those who despised them produced for many ages.

Many of the Gothic chiefs were men of great talents, and some of them not wholly ignorant of the policy and literature of the Romans; but they were afraid of the contagious influence of Roman example, and they therefore studied to avoid every thing allied to that name, whether hurtful or beneficial. They erected a cottage in the vicinity of a palace, breaking down the stately building, and burying in its ruins the finest works of human ingenuity. They ate out of vessels of wood, and made their captives be served in vessels of silver. They prohibited their children from acquiring a knowledge of literature and of the elegant arts, because they concluded from the dastardly behavior of the Romans, that learning tends to enervate the mind, and that he who has trembled under the rod of a schoolmaster, will never dare to meet a sword with an undaunted eye.

Upon the same principle they rejected the Roman code of laws; it reserved nothing to the vengeance of man — they, therefore inferred, that it would rob him of his active powers. Nor could they conceive how the person who received an injury could rest satisfied, but by pouring out his fury upon the author of the injustice. Hence arose all those judicial combats, and private wars which, for many ages, desolated Europe.

In one particular only did these barbarian tribes condescend to conform to the institutions of those different nations among whom they settled, viz. in RELIGION. The conquerors submitted to the religion of the conquered, which at this period, indeed, in its established form, approximated closely to the superstition and idolatry of the ancient heathen. But whatever shades of difference there might be found among the numerous kingdoms in which the Roman Western Empire was at this time divided, whether in the forms of their government, or their civil and political institutions; they unanimously agreed to support the hierarchy of the church of Rome, and to defend and maintain it as the established religion of their respective states. Nor is the circumstance altogether unworthy of notice, that when Alaric forced his entrance into Rome, he issued a proclamation which discovered some regard for the laws of humanity and religion. He encouraged his troops boldly to seize the rewards of valor, and to enrich themselves with the spoils of the citizens; but he exhorted them to spare the lives of the unresisting , and to respect the churches of the apostles St.

Peter and St. Paul, as holy and inviolable sanctuaries. “In ages of ignorance and credulity,” says Dr. Robertson, “the ministers of religion are the objects of superstitious veneration.

When the Barbarians who overran the Roman empire first embraced the Christian faith, they found the clergy in possession of considerable power; and they naturally transferred to those new guides the profound submission and reverence, which they were accustomed to yield to the priests of that religion which they had forsaken. They deemed their persons to be equally sacred with their function, and would have considered it as impious to subject them to the profane jurisdiction of the laity. The clergy were not blind to these advantages which the weakness of mankind afforded them. They established courts, in which every question relating to their own character, their function, and their property, was tried.

They pleaded, and obtained an almost total exemption from the authority of civil judges. Upon different pretexts, and by a multiplicity of artifices, they communicated the privilege to so many persons, and extended their jurisdiction to such a variety of cases, that the greater part of those affairs which gave rise to contest and litigation, was drawn under the cognizance of the spiritual courts.” The claims to supremacy, which, during the preceding centuries, had been asserted by the bishops of Rome, were at first faintly urged, and promoted by artful and almost imperceptible means. They now, however, began to insist upon superiority as a divine right attached to their see, which, they contended, had been founded by the apostle Peter; and this arrogant claim, which had appeared conspicuously enough in the conduct of the bishops of Rome of the preceding century, was now no longer concealed, or cautiously promulgated. But, however violent their claims, or extensive their authority in affairs both ecclesiastical and civil, they still remained subject, first to the jurisdiction of the Gothic kings, and, upon the retaking of Rome, to the emperors of Constantinople. Such, however, was the extensive influence of the papal intrigues, that there were few among the princes of the Western Empire, that were not virtually brought into a state of subjection to the authority of the bishops of Rome, before the close of the fifth century.

A station so elevated, which lay open to the ambition of numbers, was eagerly contested, and often obtained by fraud, chicanery, or the practice of whatever was most opposite to the spirit of the gospel. During the sixth century, the peace of the catholic church was thrice disturbed by the contests and squabbles of the rival pontiffs. Symmachus and Laurentins, who had been elevated to the vacant see by different parties, continued, for several years, to assert their discordant claims. After repeated struggles, the former, at length, prevailed. In this contest he was materially assisted by the pen of Ennodius, bishop of Pavia, who employed the most abject flattery in behalf of Symmachus, whom he blasphemously styles “Judge in the place of God, and Vicegerent of the Most High.” The church was again divided by the reciprocal claims of Boniface and Dioscorus; the premature death of the latter, however, terminated this clerical war. But the century did not close without a scene alike disgraceful. A prelate of the name of Vigilius, intrigued at court to procure the deposition of the reigning bishop Silverus. The latter was, in consequence, deprived of his dignities and banished. He appealed to the emperor Justinian, who interfered in his behalf, and encouraged him to return to Rome, with the delusive expectation of regaining his rights; but the artifices of Vigilius prevailed — his antagonist was resigned to his power, and immediately confined by him in the islands of Pontus and Pandatara, where, in penury and affliction, he terminated his wretched existence.

The advantages attendant upon the acquisition of such enormous power, induced the bishops of Constantinople, who were scarcely less arrogant and ambitious than their brethren at Rome, to refuse acknowledging their preeminence, and prompted them to lay claim to similar authority. The arrogant pretensions of these rival sees involved them in continual dissensions; which were prodigiously increased by the conduct of John, the faster, a prelate distinguished for his authority; who, in a council held at Constantinople in the year 588, assumed the title of Universal Bishop , which was confirmed to him by the council. This appellation, which implied a pre-eminence difficult to be endured by those who were as ambitious as himself, was opposed vehemently by Pelagius II. then bishop of Rome, who called it an execrable, profane, and diabolical procedure; but his invectives were disregarded, and he died soon after. In the year 560, he was succeeded by Gregory the Great, as he is usually termed; a voluminous writer, and, though superstitious in the extreme, not altogether destitute of talents. His works are still extant, and in high reputation with the Catholics. The following letter written by him to the emperor Maurice, at Constantinople, in consequence of John, the patriarch of that city, assuming the name of “Universal Bishop,” casts so much light upon the history of that age, that it cannot, without injury to the subject, be omitted. “Our most religious lord, whom God hath placed over us, among other weighty cares belonging to the empire, labors, according to the just rule of the sacred writings, to preserve peace and charity among the clergy. He truly and piously considers, that no man can well govern temporal matters, unless he manages with propriety things divine also; and that the peace and tranquillity of the commonwealth depend upon the quiet of the Universal church. For, most gracious sovereign, what human power or strength would presume to lift up irreligious hands against your most christian majesty, if the clergy, being at unity amongst themselves, would seriously pray to our Savior Christ to preserve you who have merited so highly from us? Or what nation is there so barbarous as to exercise such cruelty against the faithful, unless the lives of us who are called Priests, but in truth are not such, were most wicked and depraved? But whilst we leave those things which more immediately concern us, and embrace those things for which we are wholly unfit, we excite the Barbarians against us, and our offenses sharpen the swords of our enemies, by which means the commonwealth is weakened. For what can we say for ourselves, if the people of God, over whom, however unworthily we are placed, be oppressed through the multitude of our offenses; if our example destroys that which our preaching should build; and our actions, as it were, give the lie to our doctrine? Our bones are worn with fasting, but our minds are puffed up! Our bodies are covered with mean attire, but in our hearts we are quite elated! We lie groveling in the ashes, yet we aim at things exceedingly high! We are teachers of humility, but patterns of pride, hiding the teeth of wolves under a sheep’s countenance! The end of all is, to make a fair appearance before men, but God knoweth the truth! Therefore our most pious sovereign hath been prudently careful to place the church at unity, that he might the better compose the tumults of war and join their hearts together. This verily is my wish also, and for my own part I yield due obedience to your sovereign commands. However, since it is not my cause, but God’s, it is not myself only but the whole church that is troubled, because religious laws, venerable synods, and the very precepts of our Lord Jesus Christ, are disobeyed by the invention of a proud and pompous speech. My desire is, that our most religious sovereign would lance this sore, and that he would bind with the cords of his imperial authority the party affected, in case he makes any resistance. By restraining him the commonwealth will be eased; and by the paring away of such excrescences the empire is enlarged. Every man that has read the gospel knows that, even by the very words of our Lord, the care of the whole church is committed to St. Peter, the apostle — the prince of all the apostles. For to him it is said, “Peter, lovest thou me? Feed my sheep.” “Behold, Satan hath desired to winnow thee as wheat; but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith should not fail.” And, “thou being at the last converted, confirm thy brethren.” To him it is said, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it; and to thee I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou bindest on earth, shall be bound also in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, shall be loosed also in heaven.”

Behold! he hath the keys of the kingdom, and the power of binding and loosing is committed to him. The care and the principality of the whole Church is committed to him; and yet he is not called “Universal Apostle” — though this holy man, John, my fellow priest, labors to be called “Universal Bishop!” I am compelled to cry out, “O the corruption of times and manners?” Behold the Barbarians are become lords of all Europe: cities are destroyed — castles are beaten down — provinces depopulated — there is no husbandman to till the ground 9 — Idolaters rage and domineer over Christians; and yet priests, who ought to lie weeping upon the pavement, in sackcloth and ashes, covet names of vanity, and glory in new and profane titles. Do I, most religious sovereign, in this plead my own cause? Do I vindicate a wrong done to myself, and not maintain the cause of Almighty God, and of the church universal? Who is he that presumes to usurp this new name against both the law of the gospel and of the canons? I would to God there might be one called universal without doing injustice to others. We know, that many priests of the church of Constantinople have been not only heretics, but even the chief leaders of them. Out of that school proceeded Nestorius, who, thinking it impossible that God should be made man, believed that Jesus Christ, the mediator between God and man, was two persons, and went as far in infidelity as the Jews themselves. Thence came Macedonius, who denied the Holy Ghost, consubstantial to the Father and the Son, to be God. If, then, every one in that church assumes the name by which he makes himself the head of all good men, the catholic church, which God forbid should ever be the case, must needs be overthrown when he falls who is calledUNIVERSAL.

But, far from Christians be this blasphemous name, by which all honor is taken from all other priests, while it is foolishly arrogated by one. It was offered to the bishop of Rome by the reverend council of Chalcedon, in honor of St. Peter, prince of the apostles; but none of them either assumed or consented to use it, lest, while this privilege should be given to one, all others should be deprived of that honor which is due unto them. Why should WE refuse this title when it was offered, and another assume it without any offer at all? This man (John) contemning obedience to the Canons, should be humbled by the commands of our most pious sovereign. He should be chastised who does an injury to the holy catholic church! whose heart is puffed up, who seeks to please himself by a name of singularity, by which he would elevate himself above the emperor! We are all scandalized at this. Let the author of this scandal reform himself, and all differences in the church will cease. I am the servant of all priests, so long as they live like themselves — but if any shall vainly set up his bristles, contrary to God Almighty, and to the Canons of the Fathers, I hope in God that he will never succeed in bringing my neck under his yoke — not even by force of arms. The things that have happened in this city, in consequence of this new title, I have particularly declared to Sabinianus, the deacon, my agent. Let therefore my religious sovereigns think of me their servant, whom they have always cherished and upheld more than others, as one who desired to yield them obedience, and yet am afraid to be found guilty of negligence in my duty at the last awful day of judgment.

Let our most pious Sovereign either vouchsafe to determine the affair, according to the petition of the aforesaid Sabinianus, the deacon, or cause the man, so often mentioned to renounce his claim. In case he submits to your most just sentence, or your favorable admonitions, we will give thanks to Almighty God, and rejoice for the peace of the church, procured by your clemency. But if he persist in this contention, we shall hold the saying to be most true, “Every one that exalteth himself shall be abased.”

And again it is written, “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” In obedience to my sovereign, I have written to my brother priest both gently and humbly, urging him to desist from this vain glory. If he gives ear unto me, he hath a brother devoted unto him, but if he continue in his pride, I foresee what will befall him — he will make himself His enemy of whom it is written, “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.” It is difficult to determine whether the finesse of the politician, or the envy of the priest, be most prevalent in this artful letter. It does not, however, appear to have produced any good effect. John, indeed, was soon afterwards removed by death from his archiepiscopal dignity; but Cynacus, who succeeded him as bishop of Constantinople, adopted the same pompous title as his predecessor. Having had occasion to dispatch some agents to Rome, in the letter which he wrote to the Roman Pontiff Gregory, he so much displeased him by assuming the appellation of “Universal Bishop,” that the latter withheld from the agents somewhat of the courtesy to which they considered themselves entitled, and, of course, complaint was made to the emperor Maurice of the neglect which had been shown them. This circumstance extorted a letter from the emperor at Constantinople to the Bishop of Rome, in which he advises him to treat them, in future, in a more friendly manner, and not to insist so far on punctilios of style , as to create a scandal about a title, and fall out about a few syllables. To this Gregory replies, “that the innovation in the style did not consist much in the quantity and alphabet; but the bulk of the iniquity was weighty enough to sink and destroy all. And, therefore, I am bold to say,” says he, “that whoever adopts, or affects the title of “UNIVERSAL BISHOP,” has the pride and character of Antichrist, and is in some manner his fore-runner in this haughty quality of elevating himself above the rest of his order. And, indeed, both the one and the other seem to split upon the same rock; for, as pride makes Antichrist strain his pretensions up to Godhead, so whoever is ambitious to be called the only or Universal Prelate, arrogates to himself a distinguished superiority, and rises, as it were, upon the ruins of the rest.” But though Gregory artfully disclaimed for himself, and refused to his aspiring brother the title of Universal Bishop, he exercised an authority, says bishop Hurd, 12 that can only belong to that exalted character.

Gregory died in the year 604, and was succeeded by Pope Boniface III. who had no scruples about adopting this proud title. He readily accepted, or rather importunately begged it from the emperor Phocas, with the privilege also of transmitting it to all his successors. The profligate emperor, to gratify the inordinate ambition of this court sycophant, deprived the bishop of Constantinople of the title which he had hitherto borne, and conferred it upon Boniface, at the same time declaring the church of Rome to be the head of all other churches.

APPENDIX TO SECTION A RESPECTABLE writer in one of our Monthly Journals, and, as I am informed, a Classical Tutor in one of our Dissenting Academies, appears to think that, in animadverting on the characters of some of the luminaries of the Catholic church, I have not made sufficient allowance for the darkness of the period in which they lived. His words are, “We apprehend, that Mr. Jones has not quite enough attended to the infelicity of times, the want of a free communication of knowledge, the power of educational prejudices, and the effect of usages venerated as apostolic.

Under circumstances so disadvantageous, it is not, we hope, unreasonable to believe that many who in their hearts loved the Redeemer, and in their lives served him, according to the light they had, were found dragged in the train of those who wandered after the beast. Painful and humbling fact!

That such men as Athanasius and Gregory , Anselm and Bernard, should have defiled their garments with the blood of persecution, and bowed their knees before relics and wafers.”

The Gregory referred to in this quotation, I understand to be “Gregory the Great,” as he is commonly termed; the first of the Roman pontiffs of that name; the man to whose exploits the preceding pages refer. He is the only prelate of the Roman church, of that appellation, who, so far as I know, has ever been considered by Protestants to have had any pretensions to the character of a Christian; and his history, certainly, well assorts with that of Athanasius and Bernard; which confirms me in the supposition that he is the person referred to. Now, granting the correctness of this conjecture, I beg leave, with all becoming deference to my critical supervisor, to offer a few remarks by way of apology.

I feel not the smallest disposition to dispute the truth of this very respectable writer’s remark, that I have “not sufficiently studied that humiliating part of the philosophy of man, his strange inconsistencies.”

And I am ready to admit that I may not have made the proper allowances for the infelicity of times, etc. Yea, further; that in the darkest periods of the church, there were individuals dragged in the train of those who wandered after the beast, who, nevertheless, in their hearts loved the Redeemer, and in their lives served him, according to the light they had, is a sentiment to which I cheerfully subscribe, but am not aware that I have said any thing that militates against it in this work. The only disputable point between us is, how far the character of Gregory entitles him to this favorable judgment.

The reader has already seen the fulsome and adulatory strains in which this pontiff addressed the emperor Maurice, in consequence of the patriarch of Constantinople arrogating to himself the title of “Universal Bishop.” He styles the emperor his “most religious Lord” — his “most gracious Sovereign” — his “most Christian Majesty” his “most religious Sovereign,” against whom it would be the height of impiety to lift a finger, etc. Let us now mark what followed. Gregory with all his flattery was unable to prevail on the emperor Maurice to second his views; and the former, as might be expected, became not a little dissatisfied with his “most religious Lord.” Soon after this the emperor was dethroned by one of his centurions, who first murdered him, and then usurped his crown.

This wretch, whose name was Phocas, was one of the vilest of the human race — a monster, stained with those vices that serve most to blacken human nature. Other tyrants, have been cruel from policy; the cruelties of Phocas are not to be accounted for, but on the hypothesis of the most diabolical and disinterested malice. He caused five of the children of the emperor Maurice to be massacred before the eyes of their unhappy father, whom he reserved to the last, that he might be a spectator of the destruction of his children before his own death. There still remained, however, a brother and son of the emperor’s, both of whom he caused to be put to death, together with all the patricians who adhered to the interest of the unhappy monarch. The empress Constantine and her three daughters had taken refuge in one of the churches of the city, under sanction of the patriarch of Constantinople, who defended them for a time with great spirit and resolution, not permitting them to be dragged by force from their asylum. The tyrant, one of the most vindictive and inexorable of mankind, not wishing to alarm the church at the outset of his reign, now had recourse to dissimulation; and by means of the most solemn oaths and promises of safety, at length prevailed on the females to quit their asylum.

The consequence was, that they instantly became the helpless victims of his fury, and suffered on the same spot on which the late emperor and five of his sons had been recently murdered. So much for the character of Phocas: now what should we expect would be the reception which the account of all this series of horrid cruelty would meet with at Rome, from a man so renowned for piety, equity, and mildness of disposition as Pope Gregory was? If we look into his letters of congratulation, we find them stuffed with the vilest and most venal flattery; insomuch, that were we to learn the character of Phocas only from this pontiff’s letters, we should certainly conclude him to have been rather an angel than a man. He recites the murder of “his most religious Lord” with as much coolness as though religion and morality could be nowise affected by such enormities. Mark how the sanctity of a Gregory congratulates the blood-thirsty rebellious regicide and usurper. Thus he begins — “Glory to God in the highest; who, according as it is written, changes times and transfers kingdoms. And because he would have that made known to all men, which he hath vouchsafed to speak by his own prophets, saying, that the Most High rules in the kingdoms of men, and to whom he will he gives it.” He then goes on to observe, that God in his incomprehensible providence, sometimes sends kings to afflict his people and punish them for their sins.

This, says he, we have known of late to our woeful experience.

Sometimes, on the other hand, God, in his mercy, raises good men to the throne, for the relief and exultation of his servants. Then applying this remark to existing circumstances, he adds: “In the abundance of our exultation, on which account, we think ourselves the more speedily confirmed, rejoicing to find the gentleness of your piety equal to your imperial dignity.” Then breaking out into a rapture, no longer to be restrained, he exclaims, “Let the heavens rejoice and the earth be glad; and, for your illustrious deeds, let the people of every realm, hitherto so vehemently afflicted, now be filled with gladness. May the necks of your enemies be subjected to the yoke of your supreme rule; and the hearts of your subjects, hitherto broken and depressed, be relieved by your clemency.” Proceeding to paint their former miseries, he concludes, with wishing that the commonwealth may long enjoy its present happiness.

Thus, in language evidently borrowed from the inspired writers, and in which they anticipate the joy and gladness that should pervade universal nature at the birth of the Messiah, does this pope celebrate the march of the tyrant and usurper through seas of blood to the imperial throne. “As a subject and a Christian,” says Gibbon, “it was the duty of Gregory to acquiesce in the established government; but the joyful applause with which he salutes the fortune of the assassin, has sullied, with indelible disgrace, the character of the saint. The successor of the apostles might have inculcated with decent firmness the guilt of blood, and the necessity of repentance: he is content to celebrate the deliverance of the people, and the fall of the oppressor; to rejoice that the piety and benignity of Phocas have been raised by Providence to the imperial throne; to pray that his hands may be strengthened against all his enemies; and to express a wish, that, after a long triumphant reign, he may be transferred from a temporal to an everlasting kingdom.” — “I have traced,” says the same writer, “the steps of a revolution, so pleasing in Gregory’s opinion both to heaven and earth, and Phocas does not appear less hateful in the exercise than in the acquisition of power. The pencil of an impartial historian has delineated the portrait of a monster; his diminutive and deformed person, etc.

Ignorant of letters, of laws, and even of arms, he indulged, even in the supreme rank, a more ample privilege of lust and drunkenness; and his brutal pleasures were either injurious to his subjects, or disgraceful to himself. Without assuming the office of a prince, he renounced the profession of a soldier; and the reign of Phocas afflicted Europe with ignominious peace, and Asia with desolating war. His savage temper was inflamed by passion, hardened by fear, and exasperated by resistance or reproach. The flight of Theodosius, the only surviving son of the emperor Maurice, to the Persian court, had been intercepted by a rapid pursuit, or a deceitful message: he was beheaded at Nice; and the last hours of the young prince were soothed by the comforts of religion and the consciousness of innocence.” 1 Now, if there be any thing of either truth or justice in these remarks on the character of Phocas, what are we to think of that of Gregory, who could stoop to the vile practice of panegyrising such a monster; and, with all due deference, I humbly submit it to the consideration of my discreet monitor, “What valuable end can possibly be answered, by shutting our eyes against such flagrant enormities, and eulogizing the men who have perpetuated them?” “To me,” says a late candid writer, “Gregory appears to have been a man, whose understanding, though rather above the middle rate, was much warped by the errors and prejudices of the times in which he lived. His piety was deeply tinctured with superstition, and his morals with monkery. His zeal was not pure, in regard to either its nature or its object. In the former respect, it was often intolerant; and in regard to the latter, he evinced an attachment more to the form than to the power of religion, to the name than to the thing. His zeal was exactly that of the Pharisees, who compassed sea and land to make a proselyte, which, when they had accomplished, they rendered him two-fold more a child of hell than before.

He was ever holding forth the prerogatives of St. Peter, nor did he make any ceremony of signifying, that this prime minister of Jesus Christ, like all other prime ministers, would be most liberal of his favors to those who were most assiduous in making court to him, especially to them who were most liberal to his foundation at Rome, and that most advanced its dignity and power. So much for St. Gregory, and for the nature and extent of Roman Papal virtue.” 2 SECTION FROM THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE DOMINION OF THE POPES TO THE RISE OF THE WALDENSES Retrospect of the Donatists — Introduction of the worship of images — Rise of the Mahometan imposture-Ignorance of the Catholic clergy — Origin of the sect of the Paulicians.

A.D. 606-800 HAVING hitherto taken no notice in this history of the sect of the Donatists, it seems almost necessary, before we proceed farther with the affairs of the Christian church, to introduce a concise account of them, which I shall here do from the writings of Dr. Lardner, who has collected into a few pages almost every thing that is now interesting, relative to this denomination of Christians.

The Donatists appear to have resembled the followers of Novatian more than any other class of professors in that period of the church, of whom we have any authentic records; but their origin was at least half a century later, and the churches in this connection appear to have been almost entirely confined to Africa. They agreed with the Novatians in censuring the lax state of discipline in the Catholic church, and though they did not, like the former, refuse to readmit penitents into their communion, nor like them condemn all second marriages, they denied the validity of baptism as administered by the church of Rome, and rebaptized all who left its communion to unite with them. In doctrinal sentiments they were agreed with both the Catholics and the Novatians; while the regard they paid to the purity of their communion, occasioned their being stigmatized with the title of Puritans, and uniformly treated as schismatics by Optatus and Augustine, the two principal writers against them, in the Catholic church.

The Donatists are said to have derived their distinguishing appellation from Donatus, a native of Numidia, in Africa, who was elected bishop of Carthage about the year 306. He was a man of learning and eloquence, very exemplary in his morals, and, as would appear from several circumstances, studiously set himself to oppose the growing corruptions of the Catholic church. The Donatists were consequently a separate body of Christians for nearly three centuries, and in almost every city in Africa, there was one bishop of this sect and another of the Catholics. The Donatists were very numerous, for we learn that in the year 411, there was a famous conference held at Carthage, between the Catholics and the Donatists, at which were present 286 Catholic bishops, and of the Donatists 279, which, when we consider the superior strictness of their discipline, must give us a favorable opinion of their numbers, and especially as they were frequently the subjects of severe and sanguinary persecutions from the dominant party.

The emperor Constans, who reigned over Africa, actuated by the zeal of his family for the peace of the church, sent two persons of rank, Paul and Macarius, in the year 348, to endeavor to conciliate the Donatists, and if possible to restore them to the communion of the Catholic church. But the Donatists were not to be reconciled to such an impure communion! to all their overtures for peace, they replied, Quid est imperatori cum ecclesia ? that is, “What has the Emperor to do with the church?” an excellent saying, certainly, and happy had it been for both the church and the world, could all Christians have adopted and acted upon it. Optatus relates another maxim of theirs, which is worthy of being recorded. It was usual with them to say, “Quid Christianis cum regibus, aut quid episcopis cum palatio?” What have Christians to do with kings , or what have bishops to do at court ? These hints are strikingly illustrative of the principles and conduct of the Donatists, who had among them men of great learning and talents, and who distinguished themselves greatly by their writings. 1 But I pass on from this brief mention of them to notice the state of things during this period in the Catholic church.

The introduction of images into places of Christian worship, and the idolatrous practices to which, in process of time, it gave rise, is an evil that dates its origin soon after the times of Constantine the Great; but, like many other superstitious practices, it made its way by slow and imperceptible degrees. The earlier Christians reprobated every species of image worship in the strongest language; and some of them employed the force of ridicule to great advantage, in order to expose its absurdity. When the empress Constantia desired Eusebius to send her the image of Jesus Christ, he expostulated with her on the impropriety and absurdity of her requisition in the following striking words — “What kind of image of Christ does your imperial Majesty wish to have conveyed to you? Is it the image of his real and immutable nature; or is it that which he assumed for our sakes, when he was veiled in the form of a servant? With respect to the former, I presume you are not to learn, that “no man hath known the Son but the Father, neither hath any man known the Father but the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.” But you ask for the image of Christ when he appeared in human form, clothed in a body similar to our own. Let me inform you, that the body is now blended with the glory of the Deity, and all that was mortal in it is absorbed in life.” Paulinus, who died bishop of Nola, in the year 431, caused the walls of a place of worship to be painted with stories taken out of the Old Testament, that the people might thence receive instruction; the consequence of which was, that the written word was neglected for these miserable substitutes. But about the commencement of the seventh century, during the pontificate of the first Gregory, a circumstance turned up which tends to throw additional light upon this subject. Serenus, bishop of Marseilles, in France, observing some of his congregation paying worship to the images that had been placed in the churches of that city, in his zeal, commanded them to be broken and destroyed, which gave so much disgust, that many withdrew from his communion, and complaints against him were made to the bishop of Rome. Gregory wrote to him in consequence of these complaints; and the following is an extract of his letter. “I am lately informed,” says he, “that upon your taking notice that some people worshipped images, you ordered the church pictures to be broken and thrown away. Now, though I commend you for your zeal, in preventing the adoration of any thing made with hands , yet, in my opinion, those pictures should not have been broken in pieces. For the design of pictures in churches is to instruct the illiterate, that people may read that in the paint , which they have not education enough to do in the book . In my judgment, therefore, brother, you are obliged to find out a temper to let the pictures stand in the church, and likewise to forbid the congregation the worship of them. That by this provision, those who are not bred to letters, may be acquainted with the scripture history; and the people, on the other hand, preserved from the criminal excess of worshipping images.” 3 Hence, it appears, that the worship of images was not a very general thing in Gregory’s time, and that he disapproved of the practice.

But this imprudent concession, sanctioned by the authority and influence of Gregory, was productive of the worst consequences that can be imagined, and tended to accelerate the growing superstition with amazing velocity throughout the countries subject to his pontificate. For as the knowledge of God’s true character is only to be fully learned from the revelation which is made of it by means of the gospel of Christ, in proportion as the hearts of men become fortified against that which alone dispels the clouds of ignorance and error from the human mind, their propensity to every kind of superstition and idolatry naturally succeeds.

This evil, therefore, made a most rapid progress, during the seventh century, and arrived at its zenith in the next. It did not, however, succeed without a struggle; and as the conflict ultimately issued in bringing about two important events, viz. the schism between the Greek and Roman churches, and the establishment of the pope as a temporal potentate, I shall endeavor, as concisely as possible, to sketch the leading particulars of this article of ecclesiastical history.

About the beginning of the eighth century, Leo, the Greek emperor, who reigned at Constantinople, began openly to oppose the worship of images.

One Besor, a Syrian, who appears to have been an officer of his court, and in great favor with the emperor, is said to have convinced him by his arguments that the adoration of images was idolatrous, and in this he was ably seconded by Constantine, bishop of Nacolia, in Phrygia. Leo, anxious to propagate truth and preserve his subjects from idolatry, assembled the people, and with all the frankness and sincerity which mark his character, publicly avowed his conviction of the idolatrous nature of the prevailing practice, and protested against the erection of images. Hitherto no councils had sanctioned the evil, and precedents of antiquity were against it. But the Scriptures, which ought to have had infinitely more weight upon the minds of men than either councils or precedents, had expressly and pointedly condemned it; yet, such deep root had the error at this time taken, so pleasing was it with men to commute for the indulgence of their crimes by a routine of idolatrous ceremonies; and, above all, so little ear had they to bestow on what the word of God taught, that the subjects of Leo murmured against him as a tyrant and a persecutor. And in this they were encouraged by Germanus, the bishop of Constantinople, who, with equal zeal and ignorance, asserted that images had always been used in the church, and declared his determination to oppose the emperor; which, the more effectually to do, he wrote to Gregory the second, then bishop of Rome, respecting the subject, who, by similar reasonings, warmly supported the same cause.

Two original epistles from Gregory the second to the emperor Leo, are still extant, and they merit attention on account of the portrait they exhibit of the founder of the papal monarchy. “During ten pure and fortunate years,” says Gregory to the emperor, “we have tasted the annual comfort of your royal letters, subscribed in purple ink, with your own hand, the sacred pledges of your attachment to the orthodox creed of our fathers.

How deplorable is the change! How tremendous the scandal! You now accuse the Catholics of idolatry; and by the accusation, you betray your own impiety and ignorance. To this ignorance we are compelled to adapt the grossness of our style and arguments; the first elements of holy letters are sufficient for your confusion, and were you to enter a grammar-school, and avow yourself the enemy of our worship, the simple and pious children would be provoked to cast their horn-books at your head.” After this decent salutation, the pope explains to him the distinction between the idols of antiquity and the Christian images. The former were the fanciful representations of phantoms or demons, at a time when the true God had not manifested his person in any visible likeness — the latter are the genuine forms of Christ, his mother, and his saints. To the impudent and inhuman Leo, more guilty than a heretic, he recommends peace, silence, and implicit obedience to his spiritual guides of Constantinople and Rome. “You assault us, O tyrant,” thus he proceeds, “with a carnal and military hand; unarmed and naked we can only implore the Christ, the prince of the heavenly host, that he will send unto you a devil, for the destruction of your body, and the salvation of your soul. You declare, with foolish arrogance, ‘I will dispatch my orders to Rome; I will break in pieces the images of St. Peter; and Gregory, like his predecessor Martin, shall be transported in chains and in exile to the foot of the imperial throne.’ Would to God, that I might be permitted to tread in the footsteps of the holy Martin; but may the fate of Constans serve as a warning to the persecutors of the church. After his just condemnation by the bishops of Sicily, the tyrant was cut off, in the fullness of his sins, by a domestic servant; the saint is still adored by the nations of Scythia, among whom he ended his banishment and his life. But it is our duty to live for the edification and support of the faithful people, nor are we reduced to risk our safety on the event of a combat. Incapable as you are of defending your Roman subjects, the maritime situation of the city may, perhaps, expose it to your depredation; but we can remove to the distance of four and twenty stadia, to the first fortress of the Lombards, and then — you may pursue the winds. Are you ignorant that the popes are the bond of union between the East and the West? The eyes of the nations are fixed on our humility; and they revere as a God upon earth, the apostle Saint Peter, whose image you threaten to destroy. The remote and interior kingdoms of the West present their homage to Christ and his vicegerent, and we now prepare to visit one of the most powerful monarchs, who desires to receive from our hands the sacrament of baptism. The Barbarians have submitted to the yoke of the gospel, while you alone are deaf to the voice of the shepherd. These pious Barbarians are kindled into rage; they thirst to avenge the persecution of the East. Abandon your rash and fatal enterprise; reflect, tremble, and repent. If you persist, we are innocent of the blood that will be spilt in the contest; may it fall on your own head!” The character of Leo has been so blackened by the writers of the Catholic party, that it is difficult to form a just estimate of it; but when we consider that he not only condemned the worshipping of images, but also rejected relics, and protested against the intercession of saints, we cannot doubt of his possessing considerable strength of mind, while it may help us to account for much of the obloquy that was cast upon him.

In the year 730 he issued an edict against images, and having in vain labored to bring over Germanus, the bishop of Constantinople, to his views, he deposed him from his see, and put Anastatius in his place, who took part with the emperor. There was, in the palace of Constantinople, a porch which contained an image of the Savior on the cross. Leo, perceiving that it was made an instrument of idolatry, sent an officer to remove it.

Some females, who were then present, entreated that it might remain, but without effect. The officer mounted a ladder, and with an axe struck three blows on the face of the figure, when the women threw him down, by pulling away the ladder, and murdered him on the spot. The image, however, was removed, and burnt, and a plain cross set up in its room.

The women then proceeded to insult Anastasius for encouraging the profanation of holy things. An insurrection ensued — and in order to quell it, the emperor was obliged to put several persons to death.

The news of this flew rapidly to Rome, where the same rage for idolatry prevailed, and such was the indignation excited by it, that the emperor’s statues were immediately pulled down, and trodden under foot. All Italy was thrown into confusion; attempts were made to elect another emperor, in the room of Leo, and the pope encouraged these attempts. The Greek writers affirm that he prohibited the Italians from paying tribute any longer to Leo; but, in the midst of these broils, while defending idolatry and exciting rebellion with all his might, he was stopped short in his wicked career. “He was extremely insolent,” says an impartial writer, “though he died with the character of a saint.” He was succeeded in his office by Gregory the III. A.D. 731, who entered with great spirit and energy into the measures of his predecessor. The reader cannot but be amused with the following letter which he addressed to the emperor, immediately on his elevation. “Because you are unlearned and ignorant, we are obliged to write to you rude discourses, but full of sense and the word of God. We conjure you to quit your pride, and to hear us with humility. You say that we adore stones, walls, and boards. It is not so, my lord; but these symbols make us recollect the persons whose names they bear, and exalt our groveling minds. We do not look upon them as gods; but, if it be the image of Jesus, we say, “Lord help us.” If it be the image of his mother, we say, “Pray to your Son to save us.” If it be of a martyr, we say, “St. Stephen pray for us.”

We might, as having the power of St. Peter, pronounce punishments against you; but as you have pronounced the curse upon yourself, let it stick to you . You write to us to assemble a general council, of which there is no need. Do you cease to persecute images, and all will be quiet; we fear not your threats.”

Few readers will think the style of this letter much calculated to conciliate the emperor; and though it certainly does not equal the arrogance and blasphemy which are to be found among the pretensions of this wretched race of mortals in the subsequent period of their history, it may strike some as exhibiting a tolerable advance towards it. It seems to have shut the door against all further intercourse between the parties; for in 732, Gregory, in a council, excommunicated all who should remove or speak contemptuously of images; and Italy, being now in a state of rebellion, Leo fitted out a fleet with the view of quashing the refractory conduct of his subjects, but it was wrecked in the Adriatic, and the object of the expedition frustrated.

The Roman pontiff now acted in all respects like a temporal prince. He intrigued with the court of France, offering to withdraw his obedience from the emperor, and give the consulship of Rome to Charles Martel, the prime minister of that court (or mayor of the palace, as he is generally called) if he would take him under his protection. But the war in which France had lately been engaged with the Saracens rendered it inconvenient at the moment to comply with the request; and in the year 741, the emperor, the pope, and the French minister were all removed from the stage of life, leaving to their successors the management of their respective views and contentions.

Leo left behind him a son, Constantine Copronymus, who inherited all his father’s zeal against images. Pope Gregory the III. was succeeded by Zachary, an aspiring politician, who, by fomenting discord among the Lombards, contrived to wrest from their king Luitbrand an addition to the patrimony of the church. And Charles Martel was succeeded by his son Pepin, who sent a case of conscience to be resolved by the pope, viz. whether it would be just in him to depose his own sovereign, Childeric, and to reign in his stead. The pope answered in the affirmative, in consequence of which, Pepin threw his master into a monastery, and assumed the title of king. Zachary, the pope, died soon after, namely, in the year 752, and was succeeded by Stephen the III. who, in his zeal for images was not inferior to any of his predecessors.

Voltaire has remarked, that there prevailed at that time a strange mixture of policy and simplicity, of awkwardness and cunning, which strongly characterized the general decay of the age. Stephen, the new pope, who had quarreled with the king of the Lombards, forged a letter, purporting to be the production of the apostle Peter, addressed to Pepin and his sons, which is too remarkable to be here omitted. “Peter, called an apostle by Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, etc. As through me the whole Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman church, the mother of all other churches, is founded on a rock; and to the end, that Stephen, bishop of this beloved church of Rome, and that virtue and power may be granted by our Lord to rescue the church of God out of the hands of its persecutors: to your most excellent princes, Pepin, Charles, and Carloman, and to all the holy Bishops and Abbots, Priests and Monks, as also to Dukes, Counts, and people, I, Peter, the Apostle, etc. I conjure you, and the Virgin Mary, who will be obliged to you, gives you notice, and commands you, as do also the thrones, dominations, etc. If you will not fight for me, I declare to you, by the Holy Trinity, and by my apostleship, that you shall have no share in heaven.”

This letter had its desired effect: Pepin passed the Alps with an army to assist the pope against the Lombards. Intimidated by the presence of the king of the Franks, Astolphus, the Lombard king, immediately relinquished the whole Exarchate of Ravennata 6 to the pope, including that and twenty-one other cities, who, by this means, became proprietor of the Exarchate and its dependencies; and, by adding rapacity to his rebellion, was established as a temporal monarch! Thus was the scepter added to the keys; the sovereignty to the priesthood; and thus were the popes enriched with the spoils of the Lombard kings and of the Roman emperors! He afterwards took a journey into France, where he anointed with oil the king of the Franks; and, by the authority of St. Peter, forbade the French lords, on pain of excommunication, to choose a king of another race. Thus these two ambitious men support one another in their schemes of rapacity and injustice. The criminality of the pope was, indeed, greatly aggravated by the pretense of religion. “It is you,” says he, addressing Pepin, “whom God hath chosen from all eternity. For whom he did predestinate, them he also called, and whom he called, them he also justified.”

Yet the question concerning images was far from being put to rest either at Rome or Constantinople, but continued to agitate the Catholic church for a length of time, and gave occasion to the assembling of council after council, one council annulling what the former had decreed. During the reign of the emperor Constantine Copronymus, a synod was held at Constantinople, to determine the controversy. 7 The fathers being met, to the number of three hundred and thirty, after considering the doctrine of scripture, and the opinions of the fathers, decreed, “That every image, of whatsoever materials made and formed by the artist, should be cast out of the Christian church as a strange and abominable thing,” adding an “anathema upon all who should make images or pictures, or representations of God, or of Christ, or of the Virgin Mary, or of any of the saints,” condemning it as “a vain and diabolical invention” — deposing all bishops, and subjecting the monks and laity, who should set up any of them in public or private, to all the penalties of the imperial constitution. 8 Paul I. who was at that time pope of Rome, sent his legate to Constantinople, to admonish the emperor to restore the sacred images and statues to the churches, threatening him with excommunication in case of refusal. But Copronymus treated his message with the contempt it deserved.

On the decease of Paul I. A.D. 768, the papal chair was filled for one year by a person of the name of Constantine, who condemned the worship of images, and was therefore tumultuously deposed; and Stephen the IV. substituted in his room, who was a furious defender of them. He immediately assembled a council in the Lateran church, where the renowned fathers abrogated all Constantine’s decrees, deposed all the bishops that had been ordained by him, annulled all his baptisms and chrisms, and, as some historians relate, after having beat and used him with great indignity, made a fire in the church and burnt him to death. After this, they annulled all the decrees of the synod of Constantinople, ordered the restoration of statues and images, and anathematized that execrable and pernicious synod, giving this curious reason for the use of images — “That if it was lawful for emperors, and those who had deserved well of their country, to have their images erected, but not lawful to set up those of God, the condition of the immortal God would be worse than that of man.” Thus the mystery of iniquity continued to work, until at length, under the reign of Irene, the empress of Constantinople, and her son Constantine, about the close of this century, was convened, what is termed the seventh general council. It was held at Nice, and the number of bishops present was about three hundred and fifty. In this venerable assembly it was decreed, “that holy images of the cross should be consecrated, and put on the sacred vessels and vestments, and upon walls and boards, in private houses, and in public ways. And especially that there should be erected images of the Lord God, our Savior Jesus Christ, of our blessed Lady, the mother of God, of the venerable angels, and of all the saints. And that whoever should presume to think or teach otherwise, or to throw away any painted books, or the figure of the cross, or any image or picture, or any genuine relics of the martyrs, they should, if bishops or clergymen, be deposed, or if monks or laymen be excommunicated.” They then pronounced anathemas upon all who should not receive images, or who should apply what the Scriptures say against idols to the holy images, or who should call them idols, or who should willfully communicate with those who rejected and despised them; adding, according to custom, “Long live Constantine and Irene his mother — Damnation to all heretics — Damnation on the council that roared against venerable images — The holy Trinity hath deposed them.” 10 One would think the council of Pandemonium would have found it difficult to carry impiety and profaneness much beyond this.

Irene and Constantine approved and ratified these decrees — the result of which was, that idols and images were erected in all the churches, and those who opposed them were treated with great severity. And thus, by the intrigues of the popes of Rome, iniquity was established by a law, and the worship of idols authorized and confirmed in the Catholic church, though in express opposition to all the principles of natural religion, and the nature and design of the Christian revelation.

But it is time for us to return and take some notice of another important branch of ecclesiastical history, which belongs to the period of the seventh and eighth centuries, viz. the rise of the Mahomedan imposture. Mahomet was born in the year 569 or 570, at Mecca, a city in Arabia Felix. He was descended from the tribe of Koreish, and the family of Hashem, the most illustrious of the Arabs, the princes of Mecca, and the hereditary guardians of their code of religious institutions. In his early infancy he was deprived of his father, his mother, and his grand-father; but his uncles were numerous and powerful, and in the division of the inheritance, the orphan’s share was reduced to five camels and an Ethiopian female slave. At home and abroad, in peace and war, Abu-Taleb, the most respectable of his uncles, was the guide and guardian of his youth. In his twenty-fifth year, he entered into the service of Cadijah, a rich and noble widow of Mecca, who soon rewarded his fidelity with the gift of her hand and fortune. By this alliance he was raised from a humble sphere in life to the station of his ancestors; and the lady who had thus elevated him, was content with his domestic virtues, till, in the fortieth year of his age, he assumed the title of a prophet, and proclaimed the religion of the Koran.

According to the tradition of his companions, Mahomet was distinguished by the beauty of his person. Before he spoke, the orator engaged on his side the affections of his audience, who applauded his commanding presence, his majestic aspect, his piercing eye, his gracious smile, his flowing beard, his countenance that painted every sensation of the soul, and his gestures that enforced each expression of the tongue. In the familiar offices of life, he scrupulously adhered to the grave and ceremonious politeness of his country; his respectful attention to the rich and powerful was dignified by his condescension and affability to the poorest citizens of Mecca. His memory was capacious and retentive, his wit easy and social, his imagination sublime, his judgment clear, rapid, and decisive. With all these advantages, Mahomet was an illiterate barbarian; his youth had never been instructed in the arts of reading and writing; the common ignorance exempted him from shame or reproach, but he was reduced to a narrow circle of existence, and deprived of those faithful mirrors which reflect to our mind the minds of sages and heroes. Yet the volume of nature and of man was open to his view. When only thirteen years of age, he twice accompanied his uncle’s caravan into Syria, to attend the fairs of Bostra and Damascus, but his duty obliged him to return home as soon as he had disposed of the merchandise with which he was entrusted. From his earliest youth, Mahomet was addicted to religious contemplation; and every year during the month of Ramadan, he withdrew from the world and from the society of his wife, to the cave of Heva, three miles from Mecca, where he consulted the spirit of fraud or enthusiasm, and where he at length matured the faith which, under the name ofISLAM, he at last preached to his family and nation; a faith compounded of an eternal truth and a necessary fiction —THAT THERE IS ONLY ONE GOD, AND THAT MAHOMET IS HIS APOSTLE.

Such are the first principles of the religion of Mahomet, which are illustrated, and enlarged upon with numerous additional articles in the Koran, or, as it is sometimes termed, the Alcoran. The prophet of Mecca rejected the worship of idols and men, of stars and planets, on the rational principle, that whatever rises must set; that whatever is born must die; that whatever is corruptible must decay and perish. According to his own account, or the tradition of his disciples, “the substance of the Koran is uncreated and eternal; subsisting in the essence of the Deity, and inscribed with a pen of light on the table of his everlasting decrees. A paper copy, in a volume of silk and gems, was brought down to the lowest heaven by the angel Gabriel — who successively revealed the chapters and verses to the Arabian prophet. Instead of a perpetual and perfect measure of the divine will, the fragments of the Koran were produced at the discretion of Mahomet; each revelation is suited to the emergency of his policy or passion, and all contradiction is removed by the saving maxim, that any text of the Alcoran is abrogated or modified by any subsequent passage.

In the spirit of enthusiasm or of vanity, the prophet rests the truth of his mission on the merit of his book; audaciously challenges both men and angels to imitate the beauties of a single page; and presumes to assert that God alone could dictate this incomparable performance. Yet his loftiest strains must yield to the sublime simplicity of the book of Job, composed in a remote age in the same country, and in the same language. 12 The contents of the Koran were at first diligently recorded by his disciples on palm leaves and the shoulder bones of mutton; and the pages, without order or connection, were cast into a chest in the custody of one of his wives. Two years after the death of Mahomet, the sacred volume was collected and published by his friend and successor Abubeker. At the end of two hundred years, the Sonna , or oral law was fixed and consecrated by the labors of Al Boeheri, who distinguished seven thousand two hundred and seventy-five genuine traditions, from a mass of three hundred thousand reports of a more doubtful or spurious character!

According to the Koran, some rays of prophetic light, commencing with the fall of Adam, and extending in one unbroken chain of inspiration to the days of Mahomet, had been imparted to one hundred and twenty-four thousand of the elect, discriminated by their respective measure of virtue and grace — three hundred and thirteen apostles were sent with a special commission to recall their country from idolatry and vice — one hundred and four volumes had been dictated by the Holy Spirit, and six legislators of transcendent brightness have announced to mankind the six successive revelations of various rites, but of one immutable religion. The authority and station of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Christ, and Mahomet, rise in just gradation above each other; but whosoever hates or rejects any one of the prophets is numbered with the infidels. For the author of Christianity, the Mahometans are taught by the prophet to entertain a high and mysterious reverence. “Verily, Christ Jesus, the Son of Mary, is the apostle of God, and his word, which he conveyed into Mary, and a spirit proceeding from him, honorable in this world, and in the world to come; and one of those who approach near to the presence of God.” Yet, he teaches that Jesus was a mere mortal, and that at the day of judgment, his testimony will serve to condemn both the Jews, who reject him as a prophet, and the Christians who adore him as the Son of God. The malice of his enemies, we are told, aspersed his reputation, and conspired against his life; but their intention only was guilty; a phantom, or a criminal was substituted on the cross, and the innocent saint was translated to the seventh heaven. During six hundred years, the gospel was the way of truth and salvation; but the Christians insensibly forgot both the laws and example of their founder, and Mahomet was instructed to accuse the church as well as the synagogue, of corrupting the integrity of the sacred text. The piety of Moses and of Christ rejoiced in the assurance of the future prophet, more illustrious than themselves, and the promise of “the Comforter ,” was prefigured in the name, and accomplished in the person of Mahomet, the greatest and last of the apostles of God.

The mission of the ancient prophets, of Moses and of Christ, had been confirmed by many splendid prodigies, and Mahomet was repeatedly urged by the inhabitants of Mecca and Medina, to produce a similar evidence of his divine mission; to call down from heaven the angel, or the volume of his revelation, to create a garden in the desert, or to kindle a conflagration in the unbelieving city. But as often as he is pressed upon this subject, he involves himself in the obscure boast of vision and prophecy, appeals to the internal proofs of his doctrine, and shields himself behind the providence of God, who refuses those signs and wonders that would depreciate the merit of faith, and aggravate the guilt of infidelity. But the very tone of his apologies betrays his weakness and vexation, while the numerous passages of scandal are more than sufficient to settle the question respecting the integrity of the Koran. The votaries of Mahomet are more confident than he himself was of his miraculous gifts, and their credulity increased as they were removed from the time and place of his exploits. They believe, or affirm, that trees went forth to meet him; that he was saluted by stones; that water gushed from his fingers, that he fed the hungry, cured the sick, and raised the dead; that a beam groaned to him; and that a camel complained to him; that a shoulder of mutton informed him of its being poisoned; and that both animate and inanimate nature were alike subject to this apostle of God. His dream of a nocturnal journey is seriously described as a real and corporeal transaction — a mysterious animal, the Borak, conveyed him from the temple of Mecca to that of Jerusalem; with his companion Gabriel, he successively ascended to the seven heavens, where he both received and repaid the salutations of the patriarchs, the prophets, and the angels, in their respective mansions.

Beyond the seventh heaven, Mahomet alone was permitted to proceed; he passed the Veil of Unity, approached within two bow-shots of the throne; and felt a cold that pierced him to the heart, when his shoulder was touched by the hand of God. After this familiar though important conversation, he again descended to Jerusalem, remounted the Borak, returned to Mecca, and performed in the tenth part of a night, the journey of many thousand years. Such are the marvelous tales with which the vulgar are amused.

Prayer, fasting, and alms, are the religious duties of a Mahometan; and he is encouraged to hope that prayer will carry him half way to God — fasting will bring him to the door of his palace — and alms will gain him admittance. During the month of Ramadan, from the rising to the setting of the sun, the Mussulman abstains from eating and drinking and women and baths and perfumes; from all nourishment that can restore his strength; from all pleasure that can gratify his senses. In the revolution of the lunar year, the month Ramadan coincides by turns with the winter cold and with the summer heat; but the patient martyr, without assuaging his thirst with a drop of water, must wait for the close of a tedious and sultry day. The interdiction of wine is converted by Mahomet into a positive and general law: but these painful restraints are often infringed by the libertine, and eluded by the hypocrite.

The Koran acknowledges the doctrine of a resurrection from the dead and the future judgment. At the blast of the trumpet, new worlds will start into being; angels, genii, and men, will arise from the dead, the human soul will again be united to the body; and this will be succeeded by the final judgment of mankind. After the greater part of mankind has been condemned for their opinions, the true believers only will be judged by their actions. The good and evil of each Mussulman will be accurately weighed in a balance, and a singular mode of compensation will be allowed for the payment of injuries; the aggressor will refund an equivalent of his good actions, for the benefit of the person he has wronged, and if he should be destitute of any moral property, the weight of his sins will be loaded with an adequate share of the demerits of the sufferer. According as the shares of guilt or virtue shall preponderate, the sentence will be pronounced, and all, without distinction, will pass over the sharp and perilous bridge of the abyss; but the innocent, treading in the footsteps of Mahomet, will gloriously enter the gates of Paradise, while the guilty will fall into the first and mildest of the seven hells. The term of expiation will vary from nine hundred to seven thousand years; but the prophet has judiciously promised that all his disciples, whatever may be their sins, shall be saved, by their own faith and his intercession from eternal damnation.

It is natural enough that an Arabian prophet should dwell with rapture on the groves, the fountains, and the rivers of Paradise; but instead of inspiring the blessed inhabitants with a liberal taste for harmony and science, conversation and friendship, he idly celebrates the pearls and diamonds, the robes of silk, palaces of marble, dishes of gold, rich wines, artificial dainties, numerous attendants, and the whole train of sensual and costly luxury, which becomes insipid to the owner, even in the short period of this mortal life. Seventy-two Houris , or black-eyed damsels, of resplendent beauty, blooming youth, virgin purity, and exquisite sensibility, will be created for the use of the meanest believer; a moment of pleasure will be prolonged to a thousand years, and his faculties will be increased a hundred-fold to render him worthy of his felicity.

Such are the outlines of the religion of Mahomet, which he began to preach at Mecca, in the year 609. His first converts were his wife, his servant, his pupil, and his friend. In process of time, ten of the most respectable citizens of Mecca were introduced to the private lessons of the prophet; they yielded to the voice of enthusiasm and repeated the fundamental creed, — “There is but one God, and Mahomet is his apostle.” Their faith, even in this life, was rewarded with riches and honors, with the command of armies and the government of kingdoms! Three years were silently employed in the conversion of fourteen proselytes, the first fruits of his mission. But in the fourth he assumed the prophetic office, and resolving to impart to his family the benefits of his religion, he prepared a banquet for the entertainment of forty guests of the race of Hashem. “Friends and kinsmen,” said Mahomet to the assembly, “I offer you, and I alone can offer, the most precious of gifts, the treasures of this world and of the world to come. God has commanded me to call you to his service. Who among you will support my burthen? Who among you will be my companion and my vizir?” No answer was returned, till the silence of astonishment, and doubt, and contempt, was at length broken by the impatient courage of Ali, a youth in the fourteenth year of his age. “O prophet, I am the man; whosoever rises against thee, I will dash out his teeth, tear out his eyes, break his legs, rip up his belly. O prophet, I will be thy vizir over them.” Mahomet accepted his offer with transport. His uncle Abu-Taleb, advised the prophet to relinquish his impracticable design. “Spare your remonstrances,” replied the fanatic, to his uncle and benefactor, “if they should place the sun on my right hand and the moon on my left, they should not divert me from my course.” He persevered ten years in the exercise of his mission, during which time the religion that has since overspread the East and the West advanced with a slow and painful progress within the walls of Mecca.

In his uncle Abu-Taleb, though no believer in his mission, the impostor found a guardian of his fame and person, during the life of that venerable chief; but at his death, which took place in the year 622, Mahomet was abandoned to the power of his enemies, and that too at the moment when he was deprived of his domestic comforts by the loss of his faithful and generous wife Cadijah. The tribe of the Koreishites and their allies were, of all the citizens of Mecca, the most hostile to his pretensions. His death was resolved upon, and it was agreed that a sword from each tribe should be buried in his heart, to divide the guilt of his blood, and to baffle the vengeance of his disciples. An angel or a spy revealed their conspiracy, and flight was the only resource of Mahomet. At the dead of night, accompanied by his friend Abu-beker, he silently escaped from his house — three days they were concealed in the cave of Thor, three miles from Mecca, and in the close of each evening they received from the son and daughter of Abubeker a supply of intelligence and food. The most diligent search was made after him; every haunt in the neighborhood was explored; his adversaries even arrived at the entrance of the cave, but the sight of a spider’s web and a pigeon’s nest are supposed to have convinced them that the place was solitary and inviolate. “We are only two,” said the trembling Abubeker. “There is a third,” replied the prophet, “it is God himself.” No sooner was the pursuit abated, than the two fugitives issued from the den, and mounted their camels: on the road to Medina they were overtaken by the emissaries of the Koreish; but they redeemed themselves with prayers and promises from their hands. In this eventful moment the lance of an Arab might have changed the history of the world.

The religion of the Koran might have perished in its cradle, had not Medina embraced with faith and reverence the outcasts of Mecca. But some of its noblest citizens were converted by the preaching of Mahomet.

Seventy-three men and two women of Medina held a solemn conference with Mahomet, his kinsman and his disciples, and pledged themselves to each other by a mutual oath of fidelity. They promised, in the name of the city, that if he should be banished, they would receive him as a confederate, obey him as a leader, and defend him to the last extremity. “But if you are recalled by your country,” said they, “will you not abandon your new allies?” “All things,” replied Mahomet, “are now common between us; your blood is as my blood; your ruin as my ruin. We are bound to each other by the ties of honor and interest. I am your friend and the enemy of your foes.” “But if we are killed in your service,” said they, what will be our reward?” “PARADISE,” replied the prophet. “Stretch forth thy hand.” He stretched it forth, and they reiterated the oath of allegiance and fidelity.

From his establishment at Medina, Mahomet assumed the exercise of the regal and sacerdotal office. On a chosen spot of ground he built a house and a mosque, venerable for their rude simplicity. When he prayed and preached in the weekly assembly, he leaned against the trunk of a palm tree; and it was long before he indulged himself in the use of a chair or pulpit. After a reign of six years, fifteen hundred of his followers, in arms, and in the field, renewed their oath of allegiance, and their chief repeated the assurance of his protection.

From this time Mahomet became a martial apostle — he fought in person at nine battles or sieges, and fifty enterprises of war were achieved in ten years by himself or his lieutenants. He continued to unite the professions of merchant and a robber, and his petty excursions for the defense or the attack of a caravan insensibly prepared his troops for the conquest of Arabia. The distribution of the spoil was regulated by the law of the prophet; the whole was collected in one common mass; a fifth of the gold and silver, the cattle, prisoners, etc. was reserved for pious and charitable uses; the remainder was shared in adequate portions by the soldiers. From all sides the roving Arabs were allured to the standard of religion and plunder ; the apostle sanctified the license of embracing the female captives as their wives or concubines, and the enjoyment of wealth and beauty was the type of their promised paradise. “The sword,” says Mahomet, “is the key of heaven and hell: a drop of blood shed in the cause of God, a night spent in arms, is of more avail than two months of fasting and prayer; whoever falls in battle, his sins are forgiven; at the day of judgment his wounds shall be resplendent as vermillion, and odoriferous as musk; and the loss of his limbs shall be supplied by the wings of angels and cherubims.”

Till the age of sixty-three, the strength of Mahomet vas equal to the fatigues of his station. He had, by that time made an entire conquest of Arabia, and evinced a disposition to turn his arms against the Roman empire; but his followers were discouraged. They alleged the want of money, or horses, or provisions; the season of harvest, and the intolerable heat of the summer. “Hell is much hotter,” said the indignant prophet; but he disdained to compel their service. He was then at the head of ten thousand horse and twenty thousand foot, in the way that leads from Medina to Damascus, intent upon the conquest of Syria, when he was stopped short in his career, having been poisoned, as he himself seriously believed, at Chaibar, in revenge by a Jewish female. Its fatal effect, however, was not immediate, for during four years the health of Mahomet declined; his infirmities increased, and he was at last carried off by a fever of fourteen days continuance, which, at intervals, deprived him of the use of his reason, and he died in the year 632. His death occasioned the utmost consternation among his followers. The city of Medina, and especially the house of the prophet, was a scene of clamorous sorrow, or of silent despair. “How can he be dead?” exclaimed his deluded votaries, “our witness, our intercessor, our mediator with God. He is not dead. Like Moses and Jesus, he is wrapt in a holy trance, and speedily will he return to his faithful people.” The evidence of sense was disregarded, and Omar, unsheathing his scimitar, threatened to strike off the heads of the infidels who should dare to affirm that the prophet was no more. But the tumult was appeased by the weight and moderation of Abubeker. “Is it Mahomet,” said he to Omar and the multitude, “or the God of Mahomet whom you worship?. The God of Mahomet liveth for ever, but the apostle was a mortal like ourselves, and, according to his own prediction, he has experienced the common fate of mortality.” He was piously interred by the hands of his nearest kinsman, on the same spot on which he expired. Medina has been rendered famous by the death and burial of Mahomet, and the innumerable pilgrims of Mecca often turn aside from the way to bow in voluntary devotion, before the simple tomb of the prophet. Having thus briefly glanced at the rise and progress of Mahometanism, I quit the subject, to notice the state of the Catholic Church.

The emperors of Rome and Constantinople, who professed Christianity, ‘had now been lavishing on the clergy riches, immunities, and privileges, during three succeeding centuries; and these seducing advantages had contributed to a relaxation of discipline, and the introduction of such a mass of disorders as wholly destroyed the spirit of the Christian profession. Under the dominion of the Barbarian kings, the degeneracy increased, till the pure principles of Christianity were lost sight of in the grossness of superstition, in consequence of which, men were led to endeavor to conciliate the favor of heaven by the same means that satisfied the justice of man, or by those employed to appease their fabulous deities.

As the punishments due for civil crimes, among the Barbarian conquerors, might be bought off by money, they attempted, in like manner, to bribe heaven, by benefactions to the church, in order to supersede all future inquest. They seem to have believed, says the Abbe de Mably, that avarice was the first attribute of the Deity, and that the saints made a traffic of their influence and protection. “Our treasury is poor,” said Chilperic, king of the Franks, “Our riches are gone to the church; the bishops are the kings.” And true it is, that the superior clergy, by the influx of wealth and the acquisition of lands, combined the influence of worldly grandeur with that of religion, insomuch that they were often the arbiters of kingdoms, and disposed of the crown, while they regulated the affairs of the state.

Historians have exhibited to us the most melancholy picture of the universal darkness and ignorance, which, at the beginning of the seventh century, had overspread all ranks of men. Even the ecclesiastical orders scarcely afforded an exception to this general description. Among the bishops, the grand instructors and defenders of the Christian church, few, we are told, could be found whose knowledge and abilities were sufficient to compose the discourses, however mean and incoherent, which their office sometimes obliged them to deliver to the people. The greater part of those among the monastic orders, whom the voice of an illiterate age had dignified with the character of learning, lavished their time and talents in studying the fabulous legends of pretended saints and martyrs, or in composing histories equally fabulous, rather than in the cultivation of true science, or the diffusion of useful knowledge. The want even of an acquaintance with the first rudiments of literature was so general among the higher ecclesiastics of those times, that it was scarcely deemed disgraceful to acknowledge it. In the acts of the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, many examples occur, where subscriptions are to be found in this form — “I , such an one , have subscribed by the hand of such an one , because I cannot write .” And , such a bishop having said that he could not write , I , whose name is underwritten , have subscribed for him .” We may take a specimen of the divinity that was current during the seventh century, from the description given of a good Christian by the highly revered St. Eloi, bishop of Noyon, in one of his famous homilies.

We are informed by the writer of his life, that, “besides his other miraculous virtues, one was especially bestowed on him of the Lord; for on his diligent search, and persevering with singular ardor of faith in this investigation, many bodies of holy martyrs, concealed from human knowledge for ages, were discovered to him, and brought to light!” Let the reader mark the divinity of this renowned bishop. “He is the GOOD CHRISTIAN,” says he, “who comes often to church, and brings his oblation to be presented on God’s altar; who presumes not to taste of the fruits he hath gathered, till he hath first made his offering of them to God; who, on the return of the sacred solemnities, for many days preceding, observes a sacred continence, even from his own wife, that he may approach God’s altar with a safe conscience; and who can repeat from memory, the creed and the Lord’s prayer.” So much for his good Christian; on which the learned translator of Mosheim very properly remarks, “We see here a large and ample description of the character of a good Christian, in which there is not the least mention of the love of God, resignation to his will, obedience to his laws, or of justice, benevolence, and charity to men, and in which the whole of religion is made to consist in coming often to the church, bringing offerings to the altar, lighting candles in consecrated places, and such like vain services.”

But let us hear this luminary of the seventh century once more. “Redeem your souls,” says he “from the punishment due to your sins, whilst you have the remedies in your power. Offer your tithes and oblations to the churches — light up candles in the consecrated places, according to your abilities — come frequently to church, and with all humility pray to the saints for their patronage and protection; which things if ye do, when at the last day ye stand at the tremendous bar of the eternal Judge, ye may say confidently to him, “Give Lord, because I have given.” 14Da Domine quia dedi .

In several churches of France, a festival was celebrated in commemoration of the Virgin Mary’s flight into Egypt — it was called the feast of the ass.

A young girl, richly dressed, with a child in her arms, was placed upon an ass superbly decorated with trappings. The ass was led to the altar in solemn procession — high mass was said with great pomp — the ass was taught to kneel at proper places — a hymn, no less childish than impious, was sung in his praise; and when the ceremony was ended, the priest, instead of the usual words with which he dismissed the people, brayed three times like an ass; and the people, instead of the usual response, brayed three times in return. “Every thing sacred in religion,” says Mons. Voltaire, when treating of this period, “was disfigured in the West, by customs the most ridiculous and extravagant. The festivals of fools and asses were established in most churches. On days of solemnity, they created a bishop of fools; and an ass was led into the body of the church, dressed in a cape and four cornered cap. Church dances, feastings on the altar, revelry and obscene farces were the ceremonies observed on those festivals, and in many dioceses these extravagances were continued for seven centuries. Were we to consider only the usages here related, we should imagine we were reading an account of Hottentots or Negroes; and it must be confessed that in many things we did not fall much short of them.” But it is disgusting to relate such mummery, and perhaps I ought to apologize to my reader for laying it before him. He may rest assured, however, that it is only a sample from a fruitful crop which it were easy to produce. If he be shocked, as he well may, at contemplating such disgraceful things coupled with the name of the pure and holy religion of the Son of God, he will be glad to turn his attention with me to a more pleasing subject.

While the Christian world, as it has been the fashion to call it, was thus sunk into an awful state of superstition — at a moment when “darkness seemed to cover the earth, and gross darkness the people” — it is pleasing to contemplate a ray of celestial light darting across the gloom. About the year 660, a new sect arose in the east, under the name ofPAULICIANS, which is justly entitled to our attention.

In Mananalis, an obscure town in the vicinity of Somosata, a person of the name of Constantine entertained at his house a deacon, who, having been a prisoner among the Mahometans, was returning from Syria, whither he had been carried away captive. From this passing stranger, Constantine received the precious gift of the New Testament in its original language, which, even at this early period, was so concealed from the vulgar, that Peter Siculus, to whom we owe most of our information on the history of the Paulicians, tells us, the first scruples of a Catholic, when he was advised to read the Bible, was, “it is not lawful for us profane persons to read those sacred writings, but for the priests only.” Indeed, the gross ignorance which pervaded Europe at that time, rendered the generality of the people incapable of reading that or any other book; but even those of the laity who could read, were dissuaded by their religious guides from meddling with the Bible. Constantine, however, made the best use of the deacon’s present — he studied his New Testament with unwearied assiduity — and more particularly the writings of the apostle Paul, from which he at length endeavored to deduce a system of doctrine and worship. “He investigated the creed of primitive Christianity,” says Gibbon, “and whatever might be the success, a Protestant reader will applaud the spirit of the enquiry.” 18 The knowledge to which Constantine himself was, under the Divine blessing, enabled to attain, he gladly communicated to others around him, and a Christian church was collected.

In a little time several individuals arose among them qualified for the work of the ministry; and several other churches were collected throughout Armenia and Cappadocia. It appears from the whole of their history to have been a leading object with Constantine and his brethren to restore, as far as possible, the profession of Christianity to all its primitive simplicity.

Their public appearance soon attracted the notice of the Catholic party, who immediately branded them with the opprobrious appellation of Manichaeans; but “they sincerely condemned the memory and opinions of the Manichaean sect, and complained of the injustice which impressed that invidious name on them.” 19 There is reason, therefore, to think, that they voluntarily adopted the name of Paulicians, and that they derived it from the name of the great apostle of the Gentiles. Constantine now assumed or received the name of Sylvanus, and others of his fellow laborers were called Titus, Timothy, Tichicus, etc. and as the churches arose and were formed in different places, they were named after those apostolic churches to which Paul originally addressed his inspired writings, without any regard to the name of the city or town in which they assembled for worship.

The labors of Constantine — Sylvanus, were crowned with much success.

Pontus and Cappadocia, regions once renowned for Christian piety, were again blessed with a diffusion of the light of divine truth. He himself resided in the neighborhood of Colonia, in Pontus, and their congregations, in process of time, were diffused over the provinces of Asia Minor, to the westward of the Euphrates. “The Paulician teachers,” says Gibbon, “were distinguished only by their scriptural names, by the modest title of fellowpilgrims; by the austerity of their lives, their zeal and knowledge, and the credit of some extraordinary gift of the Holy Spirit. But they were incapable of desiring, or at least of obtaining the wealth and honors of the Catholic prelacy. Such anti-christian pride they strongly censured.”

Roused by the growing importance of this sect, the Greek emperors began to persecute the Paulicians with the most sanguinary severity; and the scenes of Galerius and Maximin were re-acted under the Christian forms and names. “To their excellent deeds,” says the bigoted Peter Siculus, “the divine and orthodox emperors added this virtue, that they ordered the Montanists and Manichaeans (by which epithets they chose to stigmatize the Paulicians) to be capitally punished; and their books, wherever found, to be committed to the flames; also that if any person was found to have secreted them, he was to be put to death, and his goods confiscated.” A Greek officer, armed with legal and military powers, appeared at Colonia, to strike the shepherd, and, if possible, reclaim the lost sheep to the Catholic fold. “By a refinement of cruelty, Simeon (the officer) placed the unfortunate Sylvanus before a line of his disciples, who were commanded, as the price of their own pardon, and the proof of their repentance, to massacre their spiritual father. They turned aside from the impious office; the stones dropt from their filial hands, and of the whole number, only one executioner could be found; a new David, as he is styled by the Catholics, who boldly overthrew the giant of heresy.” 20 This apostate, whose name was Justus, stoned to death the father of the Paulicians, who had now labored among them twenty-seven years. The treacherous Justus betrayed many others, probably of the pastors and teachers, who fared the fate of their venerable leader; while Simeon himself, struck with the evidences of divine grace apparent in the sufferers, embraced at length the faith which he came to destroy — renounced his station, resigned his honors and fortunes, became a zealous preacher among the Paulicians, and at last sealed his testimony with his blood. During a period of one hundred and fifty years, these Christian churches seem to have been almost incessantly subjected to persecution, which they supported with Christian meekness and patience; and if the acts of their martyrdom, their preaching and their lives were distinctly recorded, I see no reason to doubt, that we should find in them the genuine successors of the Christians of the first two centuries. And in this as well as former instances, the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church. A succession of teachers and churches arose, and a person named Sergius, who had labored among them in the ministry of the gospel thirty-seven years, is acknowledged, even by their vilest calumniators, to have been a most exemplary Christian. The persecution had, however, some intermissions, until at length Theodora, the Greek empress, exerted herself against them, beyond all her predecessors. She sent inquisitors throughout all Asia Minor in search of these sectaries, and is computed to have killed by the gibbet, by fire, and by the sword, A HUNDRED THOUSAND PERSONS.