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that Christ was reposos, cr ανόμοιος, i. e. un. like the Father, as well in his essence, as in other respects.* Under this general division, many other subordinate sects were comprehended, whose subtilties and refinements have not been clearly developed by the ancient writers. The Arian cause suffered as much from the discord and animosities that reigned among these sects, as from the laboured confutations and the zealous efforts of the orthodox party. XVII. The Arian controversy produced new sects, occasioned by the indiscreet lengths to which the contending parties pushed their respective opinions; and such, indeed, are too generally the unhappy effects of disputes, in which human passions have so large a part Some, while they were careful in avoiding, and zealous in opposing, the sentiments of Arius, ran

adhered to the decrees of the Nicene council; and hence the Arian sect, a few churches excepted, suffered extirpation in the west. Valeng, on the other hand, favoured the Arians; and his zeal for their cause exposed their adversaries, the Nicenians, in the eastern provinces, to many severe trials and sufferings. These troubles, however, ended with ne reign of this emperor, who fell in a battle which was fought against the Goths in the year 378, and was succeeded by Gratian, a friend to the Nicenians, and the restorer of their tranquillity. His zeal for their interests, though fervent and active, was surpassed by that of his successor, Theodosius the Great, who raised the secular arm against the Arians, with a terrible degree of violence; drove them from their churches; enacted laws, whose severity exposed them to the greatest calamities;* and rendered, through-headlong into systems of doctrine of an equalout his dominions, the decrees of the council triumphant over all opposition; so that the public profession of the Arian doctrine was confined to the barbarous and unconquered nations, such as the Burgundians, Goths, and Vandals.

During this long and violent contest between the Nicenians and Arians, the attentive and impartial will acknowledge, that unjustifiable measures were taken, and great excesses committed on both sides: so that when, abstractedly from the merits of the cause, we only consider with what temper, and by what means the parties defended their respective opinions, it will be difficult to determine which of the two exceeded most the bounds of probity, charity, and moderation.

XVI. The efforts of the Arians to maintain their cause, would have been much more prejudicial to the church than they were in effect, had not the members of that sect been divided among themselves, and torn into factions, which viewed each other with the bitterest aversion. Of these the ancient writers make mention under the names of Semi-Arians, Eusebians, Aetians, Eunomians, Acacians, Psathyrians, and others; but they may all be ranked with propriety in three classes. The first of these were the primitive and genuine Arians, who, rejecting all those forms and modes of expression which the moderns had invented to render their opinions less shocking to the Nicenians, taught simply, "That the Son was not begotten of the Father (i. e. produced out of his substance,) but was only created out of nothing." This class was opposed by the Semi-Arians, who, in their turn, were abandoned by the Eunomians, or Anomaans, the disciples of Aetius and Eunomius, of whom the latter was eminent for his knowledge and penetration. The Semi-Arians held, that the Son was ομοιωσις, i. e. similar to the Father in his essence, not by nature but by a peculiar privilege; and the leading men of this party were George of Laodicea and Basilius of Ancyra. The Eunomians, who were also called Aetians and Exucontians, and may be reckoned in the number of pure Arians, maintained, * See the Theodosian Code, tom. vi. p. 5, 10, 130, 146; as also Godofred's annotations upon it.

† See Prud. Maran's Dissert. sur les Semi-Arians, published in Toigt's Biblioth. Hæresiolog. tom. ii.

ly dangerous and pernicious nature. Others, in defending the Arian notions, went farther than their chief, and thus fell into errors much more extravagant than those which he maintained. Thus does it generally happen in religious controversies: the human mind, amidst its present imperfection and infirmity, and its unhappy subjection to the empire of imagination and the dictates of sense, rarely follows the middle way in the search of truth, or contemplates spiritual and divine things with that accuracy and simplicity, that integrity and moderation, which alone can guard against erroneous extremes.

Among those who fell into such extremes by their inconsiderate violence in opposing the Arian system, Apollinaris the younger, bishop of Laodicea, may be justly placed, though otherwise a man of distinguished merit, and one whose learned labours had rendered to religion the most important services. He strenuously defended the divinity of Christ against the Arians; but, by indulging himself too freely in philosophical distinctions and subtilties, he was carried so far as to deny, in some measure, his humanity. He maintained, that the body which Christ assumed, was endowed with a sensitive, and not a rational, soul; and that the Divine Nature performed the functions of reason, and supplied the place of what we call the mind, the spiritual and intellectual principle in man; and from this it seemed to follow, as a natural consequence, that the divine nature in Christ was blended with the human, and suffered with it the pains of crucifixion and death itself. This great man was led astray, not only by his love of disputing, but also by an immoderate attachment to the Platonic doctrine, concerning the two-fold nature of the soul, which was too generally adopted by the divines of this age; and which, undoubtedly, perverted their judgment in several respects,

See also Jo.

* Sec Basnage's Dissert. de Eunomio, in the Lectiones Antiquæ of Canisius, tom. i. where we find the confesAlb. Fabric. Bibliotheca Græc. vol. viii. and the Codex sion and apology of Eunomius yet extant. Theodos. tom. vi.

However erroneous the hypothesis of Apollinaris may have been, the consequences here drawn from it are not entirely just; for if it is true, that the human soul does not, in any respect, suffer death by the dissolution of the body, the same must hold good with respect to th divine nature.

and led tem into erroneous and extravagant decisions on various subjects.

Other errors, beside that now mentioned, are imputed to Apollinaris by certain ancient writers; but it is not easy to determine how far they deserve credit upon that head.* Be that as it may, his doctrine was received by great numbers in almost all the eastern provinces, though, by the different explications that were given of it, its votaries were subdivided into various sects. It did not, however, long maintain its ground; but, being attacked at the same time by the laws of the emperors, the decrees of councils, and the writings of the learned, it sunk by degrees under their united force. XVIII. Marcellus, bishop of Ancyra, in Galatia, may be ranked in the same class with Apollinaris, if we are to give credit to Eusebius of Cæsarea, and the rest of his adversaries, who represent his explication of the doctrine of the Trinity as bordering upon the Sabellian and Samosatenian errors. Many however are of opinion that this Eusebius, and that bishop of Nicomedia who bore the same name, represented with partiality the sentiments of Marcellus, on account of the bitterness and vehemence which he discovered in his opposition to the Arians, and their proteccors. But though it should be acknowledged, that, in some particulars, the accusations of his enemies carried an aspect of partiality and resentment, yet it is manifest that they were far from being entirely groundless; for, if the doctrine of Marcellus be attentively examined, it will appear, that he considered the Son and the Holy Ghost as two emanations from the Divine Nature, which, after performing their respective offices, were at length to return into the substance of the Father; and every one will perceive, at first sight, how incompatible this opinion is with the belief of three distinct Persons in the Godhead. Beside this, a particular circumstance, which augmented considerably the aversion of many to Marcellus, and strengthened the suspicion of his erring in a capital manner, was his obstinately refusing, toward the conclusion of his life, to condemn the tenets of his disciple Photinus.†

XIX. Photinus, bishop of Sirmium, may, with propriety, be placed at the head of those whom the Arian controversy was the occasion of seducing into the most extravagant errors. This prelate published, in the year 343, his opinions concerning the Deity, which were equally repugnant to the orthodox and Arian systems. His notions, which have been obscurely, and indeed sometimes inconsistently represented by the ancient writers, amount to this, when attentively examined: "That Jesus Christ was born of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary; that a certain divine emanation,

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or ray (which he called the word) descended upon this extraordinary man; that, on account of the union of the divine word with his human nature, Jesus was called the Son of God, and even God himself; and that the Holy Ghost was not a distinct person, but a celestial virtue proceeding from the Deity." The temerity of this bold innovator was chastised, not only by the orthodox in the councils of Antioch* and Milan, holden in the years 345 and 347, and in that of Sirmium, whose date is uncertain, but also by the Arians in one of their assemblies at Sirmium, convoked in 351. In consequence of all this, Photinus was degraded from the episcopal dignity, and died in exile in 372.†

XX. After him arose Macedonius, bishop of Constantinople, a very eminent Semi-Arian doctor, who, through the influence of the Eunomians, was deposed by the council of Constantinople, in 360, and sent into exile, where he formed the sect of the Macedonians, or Pneumatomachians. In his exile, he declared with the utmost freedom those sentiments which he had formerly either concealed, or, at least, taught with much circumspection. He considered the Holy Ghost as "a divine energy, diffused throughout the universe, and not as a person distinct from the Father and the Son." This opinion had many partisans in the Asiatic provinces; but the council assembled by Theodosius, in 381, at Constantinople, (to which the second rank, among the oecumenical or general councils, is commonly attributed,) put a stop by its authority to the growing evil, and crushed this rising sect before it had arrived at maturity. A hundred and fifty bishops, who were present at this council, gave the finishing touch to what the council of Nice had left imperfect, and fixed, in a full and determinate manner, the doctrine of three persons in one God, which is still received among the generality of Christians. This venerable assembly did not stop here; they branded, with infamy, all the errors, and set a mark of execration upon all the heresies, that were hitherto known; they advanced the bishop of Constantinople, on account of the eminence and extent of the city in which he resided, to the first rank after the Roman pontiff, and determined several other points, which they looked upon as essential to the well-being of the church in general.§

XXI. The phrensy of the ancient Gnostics, which had been so often vanquished, and in appearance removed, by the various remedies that had been used for that purpose, broke out anew in Spain. It was transported thither, in the beginning of this century, by a certain person named Marc, of Memphis in Egypt, whose con verts at first were not very numerous. They increased, however, in process of time, and

*According to Dr. Lardner's account, this council of Antioch, in 345, was holden by the Arians, or Eusebians and not by the orthodox, as our author affirms. See Lardner's Credibility, &c. vol. ix. p. 13; see also Athanas. de Synod. N. vi. vii. compared with Socrat. 110. 1. cap. xviii. xix.

Or in 375, as is concluded from Jerome's roa.c.e. Matt. Larroque, de Photino, et ejus multiplici con demnatione.-Thom. Ittigius, Historia Photim, in ap. 20 librum de Hæresiarchis vi Apostolici.

Socrat. Hist. Eccles. lib. iv. cap. iv.

Socrat. lib. v. cap. viii. Sozomen, lib. vii. tap. vii.

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 emana by 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 prince, to his country and his functions. His sufferings did not end here; for he was accused a second time, in 384, before Maximus, who had procured the assassination of Gratian, and made himself master of Gaul; and, by the order of that prince, he was put to death at Treves with some of his associates. The agents, however, by whose barbarous zeal this sentence was obtained, were justly regarded with the utmost abhorrence by the bishops of Gaul and Italy; for Christians had not yet learned, that giving over heretics to be punished by the magistrates, was either an act of piety or justice.§ [No: this abominable doctrine was reserved for those times, when religion was to become an instrument of despotism, or a pretext for 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.

riage, and disbelieved the resurrection of the body." Their rules of life and manners were rigid and severe; and the accounts which many have given of their lasciviousness and intemperance deserve not the least credit, as they are totally destitute of evidence and authority. That the Priscillianists were guilty of dissimu lation upon some occasions, and deceived their adversaries by cunning stratagems, is true; but that they held it as a maxim, that lying and perjury were lawful, is a most notorious falsehood, without even the least shadow of probability, however commonly this odious doctrine has been laid to their charge. In the heat of controversy, the eye of passion and of preju dice is too apt to confound the principles and opinions of men with their practice.

*

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 licentious manners of the clergy, formed an assembly of those who were attached to him, and became, by his own XXII. No ancient writer has given an accu- appointment, their bishop. Banished into rate account of the doctrine of the Priscil- Scythia by the emperor, he went among the lianists. 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

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

*This banishment was the effect of a sentence pronounced against Priscillian, and some of his followers, by a synod convened at Saragossa in 380; in consequence of which, Idacius and Ithacius, two cruel and persecuting ecclesiastics, obtained from Gratian the rescript abovementioned. See Sulpit. Sever. Hist. Sacr. lib. ii. cap.imputed to them, and this, among others, that they attributed to the Deity a human form.

xlvii.

Upon the death of Gratian, who had favoured

Priscillian toward the latter end of his reign, Ithacius presented to Mavimus 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 persécution 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 picty 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.

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 Simon 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 Priscillianistarum 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 th Priscillianists and their doctrine.

See Sulp. Sever. Hist. Sacr. edit. Leips. 1709, where Martin, the truly apostolical bishop of Tours, says to † Epiphanius, Hæres. lxx. p. 811.-Augustin. de Maximus, "novum esse et inauditum nefas ut causam Hæres. cap. 1. Theodoret. Fabul. Hæret. lib. iv. cap. ecclesiæ judex seculi judicaret." See also Dial. iii. deix.-J. Joach. Schroder, Dissertat. de Audæanis, pubvita Martini, cap. xi. p. 495.

illished in Voigt's Bibliotheca Historia Hæresiolog. tom. i

VOL. I.-17

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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. "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 returned to God, and was again united to the divine essence from which it had been separated." To this leading tenet they added many other enormous opinions, which bear a manifest resemblance to the Manichean doctrine, and are evidently drawn from the same source whence the Manicheans derived their errors, even from the tenets of the Oriental philosophy.* In a word, the Euchites were a sort of Mystics, who imagined, according to the Oriental notion, that two souls resided in man, the one good, and the other evil; and who were zealous in hastening the return of the good spirit to God,

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

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

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by contemplation and prayer. The externa. 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 endea voured 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.

XXV. Toward the conclusion of this century, two opposite sects involved Arabia and the adjacent countries in the troubles and tumults of a new controversy. These jarring factions went by the names of Antidico-Marianites and Colly ridians. The former maintained, that the Virgin Mary did not always preserve her immaculate state, but received the embraces of her husband Joseph after the birth of Christ. The latter, on the contrary, (who were singularly favoured by the female sex,) running into the opposite extreme, worshipped the Blessed Virgin as a goddess, and judged it necessary to appease her anger, and seek her favour and protection, by libations, sacrifices, oblations of cakes (collyrida,) and the like services.*

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

* See Epiphan. Hæres. lxxviii. lxxix

THE FIFTH CENTURY.

PART I.

THE EXTERNAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

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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.

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 de- This spirit of reformation appeared with less solations as far as Rome, which they ravaged vigour in the western empire. There the feasts and plundered in the most dreadful manner. of Saturn and Pan, the combats of the gladiaThese calamities, which fell upon the western tors, and other rites that were instituted in part of the empire from the Gothic depreda-honour of the pagan deities, were celebrated tions, were followed by others still more dread- || with the utmost freedom and impunity; and ful under the succeeding emperors. A fierce persons of the highest rank and authority puband 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.*

These new monarchs of the west pretended to acknowledge the supremacy of the emperors who resided at Constantinople, and gave rome faint external marks of a disposition to reign in subordination to them; but, in reality,

*See, for a fuller illustration of this branch of history, the learned work of M. de Bos, entitled, Histoire Critique de la Monarchie Francoise, tom. i. p. 258 as also Mascow's History of the Germans.

licly 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 Cochlæo. 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 Lati, 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, Vatit. tom. i. բ. 246

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