ful in his attacks upon idolatry, and having converted many of the Irish to Christianity, in the year 472 he established at Armagh the see of an archbishop of Ireland. Hence St. Patrick, although there were some Christians in Ireland before his arrival, has been justly called the Apostle of Ireland and the father of the Irish church, and he is held in high veneration to this day.

7. The causes which induced all these pagan nations to abandon the religion of their ancestors and profess Christianity may be gathered from what has been already said. He must lack discernment who can deny that the labours, the perils, and the zeal of great and excellent men dispelled

thousands of Franks followed the example | tricius [Patrick], a man of vigour, and as of their king. It has been supposed that appears from the event not unfit for such besides the exhortations of his wife the ex- an undertaking. He was far more successpectation of an extension of his dominions contributed to induce him to renounce idolatry for Christianity; and it is certain that his professing Christianity was very subservient to the establishment and enlargement of his kingdom. The miracles reported on this occasion are unworthy of credit; in particular, that which is the most astounding of them all, the descent of a dove from heaven with a phial full of oil at the baptism of Clovis, is either a fiction or as I think more probable, a deception craftily contrived for the occasion; for such pious frauds were much resorted to in that age both in Gaul and Spain, in order to captivate more readily the minds of the barbarous nations. It is said that the conversion of Clovis gave rise to the custom of 3 See the Acta Sanctorum, tom. ii. Martii, 517, addressing the French monarchs with the tom. iii. Februar. pag. 131, 179, &c.; James Ware's, Hibernia Sacra, p. 1, &c.; Dublin, 1717, fol. The same titles of Most Christian Majesty, and Eldest Ware published the Opuscula Sti Patricii with notes, Son of the Church; for the kings of the London, 1656, 8vo. The synods held by St. Patrick other barbarous nations which occupied the are given by Wilkins, Concilia Magne Brit. et Hibernice, tom. i. p. 2, &c. [and thence republished in HarRoman provinces were still addicted to idol-duin's Concilia, tom. i. p. 1790, &c.] Concerning the atry, or involved in the errors of Arianism. famous cave called the purgatory of St. Patrick, see Peter le Brun, Hist. Crit. des Pratiques Supersti tome 6. Cœlestine, bishop of Rome, first sent iv. p. 34, &c. [A full account of St. Patrick and his into Ireland to spread Christianity among the barbarians of that island Palladius, whose labours were not crowned with much After his death Cœlestine sent to Ireland, in the year 432, Succathus, a Scotchman, whose name he changed to Pa

success.

[and Walch, Diss. de Clodovao M. ex rationibus politicis Christiano, Jena, 1751.-Schl. [Clovis once hearing a pathetic discourse on the sufferings of Christ exclaimed, Si ego ibidem cum Francis meis fuissem, injurias ejus vindicassem;" Had I been there with my Franks, I would have avenged his wrongs. See Fredegarius, Epitom. cap. xxi.; Aimoin, lib. i. cap. xvi.; and Chronicon S. Dionysii, lib. i. cap. xx.— Mur.

Against this miracle of the phial, Chiflet composed bis book De Ampulla Rhemensi, Antw. 1651, fol. The reality of the miracle is defended, among many others, by the Abbé Vertot, Mémoires de l'Academie des Inscript. tome iv. p. 350, &c. After considering all the circumstances, I dare not call the fact in question. But I suppose St. Remigius, in order to confirm the wavering mind of the barbarous and savage king, artfully contrived to have a dove let down from the roof of the church bearing a phial of oil at the time of the king's baptism. Similar miracles occur in the monuments of this age. [The possibility of the event is made conceivable in this way. Yet there still remain weighty historical objections to the reality of the fact. The story rests solely on the authority of Hinemar, a writer who lived three hundred years after the time. Avitus, Anastasius, and even Gregory of Tours, and Fredegarius, are wholly silent on the subject. Besides, Hincmar's narrative contains the improbable circumstance, that the clergy who should have brought the oil that was wanting, could not get near the font on account of the pressure of the crowd; but as anointing with oil was then practised at every person's baptism, it is improbable that on so solemn an occasion as this, due preparation for this part of the service would have been neglected.-Schl.

See Daniel's and the Abbé de Camp's Diss. de Titulo Regis Christianissimi, in the Journal des Scavans for the year 1720, pages 243, 404-448, 536. Mémaires de l'Acad. des Inscriptions, tome xx. d. 466, &c

Patricks.

ours in Ireland is given by archbishop Ussher, EccleMur. [Rapin, in his History of England (vol. i. siar. Britannicar. Primordia, cap. xvii. p. 815, &e.book ii.) remarks, that there were three Patricii or mentioned in the Chronicle of Glastonbury. 2. The 1. The elder, who died in the year 449 great, who died in 493, after governing the Irish church for sixty years; he is the one mentioned by Mosheim. 3. The younger, who was a nephew of Patrick the Great and survived his uncle some years.-Schl [Mosheim, following Ussher, asserts that Patrick was a Scotchman. More recent and trustworthy authorities incline to the belief that he was from ancient Britany in Gaul, and a native of Boulogne. He was first carried as a captive to Ireland, where he was sold as a slave ; and after a residence of from four to six years, he succeeded in effecting his escape to Gaul. He then became acquainted with the bishop of Auxerre and the celebrated Martin of Tours, and is said to have spent some time in the famous monastery of Lerins in the south of France. Romanist historians assure us that he went thence to Rome, where he was ordained a bishop by Pope Cœlestine; but it has been satisfactorily shown by Mr. Petrie ( Trans. Royal Irish Acad. vol. xviii. p. 108, &c.) that these statements are incorrect, and that Patrick never was at Rome. In 432 he returned to Ireland and had great success in planting the Gospel there, where he died about the year 492. It must be added, however, that great uncertainty rests upon the chronology of his life; even his very existence has been plausibly denied; and judicious critics are disposed to believe that what is related of the one Patrick really belongs to two, if not to the three, of the same name mentioned by Schlegel in the previous part of this note. Some of his writings are still extant; they were for the first time collected and published by Sir James Ware, as stated above by Mosheim, in 1656. They are all to be found in the 10th volume of Gallandius, Bibliotheca Vet. Pat. Ven. 1764-81, and they have been recently re-edited by S. L. Villanueva, S. Patricii Ibernorum Apostoli Opuscula et Fragmenta, Scholiis illus trata, Dub. 1835, 8vo. A full account of the famous purgatory of St. Patrick in the County of Donegal, and of the superstitious observances of the pilgrims who resorted thither, may be seen in Richardson's Folly of Pilgrimages in Ireland, especially of that to St. Pat rick's Purgatory, Dub. 1727, 12mo, and Wright's Si. Patrick's Purgatory, &c. Lond. 1844.-R.

confined to narrower limits, and those spec- | either Christians before that event, as the tacles which were most inconsistent with the sanctity of the Christian religion were everywhere suppressed.1

3. The limits of the Christian church were extended both in the East and in the West among the people addicted to idolatry. In the East the inhabitants of the two mountains, Libanus and Antilibanus, being extremely annoyed by wild beasts sought aid against them from the famous Symeon Stylites, of whom we shall have occasion to speak hereafter. Symeon told them that their only remedy was to forsake their ancient superstitions and embrace Christianity. These mountaineers obeyed the counsel of the holy man, and having become Christians they saw the wild beasts flee from their country, if writers tell us the truth. The same Symeon by his influence (for I doubt the existence of any miracle) caused a part of the Arabians to adopt the Christian worship. In the island of Crete a considerable number of Jews, finding that they had been basely imposed upon by one Moses of Crete, who pretended to be the Messiah, voluntarily embraced Christianity, 4. The German nations who rent in pieces the western Roman empire were

3

I Near the close of the century, Anastasius in the

East prohibited the combats with wild beasts and the other shows. See Asseman, Biblioth. Oriental. Clement. Vatic. tom. i. pages 268, 272. [See also Beugnot, Hist. de la destruction du Paganisme en Occident, vol. ii. the whole of the 12th book.-R.

Goths and others, or they embraced Chris-
tianity after establishing their kingdoms, in
order to reign more securely among the
Christians. But at what time and by whose
instrumentality the Vandals, the Suevi, the
Alans, and others became Christians, is
still uncertain and is likely to remain so.
As to the Burgundians who dwelt along the
Rhine, and thence passed into Gaul, it ap-
pears from Socrates that they voluntarily
became Christians near the commencement
of the century. Their motive to this step
was the hope that Christ, or the God of the
Romans, who they were informed was im-
mensely powerful, would protect them from
the incursions and the ravages of the Huns.
They afterwards [about A.D. 450] joined
the Arian party, to which also the Vandals,
Suevi, and Goths, were addicted.
these warlike nations measured the excel-
lence of a religion by the military successes
of its adherents, and esteemed that as the
best religion, the professors of which were
most victorious over their enemies. While
therefore they saw the Romans possessing a
greater empire than other nations, they
viewed Christ, the God of the Romans, as
the most worthy of their homage.

All

5. It was this motive which produced the conversion of Clovis [Chlodovæus, Hludovicus, Ludovicus] or Lewis, king of the Salii, a tribe of the Franks, who conquered a large part of Gaul and there 2 Asseman, Biblioth. Oriental. Clement. Vatic. tom. founded the kingdom of the Franks, which i. p. 246, &c. Socrates, Hist. Eccles. lib. vii. cap. xxxviii. [where he endeavoured to extend over all the Galthe account briefly is, that in the time of Theodosius lic provinces; a valiant prince, but cruel, the younger an impostor arose called Moses Cretensis. He pretended to be a second Moses sent to deliver the barbarous, selfish, and haughty. For in Jews who dwelt in Crete, and promised to divide the the year 496, in a battle with the Alemanni sea and give them a safe passage through it. They at Tolbiacum,6 when his situation was alassembled together with their wives and children, and followed him to a promontory. He there commanded most desperate, he implored the aid of them to cast themselves into the sea. Many of them Christ, whom his wife Clotildis [or Clotilla], obeyed and perished in the waters, and many were taken up and saved by fishermen. Upon this the dea Christian, and daughter of the king of the luded Jews would have torn the impostor to pieces, but Burgundians, had long recommended to him he escaped and was seen no more. In the island of in vain; and he made a vow that he would Minorca also many persons abandoned Judaism. Yet their conversion does no great honour to the Chris-worship Christ as his God, provided he obtians; for it was in consequence of great violence done tained the victory. Having been victorious to the Jews, of levelling their synagogue with the he fulfilled his promise, and in the close of ground, and taking away their sacred books. See the account of their conversion by the bishop of the Balea- that year was baptized at Rheims. rean islands, Severus, Epist. Encycl. de Judæorum in hac insula Conversione et de Miraculis ibidem factis, published from a MS. in the Vatican library by Baronius, in his Annales A.D. 418, and abridged by Fleury, Hist. de l'Eglise, liv. xxiv. Yet it is certain that the Jews even in that age often imposed on the Christians, by pretending to have favourable views of Christianity. This appears from the Codex Theodos, lib. xvi. tit. viii. leg. xxiii.; and Socrates (Hist. Eccles. lib. iii cap. xvii) mentions a Jew who with baptism received a considerable sum of money successively from the orthodox, from the Arians, and from the Macedonians, and finally applying to the Novatians for baptism, was detected by the miracle of the disappearance of the water from the font. Although this miracle may be doubted and the impostor may have been detected by an artifice of the Novatian bishop, yet it appears from the story that what is practised by many Jews at the uresent day is no new thing.- Schl.

Some

4 Hist. Eccles. lib. vii. cap. xxx. [They applied to a bishop in Gaul, who directed them to fast seven days, and baptised them on the eighth. Semler (in his Hist. Eccles. Selecta Capita, tom. i. p. 203) supposes this event took place about the year 415. And according to the Chronicon of Prosper, it was in this year that the Burgundians took possession of a part of Gaul on the Rhine, with the consent of the Romans and their confederates, having promised to embrace Christianity.— Schl.

5 See Milman's Gibbon, vol. vi. page 293.-R. 6 Tolbiacum is thought to be the present Zulpick, which is about twelve miles from Cologne.-Mac. 7 See Gregory of Tours, Hist. Francor. lib. ii. cap xxx. xxxi. Henry Count de Bunau, Hist. Imperi Romano-Germanici, tom. i. p. 588, &c. Abbe de Bos Hist. Crit. de la Monarchie Franç. tome ii. p. 340, ar

thousands of Franks followed the example of their king. It has been supposed that besides the exhortations of his wife the expectation of an extension of his dominions contributed to induce him to renounce idolatry for Christianity; and it is certain that his professing Christianity was very subservient to the establishment and enlargement of his kingdom. The miracles reported on this occasion are unworthy of credit; in particular, that which is the most astounding of them all, the descent of a dove from heaven with a phial full of oil at the baptism of Clovis, is either a fiction or as I think more probable, a deception craftily contrived for the occasion; for such pious frauds were much resorted to in that age both in Gaul and Spain, in order to captivate more readily the minds of the barbarous nations. It is said that the conversion of Clovis gave rise to the custom of addressing the French monarchs with the titles of Most Christian Majesty, and Eldest Son of the Church; for the kings of the other barbarous nations which occupied the Roman provinces were still addicted to idolatry, or involved in the errors of Arianism. 6. Cœlestine, bishop of Rome, first sent into Ireland to spread Christianity among the barbarians of that island Palladius, whose labours were not crowned with much After his death Celestine sent success. to Ireland, in the year 432, Succathus, a Scotchman, whose name he changed to Pa

tricius [Patrick), a man of vigour, and a appears from the event not unit for such an undertaking. He was far more so tressful in his attacks upon idolatry, and having converted many of the Irish to Christianity in the year 472 he established at Armah the see of an archbishop of Ireland' Henne St. Patrick, although there were sccse Christians in Ireland before his arrival, bas been justly called the Apostle of Ireland and the father of the Irish church, and be is held in high veneration to this day.

7. The causes which indooed all these pagan nations to abandon the religion of their ancestors and profess Christianity may be gathered from what has been already said. He must lack discernment who ca deny that the labours, the perils, and the zeal of great and excellent men dispelled

* See the Acta Sanctorum tom. i Marth. $.7 tom. iii. Februar. pag. 131, 17%, ke.. James Ware Hibernia Sacra, p. 1, &c.; Dia 17 S The ITAR ware published the Oruaris Sti Petro vin 100% London, 1656, Bro. The synods bead by 6 hora

are given by Wilkins, Conn Magna Era attiver. duin's Concilia, tom. I. p. 1756. &e Comprising the famous cave called the purgatory of St. Patrick see Peter le Brun, Het. Crit des Pratiques Superst suce iv. p. 34, xe. A full accent of Park and Le

nie, tom. i. p. 2, &c. (and thence regalsted a Her

ours in Ireland is given by archontog Cinder. En Mr. Rapin, in his Hodory of England bei book ii) remarks, that there were three Patries or mentioned in the Chrosise of GasoOW! 1. The elder, who died in the year whi

nar. Britannicar. Primordia, cap. IT p +

Patricks.

2. The great, who died in 433. after governing the irish ribera

for sixty years; he is the one mentioned by Morn

3. The younger, who was a Depew of Futrex Lie
Great and survived his mocke soce pare &
[Mosheim, following Umber, awerts that Patrick va
a Scotchman. More recent and trustworthy
incline to the belief that he was from anciens Botasj
in Gaul, and a native of Boulogne. He was tire carnet
as a captive to Ireland, where he was wad sa 2 mese
and after a residence of from four to ex years, be sur

[and Walch, Diss. de Clodovao M. ex rationibus politicis | Chridiano, Jena, 1751.—Schl. [Clovis once hearing a pathetic discourse on the sufferings of Christ exclaimed, Si ego ibidem cum Francis meis fuissem, injurias ejus vindicassem;" Had I been there with my Franks, I would have avenged his wrongs. See Fredegarius, Epitom. cap. xxi.; Aimoin, lib. i. cap. xvi.; and Chro-ceeded in effecting his escape to Gaal. He then besatze nicon S. Dionysii, lib. i. cap. xx.-Mur.

Against this miracle of the phial, Chiflet composed his book De Amvulla Rhemensi, Antw. 1651, fol. The reality of the miracle is defended, among many others, by the Abbé Vertot, Mémoires de l Academie des InTipt. tome iv. p. 350, &c. After considering all the circumstances, I dare not call the fact in question But I suppose St. Remigius, in order to confirm the wavering mind of the barbarous and savage king, artfully contrived to have a dove let down from the roof of the church bearing a phial of oil at the time of the king's baptism. Similar miracles occur in the monuments of this age. [The possibility of the event is made conceivable in this way. Yet there still remain weighty historical objections to the reality of the fact. The story rests solely on the authority of Hinemar, a writer who lived three hundred years after the time. Avitus, Anastasius, and even Gregory of Tours, and Fredegarius, are wholly silent on the subject. Besides, Hincmar's narrative contains the improbable circumstance, that the clergy who should have brought the oil that was wanting, could not get near the font on account of the pressure of the crowd; but as anointing with oil was then practised at every person's baptism, it is improbable that on so solemn an occasion as this, due preparation for this part of the service would have been neglected. Schl.

See Daniel's ar Titulo Regis Ci vans for the s moires de A

Camp's Din. de

ng! des Sca-
* 536. Me-
466, &c

acquainted with the bishop of Auxerre and the cas
brated Martin of Tours, and is said to have EGASI BUN
time in the famous monastery of Lerics in the worth of
France. Romanist historians assure us that he wend
thence to Rome, where he was oralarda bang by
Pope Calestine; but it has been sat Macaurly desi
by Mr. Petrie Trane. Rogal Irish Arad, vo, pri p
108, &c.) that these statements are incorrect, and that
Patrick never was at Rome. In 432 be returned to
Ireland and had great success in planting the Grege
there, where he died about the year KL. It must be
added, however, that great uncertainty rests upon the
chronology of his life; even his very existence has been
plausibly denied; and judicious critics are surposed to
believe that what is related of the one Patrick really
belongs to fine, if not to the three, of the vacun sace
mentioned by Schlegel in the previous part of the more
Some of his writings are still extant; they were for
the first time collected and pabusted by bir Jame
Ware, as stated above by Mosheim, in 1996.
all to be found in the 10th volume of Galand.sa, Balan
liotheca Vet. Pit. Ven. 1764-81, and they have been
recently re-edited by 8. L. Villanueva, S. Patrizu Per.
norum Apostoli Opuscula et Fragmenta, Beniden illus
trata, Dub. 1835, STO. A full accord of the futur
purgatory of St. Patrick in the County of Donegal, arud
of the superstitious observances of the pigris who
resorted thither, may be seen in Richardson's Polly of
Pilgrimages in Ireland, expecially of that to M. Put.
rick's Purgatory, Dub. 1727, 12mo, and Wright's AL,
Patrick's Purgatory, &c. Lood 1844. — IL

They are

the clouds of darkness from the minds of lowers of Christ had everywhere first to many; and on the other hand he must be undergo great calamities. shortsighted, and not well versed in the 2. The friends of the old religion, in order history of this century, who is unable to to excite in the people greater hatred see that the fear of the vengeance of man, against the Christians while the public cathe hope of temporal advantage and honours, lamities were daily increasing, renewed the and the desire of obtaining aid from Chris- obsolete complaint of their ancestors-that tians against their enemies, were prevalent all things went well before Christ came, motives with many to abandon their gods. that since he had been everywhere emHow much influence miracles may have braced, the neglected and despised gods had had it is difficult to say; for I can easily sent forth evils of every kind upon the believe that God was sometimes present world. This weak attack was repulsed by with those pious and good men who endea- Augustine in his book, On the City of God, voured to instil the principles of true reli- a copious and erudite work. He also gion into the minds of barbarous nations; prompted Orosius to write his History, in and yet it is certain that the greater part of order to show that the same and even the prodigies of this age are very suspi- greater calamities and plagues afflicted mancious. The greater the simplicity and cre-kind before the Christian religion was pubdulity of the multitude the more audacious would be the crafty in playing off their impostures; nor could the more discerning expose their cunning artifices with safety to their own lives and worldly comfort. It is commonly the case, that when great danger attends the avowal of the truth then the prudent keep silence, the multitude believe without reason, and the fabricators of imposition triumph.

CHAPTER II.

THE CALAMITIES OF THE CHURCH.

1. It has been already observed that the Goths, the Heruli, the Franks, the Huns, the Vandals, and other fierce and warlike nations, who were for the most part pagans, had invaded and miserably rent asunder the Roman empire. During these commotions the Christians at first suffered extremely. These nations were, it is true, more anxious for plunder and dominion than for the propagation of the false religions of their ancestors, and therefore did not form any set purpose to exterminate Christianity; yet the worshippers of idols, who still existed everywhere scattered over the empire, neglected no means to inflame the barbarians with hatred against the Christians, hoping by their means to regain their former liberty. Their expectations were disappointed, for the greatest part of the barbarians soon became Christians themselves; yet the fol

There is a remarkable passage concerning the miracles of this century in the Theophrastus seu de Immortalitate Anime, of the acute Eneas Gazeus, p. 78, ed. Barthii. Some of these miracles, he tells us, he

himself had witnessed, pages 80, 81.

The Benedictine monks speak out freely on this subject, in the Hist. Litter. de la France, tome ii. page 33. It is a fine saying of Livy, Histor. lib. xxiv. cap. x. sec. vi.; "Prodigia multa nuntiata sunt quæ quo magis credebant simplices ac religiosi homines, co plura nuntiabantur."

3 Sulpitius Severus, Dial. 1. p. 438; Ep. 1. p. 457; Dial. iii, cap ii. p. 487.

lished to the world. In Gaul the calamities of the times drove many to such madness that they wholly excluded God from the government of the world, and denied his providence over human affairs. These were vigorously assailed by Salvian in his book, On the government of God.

deserve to be more particularly noticed. In 3. But the persecutions of the Christians Gaul and the neighbouring provinces the Goths and Vandals, who at first trampled under foot all rights, human and divine, are reported to have laid violent hands on innumerable Christians. In Britain, after the fall of the Roman power in that country, the inhabitants were miserably harassed by the neighbouring Picts and Scots, who were barbarians. Having therefore suffered various calamities, in the year 445, they chose Vortigern for their king, and finding his forces inadequate to repel the assaults of the enemy, in the year 449 he called the Anglo-Saxons from Germany to his aid. But they, landing with their troops in Britain, produced far greater evils to the inhabitants than they endured before; for these Saxons endeavoured to subdue the people whom they came to assist, and to bring the whole country into subjection to their own power. This produced an obstinate and bloody war between the Britons and the Saxons, which continued with various fortune during one hundred and thirty years, till the Britons were compelled to yield to the Anglo-Saxons and take refuge in Batavia and Cambria [the modern Holland and Wales]. During these conflicts the condition of the British church was deplorable; for the Anglo-Saxons, who worshipped exclusively the gods of their ancestors, almost wholly prostrated it, and put a multitude of Christians to a cruel death.

4 See Bede and Gildas among the ancients, and

PART II.

THE INTERNAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH. CHAPTER I.

THE HISTORY OF LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.

1. ALTHOUGH the illiterate had access to

every office both civil and ecclesiastical, yet most persons of any respectability were persuaded that the liberal arts and sciences were of great use to mankind.