hostility the trade of the East and West was attracted to this convenient station; and the market could offer the produce of every clime and the interpreters of every tongue. But in this conflux of nations, every vice was propagated and practised: of all the disciples of Jesus and Mahomet, the male and female inhabitants of Acre were esteemed the most corrupt; nor could the abuse of religion be corrected by the discipline of law. The city had many sovereigns, and no government. The kings of Jerusalem and Cyprus, of the house of Lusignan, the princes of Antioch, the counts of Tripoli and Sidon, the great masters of the hospital, the temple, and the Teutonic order, the republics of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, the pope's legate, the kings of France and England, assumed an independent command: seventeen tribunals exercised the power of life and death; every criminal was protected in the adjacent quarter; and the perpetual jealousy of the nations often burst forth in acts of violence and blood. Some adventurers, who disgraced the ensign of the cross, compensated their want of pay by the plunder of the Mahometan villages: nineteen Syrian merchants, who traded under the public faith, were despoiled and hanged by the Christians; and the denial of satisfaction justified the arms of the sultan Khalil. He marched against Acre, at the head of sixty thousand horse and one hundred and forty thousand foot: his train of artillery (if I may use the word) was numerous and weighty: the separate timbers of a single engine were transported in one hundred, waggons; and the royal historian Abulfeda, who served with the troops of Hamah, was himself a spectator of the holy war. Whatever might be the vices of the Franks, their courage was rekindled by enthusiasm and despair; but they were torn by the discord of seventeen chiefs, The loss of and overwhelmed on all sides by the powers of the sultan. After Holy Land, a siege of thirty-three days, the double wall was forced by the MosA.D. 1291, lems; the principal tower yielded to their engines; the Mamalukes made a general assault; the city was stormed; and death or slavery was the lot of sixty thousand Christians. The convent, or rather fortress, of the Templars resisted three days longer; but the great master was pierced with an arrow; and, of five hundred knights, only ten were left alive, less happy than the victims of the sword, if they lived to suffer on a scaffold in the unjust and cruel proscription of the whole order. The king of Jerusalem, the patriarch, and the great master of the hospital, effected their retreat to the shore; but the sea was rough, the vessels were insufficient; and great numbers of the fugitives were drowned before they could reach the isle of Cyprus, which might comfort Lusignan for the loss of Palestine. By the command of the sultan, the churches and fortifications of the Latin cities were demolished: a motive of avarice or fear still opened the holy sepulchre to some devout and defenceless pilgrims; and a mournful and solitary silence prevailed Acre and the May 18. along the coast which had so long resounded with the WORLD'S DEBATE (109). CHAPTER LX, Schism of the Greeks and Latins. State of Constantinople. - Revolt of the Bulgarians. Isaac Angelus dethroned by his Brother Alexius. - Origin of the Fourth Crusade.Alliance of the French and Venetians with the Son of Isaac. Their naval Expedition to Constantinople. The two Sieges and final Conquest of the City by the Latins. Greeks. THE restoration of the Western empire by Charlemagne was Schism of the speedily followed by the separation of the Greek and Latin churches (1). A religious and national animosity still divides the two largest communions of the Christian world; and the schism of Constantinople, by alienating her most useful allies, and provoking her most dangerous enemies, has precipitated the decline and fall of the Roman empire in the East. Their aversion to In the course of the present history the aversion of the Greeks for the Latins has been often visible and conspicuous. It was ori- the Latins. ginally derived from the disdain of servitude, inflamed, after the time of Constantine, by the pride of equality or dominion; and finally exasperated by the preference which their rebellious subjects had given to the alliance of the Franks. In every age the Greeks were proud of their superiority in profane and religious knowledge: they had first received the light of Christianity; they had pronounced the decrees of the seven general councils: they alone possessed the language of Scripture and philosophy; nor should the Barbarians, immersed in the darkness of the West (2), presume to argue on the high and mysterious questions of theological science. Those Barbarians despised in their turn the restless and subtle levity of the Orientals, the authors of every heresy; and blessed their own simplicity, which was content to hold the tradition of the apostolic church. Yet in the seventh century, the synods of Spain, and af (109) See the final expulsion of the Franks, in Sanutus, 1. iii. p. xii. c. 11-22. Abulfeda, Macrizi, &c. in De Guignes, tom. iv. p. 162. 164. and Vertot, tom. i. I. iii. p. 407-428.* (1) In the successive centuries, from the ixth to the xviiith, Mosheim traces the schism of the Greeks with learning, clearness, and impartiality: the filioque (Institut. Hist. Ecclés. p. 277.), Leo III. p. 303. Photius, p. 307, 308. Michael Cerularius, p. 370, 371, &c. (2) Άνδρες δυσσεβεὶς καὶ ἀποτρόπαιοι, ἄνδρες ἐκ σκότους ἀνάδυντες, τῆς γὰρ Eonéptov poipas vπñрxov yεvvýμata (Phot. Epist. p. 47. edit. Montacut.). The Oriental patriarch continues to apply the images of thunder, earthquake, hail, wild boar, precursors of Antichrist, &c. &c. * After these chapters of Gibbon, the masterly prize composition, "Essai sur l'Influence des Croisades sur l'Europe, par A. H. L. Heeren: traduit de l'Allemand par Charles Villars, Paris, 1808," or the original German, in Heeren's "Ver- the Holy terwards of France, improved or corrupted the Nicene creed, on the Procession of mysterious subject of the third person of the Trinity (3). In the Ghost. long controversies of the East, the nature and generation of the Christ had been scrupulously defined; and the well-known relation of father and son seemed to convey a faint image to the human mind. The idea of birth was less analogous to the Holy Spirit, who, instead of a divine gift or attribute, was considered by the Catholics as a substance, a person, a god; he was not begotten, but in the orthodox style he proceeded. Did he proceed from the Father alone, perhaps by the Son? or from the Father and the Son? The first of these opinions was asserted by the Greeks, the second by the Latins; and the addition to the Nicene creed of the word filioque, kindled the flame of discord between the Oriental and the Gallic churches. In the origin of the disputes the Roman pontiffs affected a character of neutrality and moderation (4): they condemned the innovation, but they acquiesced in the sentiment, of their Transalpine brethren: they seemed desirous of casting a veil of silence and charity over the superfluous research; and in the correspondence of Charlemagne and Leo the Third, the pope assumes the liberality of a statesman, and the prince descends to the passions and prejudices of a priest (5). But the orthodoxy of Rome spontaneously obeyed the impulse of her temporal policy: and the filioque, which Leo wished to erase, was transcribed in the symbol and chanted in the liturgy of the Vatican. The Nicene and Athanasian creeds are held as the Catholic faith, without which none can be saved; and both Papists and Protestants must now sustain and return the anathemas of the Greeks, who deny the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son, as well as from the Father. Such ecclesiastical articles of faith are not susceptible of treaty; but the rules of discipline will vary in remote and independent churches; and the reason, even of divines, might allow, that the difference is inevitable and harmless. The craft or superstition of Rome has imposed on her priests and deacons the rigid obligation of celibacy; among the Greeks it is confined 'to the bishops; the loss is compensated by dignity or annihilated by age; and the parochial clergy, the papas, enjoy the conjugal society of the wives whom they have married before their entrance into holy orders. A question concerning the Variety of discipline. (3) The mysterious subject of the procession of the Holy Ghost is discussed in the historical, theological, and controversial sense, or nonsense, by the Jesuit Petavius (Dogmata Theologica, tom. ii. 1. vii. p. 362-440.). pure (4) Before the shrine of St. Peter, be placed two shields of the weight of 94 pounds of silver; on which he inscribed the text of both creeds (utroque symbolo) pro amore et cautela orthodoxæ fidei (Anastas. in Leon. III. in Muratori, tom. iii. pars i. p. 208.). His language most clearly proves, that neither the filioque nor the Athanasian creed were received at Rome about the year 830. (5) The Missi of Charlemagne pressed him to declare, that all who rejected the filioque, or at least the doctrine, must be damned. All, replies the pope, are not capable of reaching the altiora mysteria; qui potuerit, et non voluerit, salvus esse non potest (Collect. Concil. tom. ix. p. 277-286.). The potuerit would leave a large loophole of salvation! Azyms was fiercely debated in the eleventh century, and the essence of the Eucharist was supposed in the East and West to depend on the use of leavened or unleavened bread. Shall I mention in a serious history the furious reproaches that were urged against the Latins, who for a long while remained on the defensive? They neglected to abstain, according to the apostolical decree, from things strangled, and from blood: they fasted, a Jewish observance! on the Saturday of each week: during the first week of Lent they permitted the use of milk and cheese (6); their infirm monks were indulged in the taste of flesh; and animal grease was substituted for the want of vegetable oil: the holy chrism or unction in baptism. was reserved to the episcopal order: the bishops, as the bridegrooms of their churches, were decorated with rings; their priests shaved their faces, and baptized by a single immersion. Such were the crimes which provoked the zeal of the patriarchs of Constantinople; and which were justified with equal zeal by the doctors of the Latin church (7). Ambitious quarrels of patriarch of Photius, Constantino popes, A. D. 857-886. Bigotry and national aversion are powerful magnifiers of every object of dispute; but the immediate cause of the schism of the Greeks may be traced in the emulation of the leading prelates, who maintained the supremacy of the old metropolis superior to all, and ple, with the of the reigning capital inferior to none, in the Christian world. About the middle of the ninth century, Photius (8), an ambitious layman, the captain of the guards and principal secretary, was promoted by merit and favour to the more desirable office of patriarch of Constantinople. In science, even ecclesiastical science, he surpassed the clergy of the age; and the purity of his morals has never been impeached: but his ordination was hasty, his rise was irregular; and Ignatius, his abdicated predecessor, was yet supported by the public compassion and the obstinacy of his adherents. They appealed to the tribunal of Nicholas the First, one of the proudest and most aspiring of the Roman pontiffs, who embraced the welcome opportunity of judging and condemning his rival of the East. Their quarrel was embittered by a conflict of jurisdiction over the king and nation of the Bulgarians; nor was their recent conversion to Christianity of much avail to either prelate, unless he could number the proselytes among the subjects of his power. With the aid of his court the Greek patriarch was victorious; but in the fu (6) In France, after some harsher laws, the ecclesiastical discipline is now relaxed: milk, cheese, and butter, are become a perpetual, and eggs an annual, indulgence in Lent (Vie privée des Français, tom. ii. p. 27-38.). (7) The original monuments of the schism, of the charges of the Greeks against the Latins, are deposited in the epistles of Photius (Epist. Encyclica, ii. p. 47-61.), and of Michael Cerularius (Canisii Antiq. Lectiones, tom. iii. p. i. p. 281-324. edit. Basnage, with the prolix answer of Cardinal Humbert). (8) The xth volume of the Venice edition of the Councils contains all the acts of the synods, and history of Photius: they are abridged, with a faint tinge of prejudice or prudence, by Dupin and Fleury. rious contest he deposed in his turn the successor of St. Peter, and involved the Latin church in the reproach of heresy and schism. Photius sacrificed the peace of the world to a short and precarious reign he fell with his patron, the Cæsar Bardas; and Basil the Macedonian performed an act of justice in the restoration of Ignatius, whose age and dignity had not been sufficiently respected. From his monastery, or prison, Photius solicited the favour of the emperor by pathetic complaints and artful flattery; and the eyes of his rival were scarcely closed, when he was again restored to the throne of Constantinople. After the death of Bazil he experienced the vicissitudes of courts and the ingratitude of a royal pupil: the patriarch was again deposed, and in his last solitary hours he might regret the freedom of a secular and studious life. In each revolution, the breath, the nod, of the sovereign had been accepted by a submissive clergy; and a synod of three hundred bishops was always prepared to hail the triumph, or to stigmatise the fall, of the holy, or the execrable, Photius (9). By a delusive promise of succour or reward, the popes were tempted to countenance these various proceedings; and the synods of Constantinople were ratified by their epistles or legates. But the court and the people, Ignatius and Photius, were equally adverse to their claims; their ministers were insulted or imprisoned; the procession of the Holy Ghost was forgotten; Bulgaria was for ever annexed to the Byzantine throne; and the schism was prolonged by their rigid censure of all the multiplied ordinations of an irregular patriarch. The darkness and corruption of the tenth century suspended the intercourse, without reconciling the minds, of the two nations. But when the Norman sword restored the churches of Apulia to the jurisdiction of Rome, the departing flock was warned, by a petulant epistle of the Greek patriarch, to avoid and abhor the errors of the Latins. The rising majesty of Rome could no longer brook the insolence of a rebel; The popes and Michael Cerularius was excommunicated in the heart of Concate the stantinople by the pope's legates. Shaking the dust from their feet, Constantino- they deposited on the altar of St. Sophia a direful anathema (10), ple and the which enumerates the seven mortal heresies of the Greeks, and deGreeks, A. D. 1054, votes the guilty teachers, and their unhappy sectaries, to the eternal society of the devil and his angels. According to the emergencies of the church and state, a friendly correspondence was sometimes resumed; the language of charity and concord was sometimes affected; but the Greeks have never recanted their errors; the popes have never repealed their sentence; and from this excommuni patriarch of July 16. (9) The synod of Constantinople, held in the year 869, is the viiith of the general councils, the last assembly of the East which is recognised by the Roman church. She rejects the synods of Constantinople of the years 867 and 879, which were, however, equally numerous and noisy; but they were favourable to Photius. (10) See this anathema in the Councils, tom. xi. p. 1475-1460. |