תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

counted in their number several persons highly ence between their doctrine, and that of the eminent for their learning and piety. Among Manicheans, was not very considerable. For others, Priscillian, a layman, distinguished by "they denied the reality of Christ's birth and his birth, fortune and eloquence, and after-incarnation; maintained, that the visible uniwards bishop of Abila, was infected with this verse was not the production of the Supreme odious doctrine, and became its most zealous Deity, but of some dæmon, or malignant prinand ardent defender. Hence he was accused ciple; adopted the doctrine of æons, or emanaby several bishops, and, by a rescript obtained tions from the divine nature; considered human from the emperor Gratian, he was banished bodies as prisons formed by the author of evil, with his followers from Spain;* but he was re- to enslave celestial minds; condemned marstored, some time after, by an edict of the same riage, and disbelieved the resurrection of the prince, to his country and his functions. His body." Their rules of life and manners were sufferings did not end here; for he was accused rigid and severe; and the accounts which many a second time, in 384, before Maximus, who have given of their lasciviousness and intemhad procured the assassination of Gratian, and perance deserve not the least credit, as they are made himself master of Gaul; and, by the or- totally destitute of evidence and authority. der of that prince, he was put to death at Tre- That the Priscillianists were guilty of dissimuves with some of his associates. The agents, lation upon some occasions, and deceived their however, by whose barbarous zeal this sentence adversaries by cunning stratagems, is true; but was obtained, were justly regarded with the ut- that they held it as a maxim, that lying and most abhorrence by the bishops of Gaul and perjury were lawful, is a most notorious falseItaly; for Christians had not yet learned, that hood, without even the least shadow of probagiving over heretics to be punished by the ma- bility, however commonly this odious doctrine gistrates, was either an act of piety or justice.§ has been laid to their charge. In the heat of [No: this abominable doctrine was reserved controversy, the eye of passion and of prejufor those times, when religion was to become dice is too apt to confound the principles and an instrument of despotism, or a pretext for opinions of men with their practice. the exercise of pride, malevolence, and vengeance.]

The death of Priscillian was less pernicious to the progress of his opinions, than might naturally have been expected. His doctrine not only survived him, but was propagated through the greatest part of Spain and Gaul; and even so far down as the sixth century, the followers of this unhappy man gave much trouble to the bishops and clergy in those provinces.

*

XXIII. To what we have here said concerning those sects which made a noise in the world, it will not be improper to add some account of those of a less considerable kind.

Audæus, a man of remarkable virtue, being excommunicated in Syria, on account of the freedom and importunity with which he censured the corrupt and licenticus manners of the clergy, formed an assembly of those who were attached to him, and became, by his own appointment, their bishop. Banished into

XXII. No ancient writer has given an accurate account of the doctrine of the Priscil-Scythia by the emperor, he went among the lanists. Many authors, on the contrary, by Goths, where his sect flourished, and augmenttheir injudicious representations of it, have ed considerably. The ancient writers are not highly disfigured it, and added new degrees of agreed about the time in which we are to date obscurity to a system which was before suffi- the origin of this sect. With respect to its reciently dark and perplexed. It appears, how-ligious institutions, we know that they differed ever, from authentic records, that the differ

[blocks in formation]

Upon the death of Gratian, who had favoured Priscillian toward the latter end of his reign, Ithacius presented to Maximus a petition against him; whereupon this prince appointed a council to be holden at Bourdeaux, from which Priscillian appealed to the prince himself. Sulp. Sever. lib. ii. cap. xlix. p. 287.

It may be interesting to the reader to hear the character of the first person that introduced civil persecution into the Christian church. "He was a inan abandoned to the most corrupt indolence, and without the least tincture of true piety. He was talkative, audacious, impudent, luxurious, and a slave to his belly. He accused as heretics, and as protectors of Priscillian, all those whose lives were consecrated to the pursuit of piety and knowledge, or distinguished by acts of mortification and abstinence," &c. Such is the character which Sulpitius Severus, who had an extreme aversion to the sentiments of Priscillian, gives us of Ithacius, bishop of Sossuba, by whose means he was put to death.

See Sulp. Sever. Hist. Sacr. edit. Leips. 1709, where Martin, the truly apostolical bishop of Tours, says to Maximus, "novum esse et inauditum nefas ut causam ecclesiæ judex seculi judicaret." See also Dial. iii. de vita Martini, cap. xi. p. 495.

VOL. I.-17

in some points from those observed by other Christians; and, particularly, that the followers of Audæus celebrated Easter, or the Paschal feast, with the Jews, in repugnance to the express decree of the council of Nice. With respect to their doctrine, several errors have been imputed to them, and this, among others, that they attributed to the Deity a human form.

XXIV. The Grecian and Oriental writers place, in this century, the rise of the sect of the Messalians, or Euchites, whose doctrine and discipline were, indeed, much more an

*See Sinon de Vries, Dissert. Critica de Priscillianistis, printed at Utrecht, in 1745. The only defect in this dissertation is the implicit manner in which the author follows Beausobre's History of the Manicheans, taking every thing for granted which is affirmed in that work. See also Franc. Girvesii Historia Priscillianista rum Chronologica, published at Rome in 1750. We find, moreover, in the twenty-seventh volume of the Opuscula Scientifica of Angelus Calogera, a treatise entitled Bachiarius Illustratus, seu de Priscilliana Hæresi Dissertatio; but this dissertation seems rather intended to clear up the affair of Bachiarius, than to give a full account of the Priscillianists and their doctrine.

Epiphanius, Hæres. Ixx. p. 811.-Augustin. de Hæres. cap. I.-Theodoret. Fabul. Hæret. lib. iv. cap. ix.-J. Joach. Schroder, Dissertat. de Audæanis, pub lished in Voigt's Bibliotheca Historiæ Hæresiolog. tom. i.

by contemplation and prayer. The external air of piety and devotion, which accompanied this sect, imposed upon many, while the Greeks, on the other hand, opposed it with vehemence in all succeeding ages.

It is proper to observe here, that the title of Massalians or Euchites had a very extensive application among the Greeks and the Orientals, for they gave it to all those who endeavoured to raise the soul to God by recalling and withdrawing it from terrestrial and sensible objects, however these enthusiasts might differ from each other in their opinions upon other subjects.

cient, and subsisted, even before the birth of Christ, in Syria, Egypt, and other eastern countries, but who do not seem to have been formed into a religious body before the latter part of the century of which we now write. These fanatics, who lived after the monkish fashion, and withdrew from all commerce and society with their fellow creatures, seem to have derived their name from their habit of continual prayer. 66 "They imagined that the mind of every man was inhabited by an evil dæmon, whom it was impossible to expel by any other means than by constant prayer and singing of hymns; and that, when this malignant spirit was cast out, the pure mind return- XXV. Toward the conclusion of this centued to God, and was again united to the divinery, two opposite sects involved Arabia and the essence from which it had been separated." adjacent countries in the troubles and tumults To this leading tenet they added many other of a new controversy. These jarring factions enormous opinions, which bear a manifest re- went by the names of Antidico-Marianites and semblance to the Manichean doctrine, and are Collyridians. The former maintained, that the evidently drawn from the same source whence Virgin Mary did not always preserve her immathe Manicheans derived their errors, even from culate state, but received the embraces of her the tenets of the Oriental philosophy.* In a husband Joseph after the birth of Christ. The word, the Euchites were a sort of Mystics, who latter, on the contrary, (who were singularly imagined, according to the Oriental notion, favoured by the female sex,) running into the that two souls resided in man, the one good, opposite extreme, worshipped the Blessed Virand the other evil; and who were zealous in gin as a goddess, and judged it necessary to hastening the return of the good spirit to God, appease her anger, and seek her favour and protection, by libations, sacrifices, oblations of cakes (collyrida,) and the like services.*

*

Epiphanius, Hæres. lxxx. p. 1067.-Theodoret. Hæret. Fabul. lib. iv. cap. x. p. 672.-Timotheus, Presbyter, de receptione Hæreticor. published in the third

volume of Cotelerius' Monumenta Eccles. Græcæ.Jac. Tollii Insignia Itineris Italici, p. 110.-Assemani Bibliotheca Orientalis Vaticana, tom. i. et iii.

Other sects might be mentioned here; but they are too obscure and inconsiderable to deserve notice.

* See Epiphan. Hæres. lxxviii. lxxix.

THE FIFTH CENTURY.

PART I.

THE EXTERNAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

[blocks in formation]

I. In order to arrive at a true knowledge of the causes to which we are to attribute the outward state of the church, and the events which happened to it during the fifth century, we must keep in view the civil history of this period. It is, therefore, proper to observe, that, in the beginning of this century, the Roman empire was divided into two sovereignties; one of which comprehended the eastern provinces, the other those of the west. Arcadius, the emperor of the east, reigned at Constantinople; and Honorius, who governed the western provinces, chose Ravenna for the place of his residence. The latter prince, remarkable only for the sweetness of his temper and the goodness of his heart, neglected the great affairs of the empire; and, inattentive to the weighty duties of his station, held the reins of government with an unsteady hand. The Goths, taking advantage of this criminal indolence, made incursions into Italy, laid waste its fairest provinces, and sometimes carried their desolations as far as Rome, which they ravaged and plundered in the most dreadful manner. These calamities, which fell upon the western part of the empire from the Gothic depredations, were followed by others still more dreadful under the succeeding emperors. A fierce and warlike people, issuing from Germany, overspread Italy, Gaul, and Spain, the noblest of all the European provinces, and erected new kingdoms in these fertile countries; and Odoacer, at last, at the head of the Heruli, having conquered Augustulus, in 476, gave the mortal blow to the western empire, and reduced all Italy under his dominion. About sixteen years after this, Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, made war upon these barbarian invaders, at the request of Zeno, emperor of the east; conquered Odoacer in several battles; and obtained, as the fruit of his victories, a kingdom for the Ostrogoths in Italy, which subsisted under various turns of fortune from the year 493 to

552.*

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

they ruled with an absolute independence, in particularly from the dominion exercised by their respective governments; and, as appears Theodoric in Italy, they left nothing to the eastern emperors but a mere shadow of power and authority.*

II. These constant wars, and the inexpressible calamities with which they were attended, were undoubtedly detrimental to the cause and progress of Christianity. It must, however, be acknowledged that the Christian emperors, especially those who ruled in the east, were active and assiduous in extirpating the remains of the ancient superstitions. Theodosius the younger, distinguished himself in this pious and noble work, and many remarkable monuments of his zeal are still preserved;† such as the laws which enjoined either the destruction of the heathen temples, or the dedication of them to Christ and his saints; the edicts, by which he abrogated the sacrilegious rites and ceremonies of Paganism, and removed from all offices and employments in the state such as persisted in their attachment to the absurdities of Polytheism.

This spirit of reformation appeared with less vigour in the western empire. There the feasts of Saturn and Pan, the combats of the gladiators, and other rites that were instituted in honour of the pagan deities, were celebrated with the utmost freedom and impunity; and persons of the highest rank and authority publicly professed the religion of their idolatrous ancestors. This liberty was, however, from time to time, reduced within narrower limits; and all those public sports and festivals, which were more peculiarly incompatible with the genius and sanctity of the Christian religion, were every where abolished.§

III. The limits of the church continued to extend themselves, and gained ground daily upon the idolatrous nations, both in the eastern and western empires. In the east, the inhabi

* Car. du Fresne, Dissert. xxiii. ad Histor. Ludovici S. p. 280.-Muratori, Antiq. Ital. tom. ii. p. 578, 832.— Giannone, Historia di Napoli, tom. i. p. 207.-Vita Theodorici Ostrogothorum Regis, a Johanne Cochlao, printed in 1699, with the observations of Peringskiold.

See the Theodosian code, tom. vi. p. 327. See the Saturnalia of Macrobius, lib. i.-Scipio Maffei delli Anfiteatri, lib. i. p. 56.-Pierre le Brun, Hist. above all, Montfaucon's Diss. de Moribus Tempore Critique des Pratiques superstitieuses, tom. i. p. 237; and, Theodosii M. et Arcadii, which is to be found in Latin, in the eleventh volume of the works of St. Chrysostom,

and in French, in the twentieth volume of the Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions et des Belles Lettres, p. 197.

Anastasius prohibited, toward the conclusion of this century, the combats with the wild beasts, and other shows. Asseman. Biblioth. Orient. Vatic. tom. i. p. 246.

V. It was the same principle, as well as the same views, that engaged Clovis,* king of the Salii, a nation of the Franks, to embrace Christianity. This prince, whose signal valour was accompanied with barbarity, arrogance, and injustice, founded the kingdom of the Franks in Gaul, after having made himself master of a great part of that country, and meditated with remarkable eagerness and avidity the conquest of the whole. His conversion to the Christian religion is dated from the battle he fought with the Alemans, in 496, at a village called Tolbiacum;† in which, when the Franks began to give ground, and their affairs seemed desperate. he implored the assistance of Christ (whom his queen Clotildis, daughter of the king of the Burgundians, had often represented to him, in vain, as the Son of the true God,) and solemnly engaged himself, by a vow, to worship him as his God, if he would render him victorious over his enemies. Victory decided in favour of the Franks; and Clovis, faithful to his engagement, received baptism at Rheims, toward the conclusion of the same year, after having been instructed by Remigius, bishop of that city, in the doctrines of Christianity. The example of the king had such a powerful effect upon the minds of his subjects, that three thousand of them immediately followed it, and were baptized with him. Many are of opinion, that the desire of extending his dominions principally contributed to render Clovis faithful to his engagement, though some influence may also be allowed to the zeal and exhortations of his queen Clotildis. Be that as it will, nothing is more certain than that his profession of Christianity was, in effect, of great use to him, both in confirming and enlarging his empire.

tants of the mountains Libanus and Anti-Li- to the success which crowned the arms of those banus, being dreadfully infested with wild who professed it; and, therefore, when they beasts, implored the assistance and counsels of saw the Romans in possession of an empire the famous Simeon the Stylite, of whom we much more extensive than that of any other shall have occasion to speak hereafter. Simeon people, they concluded that Christ, their God, gave them for answer, that the only effectual was of all others the most worthy of religious method of removing this calamity was, to aban- homage. don the superstitious worship of their ancestors, and substitute the Christian religion in its place. The docility of this people, joined to the extremities to which they were reduced, engaged them to follow the counsels of this holy man. They embraced Christianity, and, in consequence of their conversion, they had the pleasure of seeing their savage enemies abandon their habitations, if we may believe the writers who affirm the truth of this prodigy. The same Simeon, by his influence and authority, introduced the Christian worship into a certain district of the Arabians: some allege, that this also was effected by a miracle, which to me appears more than doubtful. To these instances of the progress of the Gospel, we may add the conversion of a considerable number of Jews in the isle of Crete: finding themselves grossly deluded by the impious pretensions of an impostor, called Moses Creten sis, who gave himself out for the Messiah, they opened their eyes upon the truth, and spontaneously embraced the Christian religion.‡ IV. The German nations, who rent in pieces the Roman empire in the west, were not all converted to Christianity at the same time. Some of them had embraced the truth before the time of their incursion; and such, among others, was the case of the Goths. Others, after having erected their little kingdoms in the empire, embraced the Gospel, that they might thus live with more security amidst a people, who, in general, professed the Christian religion. It is, however, uncertain (and likely to continue so) at what time, and by whose ministry, the Vandals, Sueves, and Alans, were converted to Christianity. With respect to the Burgundians, who inhabited the banks of the Rhine, and thence passed into Gaul, we are informed, by Socrates,§ that they embraced the Gospel of their own accord, from a notion that Christ, or the God of the Romans, who had been represented to them as a most powerful being, would defend them against the rapines and incursions of the Huns. They afterwards sided with the Arian party, to which also the Vandals, Sueves, and Goths, were zealously attached. All these fierce and warlike nations considered a religion as excellent, in proportion

* Vide idem Opus, tom. i. p. 246.

The miracles, which are said to have been wrought at the baptism of Clovis, are unworthy of the smallest degree of credit. Among others, the principal prodigy, that of the phial full of oil said to have been brought from heaven by a milk-white dove during the ceremony of baptism, is a fiction, or rather, perhaps, an imposture; a pretended miracle contrived by artifice and fraud. Pious frauds of this na

1E- Beside the name of Clovis, this prince was also called Clodovæus, Hludovicus, Ludovicus, and Ludicin. Tolbiacum is thought to be the present Zulpick, which is about twelve miles from Cologne.

See Gregory of Tours, Historia Francorum, lib. ii. cap. xxx. xxxi.-Count Bunau's Historia Imperii Romano-Germanici, tom. i. p. 588.-Du Bos' Histoire Critique de la Monarchie Francoise, tom. ii. p. 340.

We shall give the relation of Socrates, concerning this impostor, in the words of the learned and estimable author of the Remarks on Ecclesiastical History. "In the time of Theodosius the younger, an impostor arose, called Moses Cretensis. He pretended to be a second Moses, sent to deliver the Jews who dwelt in Crete, and promised to divide the sea, and give them a The epitomiser of the history of the Franks safe passage through it. They assembled together, with tells us, that Remigius having preached to Clovis, and their wives and children, and followed him to a promon- those who had been baptised with him, a sermon on the tory. He there commanded them to cast themselves into passion of our Saviour, the king, in hearing him, could the sea. Many of them obeyed, and perished in the not forbear crying out, "If I had been there with my waters; and many were taken up and saved by fisher-Franks, that should not have happened." men. Upon this, the deluded Jews would have torn the impostor to pieces; but he escaped them, and was seen no See Jortin's Remarks, vol. iii. Socrates, Hist. Eccles. lib. vii. cap. xxxviii. P. 383. Socrat. lib. vii. cap. xxx. p. 371.

more."

The truth of this miracle has been denied by the learned John James Chiflet, in his book De Ampulla Rhemensi, printed at Antwerp, in 1651; and it has been affirmed by Vertot, in the Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions et des Belles Lettres, tom. iv. p. 350. After

ture were very frequently practised in Gaul and in Spain at this time, in order to captivate, with more facility, the minds of a rude and barbarous people, who were scarcely susceptible of a rational conviction.

The conversion of Clovis is looked upon by the learned as the origin of the titles of most Christian King, and Eldest Son of the Church, which have been so long attributed to the kings of France; for, if we except this prince, all the kings of those barbarous nations, who seized the Roman provinces, were either yet involved in the darkness of Paganism, or infected with the Arian heresy.

VI. Celestine, the Roman pontiff, sent Palladius into Ireland, to propagate the Christian religion among the rude inhabitants of that island. This first mission was not attended with much fruit; nor did the success of Palladius bear any proportion to his laborious and pious endeavours. After his death, the same pontiff employed, in this mission, Succathus, a native of Scotland, whose name he changed into that of Patrick, and who arrived among the Irish in 432. The success of his ministry, and the number and importance of his pious exploits, stand upon record as undoubted proofs, not only of his resolution and patience, but also of his dexterity and address. Having attacked, with much more success than his predecessor, the errors and superstitions of that uncivilized people, and brought great numbers of them over to the Christian religion, he founded, in 472, the archbishopric of Armagh,

which has ever since remained the metropolitan see of the Irish nation. Hence this famous missionary, though not the first who brought among that people the light of the Gospel, has yet been justly entitled the Apostle of the Irish, and the father of the Hibernian church, and is still generally acknowledged and revered in that honourable character.

VII. The causes and circumstances by which these different nations were engaged to abandon the superstition of their ancestors, and to embrace the religion of Jesus, may be easily deduced from the facts we have related in the history of their conversion. It would, indeed, be an instance of the blindest and most perverse partiality, not to acknowledge, that the labours and zeal of great and eminent men contributed to this happy purpose, and were the means by which the darkness of many was turned into light. But, on the other hand, they must be very inattentive and superficial observers of things, who do not perceive that the fear of punishment, the prospect of honours and advantages, and the desire of obtaining succour against their enemies from the countenance of the Christians, or the miraculous influences of their religion, were the prevailing motives that induced the greatest part to renounce the service of their impotent gods.

How far these conversions were due to real miracles attending the ministry of the early preachers, is a matter extremely difficult to be determined; for, though I am persuaded that those pious men, who, in the midst of many dangers, and in the face of obstacles seemingly a mature consideration of what has been alleged on both invincible, endeavoured to spread the light of sides of the question, I can scarcely venture to deny the Christianity among the barbarous nations, were fact: I am therefore of opinion, that, in order to confirm sometimes accompanied with the more peculiar and fix the wavering faith of this barbarian prince, Remigius had prepared his measures before-hand, and presence and succours of the Most High,* yet trained a pigeon, by great application and dexterity, in I am equally convinced, that the greatest part such a manner, that, during the baptism of Clovis, it de- of the prodigies, recorded in the histories of scended from the roof of the church with a phial of oil. this age, are liable to the strongest suspicions Among the records of this century, we find accounts of of falsehood or imposture. The simplicity and many such miracles. There is one circumstance, which obliges me to differ from Dr. Mosheim upon this ignorance of the generality in those times furpoint, and to look upon the story of the famous phial nished the most favourable occasion for the exrather as a mere fiction, than as a pious fraud, or pre-ercise of fraud, and the impudence of impostended miracle brought about by artifice; and that circumstance is, that Gregory of Tours, from whom we tors, in contriving false miracles, was artfully have a full account of the conversion and baptism of proportioned to the credulity of the vulgar, Clovis, and who, from his proximity to this time, may while the sagacious and the wise, who perceivalmost be called a contemporary writer, has not made the least mention of this famous miracle. This omission, ined these cheats, were overawed into silence by a writer whom the Roman catholics themselves consider as an over-credulous historian, amounts to a proof, that, in his time, this fable was not yet invented.

*See Gab. Daniel et De Camps, Dissert. de Titulo Regis Christianissimi, in the Journal des Scavans for the year 1720, p. 243, 336, 404, 448.-Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xx. p. 466.

From the fragments of the lives of some Irish bishops who are said to have converted many of their countrymen in the fourth century, archbishop Usher concludes, that Palladius was not the first bishop of Ireland (see his Antiquities of the British Church;) but it has been evidently proved, among others by Bollandus, that these fragments are of no earlier date than the twelfth century, and are besides, for the most part, fabulous. Dr. Mosheim's opinion is farther confirmed by the authority of Prosper, which is decisive in this matter.

the dangers that threatened their lives and fortunes, if they should expose the artifice. Thus does it generally happen in human life, that, when danger attends the discovery and profession of the truth, the prudent are silent, the multitude believe, and impostors triumph.

consult Le Brun, Histoire Critique des Pratiques superstitieuses, tom. iv. p. 34.

There is a remarkable passage, relating to the miracles of this century, in the dialogue of Eneas Gazæus concerning the immortality of the soul, entitled Theophrastus. See the controversy concerning the time when miracles ceased in the church, that was carried on about the middle of the eighteenth century, on occasion of Dr. Middleton's Free Inquiry.

This is ingenuously confessed by the Benedictine monks in their Literary History of France, tom. ii. p. 33, and happily expressed by Lívy, Hist. lib. xxiv. cap. x. sect. 6. "Prodigia multa nuntiata sunt, quæ quo magis credebant simplices et religiosi homines, eo plura nuntiabantur."

See the Acta Sanctor. tom. ii. Martii, p. 517, tom. iii. Februar. p. 131, 179; and the Hibernia Sacra of Sir James Ware, printed at Dublin in 1717. The latter published at London, in 1656, the Works of St. Patrick. Accounts of the synods, that were holden by this eminent missionary, are to be found in Wilkins' Concilia Magnæ Brit. et Hiberniæ, tom. i. With respect to the famous cave, called the Purgatory of St. Patrick, the reader may liii. cap. ii. p. 487.

Sulpitius Severus, Dial. i. p. 438. Ep. i. p. 457. Dial.

« הקודםהמשך »