A.D. 477. 329 apostate could neither grant nor expect a sincere forgiveness. He was exasperated to find that the Africans, who had fled Genseric, before him in the field, still presumed to dispute his will in A.D. 429-477. synods and churches; and his ferocious mind was incapable of fear or of compassion. His catholic subjects were oppressed by intolerant laws and arbitrary punishments. The language of Genseric was furious and formidable; the knowledge of his intentions might justify the most unfavourable interpretation of his actions; and the Arians were reproached with the frequent executions which stained the palace and the dominions of the tyrant. Arms and ambition were, however, the ruling passions of the monarch of the sea. But Hunneric, Hunneric, his inglorious son, who seemed to inherit only his vices, tormented the catholics with the same unrelenting fury which had been fatal to his brother, his nephews, and the friends and favourites of his father; and even to the Arian patriarch, who was inhumanly burnt alive in the midst of Carthage. The religious war was preceded and prepared by an insidious truce; persecution was made the serious and important business of the Vandal court; and the loathsome disease which hastened the death of Hunneric revenged the injuries, without contributing to the deliverance, of the church. The throne of Africa was successively filled by the two Gundamund, nephews of Hunneric; by Gundamund, who reigned about A.D. 484. twelve, and by Thrasimund, who governed the nation above twentyseven, years. Their administration was hostile and oppressive to the orthodox party. Gundamund appeared to emulate, or even to surpass, the cruelty of his uncle; and if at length he relented, if he recalled the bishops, and restored the freedom of Athanasian worship, a premature death intercepted the benefits of his tardy clemency. His brother, Thrasimund, was the greatest and most accom- Thrasimund, plished of the Vandal kings, whom he excelled in beauty, prudence, and magnanimity of soul. But this magnanimous character was degraded by his intolerant zeal and deceitful clemency. Instead of threats and tortures, he employed the gentle, but efficacious, powers of seduction. Wealth, dignity, and the royal favour were the liberal rewards of apostacy; the catholics who had violated the laws might purchase their pardon by the renunciation of their faith; and whenever Thrasimund meditated any rigorous measure, he patiently waited till the indiscretion of his adversaries furnished him with a specious opportunity. Bigotry was his last sentiment in the hour of death; and he exacted from his successor a solemn oath that he would never tolerate the sectaries of Athanasius. But his successor, Hilderic, Hilderic, the gentle son of the savage Hunneric, preferred A.D. 523. the duties of humanity and justice to the vain obligation of an im A.D. 496. Gelimer, pious oath; and his accession was gloriously marked by the restoration of peace and universal freedom. The throne of that virtuous, though feeble monarch, was usurped by his cousin. Gelimer, a zealous Arian: but the Vandal kingdom, before he could enjoy or abuse his power, was subverted by the arms of Belisarius ; and the orthodox party retaliated the injuries which they had endured. 9o The passionate declamations of the catholics, the sole histo A general view of the persecution in Africa. 90 rians of this persecution, cannot afford any distinct series of causes and events, any impartial view of characters or counsels; but the most remarkable circumstances that deserve either credit or notice may be referred to the following heads: I. In the original law, which is still extant,"1 Hunneric expressly declares, and the declaration appears to be correct, that he had faithfully transcribed the regulations and penalties of the Imperial edicts against the heretical congregations, the clergy, and the people, who dissented from the established religion. If the rights of conscience had been understood, the catholics must have condemned their past conduct, or acquiesced in their actual sufferings. But they still persisted to refuse the indulgence which they claimed. While they trembled under the lash of persecution, they praised the laudable severity of Hunneric himself, who burnt or banished great numbers of Manichæans; and they rejected with horror the ignominious compromise, that the disciples of Arius and of Athanasius should enjoy a reciprocal and similar toleration in the territories of the Romans and in those of the Vandals.93 II. The practice of a conference, which the catholics had so frequently used to insult and punish their obstinate antagonists, was retorted against themselves. 94 At the command of Hunneric, four hundred and sixty-six orthodox bishops assembled at Carthage; but when they were admitted into 90 The original monuments of the Vandal persecution are preserved in the five books of the history of Victor Vitensis (de Persecutione Vandalicâ), a bishop who was exiled by Hunneric; in the Life of St. Fulgentius, who was distinguished in the persecution of Thrasimund (in Biblioth. Max. Patrum, tom. ix. p. 4-16); and in the first book of the Vandalic War, by the impartial Procopius (c. 7, 8, p. 196, 197, 198, 199 [ed. Paris; tom. i. p. 344 sqq., ed. Bonn]). Dom Ruinart, the last editor of Victor, has illustrated the whole subject with a copious and learned apparatus of notes and supplement. (Paris, 1694.) 91 Victor, iv. 2, p. 65. Hunneric refuses the name of Catholics to the Homoousians. He describes, as the veri Divinæ Majestatis cultores, his own party, who professed the faith, confirmed by more than a thousand bishops, in the synods of Rimini and Seleucia. 92 Victor, ii. 1, p. 21, 22, Laudabilior . . . videbatur. In the MSS. which omit this word, the passage is unintelligible. See Ruinart, Not. p. 164. 93 Victor, ii. 2, p. 22, 23 [21, 22]. The clergy of Carthage called these conditions periculosa; and they seem, indeed, to have been proposed as a snare to entrap the catholic bishops. 94 See the narrative of this conference and the treatment of the bishops in Victor, ii. 13-18, p. 35-42, and the whole fourth book, p. 63-71. The third book, p. 42-62, is entirely filled by their apology or confession of faith. A.D. 530. THE PERSECUTION IN AFRICA. 331 the hall of audience, they had the mortification of beholding the Arian Cyrila exalted on the patriarchal throne. The disputants were separated, after the mutual and ordinary reproaches of noise and silence, of delay and precipitation, of military force and of popular clamour. One martyr and one confessor were selected among the catholic bishops; twenty-eight escaped by flight, and eighty-eight by conformity; forty-six were sent into Corsica to cut timber for the royal navy; and three hundred and two were banished to the different parts of Africa, exposed to the insults of their enemies, and carefully deprived of all the temporal and spiritual comforts of life.95 The hardships of ten years' exile must have reduced their numbers; and if they had complied with the law of Thrasimund, which prohibited any episcopal consecrations, the orthodox church of Africa must have expired with the lives of its actual members. They disobeyed; and their disobedience was punished by a second exile of two hundred and twenty bishops into Sardinia, where they languished fifteen years, till the accession of the gracious Hilderic.96 The two islands were judiciously chosen by the malice of their Arian tyrants. Seneca, from his own experience, has deplored and exaggerated the miserable state of Corsica,97 and the plenty of Sardinia was overbalanced by the unwholesome quality of the air.98 III. The zeal of Genseric and his successors for the conversion of the catholics must have rendered them still more jealous to guard the purity of the Vandal faith. Before the churches were finally shut, it was a crime to appear in a barbarian dress; and those who presumed to neglect the royal mandate were rudely dragged backwards by their long hair.99 The palatine officers, who refused to profess the religion of their prince, were ignominiously 95 See the list of the African bishops, in Victor, p. 117-140, and Ruinart's notes, p. 215-397. The schismatic name of Donatus frequently occurs, and they appear to have adopted (like our fanatics of the last age) the pious appellations of Deodatus, Deogratias, Quidvultdeus, Habetdeum, &c.a 96 Fulgent. Vit. c. 16-29. Thrasimund affected the praise of moderation and learning; and Fulgentius addressed three books of controversy to the Arian tyrant, whom he styles piissime Rex. Biblioth. Maxim. Patrum, tom. ix. p. 41. Only sixty bishops are mentioned as exiles in the Life of Fulgentius; they are increased to one hundred and twenty by Victor Tunnunensis and Isidore; but the number of two hundred and twenty is specified in the Historia Miscella and a short authentic chronicle of the times. See Ruinart, p. 570, 571. 97 See the base and insipid epigrams of the Stoic, who could not support exile with more fortitude than Ovid. Corsica might not produce corn, wine, or oil; but it could not be destitute of grass, water, and even fire. 98 Si ob gravitatem cœli interissent, vile damnum. Tacit. Annal. ii. 85. In this application Thrasimund would have adopted the reading of some critics, utile damnum. 99 See these preludes of a general persecution, in Victor, ii. c. 3, 4, 7, and the two edicts of Hunneric, 1. ii. p. 35, 1. iv. p. 64. Thesc names appear to have been introduced by the Donatists. – M. stripped of their honours and employments; banished to Sardinia and Sicily; or condemned to the servile labours of slaves and peasants in the fields of Utica. In the districts which had been peculiarly allotted to the Vandals, the exercise of the catholic worship was more strictly prohibited; and severe penalties were denounced against the guilt both of the missionary and the proselyte. By these arts the faith of the barbarians was preserved, and their zeal was inflamed they discharged with devout fury the office of spies, informers, or executioners; and whenever their cavalry took the field, it was the favourite amusement of the march to defile the churches and to insult the clergy of the adverse faction.100 IV. The citizens who had been educated in the luxury of the Roman province were delivered, with exquisite cruelty, to the Moors of the desert. A venerable train of bishops, presbyters, and deacons, with a faithful crowd of four thousand and ninety-six persons, whose guilt is not precisely ascertained, were torn from their native homes by the command of Hunneric. During the night they were confined, like a herd of cattle, amidst their own ordure: during the day they pursued their march over the burning sands; and if they fainted under the heat and fatigue, they were goaded or dragged along till they expired in the hands of their tormentors. 101 These unhappy exiles, when they reached the Moorish huts, might excite the compassion of a people whose native humanity was neither improved by reason nor corrupted by fanaticism: but if they escaped the dangers, they were condemned to share the distress, of a savage life. V. It is incumbent on the authors of persecution previously to reflect whether they are determined to support it in the last extreme. They excite the flame which they strive to extinguish; and it soon becomes necessary to chastise the contumacy, as well as the crime, of the offender. The fine, which he is unable or unwilling to discharge, exposes his person to the severity of the law; and his contempt of lighter penalties suggests the use and propriety of capital punishment. Through the veil of fiction and declamation we may clearly perceive that the catholics, more especially under the reign of Hunneric, endured the most cruel and ignominious treatment.102 Respectable citizens, noble matrons, and consecrated virgins, were stripped naked and raised in the air by pulleys, with a weight suspended at their feet. 100 See Procopius de Bell. Vandal. 1. i. c. 7 [c. 8], p. 197, 198 [tom. i. p. 344 sqq., ed. Bonn]. A Moorish prince endeavoured to propitiate the God of the Christians by his diligence to erase the marks of the Vandal sacrilege. 101 See this story in Victor, ii. 8-12, p. 30-34. these confessors as an eye-witness. Victor describes the distress of 102 See the fifth book of Victor. His passionate complaints are confirmed by the sober testimony of Procopius and the public declaration of the emperor Justinian. Cod. 1. i. tit. xxvii. A.D. 530. 104 THE PERSECUTION IN AFRICA. 333 In this painful attitude their naked bodies were torn with scourges, or burnt in the most tender parts with red-hot plates of iron. The amputation of the ears, the nose, the tongue, and the right hand was inflicted by the Arians; and although the precise number cannot be defined, it is evident that many persons, among whom a bishop103 and a proconsulo may be named, were entitled to the crown of martyrdom. The same honour has been ascribed to the memory of Count Sebastian, who professed the Nicene creed with unshaken constancy; and Genseric might detest as an heretic the brave and ambitious fugitive whom he dreaded as a rival.105 VI. A new mode of conversion, which might subdue the feeble and alarm the timorous, was employed by the Arian ministers. They imposed, by fraud or violence, the rites of baptism; and punished the apostacy of the catholics, if they disclaimed this odious and profane ceremony, which scandalously violated the freedom of the will and the unity of the sacrament. 106 106 The hostile sects had formerly allowed the validity of each other's baptism; and the innovation, so fiercely maintained by the Vandals, can be imputed only to the example and advice of the Donatists. VII. The Arian clergy surpassed in religious cruelty the king and his Vandals; but they were incapable of cultivating the spiritual vineyard which they were so desirous to possess. A patriarch107 might seat himself on the throne of Carthage; some bishops, in the principal cities, might usurp the place of their rivals; but the smallness of their numbers, and their ignorance of the Latin language, disqualified the barbarians for the ecclesiastical ministry of a great church; and the Africans, after the loss of their orthodox pastors, were deprived of the public exercise of Christianity. VIII. The emperors were the natural protectors of the Homoousian doctrine; and the faithful people of Africa, both as Romans and as catholics, preferred their lawful sovereignty to the usurpation of the barbarous heretics. During an interval of peace and friendship 108 103 Victor, ii. 18, p. 41. 104 Victor, v. 4, p. 74, 75. His name was Victorianus, and he was a wealthy citizen of Adrumetum, who enjoyed the confidence of the king, by whose favour he had obtained the office, or at least the title, of proconsul of Africa. 105 Victor, i. 6, p. 8, 9. After relating the firm resistance and dexterous reply of Count Sebastian, he adds, quare alio [alîus] generis argumento postea bellicosum virum occidit. 106 Victor, v. 12, 13. Tillemont, Mém. Ecclés. tom. vi. p. 609. 107 Primate was more properly the title of the bishop of Carthage; but the name of patriarch was given by the sects and nations to their principal ecclesiastic. See Thomassin, Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. i. p. 155, 158. 108 The patriarch Cyrila himself publicly declared that he did not understand Latin (Victor, ii. 18, p. 42): Nescio Latine; and he might converse with tolerable ease, without being capable of disputing or preaching in that language. His Vandal clergy were still more ignorant; and small confidence could be placed in the Africans who had conformed. |