СНАР. XXI the Donatifts to refuse obedience to the ufurpers, whose election they difputed, 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 Cæcilian, and of the Traditors, from whom he derived his pretended ordination. They afferted with confidence, and almoft with exultation, that the Apoftolical fucceffion was interrupted; that all the bishops of Europe and Afia were infected by the contagion of guilt and fchifm; and that the prerogatives of the Catholic church were confined to the chofen portion of the African believers, who alone had preferved inviolate the integrity of their faith and difcipline. This rigid theory was supported by the most uncharitable conduct. Whenever they acquired a profelyte, even from the diftant provinces of the Eaft, they carefully repeated the facred rites of baptifm and ordination; as they rejected the validity of those which he had already received from the hands of heretics or fchifmatics. Bishops, virgins, and even fpotlefs infants, were fubjected to the disgrace of a public penance, before they could be admitted to the communion of the Donatifts. If they obtained poffeffion of a church which had been used by their Catholic adverfaries, they purified the unhallowed building with the fame jealous care which a temple of Idols might have required. They washed the pavement, scraped the walls, burnt the altar, which was commonly of wood, melted the confecrated plate, and caft 8 the Holy Eucharift to the dogs, with every cir cumftance of ignominy which could provoke and perpetuate the animofity of religious factions?. Notwithstanding this irreconcilable averfion, the two parties, who were mixed and separated in all the cities of Africa, had the fame language and manners, the fame zeal and learning, the fame faith and worship. Profcribed by the civil and ecclefiaftical powers of the empire, the Donatifts ftill maintained in fome provinces, particularly in Numidia, their fuperior numbers; and four hundred bishops acknowledged the jurifdiction of their primate. But the invincible spirit of the fect fometimes preyed on its own vitals; and the bosom of their fchifmatical church was torn by inteftine divifions. A fourth part of the Donatift bishops followed the independent standard of the Maximianists. The narrow and folitary path which their first leaders had marked out, continued to deviate from the great fociety of mankind. Even the imperceptible fect of the Rogatians could af firm, without a blush, that when Chrift should defcend to judge the earth, he would find his true religion preferved only in a few nameless villages of the Cæfarean Mauritania The fchifm of the Donatifts was confined to Africa: the more diffufive mifchief of the Trinitarian controverfy fucceffively penetrated into every part of the Chriftian world. The former was an accidental quarrel, occafioned by the abuse of freedom; the latter was a high and myfterious argument, derived from the abuse of philofophy. CHAP. XXI. The Trini tarian controverfy. СНАР. XXI. The fyftem of Plato. Before From the age of Conftantine to that of Clovis and Theodoric, the temporal interefts both of the Romans and Barbarians were deeply involved in the theological difputes of Arianifm. The hiftorian may therefore be permitted refpectfully to withdraw the veil of the fanctuary; and to deduce the progrefs of reason and faith, of error and paffion, from the fchool 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 Chrift 360. the priests of Egypt " had ventured to explore the mysterious pature of the Deity. When he had elevated his mind to the fublime contemplation of the first felf-exiftent, neceffary cause of the universe, the Athenian fage was incapable of conceiving how the fimple unity of his effence could admit the infinite variety of diftinct and fucceflive ideas which compofe the model of the intellectual world; how a Being purely incorporeal could execute that perfect model, and mould with a plaftic 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 confider the divine nature under the threefold modification; of the first cause, the reafon or Logos, and the foul or fpirit of the universe. His poetical imagination fometimes fixed and animated thefe metaphyfical abftractions; the three archical or original principles were reprefented in the Platonic fyftem as three Gods, united with each other by The LO. GOS. a mysterious and ineffable generation; and the Logos was particularly confidered under the more acceffible character of the Son of an Eternal Father, and the Creator and Governor of the world. Such appear to have been the fecret doctrines which were cautiously whispered in the gardens of the academy; and which, according to the more recent difciples of Plato, could not be perfectly understood, till after an affiduous study of thirty years 12 СНАР. XXI. the school of Alex Before Christ 300, The arms of the Macedonians diffused over Afia taught in and Egypt the language and learning of Greece; and the theological fyftem of Plato was taught, andria. with less reserve, and perhaps with fome improvements, in the celebrated fchool of Alexandria ". A numerous colony of Jews had been invited, by the favour of the Ptolemies, to fettle in their new capital". While the bulk of the nation practised the legal ceremonies, and pursued the lucrative occupations of commerce, a few Hebrews, of a more liberal spirit, devoted their lives to religious and philofophical contemplation ". They cultivated with diligence, and embraced with ardour, the theological fyftem of the Athenian fage. But their national pride would have been mortified by a fair confeffion of their former poverty: and they boldly marked, as the facred inheritance of their ancestors, the gold and jewels which they had fo lately ftolen from their Egyptian mafters. One hundred years before the birth of Chrift, a philo- Chrift 100. fophical treatife, which manifeftly betrays the style and fentiments of the school of Plato, was produced Before XXI. 18 CHAP, by the Alexandrian Jews, and unanimously received as a genuine and valuable relic of the inspired Wisdom of Solomon ". A fimilar union of the Mofaic faith, and the Grecian philofophy, diftinguishes the works of Philo, which were compofed, for the most part, under the reign of Auguftus". The material foul 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 thofe familiar offices which feem incompatible with the nature and attributes of the Univerfal Caufe ". Revealed by the Apoftle St. John A. D. 97. The eloquence of Plato, the name of Solomon, the authority of the school of Alexandria, and the confent of the Jews and Greeks, were infufficient to establish the truth of a mysterious doctrine, which might please, but could not fatisfy, a rational mind. A prophet, or apostle, infpired by the Deity, can alone exercise a lawful dominion over the faith of mankind; and the theology of Plato might have been for ever confounded with the philofophical vifions of the Academy, the Porch, and the Lycæum, if the name and divine attributes of the Logos had not been confirmed by the celeftial pen of the last and most sublime of the Evangelifts. The Chriftian Revelation, which was confummated under the reign of Nerva, difclofed to the world the amazing fecret, that the LOGOS, who was with God from the beginning, and was God, who had made all things, and for |