Hunneric restored the cathedral of Carthage, at the intercession of Zeno, who reigned in the East, and of Placidia, the daughter and relict of emperors and the sister of the queen of the Vandals.109 But this decent regard was of short duration; and the haughty tyrant displayed his contempt for the religion of the empire, by studiously arranging the bloody images of persecution in all the principal streets through which the Roman ambassador must pass in his way to the palace.110 An oath was required from the bishops who were assembled at Carthage, that they would support the succession of his son Hilderic, and that they would renounce all foreign or transmarine correspondence. This engagement, consistent, as it should seem, with their moral and religious duties, was refused by the more sagacious members of the assembly. Their refusal, faintly coloured by the pretence that it is unlawful for a Christian to swear, must provoke the suspicions of a jealous tyrant.

Catholic frauds.

The Catholics, oppressed by royal and military force, were far superior to their adversaries in numbers and learning. With the same weapons which the Greek 112 and Latin fathers had already provided for the Arian controversy, they repeatedly silenced or vanquished the fierce and illiterate successors of Ulphilas. The consciousness of their own superiority might have raised them above the arts and passions of religious warfare. Yet, instead of assuming such honourable pride, the orthodox theologians were tempted, by the assurance of impunity, to compose fictions which must be stigmatised with the epithets of fraud and forgery. They ascribed their own polemical works to the most venerable names of Christian antiquity; the characters of Athanasius and Augustin were awkwardly personated by Vigilius and his disciples;113 and the famous creed, which so clearly expounds the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation, is deduced, with strong probability, from this African school.114 Even the Scriptures themselves were profaned by

109 Victor, ii. 1, 2, p. 22.

110 Victor, v. 7, p. 77. He appeals to the ambassador himself, whose name was Uranius.

Astutiores, Victor, iv. 4, p. 70. He plainly intimates that their quotation of the Gospel, "Non jurabitis in toto," was only meant to elude the obligation of an inconvenient oath. The forty-six bishops who refused were banished to Corsica; the three hundred and two who swore were distributed through the provinces of Africa.

112 Fulgentius, bishop of Ruspæ, in the Byzacene province, was of a senatorial family and had received a liberal education. He could repeat all Homer and Menander before he was allowed to study Latin, his native tongue (Vit. Fulgent. c. 1). Many African bishops might understand Greek, and many Greek theologians were translated into Latin.

113 Compare the two prefaces to the Dialogue of Vigilius of Thapsus (p. 118, 119, edit. Chiflet). He might amuse his learned reader with an innocent fiction; but the subject was too grave, and the Africans were too ignorant.

14 The P. Quesnel started this opinion, which has been favourably received. But the three following truths, however surprising they may seem, are now universally

A.D. 530.

CATHOLIC FRAUDS.

335

their rash and sacrilegious hands. The memorable text which asserts the unity of the THREE who bear witness in heaven 115 is condemned by the universal silence of the orthodox fathers, ancient versions, and authentic manuscripts.116 It was first alleged by the catholic bishops whom Hunneric summoned to the conference of Carthage.117 An allegorical interpretation, in the form perhaps of a marginal note, invaded the text of the Latin Bibles which were renewed and corrected in a dark period of ten centuries.118 After the invention of printing,119 the editors of the Greek Testament yielded to their own prejudices, or those of the times;120 and the pious fraud, which was embraced with equal zeal at Rome and at Geneva, has been infinitely multiplied in every country and every language of modern Europe.

acknowledged (Gerard Vossius, tom. vi. p. 516-522; Tillemont, Mém. Ecclés. tom. viii. p. 667-671). 1. St. Athanasius is not the author of the creed which is so frequently read in our churches. 2. It does not appear to have existed within a century after his death. 3. It was originally composed in the Latin tongue, and, consequently, in the Western provinces. Gennadius, patriarch of Constantinople, was so much amazed by this extraordinary composition, that he frankly pronounced it to be the work of a drunken man. Petav. Dogmat. Theologica, tom. ii. 1. vii. c. 8, p. 687. 115 1 John v. 7. See Simon, Hist. Critique du Nouveau Testament, part i. c. xviii. p. 203-218; and part ii. c. ix. p. 99-121; and the elaborate Prolegomena and Annotations of Dr. Mill and Wetstein to their editions of the Greek Testament. In 1689, the papist Simon strove to be free; in 1707, the protestant Mill wished to be a slave; in 1751, the Arminian Wetstein used the liberty of his times and of his sect.a

116 Of all the MSS. now extant, above fourscore in number, some of which are more than 1200 years old (Wetstein ad loc.). The orthodox copies of the Vatican, of the Complutensian editors, of Robert Stephens, are become invisible; and the two MSS. of Dublin and Berlin are unworthy to form an exception. See Emlyn's Works, vol. ii. p. 227-255, 269-299; and M. de Missy's four ingenious letters, in tom. viii. and ix. of the Journal Britannique.

17 Or, more properly, by the four bishops who composed and published the profession of faith in the name of their brethren. They styled this text luce clarius (Victor Vitensis de Persecut. Vandal. 1. iii. c. 11, p. 54). It is quoted soon afterwards by the African polemics Vigilius and Fulgentius.

118 In the eleventh and twelfth centuries the Bibles were corrected by Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury, and by Nicolas, cardinal and librarian of the Roman church, secundum orthodoxam fidem (Wetstein, Prolegom. p. 84, 85). Notwithstanding these corrections, the passage is still wanting in twenty-five Latin MSS. (Wetstein ad loc.), the oldest and the fairest; two qualities seldom united, except in manuscripts.

119 The art which the Germans had invented was applied in Italy to the profane writers of Rome and Greece. The original Greek of the New Testament was published about the same time (A.D. 1514, 1516, 1520) by the industry of Erasmus and the munificence of Cardinal Ximenes. The Complutensian Polyglot cost the cardinal 50,000 ducats. See Mattaire, Annal. Typograph. tom. ii. p. 2-8, 125-133; and Wetstein, Prolegomena, p. 116-127.

120 The three witnesses have been established in our Greek Testaments by the prudence of Erasmus; the honest bigotry of the Complutensian editors; the typographical fraud or error of Robert Stephens in the placing a crotchet; and the deliberate falsehood or strange misapprehension of Theodore Beza.

а

This controversy has continued to be agitated, but with declining interest even in the more religious part of the community, and may now be considered to have terminated in an almost general ac

quiescence of the learned in the conclu sions of Porson in his Letters to Travis. See the pamphlets of the late Bishop of Salisbury and of Crito Cantabrigiensis, Dr. Turton of Cambridge.-M.

The example of fraud must excite suspicion: and the specious miracles by which the African catholics have defended the and miracles. truth and justice of their cause may be ascribed, with more reason, to their own industry than to the visible protection of Heaven. Yet the historian who views this religious conflict with an impartial eye may condescend to mention one preternatural event, which will edify the devout and surprise the incredulous. Tipasa, a maritime colony of Mauritania, sixteen miles to the east of Cæsarea, had been distinguished in every age by the orthodox zeal of its inhabitants. They had braved the fury of the Donatists; 122 they resisted or eluded the tyranny of the Arians. The town was deserted on the approach of an heretical bishop: most of the inhabitants who could procure ships passed over to the coast of Spain; and the unhappy remnant, refusing all communion with the usurper, still presumed to hold their pious, but illegal, assemblies. Their disobedience exasperated the cruelty of Hunneric. A military count was despatched from Carthage to Tipasa he collected the catholics in the Forum, and, in the presence of the whole province, deprived the guilty of their right hands and their tongues. But the holy confessors continued to speak without tongues; and this miracle is attested by Victor, an African bishop, who published an history of the persecution within two years after the event. 123 6. If any one," says Victor, "should doubt of the truth, "let him repair to Constantinople, and listen to the clear and per"fect language of Restitutus, the subdeacon, one of these glorious "sufferers, who is now lodged in the palace of the emperor Zeno, and "is respected by the devout empress." At Constantinople we are astonished to find a cool, a learned, and unexceptionable witness, without interest, and without passion. Æneas of Gaza, a Platonic philosopher, has accurately described his own observations on these African sufferers. "I saw them myself: I heard them speak: I diligently inquired by what means such an articulate voice could "be formed without any organ of speech: I used my eyes to examine "the report of my ears: I opened their mouth, and saw that the whole "tongue had been completely torn away by the roots; an operation "which the physicians generally suppose to be mortal." 124 The testi

66

121 Plin. Hist. Natural. v. 1; Itinerar. Wesseling, p. 15; Cellarius, Geograph. Antiq. tom. ii. part ii. p. 127. This Tipasa (which must not be confounded with another in Numidia) was a town of some note, since Vespasian endowed it with the right of Latium.

122 Optatus Milevitanus de Schism. Donatist. 1. ii. p. 38.

123 Victor Vitensis, v. 6, p. 76. Ruinart, p. 483-487.

124 Eneas Gazæus in Theophrasto, in Biblioth. Patrum, tom. viii. p. 664, 665. He was a Christian, and composed this Dialogue (the Theophrastus) on the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the body; besides twenty-five Epistles, still extant. See Cave (Hist. Litteraria, p. 297) and Fabricius (Biblioth. Græc. tom. i. p. 422).

A.D. 500-700.

RUIN OF ARIANISM.

337

mony of Æneas of Gaza might be confirmed by the superfluous evidence of the emperor Justinian, in a perpetual edict; of Count Marcellinus, in his Chronicle of the times; and of pope Gregory the First, who had resided at Constantinople as the minister of the Roman pontiff. 125 They all lived within the compass of a century; and they all appeal to their personal knowledge or the public notoriety for the truth of a miracle which was repeated in several instances, displayed on the greatest theatre of the world, and submitted during a series of years to the calm examination of the senses." This supernatural gift of the African confessors, who spoke without tongues, will command the assent of those, and of those only, who already believe that their language was pure and orthodox. But the stubborn mind of an infidel is guarded by secret, incurable suspicion; and the Arian, or Socinian, who has seriously rejected the doctrine of the Trinity, will not be shaken by the most plausible evidence of an Athanasian miracle.

The ruin

The Vandals and the Ostrogoths persevered in the profession of Arianism till the final ruin of the kingdoms which they had founded in Africa and Italy. The barbarians of Gaul sub- of Arianism mitted to the orthodox dominion of the Franks; and Spain barbarians, was restored to the catholic church by the voluntary conversion of the Visigoths.

among the

A.D. 500-700.

This salutary revolution 126 was hastened by the example of a royal martyr, whom our calmer reason may style an ungrateful Revolt and rebel. Leovigild, the Gothic monarch of Spain, deserved martyrdom the respect of his enemies, and the love of his subjects: the negild in catholics enjoyed a free toleration, and his Arian synods A.D. 577-584.

of Herme

Spain,

25 Justinian. Codex, 1. i. tit. xxvii. [leg. 1]; Marcellin. in Chron. p. 45, in Thesaur. Temporum Scaliger; Procopius, de Bell. Vandal. 1. i. c. 8, p. 196 [ed. Par.; tom. i. p. 345, ed. Bonn]; Gregor. Magnus, Dialog. iii. 32. None of these witnesses have specified the number of the confessors, which is fixed at sixty in an old menology (apud Ruinart, p. 486). Two of them lost their speech by fornication; but the miracle is enhanced by the singular instance of a boy who had never spoken before his tongue was cut out.

126 See the two general historians of Spain, Mariana (Hist. de Rebus Hispaniæ, tom. i. l. v. c. 12-15, p. 182-194) and Ferreras (French translation, tom. ii. p. 206-247). Mariana almost forgets that he is a Jesuit, to assume the style and spirit of a Roman classic. Ferreras, an industrious compiler, reviews his facts and rectifies his chronology.

attempted, without much success, to reconcile their scruples by abolishing the unpopular rite of a second baptism. His eldest son Hermenegild, who was invested by his father with the royal diadem and the fair principality of Bætica, contracted an honourable and orthodox alliance with a Merovingian princess, the daughter of Sigebert, king of Austrasia, and of the famous Brunechild. The beauteous Ingundis, who was no more than thirteen years of age, was received, beloved, and persecuted, in the Arian court of Toledo; and her religious constancy was alternately assaulted with blandish ments and violence by Goisvintha, the Gothic queen, who abused the double claim of maternal authority.127 Incensed by her resistance, Goisvintha seized the catholic princess by her long hair, inhumanly dashed her against the ground, kicked her till she was covered with blood, and at last gave orders that she should be stripped and thrown into a basin or fish-pond.128 Love and honour might excite Hermenegild to resent this injurious treatment of his bride; and he was gradually persuaded that Ingundis suffered for the cause of divine truth. Her tender complaints, and the weighty arguments of Leander, archbishop of Seville, accomplished his conversion; and the heir of the Gothic monarchy was initiated in the Nicene faith by the solemn rites of confirmation.129 The rash youth, inflamed by zeal, and perhaps by ambition, was tempted to violate the duties of a son and a subject; and the catholics of Spain, although they could not complain of persecution, applauded his pious rebellion against an heretical father. The civil war was protracted by the long and obstinate sieges of Merida, Cordova, and Seville, which had strenuously espoused the party of Hermenegild. He invited the orthodox barbarians, the Suevi and the Franks, to the destruction of his native land: he solicited the dangerous aid of the Romans, who possessed Africa and a part of the Spanish coast; and his holy ambassador, the archbishop Leander, effectually negociated in person with the Byzantine court. But the hopes of the catholics were crushed by the active diligence of a monarch who commanded the troops and treasures of Spain; and the guilty Hermenegild, after his vain attempts

127 Goisvintha successively married two kings of the Visigoths: Athanigild, to whom she bore Brunechild, the mother of Ingundis; and Leovigild, whose two sons, Hermenegild and Recared, were the issue of a former marriage.

128 Iracundiæ furore succensa, adprehensam per comam capitis puellam in terram conlidit, et diu calcibus_verberatam, ac sanguine cruentatam, jussit exspoliari, et piscina immergi. Greg. Turon. 1. v. c. 39, in tom. ii. p. 255. Gregory is one of our best originals for this portion of history.

129 The catholics, who admitted the baptism of heretics, repeated the rite, or, as it was afterwards styled, the sacrament, of confirmation, to which they ascribed many mystic and marvellous prerogatives, both visible and invisible. See Chardon, Hist. des Sacremens, tom. i. p. 405-552.