they possessed; yet the wretchedness of the times, the incursions of barbarous nations, and the paucity of great geniuses, prevented either the church or the state from reaping such advantages from these efforts as were hoped for by those who encouraged them.

2. In the western provinces, especially in Gaul, there were several men of learning who might have served as patterns for others to follow. Such among others were Macrobius, Salvian, Vincentius of Lerins, Ennodius, Sidonius Apollinaris, Claudianus Mamertus, and Dracontius, who as writers were not indeed equal to the ancient Latin authors, yet not altogether inelegant, and who devoted themselves to the study of antiquities and other branches of learning. But the barbarians who laid waste or took possession of the Roman provinces choked these surviving plants of a better age; for all these nations considered arms and military courage as the only source of glory and virtue, and therefore despised learning and the arts. Hence, wherever they planted themselves, there barbarism insensibly sprang up and flourished, and the pursuit of learning was abandoned exclusively to the priests and monks. And these, surrounded by bad examples and living in the midst of wars and perils, gradually lost all relish for solid learning and renown, and substituted in place of it a sickly spectre and an empty shadow of erudition. In their schools the boys and youth were taught the seven liberal arts, which being comprised in a few precepts, and those very dry and jejune, as appears from the treatises of Augustine upon them, were rather calculated to burden the memory than to strengthen the judgment and improve the intellectual powers. In the close of this century therefore learning was almost extinct, and only a faint shadow of it remained.

not only less difficult of comprehension but more in accordance with the principles of religion. Besides, the principal works of Plato were then extant in the Latin translations of Victorinus; therefore such among the Latins as had a taste for philosophical inquiries contented themselves with the decisions of Plato, as will appear to any one who shall only read Sidonius Apollinaris.5

4. The state of learning among the Greeks and the people of the East, both as respects elegant literature and the severer sciences, was a little better, so that among them may be found a larger number of writers who exhibit some marks of genius and erudition. Those who prosecuted the science of jurisprudence resorted much to Berytus in Phonicia, where was a celebrated law school, and to Alexandria. The students in physic and chemistry resorted also to Alexandria. The teachers of eloquence, poetry, philoso phy, and the other arts, opened schools almost everywhere, and yet the teachers at Alexandria, Constantinople, and Edessa, were supposed to excel the others in learning and in the art of education.

5. The sect of the younger Platonists sustained itself and its philosophy at Athens, at Alexandria, and in Syria, with no small share of its ancient dignity and reputation. Olympiodorus, Hero, 10 and other men of high renown, adorned the school of Alexandria. At Athens, Plutarch and his

tensi; and Zacharias Mitylen. De Opificio Dei, p. 164. the moderns may be consulted Schmidt's Preface to Hyperius, De Schola Alexandrina Catechetica, Helmst. at the end of his Dissert. on Irenæus; Thomassin, De

7 Zacharias Mitylen. De Opificio Dei, p. 179. [Among

3

1824. The student will find in the American Biblical

9 Eneas Gazeus, in his Theophrastus, pages 6, 7, 16, &c. passim.; Zacharias Mitylen. ubi supra, pages

164, 179, 217, &c. and others.

9 See Note 6 above, p. 177.- Mur.

10 Marinus, De Vita Proct, cap. ix. p. 19, ed. Fabricii. [Hero was a preceptor of Proclus, and is the second of the three of his name mentioned by Brucker in his Hist. Crit. Philos. tom. ii. p. 323.— Schl.

11 This Plutarch, in distinction from the elder Plutarch, who was more of an historian than a philosopher, is denominated Plutarchus Nestorii, or Plutarch the son of Nestorius. See concerning him Brucker, Hist. Crit. Philos, tom. ii. p. 312, &c.; Marinus, De Fita Procli, cap. xii. p. 27, and Suidas, article Plutarch. Nestori, p. 133.- Schl.

Constantinopolitan bishop began to contend fiercely for supremacy with the Roman bishop, and to encroach on the privileges of the bishops of Alexandria and Antioch. In particular, Acacius of Constantinople is said to have exceeded all bounds in his ambitious projects.'

2. It was nearly at the same time that Juvenal, bishop of Jerusalem, or rather of Ælia, attempted to withdraw himself and his church from the jurisdiction of the bishop of Cæsarea, and affected to rank among the chief prelates of the Christian world. His designs were rendered plausible by the high veneration entertained for the church of Jerusalem, as being not only founded and governed by apostles, but a continuation of the primitive church of Jerusalem, and in a sense the mother of all other churches. Therefore Juvenal, the emperor Theodosius junior favouring his designs, not only assumed the rank of independent bishop of the three Palestines or that of a patriarch, but likewise wrested Phoenicia and Arabia from the patriarchate of Antioch. And as this produced a controversy between him and Maximus, bishop of Antioch, the council of Chalcedon settled the dispute by restoring Arabia and Phoenicia to the see of Antioch, and leaving Juvenal in possession of the three Palestines, with the title and rank which he had assumed. In this manner there were five principal bishops over the Christian world created in this century, and distinguished from others by the title of patriarchs. The oriental writers mention a sixth, namely, the bishop of Seleucia and Ctesiphon, to whom they say the bishop of Antioch voluntarily ceded a part of his jurisdiction; but they can bring no proof except the Arabic decrees of the Nicene council, which are well known to have no authority.

3. These patriarchs had great prerogatives. To them belonged the consecration of the bishops of their respective provinces. They annually convoked councils of their districts to regulate and settle ecclesiastical affairs. If any great or difficult controversy arose, it was carried before the patriarch. The bishops accused of any offences were obliged to abide by his decision. And

1 Nouveau Diction. Hist. Crit. tome i. artic. Acacius, p. 75, &c. [Mosheim here speaks incautiously; for in tact Acacius, when all circumstances are considered, was to be justified. See below, chap. v. sec. 21.-Schl. 2 Concerning the three Palestines, see Carolus a S. Paulo, Geographia Sacra, p. 307, &c.

3 Le Quien, Oriens Christ. tom. iii. p. 110, &c. 4 See the writers who have treated of the patriarchs, as enumerated by Fabricius, Bibliograph. Antiquar. cap. xiii. p. 453, &c. [See also note 2, p. 128, &c. of this volume.-Mur.

5 Asseman, Biblioth. Oriental. Vatic. tom. i. pages

9, 13, &c.

finally, to provide for the peace and good order of the remoter provinces of their patriarchates, they were allowed to place over them their own legates or vicars. Other prerogatives of less moment are omitted. In fact however some episcopal sees were not subject to the patriarchs, for both in the East and in the West certain bishops were exempt from patriarchal jurisdiction, or were independent. Moreover, the emperors who reserved to themselves the supreme power over the church listened readily to the complaints of those who thought themselves injured; and the councils also in which the majesty and the legis lative power of the church resided, presented various obstacles to the arbitrary exercise of patriarchal power.

4. The constitution of ecclesiastical government was so far from contributing to the peace and prosperity of the Christian church, that it was rather the source of very great evils, and produced boundless dissensions and animosities. In the first place, the patriarchs who had power either to do much good or much evil, encroached without reserve upon the rights and privileges of their bishops, and thus gradually introduced a kind of spiritual bondage; and that they might do this with more freedom

6 Blondell, De la Primauté de l'Eglise, chap. xxv. p. 332, &c.; Ruinart, De Pallio Archi-Episcopali, p. 445, tom. ii. of the Opp. Posthuma of Mabillon.

7 Brerewood, De Veteris Ecclesia Gubernatione Pa

triarchali, a tract which is subjoined to Ussher's Opuscula de Episcopor. et Metropolit. Origine, Lond. 1687, and Bremen, 1701, 8vo, pages 56-85. [The metropo litans and bishops who were subject to no patriarch, were by the Greeks called αὐτοκέφαλοι. Of this description were the metropolitans of Bulgaria, Cyprus, Iberia, Armenia, and also of Britain, before the conversion of For the Britons had their archbishop of Caerleon (Episcopus Caerlegionis super Osca), who had seven bishops the patriarch of Rome, and for a long time opposed

the Anglo-Saxons by the Romish monk Augustine.

under him, but acknowledged no superintendence from

him; and in Wales, as well as in Scotland and Ire

land, this independence continued many centuries.

The Church of Carthage was also properly subject to no other church; as appears from Leydecker's Hist. Eccles. Africance, and from the writings of Capell and others, De Apellationibus ex Africa ad sedem Romanam. Some common bishops likewise were subject to no metropolitan, but were under the immediate inspection of their patriarch. Thus the patriarch of Constantinople had thirty-nine bishops in his diocese, who were subject immediately to him; and the Romish patriarch had in all his countries (e. g. in Germany, at Bamberg and Fulda), bishops who were subject to no archbishop or primate, but dependent immediately on himself. There were also certain bishops who were subject neither to any archbishop nor to a patriarch; as was the case with the bishop of Tomis in Scythia, according to Sozomen, Hist. Eccles. lib. vi. cap. xxi. The churches in countries lying without the Roman empire at first had no bishops dependent on the bishops within the empire, as e. g. the churches in Persia, Parthia, and among the Goths; and these did not come under the power of Romish patriarchs, until they fell under the civil power of the Romans. Most of the conversions of pagans by missionaries from Rome, were in the western provinces of the empire. See Baumgarten's Erläuterung der christl. Alterthums, p.

158. &c.-Schl.

7. Of the vices of the whole clerical order, their luxury, their arrogance, their avarice, their voluptuous lives, we have as many witnesses as we have writers of integrity and weight in this age, whose works have come down to us. The bishops, especially such as were distinguished for their rank and honours, employed various administrators to manage their affairs, and formed around themselves a kind of sacred court. The dignity of a presbyter was supposed to be so great that Martin of Tours did not hesitate to say, at a public entertainment, that the emperor himself was inferior to one of that order.1 The deacons were taxed with their pride and their vices in many decrees of the councils. These stains on the character of the clergy would have been deemed insufferable had not most of the people been sunk in superstition and ignorance, and had not all estimated the rights and privileges of Christian ministers by those of the ancient priests, both among the Hebrews and among the Greeks and Romans. The fierce and warlike tribes of Germans, who vanquished the Romans and divided the empire of the West among themselves, after they had embraced Christianity, could bear with the dominion and the vices of the bishops and the clergy, because they had before been subject to the domination of priests, and they supposed the Christian priests and ministers of religion possessed the same rights with their former idolatrous priests.3

evidence of historical facts by various Protestant writers, and among others by Bower, in his Lives of the Popes, seven vols. 4to, &c.-Mur. [See a very valuable sec

tion (sec. 94,) on the Roman patriarchs and the western hierarchy, in Gieseler, Lehrbuch, &c. Davidson's Transl. vol. i. p. 430, &c.-R.

1 Sulpitius Severus, De Vita Martini, cap. xx. p. 339, and Dial. ii. cap. vi. p. 457.

2 See Blondell, Apologia pro sententia Hieronymi de Episcopis et Presbyteris, p. 140.

3 That these pagan nations had been accustomed to treat their idolatrous priests with extraordinary rever

ence, is a fact well known, When they became Christians, they supposed they must show the same respect to the Christian priests. Of course they honoured their bishops and clergy as they had before honoured

their Druids; and this reverence disposed them to bear patiently with their vices. Every Druid was accounted a very great character, and was feared by every one; but the Chief Druid was actually worshipped. When these people became Christians they supposed that the bishop of Rome was such a Chief Druid, and that he must be honoured accordingly. And this was one cause why the Roman pontiff obtained in process of time such an ascendancy in the western countries. The patriarch of Constantinople rose indeed to a great elevation, but he never attained the high rank and authority of the Roman patriarch. The reason was, that the people of the East had not the same ideas of the dignity of a Chief Priest as the people of the West had. The eastern clergy also practised excommunication as a punishment of transgressors, but it never had such an influence in the East as it had in the West; and for this reason, that the effects of a pagan exclusion from religious privileges never were so great in the East as in the West. The effects in the Latter are described by Julius Cæsar, De Bello Gallico,

8. This corruption among an order of men whose duty it was to inculcate holiness both by precept and example, will be less surprising when we consider that a great multitude of persons were everywhere admitted indiscriminately, and without examination, among the clergy, the greater part of whom had no other object than to live in idleness. And among these, very many were connected with no particular church or place, and had no regular employment, but roamed about at large, procuring a subsistence by imposing upon the credulity of others and sometimes by dishonourable artifices. Whence then, some may ask, came those numerous saints of this century, who are handed down to us by both the eastern and the western writers? I answer, they were canonized by the ignorance of the age. If any possessed some superiority of talents, if they excelled as writers or speakers, if they possessed dexterity in managing important affairs, or were distinguished for their self-government and the control of their passions, these persons, in an age of ignorance, appeared to those around them to be not men but gods; or, to speak more correctly, were considered as men divinely influenced and fully inspired.

9. The monks who had formerly lived for themselves, and who had not sought to rank among the clergy, gradually became a class distinct from the laity, and acquired such opulence and such high privileges that they could claim an honourable rank among the pillars of the church. The reputation of this class of persons for piety and sanctity was so great, that very often when a bishop or a presbyter was to be elected he was chosen from among them; and the erection of edifices in which monks and nuns might conveniently serve God was carried beyond all bounds. They did not however all observe one and the same system of rules, but some followed the rules of Augustine, others those of Basil, and others those of Antony, or Athanasius, or Pachomius, &c. Yet it

lib. vi. cap. xiii. n. 6, &c. "Si quis aut privatus aut populus eorum decreto non stetit, sacrificiis interdicunt. Hæc pœna apud eos est gravissima. Quibus ita est interdictum, ii numero impiorum ac sceleratorum habentur; ab iis omnes decedunt, aditum eorum sermonemque defugiunt, ne quid ex contagione incommodi accipiant: neque iis petentibus jus redditur, neque honos ullus communicatur."- Schl.

4 Epiphanius, Exposit. Fidei, Opp. tom. 1. p. 1094. Mabillon, Réponse aux Chanoines réguliers, Opp. Por them. tome ii. p. 115.

5 Sulpitius Severus, De Vita Martini, cap. x. p. 320. Add, Dial. i. cap. xxi. p. 426.

6 Sulpitius Severus, Dial. i. p. 419; Noris, Hist. Pelagiana, lib. ii. cap. iii. in Opp. tom. i. p. 272; Hist. Littér, de la France, tome ii. p. 35.

7 A monk was one who professed wholly to renounce this world with all its cares and pleasures, and to make religion his sole business. The particular manner in which he proposed to employ himself was called his