of, an anniversary festival, which was called the Feast of Orthodoxy.*

XVI. The triumph of images, notwithstand

greater part of the European Christians, as we have seen already, steered a middle course between the idolaters and the Iconoclasts, between those who were zealous for the worship of images on the one hand, and those who were averse to all use of them on the other. They were of opinion, that images might be suffered as the means of aiding the memory of the faithful, and of calling to their remembrance the pious exploits and the virtuous actions of the persons they represented; but they detested all thoughts of paying them the least marks of religious homage or adoration. Michael Balbus, when he sent, in 824, a solemn embassy to Louis the Debonnaire, to renew and confirm the treaties of peace and friendship which had been concluded between his predecessors in the empire and Charlemagne, charged his ministers, in a particular manner, to bring over the king of the Franks to the party of the Iconoclasts, that they might gradually suppress, by their united influence, the worship of images, and thus restore concord and tranquillity to the church. Louis, on this occasion, assembled a council at Paris, in 824,‡ in order to examine the proposal of the Grecian emperor; in which it was resolved to adhere to the decrees of the council of Frankfort, which allowed the use of images in the churches, but severely prohibited the treating of them with the smallest marks of religious worship. But in process of time the European Christians departed gradually from the observance of this injunction, and fell imperceptibly into a blind submission to the decisions of the pope, whose influence and authority daily became more formidable; so that, toward the conclusion of

terness and cruelty. The scene changed again, upon the accession of Leo the Armenian to the empire, who abolished the decrees of the Nicene council relating to the use and wor-ing the zealous efforts of the Roman pontiffs. ship of images, in a council assembled at Con- in their favour, was obtained with much more stantinople, in 814;* without however enacting difficulty among the Latins, than it had been any penal laws against their idolatrous wor- among the Greeks; for the former yet mainshippers. This moderation, far from satisfy-tained the inalienable privilege of judging for ing the patriarch Nicephorus, and the other themselves in religious matters, and were far partisans of image-worship, only served to en- from being disposed to submit their reason im courage their obstinacy, and to increase their plicitly to the decisions of the pontiff, or to insolence; upon which the emperor removed regard any thing as infallible and true, which the haughty prelate from his office, and chas-had authority for its only foundation. The tised the fury of several of his adherents with a deserved punishment. His successor Michael, surnamed Balbus, or the Stammerer, was obliged to observe the same conduct, and to depart from the clemency and indulgence which, in the beginning of his reign, he had discovered toward the worshippers of images, whose idolatry, however, he was far from approving. The monks more especially provoked his indignation by their fanatical rage, and forced him to treat them with particular severity. But the zeal of his son and successor Theophilus, in discouraging this new idolatry, was still more vehement; for he opposed the adorers of images with great violence, and went so far as to put to death some of the more obstinate ringleaders of that impetuous faction. XV. On the death of Theophilus, which happened in 842, the regency was entrusted to the empress Theodora during her son's minority. This superstitious princess, fatigued with the importunate solicitations of the monks, deluded by their forged miracles, and not a little influenced also by their insolent threats, assembled, in the year above-mentioned, a council at Constantinople, in which the decrees of the second Nicene council were reinstated in their lost authority, and the Greeks were indulged in their corrupt propensity to image-worship by a law which encouraged that wretched idolatry; so that, after a controversy, which had been carried on during the space of a hundred and ten years, the cause of idolatry triumphed over the dictates of reason and Christianity; the whole east, the Armenians excepted, bowed down before the victorious images; nor did any of the succeeding emperors attempt to cure the Greeks of *See Gretser's Observat. in Codinum de Officiis this superstitious phrensy, or restrain them in Aula et Eccles. Constantinopolitanæ, lib. iii. cap. the performance of this puerile worship. The viii.; as also the Ceremoniale Byzantinum, pab council that was holden at Constantinople un-lished by Reisk, lib. i. c. xxviii. p. 92. der Photius, in 879, and which is reckoned by the Greeks the eighth general council, gave a farther degree of force and vigor to idolatry, by maintaining the sanctity of images, and approving, confirming, and renewing the Ni- nimously place this council in 825. It may be procene decrees. The superstitious Greeks, who per to observe, that the proceedings of this council were blind-led by the monks in the most igno-evidently show, that the decisions of the Roman minious manner, esteemed this council as a pontiff were by no means looked upon at this time either as obligatory or infallible; for, when the letmost signal blessing derived to them from the ter of pope Adrian, in favour of images, was read immediate interposition of Heaven, and ac-in the council, it was almost unanimously rejected, cordingly instituted, in commemoration there

Fleury and some other writers place the meeting of this council in 815.

† See Fred. Spanheim, Historia Imaginum, sect. viii. p. 845, tom. ii. op.-L'Enfant, Preservatif contre la Reunion avec le Siege de Rome, tom. iii. lett. xiv. p. 147; lett. xviii. xix. p. 509.

in their letter to him, refusing him the title of enSo Michael and his son Theophilus style Louis peror, to which, however, he had an undoubted right in consequence of the treaties winch they now desired to renew.

Fleury, Le Sueur, and other historians, una

as containing absurd and erroneous opinions. The

decrees of the second council of Nice, relating to image-worship, were also censured by the Gallican bishops; and the authority of that council, though received by several popes as an ecumenical one, absolutely rejected; and what is remarkable is, that the pope did not, on this account, declare the Gallican bishops heretics, or exclude them from the com munion of the apostolic see. See Fleury, liv. xlvii.

they stop here, but despatched to Charlemagne, in 809, a certain ecclesiastic of their order, whose name was John, to obtain satisfaction in this matter.* The affair was debated in due form, in a council assembled in that year at Aix-la-Chapelle, and also at Rome, in the presence of pope Leo III., to whom the emperor had sent ambassadors for that purpose. Leo adopted the doctrine which represented the Holy Ghost as proceeding from the Father and the Son, but he condemned the addition that had been made to the symbol, and declared it as his opinion, that filio-que, being evidently an interpolation, ought to be omitted in reading the symbol, and at length stricken out of it entirely, not every where at once, but in such a prudent manner as to prevent disturbance. His successors were of the same opinion; the word, however, being once admitted, not only kept its place in opposition to the Roman pontiffs, but was by degrees added to the symbol in all the Latin churches.‡

this century, the Gallican clergy began to pay || son, in the above mentioned symbol; nor did a certain kind of religious homage to the saintly images, in which their example was followed by the Germans and other nations.* XVII. Notwithstanding this apostasy, the Iconoclasts were not destitute of adherents among the Latins. Of these, the most eminent was Claudius, bishop of Turin, by birth a Spaniard, and also a disciple of Felix, bishop of Urgel. This zealous prelate, as soon as he had obtained the episcopal dignity through the favour of Louis the Debonnaire, began to exercise the duties of his function in 823, by ordering all images, and even the cross, to be cast out of the churches, and committed to the flames. The year following he composed a treatise, in which he not only defended these vehement proceedings, and declared against the use, as well as the worship, of images, but also broached several other opinions, that were quite contrary to the notions of the multitude, and to the prejudices of the times. He denied, among other things, in opposition to the Greeks, that the cross was to be honoured with any kind of worship; he treated relics with the utmost contempt, as absolutely destitute of the virtues that were attributed to them, and censured with great freedom and severity those pilgrimages to the holy land, and those journeys to the tombs of the saints, which, in this century, were looked upon as extremely salutary, and particularly meritorious. This noble stand, in the defence of true religion, drew upon Claudius a multitude of adversaries; the sons of superstition rushed upon him from all quarters; Theodemir, Dungallus, Jonas of Orleans, and Walafrid Strabo,† combined to overwhelm him with their voluminous answers. But the learned and venerable prelate maintained his ground, and supported his cause with such dexterity and force, that it remained triumphant, and gained new credit; and hence it happened, that the city of Turin and the adjacent country were, for a long time after the death of Claudius, much less infected with superstition than the other parts of Europe.

XVIII. The controversy that had been carried on in the preceding century concerning the procession (if we may be allowed to use that term) of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son, and also concerning the words filio-que, foisted by the Latins into the creed of Constantinople, broke out now with redoubled vehemence, and from a private dispute became a flaming contest between the Greek and Latin churches. The monks of Jerusalem distinguished themselves in this controversy, and complained particularly of the interpolation of the words filio-que, i. e. and from the

Mabillon, Annal. Benedictin. tom. ii. p. 488, et Act. Sanctorum Ord. Bened. sæc. iv.-Le Cointe, Annal. Eccles. Francor. tom. iv. ad Annum 824.

In order to do justice to the adversaries of Claudius here mentioned, it is necessary to observe, that they only maintained the innocence and usefulness of images, without pretending to represent them as objects of religious worship.

Mabillon, Annal. Benedictin. tom. ii. p. 488.Præf. ad sæc. iv. Actor. SS. Ord. Benedict. p. 8.-Histoire Liter. de la France, tom. iv. p. 491, and tom. v. p. 27, 64.-Basnage, Histoire des Églises Reformees,

tom. i.

VOL. I.-29

XIX. To these disputes of ancient origin were added controversies entirely new, and particularly that famous one concerning the manner in which the body and blood of Christ were present in the eucharist. It had been hitherto the unanimous opinion of the church that the body and blood of Christ were administered to those who received the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and that they were consequently present at that holy institution; but the sentiments of Christians concerning the nature and manner of this presence were various and contradictory, nor had any council determined with precision that important point, or prescribed the manner in which this pretended presence was to be understood. Both reason and folly were hitherto left free in this matter; nor had any imperious mode of faith suspended the exercise of the one, or restrained the extravagance of the other. But, in this century, Paschasius Radbert, a monk, and afterwards abbot of Corbey, pretended to explain with precision, and to determine with certainty, the doctrine of the church on this head; for which purpose he composed, in 831, a treatise concerning the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ.§ A second edition of this treatise, revised with care, and considerably augmented, was presented in 845 to Charles the Bald; and it principally gave occasion to the warm and important controversy that ensued. The doctrine of Paschasius

* See Steph. Baluzii Miscellanea, tom. vii. p. 14. This addition of filio-que to the symbol of Nice and Constantinople, was made in the fifth and sixth centuries by the churches of Spain; and their example was followed by most of the Gallican churches, where the symbol was read and sung with this addition.

See Le Cointe, Annal. Eccles. Francor. tom. iv. ad a. 809.-Longueval, Histoire de l'Eglise Gallicane, tom. v. p. 151.

§ See Mabillon, Annales Benedict. ii. p. 539. An accurate edition of Radbert's book was published by Martenne, in the sixth volume of his Ampliss. Collect. veter. Scriptor. p. 378. The life and actions of this wrong-headed divine are treated of at large by Mabillon, in his Acta Sanctor. Ord. Benedict. Sec. iv. part II. 126, and by the Jesuits, in the Acta SS. Antwerp. ad d. xxvi. Aprilis.

the signs and symbols of the absent body and blood of Christ. All the other theologians of his time fluctuate and waver in their opinions, express themselves with ambiguity, and embrace and reject the same tenets at different times, as if they had no fixed or permanent principles on this subject. Hence it evidently appears, that there was not yet in the Lata church any fixed or universally received cpinion concerning the manner in which the body and blood of Christ are present in the eucharist.

XXI. The disputants in this controversy

amounted, in general, to the two following propositions: first, that, after the consecration of the bread and wine in the Lord's Supper, nothing remained of these symbols but the outward figure, under which the body and blood of Christ were really and locally present; and, secondly, that the body of Christ thus present in the eucharist was the same body that was born of the Virgin, that suffered upon the cross, and was raised from the dead. This new doctrine, and more especially the second proposition now mentioned, excited, as might well be expected, the astonishment of many. Accordingly it was opposed by Rabanus Mau-charged each other reciprocally with the most rus, Heribald, and others, though they did not odious doctrines, which each party drew by all refute it in the same method, or on the way of consequences from the tenets they opsame principles. Charles the Bald, on this posed,- -a method of proceeding as unjust, as occasion, ordered the famous Ratram and it is common in all kinds of debate. Hence Johannes Scotus to draw up a clear and ra- arose the imaginary heresy, that, on the triumtional explication of that important doctrine phant progress of the doctrine of transubstanwhich Radbert seemed to have so egregiously tiation in the eleventh century, was branded corrupted. These learned divines executed with the title of Stercoranism, and of which the with zeal and diligence the orders of the em- true origin was as follows: They who, emperor. The treatise of Scotus perished in the bracing the opinion of Paschasius Radbert, beruins of time; but that of Ratram is still ex-lieved that the bread and wine in the sacratant, which furnished ample matter of dispute, both in the last and present century.

XX. It is remarkable that in this controversy each of the contending parties were almost as much divided among themselves as they were at variance with their adversaries. Radbert, who began the dispute, contradicts himself in many places, departs from his own principles, and maintains, in one part of his book, conclusions that he had disavowed in another. His principal adversary Bertram, or Ratram, seems in some respects liable to the same charge; he appears to follow in general the doctrine of those, who deny that the body and blood of Christ are really present in the holy sacrament, and to affirm on the contrary that they are only represented by the bread and wine as their signs or symbols. There are, however, several passages in his book which seem inconsistent with this just and rational notion of the eucharist, or at least are susceptible of different interpretations, and have therefore given rise to various disputes. Johannes Scotus, whose philosophical genius rendered him more accurate, and shed through his writings that logical precision so much wanted, and so highly desirable in polemical productions, was the only disputant in this contest who expressed his sentiments with perspicuity, method, and consistency, and declared plainly that the bread and wine were

For an account of Ratram, or Bertram, and his famous book which made so much noise in the

world, see the Biblioth. Lat. of Fabricius, tom. i. p.

1661.

A new English translation of the book of Bertram, (who was a priest and monk of Corbey) concerning the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament, was published at Dublin in 1752: to which is prefixed a very learned and judicious his. torical dissertation respecting this famous author and

his works, in which both are ably defended against the calumnies and fictions of the Roman Catholic

writers.

There is an account, but a partial one, of this controversy in Mabillon's Præf. ad Sac. iv. part ii. Benedict. p. viii. which the curious reader will therefore do well to compare with Basnage's Histoire de l'Eglise, tom. i. 909

ment were substantially changed after the consecration, and preserved only their external figure, drew a most unjust conclusion from the opinion of their adversaries, who maintained on the contrary, that the bread and wine preserved their substance, and that Christ's body and blood were only figuratively, and not really, present in the eucharist. They alleged that the doctrine of the latter implied, that the body of Christ was digested in the stomach, and was thrown out with the other excrements. But this consequence was quickly retorted upon those that imagined it; for they who denied the conversion of the bread and wine into the real body and blood of Christ, charged the same enormous conscquence upon their antagonists who believed this transmutation; and the charge certainly was much more applicable to the latter than to the former. The truth is, that it was ncither truly applicable to one nor to the other; and their mutual reproaches, most wretchedly founded, show rather a spirit of invective, than a zeal for the truth. The charge of Stercoranism is but a malignant invention; it can never, without the most absurd impudence, be brought against those who deny the transmu tation of the bread into the body of Christ; it may indeed be charged upon such as allow this transmutation, though it be a consequence that none of them, except those whose intellects were unsound, perhaps ever avowed.*

XXII. While this controversy was at its greatest height, another of a quite different kind, and of much greater importance, arose, whose unhappy consequences are yet felt in the reformed churches. The subject of this new contest was the doctrine of predestination and divine grace, and its rise is universally attributed to Godeschalcus, an illustrious Saxon, who had entered involuntarily into the mo

* For an account of the Stercoranists, see Mabillon, Præf. ad Sæc. iv. Benedict. part ii. p. 21.-J. Bas nage, Histoire de l'Eglise, tom. i. p. 926, and a Treatise of the learned Dr. Pfaff, published at Tubingen in 1750.

nastic order in the convent of Fulda, whence || duct, while others went farther, and employed he removed to the monastery of Orbais, in the all their zeal, and all their labour, in the vindiocese of Soissons, where he prosecuted his dication of his doctrine. On the opposite side theological studies, not only with great assi- of the question were Hincmar, his unrighteous duity, but also with an insatiable desire of judge, Amalarius, the celebrated Johannes sounding the deepest mysteries, and of being Scotus, and others, who all maintained, that wise above what is written." This eminent Godeschalcus and his opinions had received ecclesiastic, upon his return from Rome in the treatment they deserved. As the spirit of 847, took up his lodging for some time with controversy ran high between these contending count Eberald, one of the principal noblemen parties, and grew more vehement from day to at the court of the emperor Lothaire, where day, Charles the Bald summoned a new counhe discoursed largely of the intricate doctrine cil, or synod, which met at Quiercy in 853, in of predestination in the presence of Nothingus, which, by the credit and influence of Hincbishop of Verona, and maintained that God, mar, the decrees of the former council were from all eternity, had pre-ordained some to confirmed, and in consequence Godeschalcus everlasting life, and others to everlasting was again condemned. But the decrees of this punishment and misery. Rabanus Maurus, council were declared null; and decisions of a who was by no means his friend, being in- different kind, by which he and his doctrine formed of the propagation of this doctrine, op- were vindicated and defended, were enacted posed him with great vigor. To render his in a council assembled at Valence in Dauopposition more successful, he began by repre- phine, in 855. This council was composed of senting Godeschalcus as a corrupter of the the clergy of Lyons, Vienne, and Arles, with true religion, and a forger of monstrous here- Remi, archbishop of Lyons at their head; and sies, in some letters addressed to count Eberald its decrees were confirmed, in 859, by the and to the bishop of Verona; and when the council of Langres, in which the same clergy accused monk came from Italy into Germany were assembled, and in 860, by the council of to justify himself against these clamours, and Tousi, in which the bishops of fourteen profor that purpose appeared at Mentz, of which vinces supported the cause of the persecuted Rabanus his accuser was archbishop, he was monk, whose death allayed the heat of this incondemned in a council assembled by the latter tricate controversy.* in that city, in 848, and sent thence to Hincmar, archbishop of Rheims, in whose diocese he had received the order of priesthood. Hincmar, who was devoted to the interests of Rabanus, assembled a council at Quiercy in 849, in which Godeschalcus was condemned a second time, and was also treated in a manner equally repugnant to the principles of religion and the dictates of humanity. Because he was firm in maintaining his doctrine, which he affirmed, and indeed with truth, to be the doctrine of St. Augustine, the imperious Hincmar degraded him from the priesthood, and was so barbarous as to order him to be scourged with the utmost severity, until the force of his pain overpowering his constancy obliged him, according to the commands of his reverend executioners, to burn with his own hands that justification of his opinions which he had presented to the council of Mentz. After these barbarous proceedings, the unfortunate monk was cast into prison in the monastery of Hautvilliers, where he ended his misery and his days in 868, or the following year, maintaining with his last breath the doctrine for which he had suffered.

XXIV. If we attend to the merits of this cause, we shall find that the debate still subsists in all its force, and that the doctrine ot Godeschalcus has in our days both able defenders and powerful adversaries. He undoubtedly maintained a two-fold predestination, one to everlasting life, and the other to eternal death. He held also, "that God did "not desire or will the salvation of all man"kind, but that of the elect only; and that "Christ did not suffer death for the whole hu"man race, but for those persons only whom "God has predestinated to eternal salvation." These decisions, which carry a severe and rigorous aspect, are softly and favouredly interpreted by the followers of Godeschalcus. They deny, for example, that their leader represents God as predestinating, to a necessary course of iniquity, those whom he has previously predestinated to eternal misery; and, according to them, the doctrine of Godeschalcus amounts to no more than this: "That God "has, from all eternity, doomed to everlasting misery such as he foresaw would go on impenitent in a sinful course, and has decreed "their ruin in consequence of their sins freely XXIII. While Godeschalcus lay in prison, committed and eternally forescen: that the his doctrine gained him followers; his suffer-"salutary effects of the mercy of God, and the ings excited compassion; and both together" sufferings of Christ, extend indeed only to produced a considerable schism in the Latin" the elect, and are made good to them alone; church. Ratram, monk of Corbey, Pruden-"though this mercy and these sufferings, contius, bishop of Troyes, Loup, or Lupus, abbot "sidered in themselves, belong equally to all of Ferrieres, Florus, deacon of Lyons, Remi," mankind." But this contradictory jargon archbishop of the same city, with his whole church, and many other ecclesiastics, whom it would be tedious to mention, pleaded with the utmost zeal and vehemence, both in their writings and in their discourse, the cause of this unhappy monk, and of his condemned opini

ons.

Some, indeed, confined themselves principally to the defence of his person and con

*Beside the common writers, who speak of this

controversy, the curious reader will do well to confind of it in Boulay's Hist. Acad. Paris. tom. i. p. sult the more learned and impartial accounts he will 178.-Mabillon's Præf. ad Sec. iv. Benedict. part ii. p. xlvii.-Hist. Literaire de la France, tom. v. p. Vossii Historia Pelagiana, lib. vii. cap. iv.-Fabricii 352.-Usserii Historia Godeschalci-Gerard, Joh. Biblioth. Latin. medii Ævi, tom. iii. p. 210

did not satisfy the adversaries of the predesti- || dox, from the authority of fathers, esteemed narian monk; they maintained, on the con- the only criterion of truth in those miserable trary, that, under ambiguous terms and per- times. Godeschalcus, who now lay in prison, plexed sentences, Godeschalcus had concealed heard of this dispute, entered warmly into it, the most enormous errors, propagating it assi- and in a laboured dissertation supported the duously as an article of faith, "That God had cause of his Benedictine brethren; on which "not only by an original decree predestinated account Hincmar accused him of tritheism, and 'one part of mankind to eternal damnation, drew up a treatise to prove the charge, and to "but had also pushed them on by an irresisti- refute that impious and enormous heresy. "ble necessity, by a propellent force, to those This controversy, however, was but of a short "crimes and transgressions which were proper duration; and the exceptionable passage of the "to render that damnation just.' Without hymn in question maintained its credit, notdetermining any thing upon such an intricate withstanding all the efforts of Hincmar, and and incomprehensible subject, with respect to continued, as before, to be sung in the which silence is the truest wisdom, we shall churches.* only observe, that the private quarrels, and mutual hatred, that prevailed between Rabanus Maurus and Godeschalcus, were the real source of the predestinarian controversy, and of all the calamities in which it involved the unfortunate monk.t