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THE indissoluble connection of civil and ecclesiastical
affairs has compelled and encouraged me to relate the
progress, the persecutions, the establishment, the
divisions, the final triumph, and the gradual corruption of
Christianity. I have purposely delayed the consideration of
two religious events interesting in the study of human
nature, and important in the decline and fall of the Roman
empire. I. The institution of the monastic life; (1) and II.
The conversion of the northern barbarians.
I. Prosperity and peace introduced the distinction of the
vulgar and the Ascetic Christians. (2) The loose and
imperfect practice of religion satisfied the conscience of
the multitude. The prince or magistrate, the soldier or
merchant, reconciled their fervent zeal and implicit faith
with the exercise of their profession, the pursuit of their
interest, and the indulgence of their passions but the
Ascetics, who obeyed and abused the rigid precepts of the
Gospel, were inspired by the savage enthusiasm which
represents man as a criminal, and God as a tyrant. They
seriously renounced the business and the pleasures of the
age; abjured the use of wine, of flesh, and of marriage;
chastised their body, mortified their affections, and
embraced a life of misery, as the price of eternal
happiness. In the reign of Constantine the Ascetics fled
from a profane and degenerate world to perpetual solitude or
religious society. Like the first Christians of Jerusalem, (3)
they resigned the use or the property of their temporal
possessions; established regular communities of the same sex
and a similar disposition; and assumed the names of
Hermits,Monks, and Anachorets, expressive of their
lonely retreat in a natural or artificial desert. They soon
acquired the respect of the world, which they despised; and
the loudest applause was bestowed on this DIVINE PHILOSOPHY,
(4) which surpassed, without the aid of science or reason, the
laborious virtues of the Grecian schools. The monks might
indeed contend with the Stoics in the contempt of fortune,
of pain, and of death: the Pythagorean silence and
submission were revived in their servile discipline; and
they disdained as firmly as the Cynics themselves all the
forms and decencies of civil society. But the votaries of
this Divine Philosophy aspired to imitate a purer and more
perfect model. They trod in the footsteps of the prophets,
who had retired to the desert ; (5) and they restored the
devout and contemplative life, which had been instituted by
the Essenians in Palestine and Egypt. The philosophic eye of
Pliny had surveyed with astonishment a solitary people, who
dwelt among the palm-trees near the Dead Sea; who subsisted
without money; who were propagated without women; and who
derived from the disgust and repentance of mankind a
perpetual supply of voluntary associates. (6)
Egypt, the fruitful parent of superstition, afforded the
first example of the monastic life. Antony, (7) an illiterate
(8) youth of the lower parts of Thebais, distributed his
patrimony, (9) deserted his family and native home, and
executed his monastic penance with original and intrepid
fanaticism. After a long and painful novitiate among the
tombs and in a ruined tower, he boldly advanced into the
desert three days' journey to the eastward of the Nile;
discovered a lonely spot, which possessed the advantages of
shade and water; and fixed his last residence on Mount
Colzim, near the Red Sea, where an ancient monastery still
preserves the name and memory of the saint. (10) The curious
devotion of the Christians pursued him to the desert; and
when he was obliged to appear at Alexandria, in the face of
mankind, he supported his fame with discretion and dignity.
He enjoyed the friendship of Athanasius, whose doctrine he
approved; and the Egyptian peasant respectfully declined a
respectful invitation from the emperor Constantine. The
venerable patriarch (for Antony attained the age of one
hundred and five years) beheld the numerous progeny which
had been formed by his example and his lessons. The prolific
colonies of monks multiplied with rapid increase on the
sands of Libya, upon the rocks of Thebais, and in the cities
of the Nile. To the south of Alexandria, the mountain, and
adjacent desert, of Nitria was peopled by five thousand
anachorets; and the traveller may still investigate the
ruins of fifty monasteries, which were planted in that
barren soil by the disciples of Antony. (11) In the Upper
Thebais, the vacant island of Tabenne, (12) was occupied by
Pachomius and fourteen hundred of his brethren. That holy
abbot successively founded nine monasteries of men, and one
of women; and the festival of Easter sometimes collected
fifty thousand religious persons, who followed his angelic
rule of discipline. (13) The stately and populous city of
Oxyrinchus, the seat of Christian orthodoxy, had devoted the
temples, the public edifices, and even the ramparts, to
pious and charitable uses; and the bishop, who might preach
in twelve churches, computed ten thousand females, and
twenty thousand males, of the monastic profession. (14) The
Egyptians, who gloried in this marvellous revolution, were
disposed to hope, and to believe, that the number of the
monks was equal to the remainder of the people; (15) and
posterity might repeat the saying which had formerly been
applied to the sacred animals of the same country, that in
Egypt it was less difficult to find a god than a man.
Athanasius introduced into Rome the knowledge and practice
of the monastic life; and a school of this new philosophy
was opened by the disciples of Antony, who accompanied their
primate to the holy threshold of the Vatican. The strange
and savage appearance of these Egyptians excited, at first,
horror and contempt, and, at length, applause and zealous
imitation. The senators, and more especially the matrons,
transformed their palaces and villas into religious houses;
and the narrow institution of six Vestals was eclipsed by
the frequent monasteries, which were seated on the ruins of
ancient temples and in the midst of the Roman Forum. (16)
Inflamed by the example of Antony, a Syrian youth, whose
name was Hilarion, (17) 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 the holy man was
followed by a train of two or three thousand anachorets,
whenever he visited the innumerable monasteries of
Palestine. The fame of Basil (18) is immortal in the monastic
history of the East. With a mind that had tasted the
learning and eloquence of Athens; with an ambition scarcely
to be satisfied by the archbishopric of Casarea, Basil
retired to a savage solitude in Pontus; and deigned, for a
while, to give laws to the spiritual colonies which he
profusely scattered along the coast of the Black Sea. In the
West, Martin of Tours, (19) a soldier, a hermit, a bishop, and
a saint, established the monasteries of Gaul; two thousand
of his disciples followed him to the grave; and his eloquent
historian challenges the deserts of Thebais to produce, in a
more favourable climate, a champion of equal virtue. The
progress of the monks was not less rapid or universal than
that of Christianity itself. Every province, and, at last,
every city, of the empire was filled with their increasing
multitudes; and the bleak and barren isles, from Lerins to
Lipari, that arise out of the Tuscan Sea, were chosen by the
anachorets for the place of their voluntary exile. An easy
and perpetual intercourse by sea and land connected the
provinces of the Roman world; and the life of Hilarion
displays the facility with which an indigent hermit of
Palestine might traverse Egypt, embark for Sicily, escape to
Epirus, and finally settle in the island of Cyprus. (20) The
Latin Christians embraced the religious institutions of
Rome. The pilgrims who visited Jerusalem eagerly copied, in
the most distant climates of the earth, the faithful model
of the monastic life. The disciples of Antony spread
themselves beyond the tropic, over the Christian empire of
Ethiopia. (21) The monastery of Banchors (22) in Flintshire,
which contained above two thousand brethren, dispersed a
numerous colony among the barbarians of Ireland; (23) and
Iona, one of the Hebrides, which was planted by the Irish
monks, diffused over the northern regions a doubtful ray of
science and superstition. (24)
These unhappy exiles from social life were impelled by the
dark and implacable genius of superstition. Their mutual
resolution was supported by the example of millions, of
either sex, of every age, and of every rank; and each
proselyte who entered the gates of a monastery was persuaded
that he trod the steep and thorny path of eternal happiness.
(25) But the operation of these religious motives was
variously determined by the temper and situation of mankind.
Reason might subdue, or passion might suspend, their
influence; but they acted most forcibly on the infirm minds
of children and females; they were strengthened by secret
remorse or accidental misfortune; and they might derive some
aid from the temporal considerations of vanity or interest.
It was naturally supposed that the pious and humble monks,
who had renounced the world to accomplish the work of their
salvation, were the best qualified for the spiritual
government of the Christians. The reluctant hermit was torn
from his cell, and seated amidst the acclamations of the
people, on the episcopal throne: the monasteries of Egypt,
of Gaul, and of the East, supplied a regular succession of
saints and bishops; and ambition soon discovered the secret
road which led to the possession of wealth and honours. (26)
The popular monks, whose reputation was connected with the
fame and success of the order, assiduously laboured 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 indignant father bewailed
the loss, perhaps, of an only son; (27) the credulous maid was
betrayed by vanity to violate the laws of nature; and the
matron aspired to imaginary perfection by renouncing the
virtues of domestic life. Paula yielded to the persuasive
eloquence of Jerom; (28) and the profane title of
mother-in-law of God (29) tempted that illustrious widow to
consecrate the virginity of her daughter Eustochium. By the
advice, and in the company, of her spiritual guide, Paula
abandoned Rome and her infant son; retired to the holy
village of Bethlem; founded an hospital and four monasteries
and acquired, by her alms and penance, an eminent and
conspicuous station in the Catholic church. Such rare and
illustrious penitents were celebrated as the glory and
example of their age; but the monasteries were filled by a
crowd of obscure and abject plebeians, (30) who gained in the
cloister much more than they had sacrificed in the world.
Peasants, slaves, and mechanics might escape from poverty
and contempt to a safe and honourable profession, whose
apparent hardships were mitigated by custom, by popular
applause, and by the secret relaxation of discipline. (31) The
subjects of Rome, whose persons and fortunes were made
responsible for unequal and exorbitant tributes, retired
from the oppression of the Imperial government; and the
pusillanimous youth preferred the penance of a monastic, to
the dangers of a military, life. The affrighted provincials
of every rank, who fled before the barbarians, found shelter
and subsistence; whole legions were buried in these
religious sanctuaries; and the same cause which relieved the
distress of individuals impaired the strength and fortitude
of the empire. (32)
The monastic profession of the ancients (33) was an act of
voluntary devotion. The inconstant fanatic was threatened
with the eternal vengeance of the God whom he deserted, but
the doors of the monastery were still open for repentance.
Those monks whose conscience was fortified by reason or
passion were at liberty to resume the character of men and
citizens; and even the spouses of Christ might accept the
legal embraces of an earthly lover. (34) The examples of
scandal, and the progress of superstition, suggested the
propriety of more forcible restraints. After a sufficient
trial, the fidelity of the novice was secured by a solemn
and perpetual vow; and his irrevocable engagement was
ratified by the laws of the church and state. A guilty
fugitive was pursued, arrested, and restored to his
perpetual prison; and the interposition of the magistrate
oppressed the freedom and merit which had alleviated, in
some degree, the abject slavery of the monastic discipline.
(35) The actions of a monk, his words, and even his thoughts,
were determined. by an inflexible rule (36) or a capricious
superior: the slightest offences were corrected by disgrace
or confinement, extraordinary fasts, or bloody flagellation;
and disobedience, murmur, or delay were ranked in the
catalogue of the most heinous sins. (37) A blind submission to
the commands of the abbot, however absurd, or even criminal,
they might seem, was the ruling principle, the first virtue
of the Egyptian monks; and their patience was frequently
exercised by the most extravagant trials. They were directed
to remove an enormous rock; assiduously to water a barren
staff that was planted in the ground, till, at the end of
three years, it should vegetate and blossom like a tree; to
walk into a fiery furnace; or to cast their infant into a
deep pond: and several saints, or madmen, have been
immortalised in monastic story by their thoughtless and
fearless obedience. (38) The freedom of the mind, the source
of every generous and rational sentiment, was destroyed by
the habits of credulity and submission; and the monk,
contracting the vices of a slave, devoutly followed the
faith and passions of his ecclesiastical tyrant. The peace
of the Eastern church was invaded by a swarm of fanatics,
incapable of fear, or reason, or humanity; and the Imperial
troops acknowledged, without shame, that they were much less
apprehensive of an encounter with the fiercest barbarians.
(39)
Superstition has often framed and consecrated the fantastic
garments of the monks: (40) but their apparent singularity
sometimes proceeds from their uniform attachment to a simple
and primitive model, which the revolutions of fashion have
made ridiculous in the eyes of mankind. The father of the
Benedictines expressly disclaims all idea of choice or
merit; and soberly exhorts his disciples to adopt the coarse
and convenient dress of the countries which they may
inhabit. (41) The monastic habits of the ancients varied with
the climate and their mode of life; and they assumed, with
the same indifference, the sheepskin of the Egyptian
peasants or the cloak of the Grecian philosophers. They
allowed themselves the use of linen in Egypt, where it was a
cheap and domestic manufacture; but in the West they
rejected such an expensive article of foreign luxury. (42) It
was the practice of the monks either to cut or shave their
hair; they wrapped their heads in a cowl, to escape the
sight of profane objects; their legs and feet were naked,
except in the extreme cold of winter; and their slow and
feeble steps were supported by a long staff. The aspect of a
genuine anachoret was horrid and disgusting: every sensation
that is offensive to man was thought acceptable to God; and
the angelic rule of Tabenne condemned the salutary custom of
bathing the limbs in water and of anointing them with oil.
(43) The austere monks slept on the ground, on a hard mat or a
rough blanket; and the same bundle of palm-leaves served
them as a seat in the day and a pillow in the night. Their
original cells were low narrow huts, built of the slightest
materials; which formed, by the regular distribution of the
streets, a large and populous village, enclosing, within the
common wall, a church, a hospital, perhaps a library, some
necessary offices, a garden, and a fountain or reservoir of
fresh water. Thirty or forty brethren composed a family of
separate discipline and diet; and the great monasteries of
Egypt consisted of thirty or forty families.
Pleasure and guilt are synonymous terms in the language of
the monks, and they had discovered, by experience, that
rigid fasts and abstemious diet are the most effectual
preservatives against the impure desires of the flesh. (44)
The rules of abstinence which they imposed, or practised,
were not uniform or perpetual: the cheerful festival of the
Pentecost was balanced by the extraordinary mortification of
Lent; the fervour of new monasteries was insensibly relaxed;
and the voracious appetite of the Gauls could not imitate
the patient and temperate virtue of the Egyptians. (45) The
disciples of Antony and Pachomius were satisfied with their
daily pittance (46) of twelve ounces of bread, or rather
biscuit, (47) which they divided into two frugal repasts, of
the afternoon and of the evening. It was esteemed a merit,
and almost a duty, to abstain from the boiled vegetables
which were provided for the refectory; but the extraordinary
bounty of the abbot sometimes indulged them with the luxury
of cheese, fruit, salad, and the small dried fish of the
Nile. (48) A more ample latitude of sea and river fish was
gradually allowed or assumed; but the use of flesh was long
confined to the sick or travellers: and when it gradually
prevailed in the less rigid monasteries of Europe, a
singular distinction was introduced; as if birds, whether
wild or domestic, had been less profane than the grosser
animals of the field. Water was the pure and innocent
beverage of the primitive monks; and the founder of the
Benedictines regrets the daily portion of half a pint of
wine which had been extorted from him by the intemperance of
the age. (49) Such an allowance might be easily supplied by
the vineyard of Italy; and his victorious disciples, who
passed the Alps, the Rhine, and the Baltic, required, in the
place of wine, an adequate compensation of strong beer or
cider.
The candidate who aspired to the virtue of evangelical
poverty, abjured, at his first entrance to a regular
community, the idea, and even the name, of all separate or
exclusive possession. (50) The brethren were supported by
their manual labour; and the duty of labour was strenuously
recommended as a penance, as an exercise, and as the most
laudable means of securing their daily subsistence. (51) The
garden and fields, which the industry of the monks had often
rescued from the forest or the morass, were diligently
cultivated by their hands. They performed, without
reluctance, the menial offices of slaves and domestics; and
the several trades that were necessary to provide their
habits, their utensils, and their lodging, were exercised
within the precincts of the great monasteries. The monastic
studies have tended, for the most part to darken, rather
than to dispel, the cloud of superstition. Yet the curiosity
or zeal of some learned solitaries has cultivated the
ecclesiastical and even the profane sciences: and posterity
must gratefully acknowledge that the monuments of Greek and
Roman literature have been preserved and multiplied by their
indefatigable pens. (52) But the more humble industry of the
monks, especially in Egypt, was contented with the silent,
sedentary occupation of making wooden sandals, or of
twisting the leaves of the palm-tree into mats and baskets.
The superfluous stock, which was not consumed in domestic
use, supplied, by trade, the wants of the community: the
boats of Tabenne, and the other monasteries of Thebais,
descended the Nile as far as Alexandria; and, in a Christian
market, the sanctity of the workmen might enhance the
intrinsic value of the work.
But the necessity of manual labour was insensibly
superseded. The novice was tempted to bestow his fortune on
the saints in whose society he was resolved to spend the
remainder of his life; and the pernicious indulgence of the
laws permitted him to receive, for their use, any future
accessions of legacy or inheritance. (53) Mezanla contributed
her plate, three hundred pounds' weight of silver, and Paula
contracted an immense debt for the relief of their favourite
monks, who kindly imparted the merits of their prayers and
penance to a rich and liberal sinner. (54) Time continually
increased, and accidents could seldom diminish, the estates
of the popular monasteries, which spread over the adjacent
country and cities: and, in the first century of their
institution, the infidel Zosimus has maliciously observed,
that, for the benefit of the poor, the Christian monks had
reduced a great part of mankind to a state of beggary. (55) As
long as they maintained their original fervour, they
approved themselves, however, the faithful and benevolent
stewards of the charity which was intrusted to their care.
But their discipline was corrupted by prosperity: they
gradually assumed the pride of wealth, and at last indulged
the luxury of expense. Their public luxury might be excused
by the magnificence of religious worship, and the decent
motive of erecting durable habitations for an immortal
society. But every age of the church has accused the
licentiousness of the degenerate monks; who no longer
remembered the object of their institution, embraced the
vain and sensual pleasures of the world which they had
renounced, (56) and scandalously abused the riches which had
been acquired by the austere virtues of their founders. (57)
Their natural descent, from such painful and dangerous
virtue, to the common vices of humanity, will not, perhaps,
excite much grief or indignation in the mind of a
philosopher.
The lives of the primitive 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. Whenever they were permitted to
step beyond the precincts of the monastery, two jealous
companions were the mutual guards and spies of each other's
actions; and, after their return, they were condemned to
forget, or, at least, to suppress, whatever they had seen or
heard in the world. Strangers, who professed the orthodox
faith, were hospitably entertained in a separate apartment;
but their dangerous conversation was restricted to some
chosen elders of approved discretion and fidelity. Except in
their presence, the monastic slave might not receive the
visits of his friends or kindred; and it was deemed highly
meritorious, if he afflicted a tender sister, or an aged
parent, by the obstinate refusal of a word or look. (58) The
monks themselves 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. Recluse fanatics have few ideas or sentiments to
communicate: a special licence of the abbot regulated the
time and duration of their familiar visits; and, at their
silent meals, they were enveloped in their cowls,
inaccessible, and almost invisible, to each other. (59) Study
is the resource of solitude; but education had not prepared
and qualified for any liberal studies the mechanics and
peasants who filled the monastic communities. They might
work; but the vanity of spiritual perfection was tempted to
disdain the exercise of manual labour; and the industry must
be faint and languid which is not excited by the sense of
personal interest.
According to their faith and zeal, they might employ the
day, which they passed in their cells, either in vocal or
mental prayer: they assembled in the evening, and they were
awakened in the night, for the public worship of the
monastery. The precise moment was determined by the stars,
which are seldom clouded in the serene sky of Egypt; and a
rustic horn, or trumpet, the signal of devotion, twice
interrupted the vast silence of the desert. (60) Even sleep,
the last refuge of the unhappy, was rigorously measured: the
vacant hours of the monk heavily rolled along, without
business or pleasure; and, before the close of each day, he
had repeatedly accused the tedious progress of the sun. (61)
In this comfortless state, superstition still pursued and
tormented her wretched votaries. (62) The repose which they
had sought in the cloister was disturbed by tardy
repentance, profane doubts, and guilty desires; and, while
they considered each natural impulse as an unpardonable sin,
they perpetually trembled on the edge of a flaming and
bottomless abyss. From the painful struggles of disease and
despair, these unhappy victims were sometimes relieved by
madness or death; and, in the sixth century, a hospital was
founded at Jerusalem for a small portion of the austere
penitents who were deprived of their senses. (63) Their
visions, before they attained this extreme and acknowledged
term of frenzy, have afforded ample materials of
supernatural history. It was their firm persuasion that the
air which they breathed was peopled with invisible enemies;
with innumerable demons, who watched every occasion, and
assumed every form, to terrify, and above all to tempt,
their unguarded virtue. The imagination, and even the
senses, were deceived by the illusions of distempered
fanaticism; and the hermit, whose midnight prayer was
oppressed by involuntary slumber, might easily confound the
phantoms of horror or delight which had occupied his
sleeping and his waking dreams. (64)
The monks were divided into two classes: the Coenobites, who
lived under a common and regular discipline, and the
Anachorets, who indulged their unsocial, independent
fanaticism. (65) The most devout, or the most ambitious, of
the spiritual brethren renounced the convent, as they had
renounced the world. The fervent monasteries of Egypt,
Palestine, and Syria were surrounded by a Laura, (66) a
distant circle of solitary cells; and the extravagant
penance of the Hermits was stimulated by applause and
emulation. (67) They sunk under the painful weight of crosses
and chains; and their emaciated limbs were confined by
collars, bracelets, gauntlets and greaves of massy and rigid
iron. All superfluous incumbrance of dress they
contemptuously cast away; and some savage saints of both
sexes have been admired, whose naked bodies were only
covered by their long hair. They aspired to reduce
themselves to the rude and miserable state in which the
human brute is scarcely distinguished above his kindred
animals; and the numerous sect of Anachorets derived their
name from their humble practice of grazing in the fields of
Mesopotamia with the common herd. (68) They often usurped the
den of some wild beast whom they affected to resemble; they
buried themselves in some gloomy cavern, which art or nature
had scooped out of the rock; and the marble quarries of
Thebais are still inscribed with the monuments of their
penance. (69) The most perfect Hermits are supposed to have
passed many days without food, many nights without sleep,
and many years without speaking; and glorious was the man (I
abuse that name) who contrived any cell, or seat, of a
peculiar construction, which might expose him, in the most
inconvenient posture, to the inclemency of the seasons.
Among these heroes of the monastic life, the name and genius
of Simeon Stylites (70) have been immortalised by the singular
invention of an aerial penance. At the age of thirteen the
young Syrian deserted the profession of a shepherd, and
threw himself into an austere monastery. After a long and
painful novitiate, in which Simeon was repeatedly saved from
pious suicide, he established his residence on a mountain,
about thirty or forty miles to the east of Antioch. Within
the space of a mandra, or circle of stones to which he had
attached himself by a ponderous chain, he ascended a column,
which was successively raised from the height of nine, to
that of sixty, feet from the ground. (71) In this last and
lofty station, the Syrian Anachoret resisted the heat of
thirty summers, and the cold of as many winters. Habit and
exercise instructed him to maintain his dangerous situation
with out fear or giddiness, and successively to assume the
different postures of devotion. He sometimes prayed in an
erect attitude, with his outstretched arms in the figure of
a cross; but his most familiar practice was that of bending
his meagre skeleton from the forehead to the feet; and a
curious spectator, after numbering twelve hundred and
forty-four repetitions, at length desisted from the endless
account. The progress of an ulcer in his thigh (72) might
shorten, but it could not disturb, this celestial life; and
the patient Hermit expired without descending from his
column. A prince, who should capriciously inflict such
tortures, would be deemed a tyrant; but it would surpass the
power of a tyrant to impose a long and miserable existence
on the reluctant victims of his cruelty. This voluntary
martyrdom must have gradually destroyed the sensibility both
of the mind and body; nor can it be presumed that the
fanatics who torment themselves are susceptible of any
lively affection for the rest of mankind. A cruel, unfeeling
temper has distinguished the monks of every age and country:
their stern indifference, which is seldom mollified by
personal friendship, is inflamed by religious hatred; and
their merciless zeal has strenuously administered the holy
office of the Inquisition.
The monastic saints, who excite only the contempt and pity
of a philosopher, were respected and almost adored by the
prince and people. Successive crowds of pilgrims from Gaul
and India saluted the divine pillar of Simeon; the tribes of
Saracens disputed in arms the honour of his benediction, the
queens of Arabia and Persia gratefully confessed his
supernatural virtue; and the angelic Hermit was consulted by
the younger Theodosius in the most important concerns of the
church and state. His remains were transported from the
mountain of Telenissa, by a solemn procession of the
patriarch, the master-general of the East, six bishops,
twenty-one counts or tribunes, and six thousand soldiers;
and Antioch revered his bones as her glorious ornament and
impregnable defence. The fame of the apostles and martyrs
was gradually eclipsed by these recent and popular
Anachorets; the Christian world fell prostrate before their
shrines; and the miracles ascribed to their relics exceeded,
at least in number and duration, the spiritual exploits on
their lives. But the golden legend of their lives (73) was
embellished by the artful credulity of their interested
brethren; and a believing age was easily persuaded that the
slightest caprice of an Egyptian or a Syrian monk had been
sufficient to interrupt the eternal laws of the universe.
The favourites of Heaven were accustomed to cure inveterate
diseases with a touch, a word, or a distant message; and to
expel the most obstinate demons from the souls or bodies
which they possessed. They familiarly accosted, or
imperiously commanded, the lions and serpents of the desert;
infused vegetation into a sapless trunk; suspended iron on
the surface of the water; passed the Nile on the back of a
crocodile; and refreshed themselves in a fiery furnace.
These extravagant tales, which display the fiction, without
the genius, of poetry, have seriously affected the reason,
the faith, and the morals of the Christians. Their credulity
debased and vitiated the faculties of the mind: they
corrupted the evidence of history; and superstition
gradually extinguished the hostile light of philosophy and
science. Every mode of religious worship which had been
practised by the saints, every mysterious doctrine which
they believed, was fortified by the sanction of divine
revelation, and all the manly virtues were oppressed by the
servile and pusillanimous reign of the monks. If it be
possible to measure the interval between the philosophic
writings of Cicero and the sacred legend of Theodoret,
between the character of Cato and that of Simeon, we may
appreciate the memorable revolution which was accomplished
in the Roman empire within a period of five hundred years.
II. The progress of Christianity has been marked by two
glorious and decisive victories: over the learned and
luxurious citizens of the Roman empire; and over the warlike
barbarians of Scythia and Germany, who subverted the empire
and embraced the religion of the Romans. The Goths were the
foremost of these savage proselytes; and the nation was
indebted for its conversion to a countryman, or at least to
a subject, worthy to be ranked among the inventors of useful
arts who have deserved the remembrance and gratitude of
posterity. A great number of Roman provincials had been led
away into captivity by the Gothic bands who ravaged Asia in
the time of Gallienus; and of these captives many were
Christians, and several belonged to the ecclesiastical
order. Those involuntary missionaries, dispersed as slaves
in the villages of Dacia, successively laboured for the
salvation of their masters. The seeds which they planted of
the evangelic doctrine were gradually propagated; and before
the end of a century the pious work was achieved by the
labours of Ulphilas, whose ancestors had been transported
beyond the Danube from a small town of Cappadocia.
Ulphilas, the bishop and apostle of the Goths, (74) acquired
their love and reverence by his blameless life and
indefatigable zeal, and they received with implicit
confidence the doctrines of truth and virtue which he
preached and practised. He executed the arduous task of
translating the Scriptures into their native tongue, a
dialect of the German or Teutonic language; but he prudently
suppressed the four books of Kings, as they might tend to
irritate the fierce and sanguinary spirit of the barbarians.
The rude, imperfect idiom of soldiers and shepherds, so ill
qualified to communicate any spiritual ideas, was improved
and modulated by his genius; and Ulphilas, before he could
frame his version, was obliged to compose a new alphabet of
twenty-four letters; four of which he invented to express
the peculiar sounds that were unknown to the Greek and Latin
pronunciation. (75) But the prosperous state of the Gothic
church was soon afflicted by war and intestine discord, and
the chieftains were divided by religion as well as by
interest. Fritigern, the friend of the Romans, became the
proselyte of Ulphilas; while the haughty soul of Athanaric
disdained the yoke of the empire and of the Gospel. The
faith of the new converts was tried by the persecution which
he excited. A waggon, bearing aloft the shapeless image of
Thor, perhaps, or of Woden, was conducted in solemn
procession through the streets of the camp, and the rebels
who refused to worship the god of their fathers were
immediately burnt with their tents and families. The
character of Ulphilas recommended him to the esteem of the
Eastern court, where he twice appeared as the minister of
peace, he pleaded the cause of the distressed Goths, who
implored the protection of Valens; and the name of 'Moses'
was applied to this spiritual guide, who conducted his
people through the deep waters of the Danube to the Land of
Promise. (76) The devout shepherds, who were attached to his
person and tractable to his voice, acquiesced in their
settlement at the foot of the Maesian mountains, in a
country of woodlands and pastures, which supported their
flocks, and herds, and enabled them to purchase the corn and
wine of the more plentiful provinces. These harmless
barbarians multiplied in obscure peace and the profession of
Christianity. (77)
Their fiercer brethren, the formidable Visigoths,
universally adopted the religion of the Romans, with whom
they maintained a perpetual intercourse of war, of
friendship, or of conquest. In their long and victorious
march from the Danube to the Atlantic Ocean they converted
their allies; they educated the rising generation; and the
devotion which reigned in the camp of Alaric, or the court
of Toulouse might edify or disgrace the palaces of Rome and
Constantinople. (78) During the same period Christianity was
embraced by almost all the barbarians who established their
kingdoms on the ruins of the Western empire; the Burgundians
in Gaul, the Suevi in Spain, the Vandals in Africa, the
Ostrogoths in Pannonia, and the various bands of mercenaries
that raised Odoacer to the throne of Italy. The Franks and
the Saxons still persevered in the errors of Paganism, but
the Franks obtained the monarchy of Gaul by their submission
to the example of Clovis; and the Saxon conquerors of
Britain were reclaimed from their savage superstition by the
missionaries of Rome. These barbarian proselytes displayed
an ardent and successful zeal in the propagation of the
faith. The Merovingian kings and their successors,
Charlemagne and the Othos, extended by their laws and
victories the dominion of the cross. England produced the
apostle of Germany; and the evangelic light was gradually
diffused from the neighbourhood of the Rhine to the nations
of the Elbe, the Vistula, and the Baltic. (79)
The different motives which influenced the reason or the
passions of the barbarian converts cannot easily be
ascertained. They were often capricious and accidental; a
dream, an omen, the report of a miracle, the example of some
priest or hero, the charms of a believing wife, and, above
all, the fortunate event of a prayer or vow which, in a
moment of danger, they had addressed to the God of the
Christians. (80) The early prejudices of education were
insensibly erased by the habits of frequent and familiar
society; the moral precepts of the Gospel were protected by
the extravagant virtues of the monks; and a spiritual
theology was supported by the visible power of relics, and
the pomp of religious worship. But the rational and
ingenious mode of persuasion which a Saxon bishop (81)
suggested to a popular saint might sometimes be employed by
the missionaries who laboured for the conversion of
infidels. "Admit," says the sagacious disputant, "whatever
they are pleased to assert of the fabulous and carnal
genealogy of their gods and goddesses, who are propagated
from each other. From this principle deduce their imperfect
nature and human infirmities, the assurance they were born,
and the probability that they will die. At what time, by
what means, from what cause, were the eldest of the gods or
goddesses produced? Do they still continue, or have they
ceased, to propagate? If they have ceased, summon your
antagonist to declare the reason of this strange alteration.
If they still continue, the number of the gods must become
infinite and shall we not risk, by the indiscreet worship of
some impotent deity, to excite the resentment of his jealous
superior? The visible heavens and earth, the whole system of
the universe, which may be conceived by the mind, is it
created or eternal? If created, how or where could the gods
themselves exist before the creation? If eternal, how could
they assume the empire of an independent and pre-existing
world? Urge these arguments with temper and moderation;
insinuate, at seasonable intervals, the truth and beauty of
the Christian revelation; and endeavour to make the
unbelievers ashamed without making them angry." This
metaphysical reasoning, too refined perhaps for the
barbarians of Germany, was fortified by the grosser weight
of authority and popular consent. The advantage of temporal
prosperity had deserted the Pagan cause and passed over to
the service of Christianity. The Romans themselves, the most
powerful and enlightened nation of the globe, had renounced
their ancient superstition; and if the ruin of their empire
seemed to accuse the efficacy of the new faith, the disgrace
was already retrieved by the conversion of the victorious
Goths. The valiant and fortunate barbarians who subdued the
provinces of the West successively received and reflected
the same edifying example. Before the age of Charlemagne,
the Christian nations of Europe might exult in the exclusive
possession of the temperate climates, of the fertile lands
which produced corn, wine, and oil; while the savage
idolaters and their helpless idols were confined to the
extremities of the earth, the dark and frozen regions of the
North. (82)
Christianity, which opened the gates of Heaven to the
barbarians, introduced an important change in their moral
and political condition. They received, at the same time,
the use of letters, so essential to a religion whose
doctrines are contained in a sacred book, and while they
studied the divine truth, their minds were insensibly
enlarged by the distant view of history, of nature, of the
arts, and of society. The version of the Sciptures into
their native tongue which had facilitated their conversion,
must excite, among their clergy, some curiosity to read he
original text, to understand the sacred liturgy of the
church, and to examine, in the writings of the fathers, the
chain of ecclesiastical tradition. These spiritual gifts
were preserved in the Greek and Latin languages, which
concealed the inestimable monuments of ancient learning. The
immortal productions of Virgil, Cicero, and Livy, which were
accessible to the Christian barbarians, maintained a silent
intercourse between the reign of Augustus and the times of
Clovis and Charlemagne. The emulation of mankind was
encouraged by the remembrance of a more perfect state; and
the flame of science was secretly kept alive, to warm and
enlighten the mature age of the Western world. In the most
corrupt state of Christianity the barbarians might learn
justice from the law, and mercy from the gospel; and if the
knowledge of their duty was insufficient to guide their
actions or to regulate their passions, they were sometimes
restrained by conscience, and frequently punished by
remorse. But the direct authority of religion was less
effectual than the holy communion, which united them with
their Christian brethren in spiritual friendship. The
influence of these sentiments contributed to secure their
fidelity in the service or the alliance of the Romans, to
alleviate the horrors of war, to moderate the insolence of
conquest, and to preserve, in the downfall of the empire, a
permanent respect for the name and institutions of Rome. In
the days of Paganism the priests of Gaul and Germany reigned
over the people, and controlled the jurisdiction of the
magistrates; and the zealous proselytes transferred an
equal, or more ample, measure of devout obedience to the
pontiffs of the Christian faith. The sacred character of the
bishops was supported by their temporal possessions; they
obtained an honourable seat in the legislative assemblies of
soldiers and freemen; and it was their interest, as well as
their duty, to mollify by peaceful counsels the fierce
spirit of the barbarians. The perpetual correspondence of
the Latin clergy, the frequent pilgrimages to Rome and
Jerusalem, and the growing authority of the popes, cemented
the union of the Christian republic, and gradually produced
the similar manners and common jurisprudence which have
distinguished from the rest of mankind the independent, and
even hostile, nations of modern Europe.
But the operation of these causes was checked and retarded
by the unfortunate accident which infused a deadly poison
into the cup of salvation. Whatever might be the early
sentiments of Ulphilas, his connections with the empire and
the church were formed during the reign of Arianism. The
apostle of the Goths subscribed the creed of Rimini;
professed with freedom, and perhaps with sincerity, that the
Son was not equal or consubstantial to the FATHER,(83)
communicated these errors to the clergy and people; and
infected the barbaric world with an heresy (84) which the
great Theodosius proscribed and extinguished among the
Romans. The temper and understanding of the new proselytes
were not adapted to metaphysical subtleties; but they
strenuously maintained what they had piously received as the
pure and genuine doctrines of Christianity. The advantage of
preaching and expounding the Scriptures in the Teutonic
language promoted the apostolic labours of Ulphilas and his
successors; and they ordained a competent number of bishops
and presbyters for the instruction of the kindred tribes.
The Ostrogoths, the Burgundians, the Suevi, and the Vandals,
who had listened to the eloquence of the Latin clergy, (85)
preferred the more intelligible lessons of their domestic
teachers; and Arianism was adopted as the national faith of
the warlike converts who were seated on the ruins of the
Western empire. This irreconcilable difference of religion
was a perpetual source of jealousy and hatred; and the
reproach of Barbarian was embittered by the more odious
epithet of Heretic. The heroes of the North, who had
submitted with some reluctance to believe that all their
ancestors were in hell, (86) were astonished and exasperated
to learn that they themselves had only changed the mode of
their eternal condemnation. Instead of the smooth applause
which Christian kings are accustomed to expect, from their
loyal prelates, the orthodox bishops and their clergy were
in a state of opposition to the Arian courts; and their
indiscreet opposition frequently became criminal, and might
sometimes be dangerous. (87) The pulpit, that safe and sacred
organ of sedition, resounded with the names of Pharaoh and
Holofernes; (88) the public discontent was inflamed by the
hope or promise of a glorious deliverance; and the seditious
saints were tempted to promote the accomplishment of their
own predictions. Notwithstanding these provocations, the
catholics of Gaul, Spain, and Italy enjoyed, under the reign
of the Arians, the free and peaceful exercise of their
religion. Their haughty masters respected the zeal of a
numerous people, resolved to die at the foot of their
altars, and the example of their devout constancy was
admired and imitated by the barbarians themselves. The
conquerors evaded, however, the disgraceful reproach, or
confession, of fear, by attributing their toleration to the
liberal motives of reason and humanity; and while they
affected the language, they imperceptibly imbibed the
spirit, of genuine Christianity.
The peace of the church was sometimes interrupted. The
catholics were indiscreet, the barbarians were impatient;
and the partial acts of severity or injustice, which had
been recommended by the Arian clergy, were exaggerated by
the orthodox writers. The guilt of persecution may be
imputed to Euric, king of the Visigoths who suspended the
exercise of ecclesiastical, or, at least, of episcopal
functions, and punished the popular bishops of Aquitain with
imprisonment, exile, and confiscation. (89) But the cruel and
absurd enterprise of subduing the minds of a whole people
was undertaken by the Vandals alone. Genseric himself, in
his early youth, had renounced the orthodox communion; and
the apostate could neither grant nor expect a sincere
forgiveness. He was exasperated to find that the Africans,
who had fled before him in the field, still presumed to
dispute his will in synods and churches; and his ferocious
mind was incapable of fear or of compassion. His catholic
subjects were oppressed by intolerant laws and arbitrary
punishments. The language of Genseric was furious and
formidable; the knowledge of his intentions might justify
the most unfavourable interpretation of his actions; and the
Arians were reproached with the frequent executions which
stained the palace and the dominions of the tyrant. Arms and
ambition were, however, the ruling passions of the monarch
of the sea. But Hunneric, his inglorious son, who seemed to
inherit only his vices, tormented the catholics with the
same unrelenting fury which had been fatal to his brother,
his nephews, and the friends and favourites of his father;
and even to the Arian patriarch, who was inhumanly burnt
alive in the midst of Carthage. The religious war was
preceded and prepared by an insidious truce; persecution was
made the serious and important business of the Vandal court;
and the loathsome disease which hastened the death of
Hunneric revenged the injuries, without contributing to the
deliverance, of the church. The throne of Africa was
successively filled by the two nephews of Hunneric; by
Gundamund, who reigned about twelve, and by Thrasimund, who
governed the nation above twenty-seven, years. Their
administration was hostile and oppressive to the orthodox
party. Gundamund appeared to emulate, or even to surpass,
the cruelty of his uncle; and if at length he relented, if
he recalled the bishops, and restored the freedom of
Athanasian worship, a premature death intercepted the
benefits of his tardy clemency. His brother, Thrasimund, was
the greatest and most accomplished of the Vandal kings, whom
he excelled in beauty, prudence, and magnanimity of soul.
But this magnanimous character was degraded by his
intolerant zeal and deceitful clemency. Instead of threats
and tortures, he employed the gentle, but efficacious,
powers of seduction. Wealth, dignity, and the royal favour
were the liberal rewards of apostacy; the catholics who had
violated the laws might purchase their pardon by the
renunciation of their faith; and whenever Thrasimund
mediated any rigorous measure, he patiently waited till the
indiscretion of his adversaries furnished him with a
specious opportunity. Bigotry was his last sentiment in the
hour of death; and he exacted from his successor a solemn
oath that he would never tolerate the sectaries of
Athanasius. But his successor, Hilderic, the gentle son of
the savage Hunneric, preferred the duties of humanity and
justice to the vain obligation of an impious oath; and his
accession was gloriously marked by the restoration of peace
and universal freedom. The throne of that virtuous, though
feeble, monarch was usurped by his cousin Gelimer, a zealous
Arian: but the Vandal kingdom, before he could enjoy or
abuse his power, was subverted by the arms of Belisarius;
and the orthodox party retaliated the injuries which they
had endured. (90)
The passionate declamations of the catholics, the sole
historians of this persecution, cannot afford any distinct
series of causes and events, any impartial view of
characters or counsels; but the most remarkable
circumstances that deserve either credit or notice may be
referred to the following heads: I. In the original law
which is still extant, (91) Hunneric expressly declares, and
the declaration appears to be correct, that he had
faithfully transcribed the regulations and penalties of the
Imperial edicts against the heretical congregations, the
clergy, and the people, who dissented from the established
religion. If the rights of conscience had been understood,
the catholics must have condemned their past conduct, or
acquiesced in their actual sufferings. But they still
persisted to refuse the indulgence which they claimed. While
they trembled under the lash of persecution, they praised
the laudable severity of Hunneric himself, who burnt or
banished great numbers of Manicheans; (92) and they rejected
with horror the ignominious compromise that the disciples of
Arius and of Athanasius should enjoy a reciprocal and
similar toleration in the territories of the Romans and in
those of the Vandals.(93) II. The practice of a conference,
which the catholics had so frequently used to insult and
punish their obstinate antagonists, was retorted against
themselves. (94) At the command of Hunneric, four hundred and
sixty-six orthodox bishops assembled at Carthage; but when
they were admitted into the hall of audience, they had the
mortification of beholding the Arian Cyrila, exalted on the
patriarchal throne. The disputants were separated, after the
mutual and ordinary reproaches of noise and silence, of
delay and precipitation, of military force and of popular
clamour. One martyr and one confessor were selected among
the catholic bishops; twenty-eight escaped by flight, and
eighty-eight by conformity; forty-six were sent into Corsica
to cut timber for the royal navy; and three hundred and two
were banished to the different parts of Africa, exposed to
the insults of their enemies, and carefully deprived of all
the temporal and spiritual comforts of life. (95) The
hardships of ten years' exile must have reduced their
numbers; and if they had complied with the law of
Thrasimund, which prohibited any episcopal consecrations,
the orthodox church of Africa must have expired with the
lives of its actual members. They disobeyed; and their
disobedience was punished by a second exile of two hundred
and twenty bishops into Sardinia, where they languished
fifteen years, till the accession of the gracious Hilderic.
(96) The two islands were judiciously chosen by the malice of
their Arian tyrants. Seneca, from his own experience, has
deplored and exaggerated the miserable state of Corsica, (97)
and the plenty of Sardinia was overbalanced by the
unwholesome quality of the air.(98)III. The zeal of Genseric
and his successors for the conversion of the catholics must
have rendered them still more jealous to guard the purity of
the Vandal faith. Before the churches were finally shut, it
was a crime to appear in a barbarian dress; and those who
presumed to neglect the royal mandate were rudely dragged
backwards by their long hair. (99) The palatine officers, who
refused to profess the religion of their prince, were
ignominiously stripped of their honours and employments;
banished to Sardinia and Sicily; or condemned to the servile
labours of slaves and peasants in the fields of Utica. In
the districts which had been peculiarly allotted to the
Vandals, the exercise of the catholic worship was more
strictly prohibited; and severe penalties were denounced
against the guilt both of the missionary and the proselyte.
By these arts the faith of the barbarians was preserved, and
their zeal was inflamed: they discharged with devout fury
the office of spies, informers, or executioners and whenever
their cavalry took the field, it was the favourite amusement
of the march to defile the churches and to insult the clergy
of the adverse faction.(100) IV. The citizens who had been
educated in the luxury of the Roman province were delivered,
with exquisite cruelty, to the Moors of the desert. A
venerable train of bishops, presbyters, and deacons, with a
faithful crowd of four thousand and ninety-six persons,
whose guilt is not precisely ascertained, were torn from
their native homes by the command of Hunneric. During the
night they were confined, like a herd of cattle, amidst
their own ordure: during the day they pursued their march
over the burning sands; and if they fainted under the heat
and fatigue, they were goaded or dragged along till they
expired in the hands of their tormentors. (101) These unhappy
exiles, when they reached the Moorish huts, might excite the
compassion of a people whose native humanity was neither
improved by reason nor corrupted by fanaticism: but if they
escaped the dangers, they were condemned to share the
distress, of a savage life. V. It is incumbent on the
authors of persecution previously to reflect whether they
are determined to support it in the last extreme. They
excite the flame which they strive to extinguish; and it
soon becomes necessary to chastise the contumacy, as well as
the crime, of the offender. The fine, which he is unable or
unwilling to discharge, exposes his person to the severity
of the law; and his contempt of lighter penalties suggests
the use and propriety of capital punishment. Through the
veil of fiction and declamation we may clearly perceive that
the catholics, more especially under the reign of Hunneric,
endured the most cruel and ignominious treatment. (102)
Respectable citizens, noble matrons, and consecrated virgins
were stripped naked and raised in the air by pulleys, with a
weight suspended at their feet. In this painful attitude
their naked bodies were torn with scourges, or burnt in the
most tender parts with red-hot plates of iron. The
amputation of the ears, the nose, the tongue, and the right
hand was inflicted by the Arians; and although the precise
number cannot be defined, it is evident that many persons,
among whom a bishop, (103) and a proconsul, (104) may be named,
were entitled to the crown of martyrdom. The same honour has
been ascribed to the memory of Count Sebastian, who
professed the Nicene creed with unshaken constancy; and
Genseric might detest as an heretic the brave and ambitious
fugitive whom he dreaded as a rival.(105) VI. A new mode of
conversion, which might subdue the feeble and alarm the
timorous, was employed by the Arian ministers. They imposed,
by fraud or violence, the rites of baptism and punished the
apostasy of the catholics, if they disclaimed this odious
and profane ceremony, which scandalously violated the
freedom of the will and the unity of the sacrament. (106) The
hostile sects had formerly allowed the validity of each
other's baptism; and the innovation, so fiercely maintained
by the Vandals, can be imputed only to the example and
advice of the Donatists.VII. The Arian clergy surpassed in
religious cruelty the king and his Vandals but they were
incapable of cultivating the spiritual vineyard which they
were so desirous to possess. A patriarch (107) might seat
himself on the throne of Carthage; some bishops, in the
principal cities, might usurp the place of their rivals; but
the smallness of their numbers, and their ignorance of the
Latin language, (108) disqualified the barbarians for the
ecclesiastical ministry of a great church; and the Africans,
after the loss of their orthodox pastors, were deprived of
the public exercise of Christianity. VIII. The emperors were
the natural protectors of the Homoousian doctrine; and the
faithful people of Africa, both as Romans, and as catholics,
preferred their lawful sovereignty to the usurpation of the
barbarous heretics. During an interval of peace and
friendship Hunneric restored the cathedral of Carthage, at
the intercession of Zeno, who reigned in the East, and of
Placidia, the daughter and relict of emperors and the sister
of the queen of the Vandals. (109) But this decent regard was
of short duration; and the haughty tyrant displayed his
contempt for the religion of the empire by studiously
arranging the bloody images of persecution in all the
principal streets through which the Roman ambassador must
pass in his way to the palace. (110) An oath was required from
the bishops who were assembled at Carthage, that they would
support the succession of his son Hilderic, and that they
would renounce all foreign or transmarine correspondence.
This engagement, consistent, as it should seem, with their
moral and religious duties, was refused by the more
sagacious members (111) of the assembly. Their refusal,
faintly coloured by the pretence that it is unlawful for a
Christian to swear, must provoke the suspicions of a jealous
tyrant.
The catholics, oppressed by royal and military force, were
far superior to their adversaries in numbers and learning
With the same weapons which the Greek (112) and Latin fathers
had already provided for the Arian controversy, they
repeatedly silenced or vanquished the fierce and illiterate
successors of Ulphilas. The consciousness of their own
superiority might have raised them above the arts and
passions of religious warfare. Yet, instead of assuming such
honourable pride, the orthodox theologians were tempted, by
the assurance of impunity, to compose fictions which must be
stigmatised with the epithets of fraud and forgery. They
ascribed their own polemical works to the most venerable
names of Christian antiquity; the characters of Athanasius
and Augustin were awkwardly personated by Vigilius and his
disciples; (113) and the famous creed, which so clearly
expounds the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation,
is deduced, with strong probability, from this African
school. (114) Even the Scriptures themselves were profaned by
their rash and sacrilegious hands. The memorable text which
asserts the unity of the THREE who bear witness in heaven
(115) is condemned by the universal silence of the orthodox
fathers, ancient versions, and authentic manuscripts. (116) It
was first alleged by the catholic bishops whom Hunneric
summoned to the conference of Carthage. (117) An allegorical
interpretation, in the form perhaps of a marginal note,
invaded the text of the Latin Bibles which were renewed and
corrected in a dark period of ten centuries. (118) After the
invention of printing, (119) the editors of the Greek
Testament yielded to their own prejudices, or those of the
times; (120) and the pious fraud, which was embraced with
equal zeal at Rome and at Geneva, has been infinitely
multiplied in every country and every language of modern
Europe.
The example of fraud must excite suspicion: and the specious
miracles by which the African catholics have defended the
truth and justice of their cause may described, with more
reason, to their own industry than to the visible protection
of Heaven. Yet the historian who views his religious
conflict with an impartial eye may condescend to mention one
preternatural event, which will edify the devout and
surprise the incredulous. Tipasa, (121) a maritime colony of
Mauritania, sixteen miles to the east of Caearea, had been
distinguished in every age by the orthodox zeal of its
inhabitants. They had braved the fury of the Donatists; (122)
they resisted or eluded the tyranny of the Arians. The town
was deserted on the approach of an heretical bishop; most of
the inhabitants who could procure ships passed over to the
coast of Spain; and the unhappy remnant, refusing all
communion with the usurper, still presumed to hold their
pious, but illegal, assemblies. Their disobedience
exasperated the cruelty of Hunneric. A military count was
despatched from Carthage to Tipasa: he collected the
catholics in the Forum, and, in the presence of the whole
province, deprived the guilty of their right hands and their
tongues. But the holy confessors continued to speak without
tongues; and this miracle is attested by Victor, an African
bishop, who published an history of the persecution within
two years after the event. (123) "If any one," says Victor,
"should doubt of the truth, let him repair to
Constantinople, and listen to the clear and perfect language
of Restitutus, the subdeacon, one of these glorious
sufferers, who is now lodged in the palace of the emperor
Zeno, and is respected by the devout empress." At
Constantinople we are astonished to find a cool, a learned,
and unexceptionable witness, without interest, and without
passion. Aeneas of Gaza, a Platonic philosopher, has
accurately described his own observations on these African
sufferers. "I saw them myself: I heard them speak: I
diligently inquired by what means such an articulate voice
could be formed without any organ of speech: I used my eyes
to examine the report of my ears: I opened their mouth, and
saw that the whole tongue had been completely torn away by
the roots; an operation which the physicians generally
suppose to be mortal." (124) The testimony of Aeneas of Gaza
might be confirmed by the superfluous evidence of the
emperor Justinian, in a perpetual edict; of Count
Marcellinus, in his Chronicle of the times; and of pope
Gregory the First, who had resided at Constantinople as the
minister of the Roman pontiff. (125) They all lived within the
compass of a century; and they all appeal to their personal
knowledge or the public notoriety for the truth of a miracle
which was repeated in several instances, displayed on the
greatest theatre of the world, and submitted during a series
of years to the calm examination of the senses. This
supernatural gift of the African confessors, who spoke
without tongues, will command the assent of those, and of
those only, who already believe that their language was pure
and orthodox. But the stubborn mind of an infidel is guarded
by secret, incurable suspicion; and the Arian, or Socinian,
who has seriously rejected the doctrine of the Trinity, will
not be shaken by the most plausible evidence of an
Athanasian miracle.
The Vandals and the Ostrogoths persevered in the profession
of Arianism till the final ruin of the kingdoms which they
had founded in Africa and Italy. The barbarians of Gaul
submitted to the orthodox dominion of the Franks and Spain
was restored to the catholic church by the voluntary
conversion of the Visigoths.
This salutary revolution (126) was hastened by the example of
a royal martyr, whom our calmer reason may style an
ungrateful rebel. Leovigild, the Gothic monarch of Spain,
deserved the respect of his enemies and the love of his
subjects: the catholics enjoyed a free toleration, and his
Arian synods attempted, without much success, to reconcile
their scruples by abolishing the unpopular rite of a second
baptism. His eldest son Hermenegild, who was invested by his
father with the royal diadem and the fair principality of
Baetica, contracted an honourable and orthodox alliance with
a Merovingian princess, the daughter of Sigebert, king of
Austrasia, and of the famous Brunechild. The beauteous
Ingundis, who was no more than thirteen years of age, was
received, beloved, and persecuted in the Arian court of
Toledo; and her religious constancy was alternately
assaulted with blandishments and violence by Goisvintha, the
Gothic queen, who abused the double claim of maternal
authority. (127) Incensed by her resistance, Goisvintha seized
the catholic princess by her long hair, inhumanly dashed her
against the ground, kicked her till she was covered with
blood, and at last gave orders that she should be stripped
and thrown into a basin or fish-pond. (128) Love and honour
might excite Hermenegild to resent this injurious treatment
of his bride; and he was gradually persuaded that Ingundis
suffered for the cause of divine truth. Her tender
complaints, and the weighty arguments of Leander, archbishop
of Seville, accomplished his conversion; and the heir of the
Gothic monarchy was initiated in the Nicene faith by the
solemn rites of confirmation. (129) The rash youth, inflamed
by zeal, and perhaps by ambition, was tempted to violate the
duties of a son and a subject; and the catholics of Spain,
although they could not complain of persecution, applauded
his pious rebellion against an heretical father. The civil
war was protracted by the long and obstinate sieges of
Merida, Cordova, and Seville, which had strenuously espoused
the party of Hermenegild. He invited the orthodox
barbarians, the Suevi, and the Franks, to the destruction of
his native land: he solicited the dangerous aid of the
Romans, who possessed Africa and a part of the Spanish
coast; and his holy ambassador, the archbishop Leander,
effectually negotiated in person with the Byzantine court.
But the hopes of the catholics were crushed by the active
diligence of a monarch who commanded the troops and
treasures of Spain; and the guilty Hermenegild after his
vain attempts to resist or to escape, was compelled to
surrender himself into the hands of an incensed father.
Leovigild was still mindful of that sacred character; and
the rebel, despoiled of the regal ornaments, was still
permitted, in a decent exile, to profess the catholic
religion. His repeated and unsuccessful treasons at length
provoked the indignation of the Gothic king; and the
sentence of death, which he pronounced with apparent
reluctance, was privately executed in the tower of Seville.
The inflexible constancy with which he refused to accept the
Arian communion, as the price of his safety, may excuse the
honours that have been paid to the memory of St.
Hermenegild. His wife and infant son were detained by the
Romans in ignominious captivity; and this domestic
misfortune tarnished the glories of Leovigild, and
embittered the last moments of his life.
His son and successor, Recared, the first catholic king of
Spain, had imbibed the faith of his unfortunate brother,
which he supported with more prudence and success. Instead
of revolting against his father, Recared patiently expected
the hour of his death. Instead of condemning his memory, he
piously supposed that the dying monarch had abjured the
errors of Arianism, and recommended to his son the
conversion of the Gothic nation. To accomplish that salutary
end, Recared convened an assembly of the Arian clergy and
nobles, declared himself a catholic, and exhorted them to
imitate the example of their prince. The laborious
interpretation of doubtful texts, or the curious pursuit of
metaphysical arguments, would have excited an endless
controversy; and the monarch discreetly proposed to his
illiterate audience two substantial and visible arguments -
the testimony of Earth and of Heaven. The Earth had
submitted to the Nicene synod: the Romans, the barbarians,
and the inhabitants of Spain unanimously professed the same
orthodox creed; and the Visigoths resisted, almost alone,
the consent of the Christian world. A superstitious age was
prepared to reverence, as the testimony of Heaven, the
preternatural cures which were performed by the skill or
virtue of the catholic clergy; the baptismal fonts of Osset
in Baetica (130) which were spontaneously replenished each
year on the vigil of Easter; (131) and the miraculous shrine
of St. Martin of Tours, which had already converted the
Suevic prince and people of Gallicia. (132) The catholic king
encountered some difficulties on this important change of
the national religion. A conspiracy, secretly fomented by
the queen-dowager. was formed against his life; and two
counts excited a dangerous revolt in the Narbonnese Gaul.
But Recared disarmed the conspirators, defeated the rebels,
and executed severe justice, which the Arians, in their
turn, might brand with the reproach of persecution. Eight
bishops, whose names betray their barbaric origin, abjured
their errors; and all the books of Arian theology were
reduced to ashes, with the house in which they had been
purposely collected. The whole body of the Visigoths and
Suevi, were allured or driven into the pale of the catholic
communion; the faith, at least of the rising generation, was
fervent and sincere; and the devout liberality of the
barbarians enriched the churches and monasteries of Spain.
Seventy bishops, assembled in the council of Toledo,
received the submission of their conquerors; and the zeal of
the Spaniards improved the Nicene creed, by declaring the
procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son, as well as from
the Father; a weighty point of doctrine, which produced,
long afterwards, the schism of the Greek and Latin churches.
(133) The royal proselyte immediately saluted and consulted
pope Gregory, surnamed the Great, a learned and holy prelate
whose reign was distinguished by the conversion of heretics
and infidels. The ambassadors of Recared respectfully
offered on the threshold of the Vatican his rich presents of
gold and gems; they accepted, as a lucrative exchange, the
hairs of St. John the Baptist; a cross which enclosed a
small piece of the true wood; and a key that contained some
particles of iron which had been scraped from the chains of
St. Peter. (134)
The same Gregory, the spiritual conqueror of Britain,
encouraged the pious Theodelinda, queen of the Lombards, to
propagate the Nicene faith among the victorious savages,
whose recent Christianity was polluted by the Arian heresy.
Her devout labours still left room for the industry and
success of future missionaries, and many cities of Italy
were still disputed by hostile bishops. But the cause of
Arianism was gradually suppressed by the weight of truth, of
interest, and of example; and the controversy, which Egypt
had derived from the Platonic school, was terminated, after
a war of three hundred years, by the final conversion of the
Lombards of Italy. (135)
The first missionaries who preached the Gospel to the
barbarians appealed to the evidence of reason, and claimed
the benefit of toleration. (136) But no sooner had they
established their spiritual dominion than they exhorted the
Christian kings to extirpate, without mercy, the remains of
Roman or barbaric superstition. The successors of Clovis
inflicted one hundred lashes on the peasants who refused to
destroy their idols; the crime of sacrificing to the demons
was punished by the Anglo-Saxon laws with the heavier
penalties of imprisonment and confiscation; and even the
wise Alfred adopted, as an indispensable duty, the extreme
rigour of the Mosaic institutions. (137) But the punishment
and the crime were gradually abolished among a Christian
people; the theological disputes of the schools were
suspended by propitious ignorance; and the intolerant spirit
which could find neither idolaters nor heretics, was reduced
to the persecution of the Jews. That exiled nation had
founded some synagogues in the cities of Gaul; but Spain,
since the time of Hadrian, was filled with their numerous
colonies. (138) The wealth which they accumulated by trade and
the management of the finances invited the pious avarice of
their masters; and they might be oppressed without danger,
as they had lost the use, and even the remembrance, of arms.
Sisebut, a Gothic king who reigned in the beginning of the
seventh century, proceeded at once to the last extremes of
persecution. (139) Ninety thousand Jews were compelled to
receive the sacrament of baptism; the fortunes of the
obstinate infidels were confiscated, their bodies were
tortured, and it seems doubtful whether they were permitted
to abandon their native country. The excessive zeal of the
catholic king was moderated even by the clergy of Spain, who
solemnly pronounced an inconsistent sentence: that the
sacraments should not be forcibly imposed; but that the Jews
who had been baptised should be constrained, for the honour
of the church, to persevere in the external practice of a
religion which they disbelieved and detested. Their frequent
relapses provoked one of the successors of Sisebut to banish
the whole nation from his dominions; and a council of Toledo
published a decree that every Gothic king should swear to
maintain this salutary edict. But the tyrants were unwilling
to dismiss the victims whom they delighted to torture, or to
deprive themselves of the industrious slaves over whom they
might exercise a lucrative oppression. The Jews still
continued in Spain, under the weight of the civil and
ecclesiastical laws, which in the same country have been
faithfully transcribed in the Code of the Inquisition The
Gothic kings and bishops at length discovered that injuries
will produce hatred, and that hatred will find the
opportunity of revenge. A nation, the secret or professed
enemies of Christianity, still multiplied in servitude and
distress; and the intrigues of the Jews promoted the rapid
success of the Arabian conquerors. (140)
As soon as the barbarians withdrew their powerful support,
the unpopular heresy of Arius sunk into contempt and
oblivion. But the Greeks still retained their subtle and
loquacious disposition: the establishment of an obscure
doctrine suggested new questions and new disputes; and it
was always in the power of an ambitious prelate or a fanatic
monk to violate the peace of the church, and perhaps of the
empire. The historian of the empire may overlook those
disputes which were confined to the obscurity of schools and
synods. The Manichceans, who laboured to reconcile the
religions of Christ and of Zoroaster, had secretly
introduced themselves into the provinces: but these foreign
sectaries were involved in the common disgrace of the
Gnostics, and the Imperial laws were executed by the public
hatred. The rational opinions of the Pelagians were
propagated from Britain to Rome, Africa, and Palestine, and
silently expired in a superstitious age. But the East was
distracted by the Nestorian and Eutychian controversies,
which attempted to explain the mystery of the incarnation,
and hastened the ruin of Christianity in her native land.
These controversies were first agitated under the reign of
the younger Theodosius: but their important consequences
extend far beyond the limits of the present volume. The
metaphysical chain of argument, the contests of
ecclesiastical ambition, and their political influence on
the decline of the Byzantine empire, may afford an
interesting and instructive series of history, from the
general councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon to the conquest of
the East by the successors of Mahomet.