XX. CHAP. Pants, who were not invested with the majesty of the purple. St. Athanasius excommunicated one of the ministers of Egypt; and the interdict which he pronounced, of fire and water, was solemnly transmitted to the churches of Cappadocials. Under the reign of the younger Theodosius, the polite and eloquent Synesius, one of the descendants of Hercules116, filled the episcopal seat of Ptolemais, near the ruins of ancient Cyrene, and the philosophic bishop supported, with dignity, the character which he had assumed with reluctance. He vanquished the monster of Lybia, the president Andronicus, who abused the authority of a venal office, invented new modes of rapine and torture, and aggravated the guilt of oppression and that of sacrilege 120. After a fruitless attempt to re 115 Basil. Epistol. xlvii. in Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A. D. 370. No. 91.) who declares, that he purposely relates it, to convince governors that they were not exempt from a sentence of excommunication. In his opinion, even a royal head is not safe from the thunders of the Vatican; and the cardinal shews himself much more consistent than the lawyers and theologians of the Gallican church. 116 The long series of his ancestors, as high as Eurysthenes, the first Doric king of Sparta, and the fifth in lineal descent from Hercules, was inscribed in the public registers of Cyrene, a Lacedæmonian colony (Synes. Epist. lvii. p. 197. edit. Petav.). Such a pure and illustrious pedigree of seventeen hundred years, without adding the royal ancestors of Hercules, cannot be equalled in the history of mankind. 118 Synesius (de Regno, p. 2.) pathetically deplores the fallen and ruined state of Cyrene, πολις Ελληνες παλαιον ονομα και σεμνον, και εν ώδη μυρία των παλαι σοφων, των πένης και κατήφης, και μέγα ερείπιον. Ptolemais, a new eity, 82 miles to the westward of Cyrene, assumed the Metropolitan honours of the Pentapolis, or Upper Libya, which were afterwards transferred to Sozusa. See Wesseling Itinerar. p. 67-68. 732. Cellarius Geograph. tom. ii. part ii. p. 72-74. Carolus a Sto Paulo Geograph. Sacra, p. 273. D'Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. iii. p. 43, 44. Memoires de l'Acad. des Inscriptions, tom. xxxvii. p. 363-391. 119 Synesius had previously represented his own disqualifications (Epist. c. v. p. 246-250.) He loved profane studies and profane sports; he was incapable of supporting a life of celibacy, he disbelieved the resurrection; and he refused to preach fables to the people, unless he might be permitted to philosophize at home. Theophilus, primate of Egypt, who knew his merit, accepted this extraordinary compromise. See the life of Synesius, in Tillemont Mem. Eccles. tom. xii. p. 499–554. 120 See the invective of Synesius, Epist. lvii. p. 191–201. The promotion of Andronicus was illegal, since he was a native of Berenice, in the same province. The instruments of torture are curiously specified, the πιεσήριον, or press, the δαχτυλήθρα, the ποδοςραβn, the pινολάβος, the ωταγρα, and the xxsgopov, that variously pressed or distended the fingers, the feet, the nose, the ears, and the lips of the victims. XX. claim the haughty magistrate by mild and religious CHAP. admonition, Synesius proceeds to inflict the last sentence of ecclesiastical justice", which devotes Andronicus, with his associates and their families, to the abhorrence of earth and heaven. The impenitent sinners, more cruel than Phalaris, or Sennacherib, more destructive than war, pestilence, or a cloud of locusts, are deprived of the name and privileges of Christians, of the participation of the sacraments, and of the hope of Paradise. The bishop exhorts the clergy, the magistrates, and the people, to renounce all society with the enemies of Christ; to exclude them from their houses and tables; and to refuse them the common offices of life, and the decent rites of burial. The church of Ptolemais, obscure and contemptible as she may appear, addresses this declaration to all her sister churches of the world; and the profane who reject her decrees, will be involved in the guilt and punishment of Andronicus and his impious followers. These spiritual terrors were enforced by a dexterous application to the Byzantine court; the trembling president implored the mercy of the church; and the descendant of Hercules enjoyed the satisfaction of raising a prostrate tyrant from the ground122 Such principles and such examples insensibly prepared the triumph of the Roman pontiffs, who have trampled on the necks of kings. dom of VI. Every popular government has experienced the VI. Freeeffects of rude or artificial eloquence. The coldest public nature is animated, the firmest reason is moved, by the preachrapid communication of the prevailing impulse; and ing. each hearer is affected by his own passions, and by those of the surrounding multitude. The ruin of civil liberty had silenced the demagogues of Athens, and the tribunes of Rome; the custom of preaching, which seems to constitute a considerable part of Christian devotion, had not been introduced into the temples of 121 The sentence of excommunication is expressed in a rhetorical style. (Synesius, Epist. Iviii. p. 201–203.) The method of involving whole fa milies, though somewhat unjust, was improved into national interdicts. 122 See Synesius, Epist. xlvii. p. 186, 187. Epist. Ixxii. p. 218, 219. Epist. lxxxix. p. 230, 231. XX. CHAP. antiquity; and the ears of monarchs were never invaded by the harsh sound of popular eloquence, till the pulpits of the empire were filled with sacred orators, who possessed some advantages unknown to their profane predecessors123. The arguments and rhetoric of the tribune were instantly opposed, with equal arms, by skilful and resolute antagonists; and the cause of truth and reason might derive an accidental support from the conflict of hostile passions. The bishop or some distinguished presbyter, to whom he cautiously delegated the powers of preaching, harangued, without the danger of interruption or reply, a submissive multitude, whose minds had been prepared and subdued by the awful ceremonies of religion. Such was the strict subordination of the catholic church, that the same concerted sounds might issue at once from an hundred pulpits of Italy or Egypt, if they were tuned 24 by the master hand of the Roman or Alexandrian primate. The design of this institution was laudable, but the fruits were not always salutary. The preachers recommended the practice of the social duties; but they exalted the perfection of monastie virtue, which is painful to the individual, and useless to mankind. Their charitable exhortations betrayed a secret wish, that the clergy might be permitted to manage the wealth of the faithful, for the benefit of the poor. The most sublime representations of the attri butes and laws of the Deity were sullied by an idle mixture of metaphysical subtleties, puerile rites, and fictitious miracles: and they expatiated, with the most fervent zeal, on the religious merit of hating the adversaries, and obeying the ministers of the church. 123 See Thomassin (Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. ii. 1. iii. c. 83. p. 1761 -1770.) and Bingham (Antiquities, vol. i. 1. xiv. c. 4. p. 688-717.) Preaching was considered as the most important office of the bishop; but this function, was sometimes intrusted to such presbyters as Chrysostom and Augustin. 124 Queen Elizabeth used this expression, and practised this art, whenever she wished to prepossess the minds of her people in favour of any extraordinary measure of government. The hostile effects of this music were apprehended by her successor, and severely felt by his son. "When pulpit, drum ecclesiastic, &c." See Heylin's Life of Archbishop Laud, p. 152. XX. When the public peace was distracted by heresy and CHAP. schism, the sacred orators sounded the trumpet, of discord, and perhaps of sedition. The understandings of their congregations were perplexed by mystery, their passions were inflamed by invectives; and they rushed from the Christian temples of Antioch or Alexandria, prepared either to suffer or to inflict martyrdom. The corruption of taste and language is strongly marked in the vehement declamations of the Latin bishops, but the compositions of Gregory and Chrysostom have been compared with the most splendid models of Attic, or at least of Asiatic eloquence' 125 VII. The representatives of the Christian republic VII. Priwere regularly assembled in the spring and autumn vilege of legislative of each year and these synods diffused the spirit of assemecclesiastical discipline and legislation through the blies. hundred and twenty provinces of the Roman world 126. The archbishop or metropolitan was empowered, by the laws, to summon the suffragan bishops of his province; to revise their conduct, to vindicate their rights, to declare their faith, and to examine the merit of the candidates who were elected by the clergy and people to supply the vacancies of the episcopal college. The primates of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Carthage, and afterwards Constantinople, who exercised a more ample jurisdiction, convened the numerous assembly of their dependent bishops. But the convocation of great and extraordinary synods was the prerogative of the emperor alone. Whenever the emergencies of the church required this decisive measure, he despatched a peremptory summons to the bishops, or the deputies of each province, with an order for the use of post horses, and a competent, allowance for the 125 Those modest orators acknowledged, that, as they were destitute of the gift of miracles, they endeavoured to acquire the arts of eloquence. 126 The Council of Nice, in the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh, canons, has made some fundamental regulations concerning synods, metropolitans, and primates. The Nicene canons have been variously tortured, abused, interpolated, or forged, according to the interest of the clergy. The Subur bicarian churches, assigned (by Rufinus) to the bishop of Rome, have been made the subject of vehement controversy. See Sirmond, Opera, tom. iv. p. 1-238. XX. A. D. 314. CHAP. expenses of their journey. At an early period, when Constantine was the protector, rather than the proselyte, of Christianity, he referred the African controversy to the council of Arles; in which the bishops of York, of Treves, of Milan, and of Carthage, met as friends and brethren, to debate in their native tongue on the common interest of the Latin or Western A. D. 325. church127. Eleven years afterwards, a more numerous and celebrated assembly was convened at Nice in Bitynia, to extinguish, by their final sentence, the subtle disputes which had arisen in Egypt on the subject of the Trinity. Three hundred and eighteen bishops obeyed the summons of their indulgent master; the ecclesiastics of every rank, and sect, and denomination, have been computed at two thousand and fortyeight persons 128; the Greeks appeared in person; and the consent of the Latins was expressed by the legates of the Roman pontiff. The session, which lasted about two months, was frequently honoured by the presence of the emperor. Leaving his guards at the door, he seated himself (with the permission of the council) on a low stool in the midst of the hall. Constantine listened with patience, and spoke with modesty and while he influenced the debates, he humbly professed that he was the minister, not the judge, of the successors of the apostles, who had been established as priests and as gods upon earth 129. Such profound reverence of an absolute monarch towards a feeble and unarmed assembly of his own subjects, can only be compared to the respect with which the senate had been treated by the Roman princes who adopted the policy of Augustus. Within the space of fifty years, a philosophic spectator of the vicissitudes of human 127 We have only thirty-three or forty-seven episcopal subscriptions, but Ado, a writer indeed of small account, reckons six hundred bishops in the council of Arles. Tillemont Mem. Eccles. tom. vi. p. 422. 128 See Tillemont, tom. vi. p. 915, and Bausobre Hist, du Manicheisme, tom. i. p. 529. The name of bishop, which is given by Eutychius to the 2048 ecclesiastics (Annal. tom. i. p. 440. vers. Pocock), must be extended far beyond the limits of an orthodox or even episcopal ordination. 129 See Euseb. in Vit. Constantin. 1. iii. c. 6-21. Tillemont Mem. Ecclesiastiques, tom. vi. p. 669-759, |