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not desert our spiritual father; anathema to the CHAP. Manichæan tyrant! he is unworthy to reign." Such was the Catholic cry; and the galleys of Anastasius lay upon their oars before the palace, till the patriarch had pardoned his penitent, and hushed the waves of the troubled multitude. The triumph of Macedonius was checked by a speedy exile; but the zeal of his flock was again exasperated by the same question, "Whether one of the Trinity had been crucified ?" On this momentous occasion, the blue and green factions of Constantinople suspended their discord, and the civil and military powers were annihilated in their presence. The keys of the city, and the standards of the guards, were deposited in the forum of Constantine, the principal station and camp of the faithful. Day and night they were incessantly busied either in singing hymns to the honour of their God, or in pillaging and murdering the servants of their prince. The head of his favourite monk, the friend, as they styled him, of the enemy of the Holy Trinity, was borne aloft on a spear; and the fire-brands, which had been darted against heretical structures, diffused the undistinguishing flames over the most orthodox buildings. The statues of the emperor were broken, and his person was concealed in a suburb, till, at the end of three days, he dared to implore the mercy of his subjects. Without his diadem, and in the posture of a suppliant, Anastasius appeared on the throne of the circus. The Catholics, before his face, rehearsed their genuine Trisagion; they exulted in the offer which he proclaimed by the voice of a herald, of abdicating the purple; they listened to the admonition, that, since all could not reign, they should previously agree in the choice of a sovereign; and they accepted the blood of two unpopular ministers, whom their master, without hesitation, condemned to the lions. These furious but transient seditions were

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CHAP. encouraged by the success of Vitalian, who, with an army of Huns and Bulgarians, for the most part idolaters, declared himself the champion of the Catholic faith. In this pious rebellion he depopulated Thrace, besieged Constantinople, exterminated sixtyfive thousand of his fellow Christians, till he obtained the recal of the bishops, the satisfaction of the pope, and the establishment of the council of Chalcedon, an orthodox treaty, reluctantly signed by the dying Anastasius, and more faithfully performed by the uncle of Justinian. And such was the event of the first of the religious wars, which have been waged in the name, and by the disciples, of the God of Peace."

First reli

gious war,

A. D. 514.

character

Theological Justinian has been already seen in the various and govern- lights of a prince, a conqueror, and a lawgiver: the ment of theologian still remains, and it affords an unfavourA. D. 519 able prejudice, that his theology should form a very

Justinian,

-565.

prominent feature of his portrait. The sovereign sympathised with his subjects in their superstitious reverence for living and departed saints: his Code, and more especially his Novels, confirm and enlarge the privileges of the clergy; and in every dispute between a monk and a layman, the partial judge was inclined to pronounce, that truth, and innocence, and justice, were always on the side of the church. In his public and private devotions, the emperor was as

The general history, from the council of Chalcedon to the death of Anastasius, may be found in the Breviary of Liberatus (c. 14-19), the iid and iiid books of Evagrius, the Abstract of the two books of Theodore the Reader, the Acts of the Synods, and the Epistles of the Popes (Concil. tom. v.) The series is continued with some disorder in the xvth and xvith tomes of the Memoires Ecclesiastiques of Tillemont. And here I must take leave for ever of that incomparable guide-whose bigotry is overbalanced by the merits of erudition, diligence, veracity, and scrupulous minuteness. He was prevented by death from completing, as he designed, the vith century of the church and empire.

b The strain of the Anecdotes of Procopius (c. 11. 13. 18. 27, 28), with the learned remarks of Alemannus, is confirmed, rather than contradicted, by the Acts of the Councils, the fourth book of Evagrius, and the complaints of the African Facundus, in his xiith book-de tribus capitulis, "cum videri doctus appetit importune. . . spontaneis quæstionibus ecclesiam turbat." See Procop. de Bell. Goth. 1. iii. c. 35.

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siduous and exemplary; his prayers, vigils, and fasts, CHAP. displayed the austere penance of a monk; his fancy. was amused by the hope, or belief, of personal inspiration; he had secured the patronage of the Virgin and St. Michael the archangel; and his recovery from a dangerous disease was ascribed to the miraculous succour of the holy martyrs Cosmas and Damian. The capital and the provinces of the East were decorated with the monuments of his religion; and, though the far greater part of these costly structures may be attributed to his taste or ostentation, the zeal of the royal architect was probably quickened by a genuine sense of love and gratitude towards his invisible benefactors. Among the titles of imperial greatness, the name of Pious was most pleasing to his ear; to promote the temporal and spiritual interest of the church was the serious business of his life; and the duty of father of his country was often sacrificed to that of defender of the faith. The controversies of the times were congenial to his temper and understanding; and the theological professors must inwardly deride the diligence of a stranger, who cultivated their art and neglected his own. "What

d

can ye fear," said a bold conspirator to his associates, "from your bigoted tyrant? Sleepless and unarmed he sits whole nights in his closet, debating with reverend graybeards, and turning over the pages of ecclesiastical volumes." The fruits of these lucubrations were displayed in many a conference, where Justinian might shine as the loudest and most subtle of the disputants, in many a sermon, which, under the name of edicts and epistles, proclaimed to the empire the theology of their master. While the bar

C

Procop. de Edificiis, 1. i. c. 6, 7, &c. passim.

* Ος δε καθηται αφύλακτος ες αει επι λεσχης τινος αωρι νυκτων όμου τοις των ἱερέων γερουσιν ασχετον ανακυκλειν τα Χριστιανων λογια σπουδην έχων. Procop. de Bell. Goth. 1. iii. c. 32. In the life of St. Eutychius (apud Aleman. ad Procop. Arcan. c. 18) the same character is given with a design to praise Justinian.

VOL. VI.

E

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CHAP. barians invaded the provinces, while the victorious legions marched under the banners of Belisarius and Narses, the successor of Trajan, unknown to the camp, was content to vanquish at the head of a synod. Had he invited to these synods a disinterested and rational spectator, Justinian might have learned, "that religious controversy is the offspring of arrogance and folly; that true piety is most laudably expressed by silence and submission; that man, ignorant of his own nature, should not presume to scrutinise the nature of his God; and, that it is sufficient for us to know, that power and benevolence are the perfect attributes of the Deity."

His persecution

e

Toleration was not the virtue of the times, and indulgence to rebels has seldom been the virtue of princes. But when the prince descends to the narrow and peevish character of a disputant, he is easily provoked to supply the defect of argument by the plenitude of power, and to chastise without mercy the perverse blindness of those who wilfully shut their eyes against the light of demonstration. The reign of Justinian was an uniform yet various scene of persecution; and he appears to have surpassed his indolent predecessors, both in the contrivance of his laws and the of heretics; rigour of their execution. The insufficient term of three months was assigned for the conversion or exile

f

of all heretics; and if he still connived at their precarious stay, they were deprived, under his iron yoke, not only of the benefits of society, but of the common

• For these wise and moderate sentiments, Procopius (de Bell. Goth. 1. i. c. 3) is scourged in the preface of Alemannus, who ranks him among the political Christians-sed longe verius hæresum omnium sentinas, prorsusque Atheos— abominable Atheists, who preached the imitation of God's mercy to man (ad Hist. Arcan. c. 13).

f This alternative, a precious circumstance, is preserved by John Malala (tom. ii. p. 63. edit. Venet. 1733), who deserves more credit as he draws towards his end. After numbering the heretics, Nestorians, Eutychians, &c. ne expectent, says Justinian, ut digni veniâ judicentur: jubemus, enim ut... convicti et aperti hæretici justæ et idoneæ animadversioni subjiciantur. Baronius copies and applauds this edict of the Code (A. D. 527. No 39, 40).

g

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birthright of men and Christians. At the end of CHAP. four hundred years, the Montanists of Phrygia still breathed the wild enthusiasm of perfection and prophecy, which they had imbibed from their male and female apostles, the special organs of the Paraclete. On the approach of the Catholic priests and soldiers, they grasped with alacrity the crown of martyrdom; the conventicle and the congregation perished in the flames, but these primitive fanatics were not extinguished three hundred years after the death of their tyrant. Under the protection of the Gothic confederates, the church of the Arians at Constantinople had braved the severity of the laws: their clergy equalled the wealth and magnificence of the senate; and the gold and silver which were seized by the rapacious hand of Justinian might perhaps be claimed as the spoils of the provinces and the trophies of the barbarians. A secret remnant of Pagans, who of Pagans; still lurked in the most refined and the most rustic conditions of mankind, excited the indignation of the Christians, who were perhaps unwilling that any strangers should be the witnesses of their intestine quarrels. A bishop was named as the inquisitor of the faith, and his diligence soon discovered in the court and city, the magistrates, lawyers, physicians, and sophists, who still cherished the superstition of the Greeks. They were sternly informed that they must choose without delay between the displeasure of Jupiter or Justinian, and that their aversion to the gospel could no longer be disguised under the scandalous mask of indifference or impiety. The patrician Photius perhaps alone was resolved to live and to die like his ancestors: he enfranchised himself with the stroke of a dagger, and left his tyrant the poor consolation of exposing with ignominy the lifeless

* See the character and principles of the Montanists, in Mosheim, de Rebus Christ. ante Constantinum, p. 410—424.

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