 Chapter 21, Part 1 of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume 2. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Chapter 21 Persecution of Heresy, State of the Church Part 1 Persecution of Heresy, The Schism of the Donatists, The Aryan Controversy, Athanasius, Distracted State of the Church and Empire, Under Constantine and his Sons, Toleration of Paganism The grateful applause of the clergy has consecrated the memory of a prince who indulged their passions and promoted their interest. Constantine gave them security, wealth, honors, and revenge, and the support of the Orthodox faith was considered as the most sacred and important duty of the civil magistrate. The Edict of Milan, the Great Charter of Toleration, had confirmed to each individual of the Roman world the privilege of choosing and professing his own religion. But this inestimable privilege was soon violated with the knowledge of truth, the Emperor imbibed the maxims of persecution, and the sects which dissented from the Catholic Church were afflicted and oppressed by the triumph of Christianity. Constantine easily believed that the heretics, who presumed to dispute his opinions, or to oppose his commands, were guilty of the most absurd and criminal obstinacy, and that a seasonable application of moderate severities might save those unhappy men from the danger of an everlasting condemnation. Not a moment was lost in excluding the ministers and teachers of the separated congregations from any share of the rewards and immunities which the Emperor had so liberally bestowed on the Orthodox clergy. But as the sectaries might still exist under the cloud of royal disgrace, the conquest of the East was immediately followed by an Edict which announced their total destruction. After a preamble filled with passion and reproach, Constantine absolutely prohibits the assemblies of the heretics and confiscates their public property to the use either of the revenue or of the Catholic Church. The sects against whom the Imperial Severity was directed appear to have been the adherents of Paul of Samosata, the Montanists of Phrygia who maintained an enthusiastic succession of prophecy, the Novations who sternly rejected the temporal efficacy of repentance, the Martianites and Valentinians under whose leading banners the various Gnostics of Asia and Egypt had insensibly rallied and perhaps the Manicheans who had recently imported from Persia a more artful composition of Oriental and Christian theology. The design of extirpating the name or at least of restraining the progress of these odious heretics was prosecuted with vigor and effect. Some of the penal regulations were copied from the edicts of Diocletian and this method of conversion was applauded by the same bishops who had felt the hand of oppression and pleaded for the rights of humanity. Two immaterial circumstances may serve, however, to prove that the mind of Constantine was not entirely corrupted by the spirit of zeal and bigotry. Before he condemned the Manicheans and their kindred sects, he resolved to make an accurate inquiry into the nature of their religious principles. As if he distrusted the impartiality of his ecclesiastical counselors, this delicate commission was entrusted to a civil magistrate whose learning and moderation he justly esteemed and of whose venal character he was probably ignorant. The Emperor was soon convinced that he had too hastily prescribed the Orthodox faith at the exemplary morals of the Novations, who had descended from the church in some articles of discipline which were not perhaps essential to salvation. By a particular edict he exempted them from the general penalties of the law, allowed them to build a church at Constantinople, respected the miracles of their saints, invited their bishop Ecesius to the Council of Nice and gently ridiculed the narrow tenets of his sect by familiar jest, which from the mouth of his sovereign must have been received with applause and gratitude. The complaints and mutual accusations which assailed the throne of Constantine as soon as the death of Maxentius had submitted Africa to his victorious arms were ill-adapted to edify an imperfect proselyte. He learned, with surprise, that the provinces of that great country from the confines of Cyrene to the columns of Hercules were distracted with religious discord. The source of the division was derived from a double election in the Church of Carthage, the second in rank and opulence of the ecclesiastical thrones of the West. Sicilian and Majoranus were the two rival prelates of Africa, and the death of the latter soon made room for Donatus, who, by his superior abilities and apparent virtues, was the firmest support of his party. The advantage which Sicilian might claim from the priority of his ordination was destroyed by the illegal or at least indecent haste with which it had been performed without expecting the arrival of the bishops of Numidia. The authority of these bishops, who, to the number of seventy, condemned Sicilian, and consecrated Majoranus, is again weakened by the infamy of some of their personal characters, and by the female intrigues, sacrilegious bargains, and tumultuous proceedings which are imputed to this Numidian Council. The bishops of the contending factions maintained, with equal ardor and obstinacy, that their adversaries were degraded, or at least dishonored, by the odious crime of delivering the holy scriptures to the officers of Diocletian. From their mutual reproaches, as well as from the story of this dark transaction, it may justly be inferred that the late persecution had embittered the zeal without reforming the manners of the African Christians. That divided church was incapable of affording an impartial judicature. The controversy was solemnly tried in five successive tribunals, which were appointed by the Emperor, and the whole proceeding, from the first appeal to the final sentence, lasted above three years. A severe inquisition, which was taken by the Praetorian vicar and the proconsul of Africa, the report of two episcopal visitors who had been sent to Carthage, the decrees of the councils of Rome and of Arles, and the supreme judgment of Constantine himself in his sacred consistory were all favourable to the cause of Sicilian, and he was unanimously acknowledged by the civil and ecclesiastical powers as the true and lawful primate of Africa. The honours and estates of the church were attributed to his suffragan bishops, and it was not without difficulty that Constantine was satisfied with inflicting the punishment of exile on the principal leaders of the Donatist faction. As their cause was examined with attention, perhaps it was determined with justice. Perhaps their complaint was not without foundation, that the credulity of the emperor had been abused by the insidious art of his favourite Osius. The influence of falsehood and corruption might procure the condemnation of the innocent, or aggravate the sentence of the guilty. Such an act, however, of injustice, if it concluded an importunate dispute, might be numbered among the transient evils of a despotic administration, which are neither felt nor remembered by posterity. But this incident, so inconsiderable that it scarcely deserves a place in history, was productive of a memorable schism which afflicted the provinces of Africa above 300 years, and was extinguished only with Christianity itself. The inflexible zeal of freedom and fanaticism animated the Donatists to refuse obedience to the usurpers, whose election they disputed and whose spiritual powers they denied. Excluded from the civil and religious communion of mankind, they boldly excommunicated the rest of mankind, who had embraced the impious party of Sicilian and of the traditors, from whom he derived his pretended ordination. They asserted with confidence, and almost with exultation, that the apostolical succession was interrupted, that all the bishops of Europe and Asia were infected by the contagion of guilt and schism, and that the prerogatives of the Catholic Church were confined to the chosen portion of the African believers, who alone had preserved in violet the integrity of their faith and discipline. This rigid theory was supported by the most uncharitable conduct. Whenever they acquired a prosolite, even from the distant provinces of the East, they carefully repeated the sacred rites of baptism and ordination, as they rejected the validity of those which he had already received from the hands of heretics or schismatics. Bishops, virgins, and even spotless infants were subjected to the disgrace of a public penance, before they could be admitted to the communion of the Donatists. If they obtained possession of a church which had been used by their Catholic adversaries, they purified the unhallowed building with the same zealous care which a temple of idols might have required. They washed the pavement, scraped the walls, burnt the altar, which was commonly made of wood, melted the consecrated plate, and cast the holy Eucharist to the dogs with every circumstance of ignominy which could provoke and perpetuate the animosity of religious factions. Notwithstanding this irreconcilable aversion, the two parties who were mixed and separated in all the cities of Africa had the same language and manners, the same zeal and learning, the same faith and worship. Prescribed by the civil and ecclesiastical powers of the empire, the Donatists still maintained in some provinces, particularly in Emidia, their superior numbers, and 400 bishops acknowledged the jurisdiction of their primate. But the invincible spirit of the sect sometimes preyed on its own vitals, and the bosom of their schismatical church was torn by intestine divisions. A fourth part of the Donatist bishops followed the independent standard of Maximunists. The narrow and solitary path which their first leaders had marked out continued to deviate from the great society of mankind. Even the imperceptible sect of the Rogatians could affirm, without a blush, that when Christ should descend to judge the earth, he would find his true religion preserved only in a few nameless villages of the Caesarean Mauritania. The schism of the Donatists was confined to Africa. The more diffusive mischief of the Trinitarian controversy successively penetrated into every part of the Christian world. The former was an accidental quarrel, occasioned by the abuse of freedom. The latter was a high and mysterious argument derived from the abuse of philosophy. From the age of Constantine to that of Clovis and Theodoric, the temporal interests of both of the Romans and barbarians were deeply involved in the theological disputes of Arianism. The historian may therefore be permitted respectfully to withdraw the veil of sanctuary and to deduce the progress of reason and faith of error and passion from the school of Plato to the decline and fall of the empire. The genius of Plato, informed by his own meditation or by the traditional knowledge of the priests of Egypt, had ventured to explore the mysterious nature of the deity. When he had elevated his mind to the sublime contemplation of the first self-existent necessary cause of the universe, the Athenian sage was incapable of conceiving how the simple unity of his essence could admit the infinite variety of distinct and successive ideas which compose the model of the intellectual world, how a being purely incorporeal could execute that perfect model and mold with a plastic hand the rude and independent chaos. The vain hope of extricating himself from these difficulties, which must ever oppress the feeble powers of the human mind, might induce Plato to consider the divine nature under the threefold modification of the first cause, the reason, or the logos, and the soul or spirit of the universe. His poetical imagination sometimes fixed and animated these metaphysical abstractions. The three archical unoriginal principles were represented in the Platonic system as three gods, united with each other by a mysterious and ineffable generation, and the logos was particularly considered under the more accessible character of the son of an eternal father and the creator and governor of the world. Such appeared to have been the secret doctrines which were cautiously whispered in the gardens of the academy and which, according to the more recent disciples of Plato, could not be perfectly understood till after an insidious study of thirty years. The arms of the Macedonians diffused over Asia and Egypt the language and learning of Greece, and the theological system of Plato was taught with less reserve and perhaps with some improvements in the celebrated school of Alexandria. A numerous colony of Jews had been invited by the favor of the Ptolemies to settle in their new capital. While the bulk of the nation practiced the legal ceremonies and pursued the lucrative occupations of commerce, a few Hebrews of a more liberal spirit devoted their lives to religious and philosophical contemplation. They cultivated with diligence and embraced with ardor the theological system of the Athenian sage. But their national pride would have been mortified by a fair confession of their former poverty, and they boldly marked as the sacred inheritance of their ancestors the golden jewels which they had so lately stolen from their Egyptian masters. One hundred years before the birth of Christ a philosophical treatise which manifestly betrays the style and sentiments of the school of Plato was produced by the Alexandrian Jews and unanimously received as a genuine and valuable relic of the inspired wisdom of Solomon. A similar union of the Mosaic faith and the Grecian philosophy distinguishes the works of Philo which were composed for the most part under the reign of Augustus. The material soul of the universe might offend the piety of the Hebrews but they applied the character of the logos to the Jehovah of Moses and the Patriarchs and the Son of God was introduced upon earth under a visible and even human appearance to perform those familiar offices which seem incompatible with the nature and attributes of the universal cause. End of Chapter 21 Part 1 Recording by Daniel Anaya Chapter 21 Part 2 of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume 2 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Daniel Anaya The eloquence of Plato, the name of Solomon the authority of the school of Alexandria and the consent of the Jews and Greeks were insufficient to establish the truth of a mysterious doctrine which might please but could not satisfy a rational mind. A prophet or apostle inspired by the deity can alone exercise a lawful dominion over the faith of mankind and the theology of Plato might have been forever confounded with the philosophical visions of the Academy, the porch, and the Lyceum if the name and divine attributes of the Logos had not been confirmed by the celestial pen of the last and most sublime of the Evangelists. The Christian Revelation which was consummated under the reign of Nerva disclosed to the world the amazing secret that the Logos who was with God from the beginning and who was God, who had made all things and for whom all things had been made was incarnate in the person of Jesus of Nazareth who had been born of a virgin and suffered death on the cross. Besides the general design of fixing on a perpetual basis the divine honors of Christ the most ancient and respectable of the ecclesiastical writers have ascribed to the evangelical theologian a particular intention to confute two opposite heresies which disturbed the peace of the primitive church. One, the faith of the Ebonites perhaps of the Nazarenes was gross and imperfect. They revered Jesus as the greatest of the prophets endowed with supernatural virtue and power. They ascribed to his person and to his future reign all the predictions of the Hebrew oracles which relate to the spiritual and everlasting kingdom of the promised Messiah. Some of them might confess that he was born of a virgin but they obstinately rejected the preceding existence and divine perfections of the Logos or Son of God which are so clearly defined in the Gospel of Saint John. About fifty years afterwards the Ebonites whose errors are mentioned by Justin Martyr with less severity than they seem to deserve formed a very inconsiderable portion of the Christian name. Two, the Gnostics who were distinguished by the epithet of Dossities deviated into the contrary extreme and betrayed the human while they asserted the divine nature of Christ. Educated in the School of Plato accustomed to the sublime idea of the Logos they readily conceived that the brightest eon or emanation of the deity might assume the outward shape and visible appearances of a mortal but they vainly pretended that the imperfections of matter are incompatible with the purity of a celestial substance. While the blood of Christ yet smoked on Mount Calvary the Dossities invented the impious and extravagant hypothesis that instead of issuing from the womb of the Virgin he had descended on the banks of the Jordan in the form of perfect manhood that he had imposed on the senses of his enemies and of his disciples and that the ministers of Pilate had wasted their impotent rage on an airy phantom who seemed to expire on the cross and after three days to rise from the dead. The divine sanction which the Apostle had bestowed on the fundamental principle of the theology of Plato encouraged the learned proselytes of the 2nd and 3rd centuries to admire and study the writings of the Athenian Sage who had thus marvelously anticipated one of the most surprising discoveries of the Christian Revelation. The respectable name of Plato was used by the Orthodox and abused by the Heretics as the common support of truth and error. The authority of his skillful commentators on the science of dialectics were employed to justify the remote consequences of his opinions and to supply the discreet silence of the inspired writers. The same subtle and profound questions concerning the nature, the generation, the distinction and the equality of the three divine persons of the mysterious Triad or Trinity were agitated in the philosophical and in the Christian schools of Alexandria. An eager spirit of curiosity to explore the secrets of the abyss and the pride of the professors and of their disciples was satisfied with the sciences of words. But the most sagacious of the Christian theologians, the great Athenacious himself, has candidly confessed that whenever he forced his understanding to meditate on the divinity of the Logos his toilsome and unavailing efforts recoiled on themselves, that the more he thought the less he comprehended and the more he wrote the less capable was he of expressing his thoughts. In every step of the inquiry we are compelled to feel and acknowledge the immeasurable disproportion between the size of the object and the capacity of the human mind. We may strive to abstract the notions of time, of space and of matter which so closely adhere to all the perceptions of our experimental knowledge but as soon as we presume to reason of infinite substance, of spiritual generation as often as we deduce any positive conclusions from a negative idea, we are involved in darkness, perplexity and inevitable contradiction. As these difficulties arise from the nature of the subject they oppress with the same insuperable weight the philosophic and the theological disputant but we may observe two essential and peculiar circumstances which discriminated the doctrines of the Catholic Church from the opinions of the Platonic school. 1. A chosen society of philosophers, men of a liberal education and curious disposition might silently meditate and temporally discuss in the gardens of Athens or the library of Alexandria the abstruse questions of metaphysical science. The lofty speculations which neither convinced the understanding nor agitated the passions of the Platonists themselves were carelessly overlooked by the idle, the busy and even the studious part of mankind. But after the logos had been revealed as the sacred object of the faith, the hope and the religious worship of the Christians the mysterious system was embraced by a numerous and increasing multitude in every province of the Roman world. Those persons who, from their age or sex or occupations were the least qualified to judge who were the least exercised in the habits of abstract reasoning aspired to contemplate the economy of the divine nature and it is the boast of cartelion that a Christian mechanic could readily answer such questions as had perplexed the wisest of the Grecian sages. Where the subject lies so far beyond our reach the difference between the highest and the lowest of human understandings may indeed be calculated as infinitely small yet the degree of weakness may perhaps be measured by the degree of obstinacy and dogmatic confidence. These speculations instead of being treated as the amusement of a vacant hour became the most serious business of the present and the most useful preparation for a future life. A theology which it was incumbent to believe, which it was impious to doubt, and which it might be dangerous and even fatal to mistake became the familiar topic of private meditation and popular discourse. The cold indifference of philosophy was inflamed by the fervent spirit of devotion and even the metaphors of common language suggested the fallacious prejudices of sense and experience. The Christians who abhorred the gross and impure generation of the Greek mythology were tempted to argue from the familiar analogy of the filial and paternal relations. The character of son seemed to imply a perpetual subordination to the voluntary author of his existence but as the act of generation in the most spiritual and abstracted sense must be supposed to transmit the properties of a common nature they durst not presume to circumscribe the powers or the duration of the son of an eternal and omnipotent father. Four score years after the death of Christ the Christians of Bethenia declared before the tribunal of Pliny that they invoked him as a god and his divine honors have been perpetuated in every age and country by the various sects who assume the name of his disciples. They tend to reverence for the memory of Christ and their horror for the profane worship of any created being would have engaged them to assert the equal and absolute divinity of the logos if their rapid descent towards the throne of heaven had not been imperceptibly checked by the apprehension of violating the unity and soul supremacy of the great father of Christ and of the universe. The suspense and fluctuation produced in the minds of the Christians by these opposite tendencies may be observed in the writings of the theologians who flourished after the end of the apostolic age and before the origin of the Aryan controversy. Their suffrage is claimed with equal confidence by the Orthodox and by the Heretical Parties and the most inquisitive critics have fairly allowed that if they have the good fortune of possessing the Catholic verity they have delivered their conceptions in loose, inaccurate and sometimes contradictory language. End of Chapter 21 Part 2 Recording by Daniel Anaya Part 3 The devotion of individuals was the first circumstance which distinguished the Christians from the Platonists. The second was the authority of the church. The disciples of philosophy asserted the rights of intellectual freedom and their respect for the sentiments of their teachers was a liberal and voluntary tribute which they offered to superior reason. But the Christians formed a numerous and disciplined society and the jurisdiction of their laws and magistrates was strictly exercised over the minds of the faithful. The loose wanderings of the imagination were gradually confined by creeds and confessions. The freedom of private judgment submitted to the public wisdom of Sinox. The authority of a theologian was determined by his ecclesiastical rank and the episcopal successors of the apostles inflicted the censures of the church on those who deviated from Orthodox belief. But in an age of religious controversy every act of oppression adds new force to the elastic figure of the mind and the zeal or obstinacy of a spiritual rebel was sometimes stimulated by secret motives of ambition or avarice. A metaphysical argument became the cause or pretense of political contests. The subtleties of the Platonic school were used as the badges of popular factions and the distance which separated their respective tenets were enlarged or magnified by the acrimony of dispute. As long as the dark heresies of Praxeus and Sibelius labored to confound the father with the son the Orthodox party might be excused if they adhered more strictly and more earnestly to the distinction than to the equality of the divine persons. But as soon as the heat of controversy had subsided and the progress of the Sibelians was no longer an object of terror to the churches of Rome, of Africa or of Egypt, the tide of opinion began to flow with a gentle but steady motion toward the contrary extreme, and the most Orthodox doctors allowed themselves the use of the terms and definitions which had been censured in the mouth of those sectaries. After the edict of toleration had restored peace and leisure to the Christians, the Trinitarian controversy was revived in the ancient seat of Platonism, the learned, the opulent, the tumultuous city of Alexandria and the flame of religious discord rapidly communicated from the schools to the clergy, the people, the province, and the east. The abstruse question of the eternity of the Logos was agitated in ecclesiastic conferences in popular sermons, and the heterodox opinions of Arius were soon made public by his own zeal and by that of his adversaries. His most implacable adversaries have acknowledged the learning and the blameless life of that eminent presbyter who, in a former election, had declared and perhaps generously declined his pretensions to the Episcopal throne. His competitor, Alexander, assumed the office of his judge. The important cause was argued before him, and if at first he seemed to hesitate he at length pronounced his final sentence as an absolute rule of faith. The undaunted presbyter, who presumed to resist the authority of his angry bishop, was separated from the community of the church. The pride of Arius was supported by the applause of a numerous party. He reckoned, among his immediate followers, two bishops of Egypt, seven presbyters, twelve deacons, and what may appear almost incredible, seven hundred virgins. A large majority of the bishops of Asia appeared to support or favor his cause, and their measures were conducted by Eusebius of Caesarea, the most learned of the Christian prelates, and by Eusebius of Nicomedia, who had acquired the statesmen without forfeiting that of a saint. Sinads in Palestine and Bethenia were opposed to the Sinads of Egypt. The attention of the prince and people was attracted by the theological dispute, and the decision, at the end of six years, was referred to the supreme authority of the general council of Nicaea. When the mysteries of the Christian faith were dangerously exposed to public debate, it might be observed that the human understanding was capable of forming three distinct, though imperfect, systems concerning the nature of the divine trinity, and it was pronounced that none of these systems, in a pure and absolute sense, were exempt from heresy and error. One. According to the first hypothesis, which was maintained by Arias and his disciples, the Logos was a dependent and spontaneous production created from nothing by the will of the father. The son, whom all things were made, had been begotten before all worlds, and the longest of the astronomical periods could be compared only as a fleeting moment to the extent of his duration, yet this duration was not infinite, and there had been a time which preceded the ineffable generation of the Logos. On this only begotten son the almighty father had transfused his ample spirit and impressed the effulgence of his glory. Visible image of invisible perfection he saw, at an immeasurable distance beneath his feet, thrones of brightest archangels, yet he shown only with reflected light, and like the sons of the Roman emperors, who were invested with the titles of Caesar or Augustus, he governed the universe in obedience with the will of his father and monarch. Two. In the second hypothesis, the Logos possessed all the inherent incommunicable perfections which religion and philosophy appropriate to the Supreme God. Three distinct and infinite minds or substances, three co-equal and co-eternal beings compose the divine essence, and it would have implied contradiction that any of them should not have existed or that they should ever see to exist. The advocates of a system which seemed to establish three independent deities attempted to preserve the unity of the first cause, so conspicuous in the design and order of the world by the perpetual concord of their administration and the essential agreement of their will. A faint resemblance of this unity of action may be discovered in societies of men and even of animals. The causes which disturb their harmony proceed only from the imperfection and inequality of their faculties, but the omnipotence which is guided by infinite wisdom and goodness cannot fail of choosing the same means for the accomplishment of the same ends. Three. Three beings who, by the self-derived necessity of their existence, possess all the divine attributes in the most perfect degree, who are eternal in duration, infinite in space and intimately present to each other and to the whole universe, irresistibly force themselves on the astonished mind as when the same being, who in the economy of grace as well in that of nature, may manifest himself under different forms and be considered under different aspects. By this hypothesis a real substantial trinity is refined into a trinity of names and abstract modifications that exist only in the mind which conceives them. The logos is no longer a person but an attribute, and it is only in a figurative sense that the epithet of sun can be applied to the eternal reason, which was with God from the beginning and by which, not by whom, all things were made. The incarnation of the logos is reduced to a mere inspiration of divine wisdom, which filled the soul and directed the actions of the man Jesus. Thus after revolving around the theological circle, we are surprised to find that the Sibelian ends where the Ebianite had begun, and that the incomprehensible mystery which excites our adoration eludes our inquiry. If the bishops of the Council of Nice had been permitted to follow the unbiased dictates of their conscience, Arius and his associates could scarcely have flattered themselves at the hope of obtaining a majority of votes in favor of a hypothesis so directly averse to the two most popular opinions of the Catholic world. The Arians soon perceived the danger of the situation, and prudently assumed those modest virtues which, in the fury of civil and religious dissensions, are seldom practiced or even praised except by the weaker party. They recommended the exercise of Christian charity and moderation. Urged the incomprehensible nature of the society, disclaimed the use of any terms or definitions which could not be found in the scriptures, and offered by very liberal concessions to satisfy their adversaries without renouncing the integrity of their own principles. The victorious faction received all their proposals with haughty suspicion, and anxiously sought for some irreconcilable mark of distinction, the rejection of which might involve the Arians in the guilt and consequences of heresy. A letter was publicly read and conveniently torn, in which their patron, Eusebius of Nicomedia, ingenuously confessed that the admission of the homo-sion, or consubstantial, a word already familiar to Platonists, was incompatible with the principles of their theological system. The fortunate opportunity was eagerly embraced by the bishops, who covered the resolutions of the Sinod, and according to the lively expression of Ambrose, they used the sword which heresy itself had drawn from the scabbard to cut off the head of the hated monster. The consubstantiality of the father and son was established by the Council of Nice, and has unanimously been received as a fundamental article of the Christian faith by the consent of the Greek, the Latin, the Oriental, and the Protestant churches. But if the same word has not served to stigmatize the heretics and to unite the Catholics, it would have been inadequate to the purpose of the majority by whom it was introduced into the Orthodox creed. This majority was divided into two parties, distinguished by a contrary tendency to the sentiments of the Tritheists and of the Sibelians. But as these opposite extremes seemed to overthrow the foundations either of natural or revealed religion, they mutually agreed to qualify the rigor of their principles, and to disavow the just but invidious consequences which might be urged by their antagonists. The interest of the common cause inclined them to join their numbers and to conceal their differences. Animosity was softened by the healing of the Christian religion, and their disputes were suspended by the use of the mysterious Homocian, which either party was free to interpret according to their peculiar tenets. The Sibelian sense, which about fifty years before had obliged the Council of Antioch to prohibit this celebrated term, had endeared it to those theologians who entertained a secret but partial affection for a nominal trinity. But the more fashionable saints of the Aryan times, the intrepid Athanasius, the learned Gregory Nazianzen, and the other Arch, who supported with ability and success the Nicene doctrine, appeared to consider the expression of substance as if it had been synonymous with that of nature, and they ventured to illustrate their meaning by affirming that three men, as they belong to the same common species, are consubstantial, or Homocian to each other. This pure and distinct equality was tempered on the one hand by the internal connection and spiritual penetration which indissolubly unites the divine persons, and on the other by the preeminence of the Father, which was acknowledged as far as it is compatible with the independence of the Son. Within these limits the almost invisible and tremulous ball of orthodoxy was allowed securely to vibrate. On either side, beyond this consecrated ground, the heretics and the demons lurked in ambush to surprise and devour the unhappy wanderer. But as the degrees of theological hatred depend on the spirit of war, rather than on the importance of the controversy, the heretics who degraded were treated with more severity than those who annihilated the person of the Son. The life of Athanasius was consumed in irreconcilable opposition to the impious madness of the Aryans. But he defended above twenty years the Sibelianism of Marcellof of Ansaira, and when at last he was compelled to withdraw himself from his communion, he continued to mention, with an ambiguous smile, the venial errors of his respectable friend. The authority of a general council, to which the Aryans themselves had been compelled to submit, inscribed on the banners of the Orthodox party the mysterious characters of the word Homocian, which essentially contributed, notwithstanding some obscure disputes, some nocturnal combats, to maintain and perpetuate the euformity of faith, or at least of language. The consubstantialists, who by their success have deserved and obtained the title of Catholics, gloried in the simplicity and steadiness of their own creed and insulted the repeated variations of their adversaries, who were destitute of any certain rule of faith. The sincerity, or the cunning of the Aryan chiefs, the fear of the laws or of the people, their reverence for Christ, their hatred of Athanasias, all the causes human and divine that influence and disturb the councils of a theological faction, introduced among the sectaries a spirit of discord and inconstancy, which in the course of a few years erected eighteen different models of religion, and avenged the violated dignity of the church. The zealous Hillary, who from the peculiar hardships of his situation was inclined to extenuate rather than to aggravate the errors of the Oriental clergy, declares that in the wide extent of the ten provinces of Asia to which he had been banished there could be found very few prelates who had preserved the knowledge of the true God. The oppression which he had felt, the disorders of which he was the spectator and the victim, appeased during a short interval the angry emotions of his soul, and in the following passage of which I shall transcribe a few lines, the bishop of Poitiers unwarily deviates into the style of a Christian philosopher. It is a thing, says Hillary, equally deplorable and dangerous that there are as many creeds as opinions among men, as many doctrines as inclinations, and as many sources of blasphemy as there are faults among us, because we make creeds arbitrarily, and explain them as arbitrarily. The homosion is rejected and received and explained away by successive synods. The partial or total resemblance of the father and of the son is a subject of dispute for these unhappy times. Every year, nay every moon, we make new creeds to describe invisible mysteries. We repent of what we have done, we defend those who repent, we anathematize those whom we defended, we condemn either the doctrine of others in ourselves, or our own in that of others, and reciprocally tearing one another to pieces we have been the cause of each other's suffering. It will not be expected. It would not perhaps be endured that I should swell this theological digression by a minute examination of the eighteen creeds, the authors of which for the most part disclaimed the odious name of their parent areas. It is amusing enough to delineate the form, and to trace the vegetation of a singular plant, but the tedious detail of leaves without flowers and branches without fruit would soon exhaust the patience and disappoint the curiosity of the glorious student. One question which gradually arose from the Aryan controversy may however be noticed, as it served to produce and discriminate the three sects, who were united only by their common aversion to the Homocean of the Nicene Sinod. If they were asked whether the son was like unto the father, the question was resolutely answered in the negative by the heretics who adhered to the principles of Arius, or indeed to those of philosophy, which seemed to establish an infinite power and the most excellent of his creatures. This obvious consequence was maintained by Aetius, on whom the zeal of his adversaries bestowed the surname of the Atheist. His restless and aspiring spirit urged him to try almost every profession of human life. He was successively a slave, or at least a husbandman, a travelling tinker, a goldsmith, a physician, a schoolmaster, a theologian, and at last the apostle a new church, which was propagated by the abilities of the disciple Eunomius. Armed with texts of scripture and with captious syllogisms from the logic of Aristotle, the subtle Aetius had acquired the fame of an invincible disputant, whom it was impossible either to silence or to convince. Such talents engaged the friendship of the Arian bishops till they were forced to renounce and even to persecute a dangerous ally who, by the accuracy of his reasoning, had prejudiced their cause in the popular opinion and offended the believers. The omnipotence of the creator suggested a specious and respectful solution of the likeness of the father and the son, and faith might humbly receive what reason could not presume to deny, that the supreme God might communicate his infinite perfections and create a being similar only to himself. These Arians were powerfully supported by the weight and abilities of their leaders, who had succeeded to the management of the Eusebian interest and who occupied the detested, perhaps with some affectation the impiety of Aetius. They professed to believe, either without reserve or according to the scriptures, that the son was different from all other creatures and similar only to the father. But they denied that he was either of the same or of a similar substance, sometimes boldly restifying their descent, and sometimes objecting to the use of the word substance, which seems to imply an adequate or at least a distinct notion of the nature of the deity. The language which deserted the doctrine of a similar substance was the most numerous, at least in the provinces of Asia. And when the leaders of both parties were assembled in the Council of Seleucia, their opinion would have prevailed by a majority of 105 to 43 bishops. The Greek word which was chosen to express this miserious resemblance bears so close an affinity to the Orthodox symbol, that the profane of every age have derided the furious contests which the difference between the Homocians and the Homoiocians. As it frequently happens that the sounds and characters which approach the nearest to each other accidentally represent the most opposite ideas, the observation would itself be ridiculous if it were possible to mark any real and sensible distinction between the dogma, the semi-areans, as they were improperly styled, and that of the Catholics themselves. The Bishop of Poitiers who in his Phrygian exile very wisely aimed at a coalition of people who proved that by a pious and faithful interpretation the Homoiocian may be reduced to a consubstantial sense, yet he confesses that the word has a dark and suspicious aspect, and as if darkness were congenial to theological disputes the semi-areans who advanced to the doors of the church assailed them with the most unrelenting fury. The provinces of Egypt and Asia, which cultivated the language and manners of the Greeks, had deeply envied the venom of the Aryan controversy. The familiar study of the Platonic system, a vain and argumentative disposition, a copious and flexible idiom supplied the clergy and the people of the East with an inexhaustible flow of words and distinctions, and in the midst of their fierce contentions they easily forgot the doubt which is recommended by philosophy, and the submission which annoyed Barlidon. The inhabitants of the West were of a less inquisitive spirit. Their passions were not so forcibly moved by invisible objects. Their minds were frequently exercised by the habits of dispute, and such was the happy ignorance of the Gallican church, that Hillary himself, above thirty years after the First General Council, was still a stranger to the Nicene Creed. The Latins had received the rays of divine knowledge through the dark and doubtful medium of a translation. The poverty and stubbornness of their native tongue was not always capable of affording just equivalents for the Greek terms, for the technical words of the Platonic philosophy, which had been consecrated, by the gospel or by the church, to express the mysteries of the Christian faith, and a verbal defect might introduce into the Latin theology a long train of error or perplexity. But as the western provincials had the good fortune of deriving their religion from an orthodox source, they preserved with steadiness the doctrine which they had accepted with docility, and when the Aryan pestilence approached their frontiers they were supplied with the seasonable preservative of the Homocian by the paternal care of the Roman Pontif. Their sentiments and their temper were displayed in the memorable Sinod of Rimini, which surpassed in numbers the Council of Nice, since it was composed of above four hundred bishops of Italy, Africa, Spain, Gaul, Britain, and Illyricum. From the first debates it appeared that only four score prelates adhered to the party, though they affected to anathematize the name and memory of Aryans. This inferiority was compensated by the advantages of skill, of experience, and of discipline, and the minority was conducted by Valens and Eursaceus, two bishops of Illyricum, who had spent their lives in the intrigues of courts and counties and who had been trained under the Eusebian banner in the religious wars of the East. By their arguments and negotiations they embarrassed, they confounded, they at last deceived the honest simplicity of the Latin bishops who suffered the palladium of the faith to be extorted from their hand by fraud and importunity rather than by open violence. The Council of Rimini was not allowed to separate till the members had imprudently subscribed a captious creed in which some expressions susceptible of a heretical sense were inserted in the room of the Homoceon. It was on this occasion that according to Jerome the world was surprised to find itself Aryan. But the bishops of the Latin provinces had no sooner reached their respective dioceses than they discovered the mistake and repented of their weakness. The ignominious capitulation was rejected with disdain and abhorrence and the Homoceon standard which had been shaken but not overthrown was more firmly replanted in all the churches of the West. End of Chapter 21 Part 3 Chapter 21 Part 3 of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume 2 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recorded by Kirsten Ferreri The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume 2 by Edward Gibbon Chapter 21 Persecution of Heresy State of the Church Part 4 Such was the rise and progress and such were the natural revolutions of such theological debates and such were the natural revolutions of those theological disputes which disturbed the peace of Christianity under the reigns of Constantine and of his sons. But as those princes presumed to extend their despotism over the faith as well as over the lives and fortunes of their subjects, the weight of their suffrage sometimes inclined the ecclesiastical balance and the prerogatives of the King of Heaven were settled or changed or modified in the cabinet of an earthly monarch. The unhappy spirit of discord which pervaded the provinces of the East interrupted the triumph of Constantine but the Emperor continued for some time his cool and careless indifference, the object of the dispute. As he was yet ignorant of the difficulty of appeasing the quarrels of theologians he addressed to the contending parties to Alexander and to Arius a moderating epistle which may be ascribed with far greater reason to the untutored sense of a soldier and statesman than to the dictates of any of his Episcopal counselors. He attributes the origin of the whole controversy to a trifling and subtle question concerning an incomprehensible point of law by the bishop and imprudently resolved by the presbyter. He laments that the Christian people who had the same God, the same religion and the same worship should be divided by such inconsiderable distinctions and he seriously recommends to the clergy of Alexandria the example of the Greek philosophers who could maintain their arguments without losing their temper and assert their freedom without violating their friendship. The indifference and contempt of the sovereign would have been perhaps the case if the popular current had been less rapid and impetuous and if Constantine himself in the midst of faction and fanaticism could have preserved the calm possession of his own mind but his ecclesiastical minister soon contrived to seduce the impartiality of the magistrate and to awaken the zeal of the proselyte. He was provoked by the insults which had been offered to his statues. He was alarmed by the real as well as the imaginary magnitude of the spreading mischief and he extinguished the hope of peace and reconciliation from the moment that he assembled three hundred bishops within the walls of the same palace. The presence of the monarch swelled the importance of the debate. His attention multiplied the arguments and he exposed his person with a patient intrepidity which animated the valor of the combatants. Notwithstanding the applause which had been bestowed on the eloquence and sagacity of Constantine a Roman general whose religion might still be a subject of doubt and whose mind had not been enlightened and whose determination was indifferently qualified to discuss in the Greek language a metaphysical question or an article of faith. But the credit of his favorite Osias who appears to have presided in the council of Nicaea might dispose the emperor in favor of the Orthodox party and a well-timed insinuation that the same Eusebius of Nicomedia who now protected the heretic had lately assisted the tyrant might exasperate him against their adversaries. The Nicene creed was ratified by and his firm declaration that those who resisted the divine judgment of the synod must prepare themselves for immediate exile annihilated the murmurs of a feeble opposition which from seventeen was almost instantly reduced to two protesting bishops. Eusebius of Caesarea yielded a reluctant and ambiguous consent to the Homocian and the wavering conduct of the Nicomedean Eusebius served only to delay about three months his disgrace and exile. The impious areas was banished into one of the remote provinces of Illyricum. His person and disciples were branded by law with the odious name of Porphyrian. His writings were condemned to the flames and a capital punishment was denounced against those in whose possession they should be found. The emperor had now imbibed the spirit of controversy and the angry sarcastic style of his edicts was designed to inspire his subjects with the hatred which he had conceived against the enemies of Christ. But as if the conduct of the emperor had been guided by passion instead of principle, three years from the Council of Nicea were scarcely elapsed before he discovered some symptoms of mercy and even of indulgence towards the prescribed sect which was secretly protected by his favorite sister. The exiles were recalled and Eusebius who gradually resumed his influence over the mind of Constantine was restored to the Episcopal throne from which he had been ignominiously degraded. Arius himself was treated by the whole court with the respect which would mean due to an innocent and oppressed man. His faith was approved by the Sinod of Jerusalem and the emperor seemed impatient to repair his injustice by issuing an absolute command that he should be solemnly admitted to communion in the cathedral of Constantinople. On the same day which had been fixed for the triumph of Arius he expired and the strange and horrid circumstances of his death might excite a suspicion that the orthodox states had contributed more efficaciously than by their prayers to deliver the church from the most formidable of her enemies. The three principal leaders of the Catholics Athanasius of Alexandria, Eustatius of Antioch and Paul of Constantinople were deposed on various accusations by the sentence of numerous councils and were afterwards banished into distant provinces by the first of the Christian emperors who in the last moments of his life received the rights of baptism from the Aryan bishop of Nicomedia. The ecclesiastical government of Constantin can not be justified from the reproach of levity and weakness. But the credulous monarch, unskilled in the stratagems of theological warfare might be deceived by the modest and specious professions of the heretics whose sentiments he never perfectly understood. And while he protected Arius and persecuted Athanasius he still considered the council of Nicaea as the bulwark of the Christian faith and the peculiar glory of his own reign. The sons of Constantin must have been admitted from their childhood like of catechumans, but they imitated the delay of their baptism, the example of their father. Like him they presumed to pronounce their judgment on mysteries into which they have never been regularly initiated, and the fate of the Trinitarian controversy depended in great measure on the sentiments of Constantius, who inherited the provinces of the east and acquired the possession of the whole empire. The Aryan presbyter, or bishop who had secreted for his use the testament of the deceased emperor, improved the connection and occasion which had introduced him to the familiarity of a prince whose public councils were always swayed by his domestic favourites. The eunuchs and slaves diffused the spiritual poison through the palace and the dangerous infection was communicated by the female attendants to the guards and by the empress to her unsuspicious husband. The partiality which Constantius always expressed toward the Eusebian faction was insensibly fortified by the dexterous management of their leaders and his victory over the tyrant Magnentius increased his inclination as well as ability to employ the arms of power in the cause of Aryanism. While the two armies were engaged in the plains of Mercia, and the fate of the two rivals depended on the chance of war, the son of Constantine passed the anxious moments in a church of the martyrs under the walls of the city. His spiritual comforter, Valens, the Aryan bishop of the diocese employed the most artful precautions to obtain such early intelligence as might secure either his favour or his escape. A secret chain of swift and trusty messengers informed him of the vicissitudes of the battle, and while the courtiers stood trembling around their affrighted master, Valens assured him that the Gallic legions gave way and insinuated with some presence of mind that the glorious event had been revealed to him by an angel. The grateful emperor ascribed his success to the merits and intercession of the bishop of Mercia whose faith had deserved the public and miraculous approbation of heaven. Valens, considered as their own the victory of Constantius, preferred his glory to that of his father. Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem, immediately composed the description of a celestial cross encircled with a splendid rainbow which during the festival of Pentecost at about the third hour of the day had appeared over the Mount of Olives to the edification of the devout pilgrims and the people of the holy city. The size of the meteor was gradually magnified and the Aryan historian has ventured to affirm that it was conspicuous to do armies in the plains of Panania and that the tyrant who is purposely represented as an idolater fled before the auspicious sign of Orthodox Christianity. The sentiments of a judicious stranger who has impartially considered the progress of civil or ecclesiastical discord are always entitled to our notice and a short passage of Amianus who served in the armies and studied the character of Constantius is perhaps of more value than many pages of theological invectives. The Christian religion, which in itself said the modern historian is plain and simple, he confounded by the dotage of superstition. Instead of reconciling the parties by the weight of his authority, he cherished and promulgated by verbal disputes the differences which his vain curiosity had excited. The highways were covered with troops of bishops galloping from every side to the assemblies which they call synods, and while they labored to reduce the whole sect to their own particular opinions the establishment of the posts was almost ruined by their hasty and repeated journeys. Our more intimate knowledge of the ecclesiastical transactions of the reign of Constantius would furnish an ample commentary on this remarkable passage which justifies the rational apprehensions of Athanasius that the restless activity of the clergy who wandered around the empire in search of true faith would excite the contempt and laughter of the unbelieving world. As soon as the emperor was relieved from the terrors of the civil war he devoted the leisure of his winter quarters at Arlais, Milan, Cirmium and Constantinople to the amusement or toils of controversy. The sword of the magistrate and even of the tyrant was unsheathed to enforce the reasons of the theologian and as he opposed the orthodox faith of Nicaea it is readily confessed that his incapacity and ignorance were equal to his presumption. The eunuchs, the women and the bishops who governed the vain and feeble mind of the emperor had inspired him with an insuperable dislike to the Homocian but his timid conscience was alarmed by the impiety of Aetius. The guilt of that Aethius was aggravated by the suspicious favor of the unfortunate Gaullus and even the death of the imperial ministers who had been massacred at Antioch were imputed to the suggestions of that dangerous sophist. The mind of Constantius which could neither be moderated by reason nor fixed by faith was blindly impelled to either side of the dark and empty abyss by his horror of the opposite extreme. He alternately embraced and condemned the sentiments. He successively banished and recalled the leaders of the Arian and Semi-Arian factions. During the season of public business or festivity he employed whole days and even nights in selecting the words and weighing the syllables which composed his fluctuating creeds. The subject of his meditations still pursued and occupied his slumbers. The incoherent dreams of the emperor were received as celestial visions and he accepted with complacency the lofty title of Bishop of Bishops from those ecclesiastics who forgot the interest of their order for the gratification of their passions. The design of establishing a uniformity of doctrine which had engaged him to convene so many synods in Gaul, Italy, Illyricum, and Asia was repeatedly baffled by his own levity, by the division of the Arians and by the resistance of the Catholics and he resolved as the last and decisive effort imperiously to dictate the decrees of a general council. The destructive earthquake of Nicomedia, the difficulty of finding a convenient place and perhaps some secret motives of policy produced an alteration in the summons. The bishops of the east were directed to meet at Saliusia in Izzoria, while those of the west held their deliberations at Rimini on the coast of the Hadriatic. And instead of two or three deputies from each province the whole Episcopal body was ordered to march. The eastern council after consuming four days in fierce and unavailing debate separated without any definitive conclusion. The council of the west was projected till the seventh month. Taurus, the Praetorian prefect, was instructed not to dismiss the prelates till they should all be united in the same opinion and his efforts were supported by the power of banishing fifteen of the most refractory and a promise of the consulship if he achieved so difficult an adventure. His prayers and threats, the authority of the sovereign, the sophistry of Valens and Hercesias, the distress of cold and hunger, and the tedious cally of a hopeless exile at length extorted the reluctant consent of the bishops of Rimini. The deputies of the east and of the west attended the emperor in the palace of Constantinople, and he enjoyed the satisfaction of imposing on the world a profession of faith which established the likeness without expressing the consubstantiality of the Son of God. But the triumphovarianism had been preceded by the removal of the orthodox clergy, whom it was impossible either to intimidate or to corrupt and the reign of Constantius was disgraced by the unjust and ineffectual persecution of the great Athanasias. We have seldom an opportunity of observing either an active or speculative life what effect may be produced or what obstacles may be surmounted by the force of a single mind when it is inflexibly applied to the pursuit of a single object. The immortal name of Athanasias will never be separated from the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity to whose defense he consecrated every moment and every faculty of his being. Educated in the family of Alexander, he had vigorously opposed the early progress of the Arian heresy. He exercised the important functions of secretary under the aged prelate, and the fathers of the Nicene Council beheld with surprise and respect the rising virtues of the young deacon. In a time of public danger, the dull claims of age and rank are sometimes superseded, and within five months after his return from Nicaea the Athanasias was seated on the arch-episcopal throne of Egypt. He filled that eminent station above forty-six years, and his long administration was spent in a perpetual combat against the powers of Arianism. Five times was Athanasias expelled from his throne. Twenty years he passed as an exiler fugitive, and almost every province of the Roman Empire was successively witnessed to his merit, and his sufferings in the cause of the Homocian, which he considered as the duty and as the glory of his life. Amidst the storms of persecution the arch-bishop of Alexandria was patient of labour, jealous of fame, careless of safety, and although his mind was tainted by the contagion of fanaticism, Athanasias displayed a superiority of character and abilities which would have qualified him far better than the degenerate sons of Constantine for the government of a great monarchy. His learning was much less profound and extensive than that of Eusebius of Korea, and his rude eloquence could not be compared with the polished oratory of Gregory of Basil, but whenever the primate of Egypt was called upon to justify his sentiments or his conduct, his unpremeditated style, either of speaking or writing, was clear, forcible, and persuasive. He has always been revered in the Orthodox school as one of the most accurate masters of Christian theology, and he was supposed to possess two profane sciences less adapted to the Episcopal nature, the knowledge of jurisprudence and that of divination. Some fortunate conjectures of future events which impartial reasoners might ascribe to the experience and judgment of Athanasias were attributed by his friends to heavenly inspiration and imputed by his enemies to infernal magic. But as Athanasias was continually engaged with the prejudices and passions of every order of men, from the monk to the emperor, the knowledge of human nature was his first and most important purpose. He preserved a distinct and unbroken view of a scene which was incessantly shifting and never failed to improve those decisive moments which are irrecoverably past before they are perceived by a common eye. The Archbishop of Alexandria was capable of distinguishing how far he might boldly command and where he must dexterously insinuate, how long he might contend with power and when he must withdraw from persecution, and while he directed the thunders of the church against heresy and rebellion he could in the bosom of his own party, the flexible and indulgent temper of a prudent leader. The election of Athanasias had not escaped through approach of irregularity and precipitation, but the propriety of his behavior conciliated the affections both of the clergy and of the people. The Alexandrians were impatient to rise in arms for the defence of an eloquent and liberal pastor. In his distress he always derived support, or at least consolation, from the faithful attachment to his parochial and hundred bishops of Egypt adhered with unshaken zeal to the cause of Athanasias. In the modest acropage which pride and policy would affect he frequently performed the episcopal visitation of his provinces from the mouth of the Nile to the confines of Ethiopia, familiarly conversing with the meanest of the populace and humbly saluting the saints and hermits of the desert. Nor was it only in ecclesiastical assemblies among men whose education and manners were similar to his own that Athanasias played the ascendancy of his genius. He appeared with easy and respectful firmness in the courts of the princes, and in the various turns of his prosperous and adverse fortune he never lost the confidence of his friends or the esteem of his enemies. In his youth the primate of Egypt resisted the great Constantine who had repeatedly signified his will that areas should be restored to the Catholic Communion. The emperor respected and might forgive this inflexible resolution, and the faction who ordered Athanasias as their most formidable enemy was constrained to disassemble their hatred and silently to prepare an indirect and distant assault. They scattered rumors and suspicions, represented the Archbishop as a proud and oppressive tyrant, and boldly accused him of violating the treaty which had been ratified in the Nicene Council with the schismatic followers of militias. Athanasias had openly disapproved that ignominious peace, and the emperor was disposed to believe that he had abused political and civil power to prosecute these odious sectaries, that he had sacrilegiously broken a chalice in one of their churches of Mariotis, that he had whipped or imprisoned six of their bishops, and that Arseneas, a seventh bishop of the same party, had been murdered or at least mutilated by the cruel hand of the primate. These charges, which affected his honor and his life, were referred by Constantine to his brother, Dalmatius the censor, who resided at Antioch. The synons of Caesarea were successively convened, and the bishops of the east were instructed to judge the cause of Athanasias, before they proceeded to consecrate the new church of the resurrection at Jerusalem. The primate might be conscious of his innocence, but he was sensible that the same implacable spirit which had dictated the accusation would direct the proceedings and pronounce the sentence. He prudently declined the tribunal of his enemies, despised the summons of the Sinod of Caesarea, and after a long and artful delay he denied the demands of the emperor, who threatened to punish his criminal disobedience if he refused to appear in the Council of Tyre. Before Athanasias, at the head of fifty Egyptian prelates, sailed from Alexandria, he had wisely secured the alliance of the militians, and Arsenias himself, his imaginary victim and his secret friend, was privately concealed by his chain. The Sinod of Tyre was conducted by Eusebius of Caesarea, with more passion and less art than his numerous faction repeated the names of homicide and tyrant, and their clamors were encouraged by the seeming patience of Athanasias, who expected the decisive moment to produce Arsenias alive and unhurt in the midst of the assembly. The nature of the other charges did not admit of such clear and satisfactory replies, yet the archbishop was able to prove that in the village where he was accused of breaking a consecrated chalice, neither church nor altar nor chalice could really exist. The Arians, who had secretly determined the guilt and condemnation of their enemy, attempted, however, to disguise their injustice by the imitation of judicial forms. The Sinod appointed an Episcopal commission of six delegates to collect evidence on the spot, and this measure, which was vigorously opposed by Egyptian bishops, opened new scenes of violence and perjury. After the return of the deputies from Alexandria, the majority of the council pronounced the final sentence of degradation and exile against the primate of Egypt. The decree expressed in the fiercest language of malice and revenge was communicated to the Emperor and the Catholic Church, and the bishops immediately resumed a mild and devout aspect, such as became their holy pilgrimage to the Sipulchre of Christ. End of Chapter 21 Part 4 Chapter 21 Part 5 of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume 2 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the main. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recorded by Kirsten Ferrari The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume 2 by Edward Gibbon Chapter 21 Persecution of Heresy State of the Church Part 5 But the injustice of these ecclesiastical judges had not been countenanced by the submission or even by the presence of Athanasias. He resolved to make a bold and dangerous experiment whether the throne was inaccessible to the voice of truth, and before the final sentence could be pronounced at Tyre, the intrepid primate threw himself into a bark which was ready to hoist sale for the Imperial City. The request of a formal audience might have been opposed or eluded, but Athanasias concealed his arrival, watched the moment of Constantine's return from an adjacent villa, and boldly encountered his angry sovereign as he passed on horseback through the principal street of the Temple. So strange an apparition excited his surprise and indignation, and the guards were ordered to remove the importunate suitor, but his resentment was subdued by involuntary respect, and the haughty spirit of the Emperor was awed by the courage and eloquence of a bishop who implored his justice and awakened his conscience. Constantine listened to the complaints of Athanasias with impartial and even gracious attention. The members of the Sinod of Tyre were summoned to justify their proceedings, and the guards of the Eusebian faction would have been confounded if they had not aggravated the guilt of the primate by the dexterous supposition of an unpardonable offense, a criminal designed to intercept and detain the cornfleet of Alexandria, which supplied the subsistence of the new capital. The Emperor was satisfied that the Peace of Egypt would be secured by the absence of a popular leader, but he refused to fill the vacancy of the archi-apiscopal throne, and the sentence, which after long was that of a jealous ostracism, rather than of an ignominious exile. In the remote province of Gaul, but in the hospitable court of Trebs, Athanasias passed about twenty-eight months. The death of the Emperor changed the face of the public affairs, and amidst the general indulgence of a young reign the primate was restored to his country by an honorable edict of the younger Constantine, who expressed a deep sense of the innocence and merit of his venerable guest. The death of that prince exposed Athanasias to a second persecution, and the feeble Constantius, the sovereign of the East, soon became the secret accomplice of the Eusebians. Ninety bishops of that sect or faction assembled at Antioch, under the specious pretense of dedicating the cathedral. They composed an ambiguous creed, which is faintly tinged with the colors of Semarianism, and twenty-five canons which still regulate the discipline of the Orthodox Greeks. It was decided with some appearance of equity that a bishop, deprived of Sinod, should not resume his episcopal functions till he had been absolved by the judgment of an equal Sinod. The law was immediately applied to the case of Athanasias. The Council of Antioch pronounced or rather confirmed his degradation. A stranger named Gregory was seated on his throne, and Filagrius, the prefect of Egypt, was instructed to support the new primate with the civil and military powers of the province. Oppressed by the conspiracy of the Asiatic prelates, Athanasias withdrew from Alexandria, and passed three years as an exile and a supplement on the holy threshold of the Vatican. By the assiduous study of the Latin language he soon qualified himself to negotiate with the Western clergy. His decent flattery swayed and directed the haughty Julius. The Roman pontiff was persuaded to consider his appeal as the peculiar interest of the Apostolic Sea, and his innocence was unanimously declared in a Council of Fifty Bishops of Italy. At the end of three years the primate was summoned to the court of Milan by the Romans, who in the indulgence of unlawful pleasures still professed a lively regard for the Orthodox faith. The cause of truth and justice was promoted by the influence of gold, and the ministers of Constans advised their sovereign to require the convocation of an ecclesiastical assembly which might act as the representatives of the Catholic Church. Ninety-four bishops of the West, seventy-six bishops of the East, encountered each other at Sardica, on the verge of the two empires, of Athanasius. Their debates soon degenerated into hostile altercations. The Asiatics, apprehensive for their personal safety, retired to Philippopolis and Thrace, and the rival Sinod's reciprocally hurled their spiritual thunders against their enemies, whom they piously condemned as the enemies of the true God. Their decrees were published and ratified in their respective provinces, and Athanasius, who in the West was revered as a saint, was exposed as a criminal to the abhorrence of the East. Philip Sardica reveals the first symptoms of discord and schism between the Greek and Latin churches which were separated by the accidental difference of faith and the permanent distinction of language. During his second exile in the West, Athanasius was frequently admitted to the imperial presence at Capua, Lodi, Milan, Verona, Padua, Aquileia, and Trefs. The bishop of the Diocese usually assisted at these interviews. The master of the office assisted before the veiler curtain of the sacred apartment, and some moderation of the primate might be attested by these respectable witnesses to whose evidence he solemnly appeals. Prudence would undoubtedly suggest the mild and respectful tone that became a subject and a bishop. In these familiar conferences with the Sovereign of the West, Athanasius might lament the error of Constantius, but he boldly arraigned the guilt of his eunuchs and his arian prelates, deplored the distressing danger of the Catholic Church, and excited constance to emulate him, the Emperor declared his resolution of employing the troops and treasures of Europe in the Orthodox cause, and signified by a concise and peremptory epistle to his brother Constantius that unless he consented to the immediate restoration of Athanasius, he himself, with a fleet and army, would seat the archbishop on the throne of Alexandria. But this religious war, so horrible to nature, was prevented by the timely compliance of Constantius, and the Emperor of the East condescended to solicit a reconciliation that he had injured. Athanasius waited with decent pride till he had received three successive epistles full of the strongest assurances of his protection, the favor and the esteem of his sovereign, who invited him to resume his episcopal seat, and who added the humiliating precaution of engaging his principal ministers to attest the sincerity of his intentions. They were manifested in a still more public manner by the strict orders which were dispatched into Egypt to recall the adherence of Athanasius, to restore their privileges, to proclaim their innocence, and to erase from the public registers the illegal proceedings which had been obtained during the prevalence of the Eusebian faction. After every satisfaction and security had been given, which justice or even delicacy could require, the primate proceeded by slow journeys through the provinces of Thrace, Asia, and Syria, and his progress was marked by the abject homage of the Oriental bishops who excited his contempt without deceiving his penetration. At the end of the walk he saw the Emperor Constantius, sustained with modest firmness the embraces and protestations of his master, and eluded the proposal of allowing the Arians a single church at Alexandria by claiming, in the other cities of the Empire, a similar toleration for his own party, a reply which might have appeared just and moderate in the mouth of an independent prince. The entrance of the archbishop into his capital was a triumphal procession. Absence and persecution had endeared him and his authority, which he exercised with rigor, was more firmly established and his fame was diffused from Ethiopia to Britain over the whole extent of the Christian world. But the subject who has reduced his prince to the necessity of dissembling can never expect a sincere and lasting forgiveness, and the tragic fate of Constans soon deprived Athanasius of a powerful and generous protector. The civil war between the assassin and the only surviving brother of Constans, which afflicted the Empire above three years, secured an interval of repose to the Catholic Church, and the two contending parties were desirous to conciliate the friendship of a bishop who by the weight of his personal authority might determine the fluctuating resolutions of an important province. He gave audience to the ambassadors of the tyrant with whom he was afterwards accused of holding secret correspondence, and the Emperor Constantius repeatedly assured his dearest father, the most reverent Athanasius, that notwithstanding the malicious rumors which were circulated by the common enemies, he had inherited the sentiments as well as the throne of his deceased brother. Gratitude and humanity would have disposed the primate of Egypt to deplore the untimely fate of Constans and to abhor the guilt of Magnentius, but as he clearly understood that the apprehensions of Constantius were his only safeguard, the fervor of his prayers for the success of the righteous cause might perhaps be somewhat evaded. The ruin of Athanasius was no longer contrived by the obscure malice of few bigoted or angry bishops who abused the authority of a credulous monarch. The monarch himself avowed the resolution, which he had so long suppressed, of avenging his private injuries, and the first winter after his victory, which he passed at Arlais, was employed against an enemy more odious to him than the vanquished tyrant of Gaul. If the Emperor had capriciously decreed the death of the most eminent and virtuous citizen of the Republic, the cruel order would have been executed without hesitation by ministers of open violence or of specious injustice. The caution, the delay, the difficulty with which he proceeded into the condemnation and punishment of a popular bishop, discovered to the world that the privileges of the Church had already revived a sense of order and freedom in the Roman government. The sentence which was pronounced in the sign-out of Tyre, and subscribed by a large majority of the Eastern bishops, had never been expressly repealed. And as Athanasius had been once his brethren, every subsequent act might be considered as irregular and even criminal. But the memory of the firm and effectual support which the primate of Egypt had derived from the attachment of the Western Church, engaged Constantius to suspend the execution of the sentence till he had obtained the concurrence of the Latin bishops. Two years were consumed in ecclesiastical negotiations, and the important cause between the Emperor and one of his subjects was solemnly debated, first and afterward in the great council of Milan, which consisted of above 300 bishops. Their integrity was gradually undermined by the arguments of the Aryans, the dexterity of the eunuchs, and the pressing solicitations of a prince who gratified his revenge at the expense of his dignity, and exposed his own passions while he influenced those of the clergy. Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty, was successfully practiced. Honors, gifts and immunities were offered and the sacrifice of an Episcopal vote, and the condemnation of the Alexandrian primate was artfully represented as the only measure which could restore the peace and union of the Catholic Church. The friends of Athanasius were not, however, wanting to their leader or to their cause. With a manly spirit, which the sanctity of their character rendered less dangerous, they maintained in public debate and in private conference with the Emperor the eternal obligation of religion and justice. They declared that neither was in favor nor the fear of his displeasure should prevail on them to join in the condemnation of an absent, an innocent, and a respectable brother. They affirmed, with apparent reason, that the illegal and obsolete decrees of the Council of Tyre had long since been tacitly abolished by the Imperial Edicts, the honorable re-establishment of the Archbishop of Alexandria, and the silence or recantation of his most clamorous adversaries. They alleged that his innocence had been attested by the unanimous bishops of Egypt, and had been counsels of Rome and Sardica by the impartial judgment of the Latin Church. They deplored the hard condition of Athanasius, who after enjoying so many years his seat, his reputation, and the seeming confidence of his sovereign was again called upon to confute the most groundless and extravagant accusations. Their language was specious, their conduct was honorable, but in this long and obstinate contest which fixed the eyes of the whole Empire on a single bishop, the ecclesiastical factions were prepared to give themselves and justice to the more interesting object of defending or removing the intrepid champion of the Nicene Faith. The Aryans still thought it prudent to disguise in ambiguous language their real sentiments and designs, but the Orthodox bishops, armed with the favor of the people and the decrees of a general council, insisted on every occasion, and particularly at Milan, that their adversaries should purge themselves from the suspicion of heresy before they presumed justice. But the voice of reason, if reason was indeed on the side of Athanasius, was silenced by the clamors of a factious or venal majority, and the councils of Arlay and Milan were not dissolved till the Archbishop of Alexandria had been solemnly conducted and deposed by the judgment of the Western as well as of the Eastern Church. The bishops who had opposed were required to subscribe the sentence and to unite in religious communion with the suspected leaders of the adverse party. Their consent was transmitted by the messengers of state to the absent bishops, and all those who refused to submit their private opinion to the public and inspired wisdom of the councils of Arlay and Milan were immediately banished by the emperor, who affected to execute the decrees of the Catholic Church. Among those prelates who led the honorable band of confessors and exiles, Liberias of Rome, Oseus of Cordova, Paulinas of Treves, Dionysius of Milan, Eusebius of Vercelli, Lucifer of Cognari and Chilri of Poitiers might deserve to be particularly distinguished. The eminent station of Liberias, who governed the capital of the empire, the personal merit and long experience of the venerable Oseus, who was revered as the favorite of the great Constantine and the father of the Nicene Faith, placed those prelates at the head of the Latin Church, and their example, either of submission or resistance, would probably be imitated by the Episcopal crowd. But the repeated attempts of the emperor to seduce or to intimidate the bishops of Cordova were for some time ineffectual. The Spaniard declared himself ready to suffer under Constantius, as he had suffered three score years before under his grandfather Maximian. The Roman, in the presence of his sovereign, asserted the innocence of Athanasius and his own freedom. When he was banished to Berea in Thrace, he sent back a large sum which had been offered for the accommodation of his journey, and insulted the court of Milan by the haughty remark that the emperor and his wife sought that gold to pay their soldiers and their bishops. The resolution of Liberius and Osias was at length subdued by the hardships of exile and confinement. The Roman Pontiff purchased his return by some criminal compliances, and afterwards expiated his guilt by a seasonable repentance. Persuasion and violence were employed to extort the reluctant signature of the decrepit bishop of Cordova, whose strength was broken, and whose faculties were perhaps impaired by the weight of his life. The excellent triumph of the Arians provoked some of the Orthodox party to treat within human severity the character, or rather the memory of an unfortunate old man, to whose former service's Christianity itself was so deeply indebted. The fall of Liberius and Osias reflected a brighter luster on the firmness of those bishops who still adhered with unshaken fidelity to the cause of Athanasius and the religious truth. The ingenious malice of their enemies had deprived them of comfort and advice, separated those illustrious exiles into distant provinces, and carefully selected the most inhospitable spots of a great empire. Yet they soon experienced that the deserts of Libya and the most barbarous tracts of Cappadocia were less inhospitable than the residents of those cities in which an Aryan bishop could satiate without restraint, the exquisite rancor of theological hatred. Their consolation was derived from the consciousness of rectitude and from the applause, the visits, the letters and the liberal alms of their adherents, and from the satisfaction which they soon enjoyed of observing the intestine divisions of the adversaries of the Nicene Faith. Such was the nice and capricious taste of Emperor Constantius, and so easily was he offended by the slightest deviation from his imaginary standard of Christian truth, that he persecuted with equal zeal those who defended the consubstantiality, those who asserted the similar substance, and those who liked the likeness of the Son of God. Three bishops, degraded and banished for those adverse opinions, might possibly meet in the same place of exile, and according to the difference of their temper, might either pity or insult the blind enthusiasm of their antagonists, whose present sufferings would never be compensated by future happiness. The disgrace and exile of the Orthodox bishops of the West were designed as so many preparatory steps to the ruin of Athanasius himself. Six and twenty months had elapsed, during which the Imperial Court secretly labored by the most insidious arts to remove him from Alexandria, and to withdraw the allowance which supplied his popular liberality. But when the primate of Egypt, deserted and prohibited by the Latin Church was left destitute of any foreign support, Constantius dispatched two of his secretaries with a verbal commission to announce and execute the order of his banishment. As the justice of the sentence was publicly filed by the whole party, the only motive which could restrain Constantius from giving his messengers the sanction of a written mandate must be imputed to his doubt of the event, and to a sense of the danger to which he might expose the second city, and the most fertile province of the empire, if the people should persist in their resolution of defending by force of arms, the innocence of their spiritual father. Such extreme caution afforded Athanasius a specious pretense respectfully to dispute the truth of an order which would be more with the former declarations of his gracious master. The civil powers of Egypt found themselves inadequate to the task of persuading or compelling the primate to abdicate his episcopal throne, and they were obliged to conclude a treaty with the popular leaders of Alexandria by which it was stipulated that all proceedings and all hostilities should be suspended till the emperor's pleasure had been more distinctly ascertained. By this eminidation the Catholics were deceived into a false and fatal allegiance to the regions of the Upper Egypt and of Libya advanced by secret orders and hasty marches to beseege or rather to surprise a capital habituated to sedition and inflamed by religious seal. The position of Alexandria between the sea and the lake Mariotis facilitated the approach and landing of the troops who were introduced into the heart of the city before any effectual measure could be taken either to shut the gates or to occupy the important posts of defense. Twenty-three days after the signature of the treaty Sirianus, Duke of Egypt, up the head of five thousand soldiers armed and prepared for an assault unexpectedly invested the Church of St. Theonus, where the archbishop with part of his clergy and people performed their nocturnal devotions. The doors of the sacred edifice yielded to the impetuosity of the attack which was accompanied with every horrid circumstance of tumult and bloodshed. But as the bodies of the slain and the fragments of military weapons remained the next day an unexceptionable evidence in the possession of the Catholics, the enterprise of Sirianus may be considered as a successful eruption rather than as an absolute conquest. The other churches of the city were profaned by similar outrages and during at least four months Alexandria was exposed to the insults of a licentious army, stimulated by the ecclesiastics of a hostile faction. Many of the faithful were killed, who may deserve the name of martyrs if their deaths were neither provoked or avenged. Bishops and presbyters were treated with cruel ignominy. Consecrated virgins were stripped naked, scourged, and violated. The houses of wealthy citizens were plundered and under the mask of religious zeal lust, avarice, and private resentment were gratified with impunity and even applause. The pagans of Alexandria who still formed a numerous and discontented party were easily persuaded to desert a bishop whom they feared and esteemed. The hopes of some peculiar favors and apprehension of being involved in the general penalties of rebellion engaged them to promise their support to the destined successor of Athanasius, the famous George of Cappadocia. The usurper, after receiving the consecration of an Aryan Sinod, was placed on the Episcopal throne by the arms of Sebastian who had been appointed Count of Egypt for the execution of that important design. In the use, as well as in the acquisition of power, the tyrant George disregarded the laws of religion, of justice, and of humanity. In the same scenes of violence and scandal which had been exhibited in the capital were repeated in more than 90 Episcopal cities of Egypt. Encouraged by success, Constantius ventured to approve the conduct of his minister. By a public and passionate epistle, the emperor congratulates the deliverance of Alexandria from a popular tyrant who diluted his blind votaries by the magic of his eloquence, expatiates on the virtues and piety of the most reverent George, the bishop, and despires as the patron and benefactor of the city to surpass the fame of Alexander himself. But he solemnly declares his unalterable resolution to pursue with fire and sword the seditious adherents of the wicked Athanasius who, by flying from justice, has confessed his guilt and escaped the ignominious death which he had so often deserved. End of Chapter 21 Part 5 Chapter 21 Part 6 of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume 2 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume 2 by Edward Gibbon Chapter 21 Persecution of Heresy State of the Church Part 6 Athanasius had indeed escaped from the most imminent dangers, and the adventures of that extraordinary man deserve and fix our attention. On the memorable night when the Church of St. Theonis was invested by the troops of Sirianus, the Archbishop, seated on his throne, expected with calm and intrepid dignity the approach of death. While the public devotion was interrupted by shouts of rage and cries of terror, he animated his trembling congregation to express their religious confidence by chanting one of the Psalms which celebrates the triumph of the God of Israel over the haughty and impious tyrant of Egypt. The doors were at length burst open, a cloud of arrows was discharged among the people, the soldiers with drawn swords rushed forward into the sanctuary, and the dreadful gleam of their arms was reflected by the holy luminaries which burnt round the altar. Athanasius still rejected the pious importunity of the monks and presbyters who were attached to his person and nobly refused to desert his episcopal station till he had dismissed in safety the last of the congregation. The darkness and tumult of the night favored the retreat of the Archbishop and though he was oppressed by the waves of an agitated multitude, though he was thrown to the ground and left without censor motion, he still recovered his undaunted courage and eluded the eager search of the soldiers who were instructed by their Aryan guides that the head of Athanasius would be the most acceptable present to the emperor. From that moment the primate of Egypt disappeared from the eyes of his enemies and remained above six years concealed in impenetrable obscurity. The despotic power of his implacable enemy filled the whole extent of the Roman world, and the exasperated monarch had endeavored by a very pressing epistle to the Christian princes of Ethiopia to exclude Athanasius from the most remote and sequestered regions of the earth. Counts, prefects, tribunes, whole armies were successively employed to pursue a bishop and a fugitive. The vigilance of the civil and military powers was excited by the imperial edicts. Liberal rewards were promised to the man who should produce Athanasius, either alive or dead, and the most severe penalties were denounced against those who should dare to protect the public enemy. But the deserts of Thibias were now peopled by a race of wild, yet submissive fanatics who preferred the commands of their abbot to the laws of their sovereign. The numerous disciples of Antony and Pecomias received the fugitive primate as their father, admired the patience and humility with which he conformed to their strictest institutions, collected every word which dropped from his lifts as the genuine effusions of inspired wisdom, and persuaded themselves that their prayers, their fasts, and their vigils were less meritorious than the zeal which they expressed and the dangers which they braved in the defense of truth and innocence. The monasteries of Egypt were seated in lonely and desolate places on the summits of mountains or in the islands of the Nile, and the sacred horn or trumpet of Tabin was the well-known signal which assembled several thousand robust and determined monks, who for the most part had been the peasants of the adjacent country. When their dark retreats were invaded by a military force which it was impossible to resist, they silently stretched out their necks to the executioner and supported their national character that tortures could never rest from an Egyptian the confession of a secret which he was resolved not to disclose. The archbishop of Alexandria for whose safety they eagerly devoted their lives was lost among a uniform and well-disciplined multitude, and on the nearer approach of danger he was swiftly removed by their officious hands from one place of concealment to another, till he reached the formidable deserts which the gloomy and credulous temper of superstition had peopled with demons and savage monsters. The retirement of Athanasius which ended only with the life of Constantius was spent for the most part in the society of the monks who faithfully served him as guards, as secretaries and as messengers, but the importance of maintaining a more intimate connection with the Catholic party tempted him, whenever the diligence of the pursuit was abated, to emerge from the desert, to introduce himself into Alexandria, and to trust his person to the discretion of his friends and adherents. His various adventures might have furnished the subject of a very entertaining romance. He was once secreted in a dry cistern which he had scarcely left before he was betrayed by the treachery of a female slave, and he was once concealed in a still more extraordinary asylum, the house of a virgin only twenty years of age and who was celebrated in the whole city for her exquisite beauty. At the hour of midnight, as she related the story many years afterwards, she was surprised by the appearance of the archbishop in his undress, who, advancing with hasty steps, conjured her to afford him the protection which he had been directed by a celestial vision to seek under her hospitable roof. The pious maid accepted and preserved the sacred pledge which was entrusted to her prudence and courage. Without imparting the secret to anyone, she instantly conducted Athanasius to her most secret chamber, and watched over his safety with the tenderness of a friend and the aciduity of a servant. As long as the danger continued, she regularly supplied him with books and provisions, washed his feet, managed his correspondence, and dexterously concealed from the eye of suspicion this familiar and solitary intercourse between a saint whose character required the most unblemished chastity, and a female whose charms might excite the most dangerous emotions. During the six years of persecution and exile, Athanasius repeated his visits to his fair and faithful companion, and the formal declaration that he saw the counsels of Romini and Celucia forces us to believe that he was secretly present at the time and place of their convocation. The advantage of personally negotiating with his friends and of observing and improving the divisions of his enemies might justify in a prudent statesman so bold and dangerous an enterprise, and Alexandria was connected by trade and navigation with every seaport of the Mediterranean. From the depth of his inaccessible retreat the intrepid primate waged an incessant and offensive war against the protector of the Aryans, and his seasonable writings which were diligently circulated and eagerly perused contributed to unite and animate the Orthodox party. In his public apologies which he addressed to the emperor himself, he sometimes affected the praise of moderation. Whilst at the same time in secret and vehement invectives he exposed Constantius as a weak and wicked prince, the executioner of his family, the tyrant of the republic, and the antichrist of the church. In the height of his prosperity the victorious monarch who had chastised the rashness of Gaulis and suppressed the revolt of Silvanus, who had taken the diadem from the head of Vitriano and vanquished in the field the legions of Magnentius, received from an invisible hand a wound which he could neither heal nor revenge, and the son of Constantine was the first of the Christian princes who experienced the strength of those principles which in the cause of religion could resist the most violent exertions of the civil power. The persecution of Athanasius and of so many respectable bishops who suffered or at least for the integrity of their conscience was a just subject of indignation and discontent to all Christians except those who were blindly devoted to the Aryan faction. The people regretted the loss of their faithful pastors whose banishment was usually followed by the intrusion of a stranger into their episcopal chair and loudly complained that the right of election was violated and that they were condemned to obey a mercenary usurper whose person was alone and whose principles were suspected. The Catholics might prove to the world that they were not involved in the guilt and heresy of their ecclesiastical governor by publicly testifying their descent or by totally separating themselves from his communion. The first of these methods was invented at Antioch and practiced with such success that it was soon diffused over the Christian world. The doxology or sacred hymn which celebrates the Trinity is susceptible of very nice but material inflections and the substance of an orthodox or an heretical creed may be expressed by the differences of a disjunctive or a copulative particle. Alternate responses and a more regular psalmody were introduced into the public service by Flavianus and Deodorus to devout an active layman who were attached to the nicing faith. Under their conduct a swarm of monks issued from the adjacent desert, bands of well-disciplined singers were stationed in the Cathedral of Antioch. The glory to the father and the son and the Holy Ghost was triumphantly chanted by a full chorus of voices and the Catholics insulted by the purity of their doctrine the Arian prelate who had usurped the throne of the venerable Eustapheus. The same zeal which inspired their songs prompted the more scrupulous members of the orthodox party to form separate assemblies which were governed by the presbyters till the death of their exiled bishop allowed the election and consecration of a new Episcopal pastor. The revolutions of the court multiplied the number of pretenders and the same city was often disputed under the reign of Constantius by two or three or even four bishops who exercised their spiritual jurisdiction over their respective followers and alternately lost and regained the temporal possessions of the church. The abuse of Christianity introduced into the Roman government new causes of tyranny and sedition. The bands of civil society were torn asunder by the fury of religious factions and the obscure citizen who might calmly have surveyed the elevation and fall of successive emperors imagined and experienced that his own life and fortune were connected with the interests of a popular ecclesiastic. The example of the two capitals, Rome and Constantinople, may serve to represent the state of the empire and the temper of mankind under the reign of the sons of Constantine. The Roman pontiff as long as he maintained his station and his principles was guarded by the warm attachment of a great people and could reject with scorn the prayers, the menaces, and the obligations of an heretical prince. When the eunuchs had secretly the exile of Liberias, the well grounded apprehension of a tumult engaged them to use the utmost precautions in the execution of the sentence. The capital was invested on every side and the prefect was commanded to seize the person of the bishop either by stratagem or by open force. The order was obeyed and Liberias with the greatest difficulty at the hour of midnight was swiftly conveyed beyond the reach of the Roman siege. As soon as they were informed of his banishment into Thrace a general assembly was convened and the clergy of Rome bound themselves by a public and solemn oath never to desert their bishop, never to acknowledge the usurper phallus who by the influence of the eunuchs had been irregularly chosen and consecrated within the walls of a profane palace. At the end of two years their pious obscenities subsisted entire time. When Stantius visited Rome he was assailed by the importunate solicitations of a people who had preserved as the last remnant of their ancient freedom the right of treating their sovereign with familiar insolence. The wives of many of the senators and most honorable citizens after pressing their husbands to intercede in favor of Liberias were advised to undertake a commission in which their hands would be less dangerous and received with politeness these female deputies whose wealth and dignity were displayed in the magnificence of their dress and ornaments. He admired their inflexible resolution of following their beloved pastor to the most distant regions of the earth and consented that the two bishops, Liberias and Felix, should govern in peace their respective congregations. But the ideas of toleration were so repugnant to the practice which was publicly read in the Circus of Rome so reasonable project of accommodation was rejected with contempt and ridicule. The eager vehemence which animated the spectators in the decisive moment of a horse race was now directed towards a different object and the Circus resounded with the shout of thousands who repeatedly exclaimed, one God, one Christ, one Bishop. The zeal of the Roman people in the cause of Liberias was not alone, and the dangerous and bloody sedition which they excited soon after the departure of Constantius determined that prince to accept the submission of the exiled prelet, and to restore him to the undivided dominion of the capital. After some ineffectual resistance his rival was expelled from the city by the permission of the emperor and the power of the opposite faction. The adherents of Felix were inhumanely murdered in the streets, in the public places, in even in the churches, and the face of Rome upon the return of a Christian bishop renewed the horrid image of the massacre of Marius and the prescriptions of Silla. Notwithstanding the rapid increase of Christians under the reign of the Flavian family, Rome, Alexandria and the other great cities of the empire still contained a strong and powerful faction of infidels who envied the prosperity and who ridiculed even in their theaters the theological disputes of the church. Constantinople alone enjoyed the advantage of being born and educated in the bosom of the faith. The capital of the east had never been polluted by the worship of idols, and the whole body of the people had deeply imbibed the opinions, the virtues, and the passions which distinguished the Christians of that age from the rest of mankind. After the death of Alexander the Episcopal throne was disputed by Paul and Macedonias. By their zeal and abilities they both deserved the eminent station to which they aspired. And if the moral character of Macedonias was less exceptionable, his competitor had the advantage of a prior election and a more orthodox doctrine. His firm attachment to the Nicene Creed, which has given Paul a place in the calendar among saints and martyrs, exposed him to the resentment of the Aryans. In the space of fourteen years he was five times driven from his throne to which he was more frequently restored by the violence of the people than by the permission of the prince. And the power of Macedonias could be secured only by the death of his rival. The unfortunate Paul was dragged in chains from the sandy deserts of Mesopotamia to the most desolate places of Mount Taurus. Confined in a dark and narrow dungeon, left six days without food and at length strangled by the order of Philip one of the Constantias. The first blood which stained the new capital was spilt in this ecclesiastical contest and many persons were slain on both sides in the furious and obstinate seditions of the people. The commission of enforcing a sentence of banishment against Paul had been entrusted to Hermogenes, the master general of the cavalry, but the execution of it was fatal to himself. The Catholics rose in defense of what was consumed. The first military officer of the empire was dragged by the heels through the streets of Constantinople and after he expired his lifeless corpse was exposed to their wanton insults. The fate of Hermogenes instructed Philip, the Praetorian Prefect, to act with more precaution on a similar occasion. In the most gentle and honorable terms he required the attendance of Paul in the baths of private communication with the palace and the sea. A vessel which lay ready at the garden stares immediately hoisted sail and, while the people were still ignorant of the meditated sacrilege, their bishop was already embarked on his voyage to Thessalonica. They soon beheld with surprise and indignation the gates of the palace thrown open and the usurper Macedonias seated by the side of the Prefect on a lofty chariot which was surrounded by troops of guards with drawn swords. The military procession advanced towards the cathedral, the Aryans and the Catholics eagerly rushed to occupy that important post and 3,150 persons lost their lives in the confusion of the tumult. Macedonias, who was supported by a regular force, obtained a decisive victory, but his reign was disturbed by clamor and sedition and the causes which appeared with the subject of dispute were sufficient to nourish and to kindle the flame of civil discord. As the chapel in which the body of the great Constantine had been deposited was in a ruinous condition, the bishop transported those venerable remains into the church of Saint Acacius. This prudent and even pious measure was represented as a wicked profanation by the whole party which adhered to the Homoosian doctrine. The factions immediately flew to arms, the consecrated ground was used as their field of battle and one of the ecclesiastical historians has observed, as a real fact, not as a figure of rhetoric, that the well before the church overflowed with a stream of blood which filled the porticoes and the adjacent courts. The writer who should impute these tumults solely to a religious principle would betray a very imperfect knowledge of human nature. Yet it must be confessed that the motive which misled the sincerity of Zael and the pretense which disguised the licentiousness of passion suppressed the remorse which, in another cause, would have succeeded to the rage of the Christians at Constantinople. End of Chapter 21 Part 6