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CHAP. corpse of the fugitive. His weaker brethren subXLVII. mitted to their earthly monarch, underwent the cere

of Jews;

mony of baptism, and laboured, by their extraordinary zeal, to erase the suspicion, or to expiate the guilt, of idolatry. The native country of Homer, and the theatre of the Trojan war, still retained the last sparks of his mythology: by the care of the same bishop, seventy thousand Pagans were detected and converted in Asia, Phrygia, Lydia, and Caria; ninety-six churches were built for the new proselytes; and linen vestments, bibles, and liturgies, and vases of gold and silver, were supplied by the pious munificence of Justinian." The Jews, who had been gradually stripped of their immunities, were oppressed by a vexatious, law, which compelled them to observe the festival of Easter the same day on which it was celebrated by the Christians. And they might complain with the more reason, since the Catholics themselves did not agree with the astronomical calculations of their sovereign: the people of Constantinople delayed the, beginning of their Lent a whole week after it had been ordained by authority; and they had the pleasure of fasting seven days, while meat was exposed of Samari- for sale by the command of the emperor. The Sa

tans.

i

maritans of Palestine' were a motley race, an ambiguous sect, rejected as Jews by the Pagans, by the Jews as schismatics, and by the Christians as idolaters. The abomination of the cross had already been planted

h Theophan. Chron. p. 153. John, the Monophysite bishop of Asia, is a more authentic witness of this transaction, in which he was himself employed by the emperor (Asseman. Bib. Orient. tom. ii. p. 85).

i Compare Procopius (Hist. Arcan. c. 28. and Aleman's Notes) with Theophanes (Chron. p. 190). The council of Nice has intrusted the patriarch, or rather the astronomers, of Alexandria, with the annual proclamation of Easter; and we still read, or rather we do not read, many of the Paschal epistles of St. Cyril. Since the reign of Monophytism in Egypt, the Catholics were perplexed by such a foolish prejudice as that which so long opposed, among the Protestants, the reception of the Gregorian style.

For the religion and history of the Samaritans, consult Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, a learned and impartial work.

k

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on their holy mount of Garizim, but the persecution CHAP. of Justinian offered only the alternative of baptism or rebellion. They chose the latter: under the standard of a desperate leader, they rose in arms, and retaliated their wrongs on the lives, the property, and the temples, of a defenceless people. The Samaritans were finally subdued by the regular forces of the East: twenty thousand were slain, twenty thousand were sold by the Arabs to the infidels of Persia and India, and the remains of that unhappy nation atoned for the crime of treason by the sin of hypocrisy. It has been computed that one hundred thousand Roman subjects were extirpated in the Samaritan war,' which converted the once fruitful province into a desolate and smoking wilderness. But in the creed of Justinian, the guilt of murder could not be applied to the slaughter of unbelievers; and he piously laboured to establish with fire and sword the unity of the Christian faith."

doxy.

With these sentiments, it was incumbent on him, His orthoat least, to be always in the right. In the first years of his administration, he signalized his zeal as the disciple and patron of orthodoxy: the reconciliation of the Greeks and Latins established the tome of St. Leo as the creed of the emperor and the empire; the Nestorians and Eutychians were exposed, on either side, to the double edge of persecution; and the four synods, of Nice, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon, were ratified by the code of a Catholic law

1

Sichem, Neapolis, Naplous, the ancient and modern seat of the Samaritans, is situate in a valley between the barren Ebal, the mountain of cursing to the north, and the fruitful Garizim, or mountain of cursing to the south, ten or eleven hours' travel from Jerusalem. See Maundrel, Journey from Aleppo, &c. p. 59-63.

1 Procop. Anecdot. c. 11. Theophan. Chron. p. 152. John Malala, Chron. tom. ii. p. 62. I remember an observation, half philosophical, half superstitious, that the province which had been ruined by the bigotry of Justinian was the same through which the Mahometans penetrated into the empire.

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m The expression of Procopius is remarkable: ου γαρ δι εδοκει φονος ανθρώπων είναι, ην γε μη της αυτου δόξης οι τελευτωντες τυχοιεν οντες. Anecdot. c. 13.

XLVII.

CHAP. giver." But while Justinian strove to maintain the uniformity of faith and worship, his wife Theodora, whose vices were not incompatible with devotion, had listened to the Monophysite teachers; and the open or clandestine enemies of the church revived and multiplied at the smile of their gracious patroness. The capital, the palace, the nuptial bed, were torn by spiritual discord; yet so doubtful was the sincerity of the royal consorts, that their seeming disagreement was imputed by many to a secret and mischievous confederacy against the religion and happiness of their people. The famous dispute of the THREE CHAPTERS, P which has filled more volumes than it deserves lines, is deeply marked with this subtle and disingenuous spirit. It was now three hundred years since the body of Origen had been eaten by the worms: his soul, of which he held the pre-existence, was in the hands of its Creator, but his writings were eagerly perused by the monks of Palestine. In these writings, the piercing eye of Justinian described more than ten metaphysical errors; and the primitive doctor, in the

The three

chapters, A. D. 532

-698.

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" See the Chronicle of Victor, p. 328, and the original evidence of the laws of Justinian. During the first years of his reign, Baronius himself is in extreme good humour with the emperor, who courted the popes, till he got them into his power.

Procopius, Anecdot. c. 13. Evagrius, 1. iv. c. 10. If the ecclesiastical never read the secret historian, their common suspicion proves at least the general hatred.

P On the subject of the three chapters, the original acts of the vth general council of Constantinople supply much useless, though authentic, knowledge (Concil. tom. vi. p. 1-419). The Greek Evagrius is less copious and correct (1. iv. c. 38) than the three zealous Africans, Facundus (in his twelve books, de tribus capitulis, which are most correctly published by Sirmond), Liberatus (in his Breviarium, c. 22, 23, 24), and Victor Tununensis in his Chronicle (in tom. i. Antiq. Lect. Canisii, p. 330-334). The Liber Pontificalis, or Anastasius (in Vigilio, Pelagio, &c.) is original, Italian evidence. The modern reader will derive some information from Dupin (Bibliot. Eccles. tom. v. p. 189-207) and Basnage (Hist. de l'Eglise, tom. i. p. 519-541); yet the latter is too firmly resolved to depreciate the authority and character of the popes.

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1 Origen had indeed too great a propensity to imitate the of the old philosophers (Justinian, ad Mennam, in Concil. tom. vi. p. 356). His moderate opinions were too repugnant to the zeal of the church, and he was found guilty of the heresy of reason.

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company of Pythagoras and Plato, was devoted by CHAP. the clergy to the eternity of hell-fire, which he had presumed to deny. Under the cover of this precedent, a treacherous blow was aimed at the council of Chalcedon. The fathers had listened without impatience to the praise of Theodore of Mopsuestia; and their justice or indulgence had restored both Theodoret of Cyrrhus, and Ibas of Edessa, to the communion of the church. But the characters of these oriental bishops were tainted with the reproach of heresy; the first had been the master, the two others were the friends, of Nestorius: their most suspicious passages were accused under the title of the three chapters; and the condemnation of their memory must involve the honour of a synod, whose name was pronounced with sincere or affected reverence by the Catholic world. If these bishops, whether innocent or guilty, were annihilated in the sleep of death, they would not probably be awakened by the clamour, which after a hundred years was raised over their grave. If they were already in the fangs of the dæmon, their torments could neither be aggravated nor assuaged by human industry. If in the company of saints and angels they enjoyed the rewards of piety, they must have smiled at the idle fury of the theological insects who still crawled on the surface of the earth. The foremost of these insects, the emperor of the Romans, darted his sting, and distilled his venom, perhaps without discerning the true motives of Theodora and her ecclesiastical faction. The victims were no longer subject to his power, and the vehement style of his edicts could only proclaim their

* Basnage (Præfat. p. 11-14. ad tom. i. Antiq. Lect. Canis.) has fairly weighed the guilt and innocence of Theodore of Mopsuestia. If he composed 10,000 volumes, as many errors would be a charitable allowance. In all the subsequent catalogues of heresiarchs, he alone, without his two brethren, is included; and it is the duty of Asseman (Bibliot. Orient, tom, iv. p. 203-207) to justify the sentence.

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ral coun

Constan

tinople,

May 4

June 2.

CHAP. damnation, and invite the clergy of the East to join in a full chorus of curses and anathemas. The East, Vth gene- with some hesitation, consented to the voice of her cil: Ild of sovereign: the fifth general council, of three patriarchs and one hundred and sixty-five bishops, was held at A.D.553, Constantinople; and the authors, as well as the defenders, of the three chapters were separated from ⚫the communion of the saints, and solemnly delivered to the prince of darkness. But the Latin churches were more jealous of the honour of Leo and the synod of Chalcedon; and if they had fought as they usually did under the standard of Rome, they might have prevailed in the cause of reason and humanity. But their chief was a prisoner in the hands of the enemy; the throne of St. Peter, which had been disgraced by the simony, was betrayed by the cowardice, of Vigilius, who yielded, after a long and inconsistent struggle, to the despotism of Justinian and the sophistry of the Greeks. His apostacy provoked the indignation of the Latins, and no more than two bishops could be found who would impose their hands on his deacon and successor Pelagius. Yet the perseverance of the popes insensibly transferred to their adversaries the appellation of schismatics; the Illyrian, African, and Italian churches, were oppressed by the civil and ecclesiastical powers, not without some effort of military force; the distant barbarians transcribed the creed of the Vatican, and in the period of a century, the schism of the three chapters expired in an obscure angle of the Venetian province. But the religious

* See the complaints of Liberatus and Victor, and the exhortations of pope Pelagius to the conqueror and exarch of Italy. Schisma.... per potestates publicas opprimatur, &c. (Concil. tom. vi. p. 467, &c.) An army was detained to suppress the sedition of an Illyrian city. See Procopius (de Bell. Goth. 1. iv. C. 25): ὧνπερ ένεκα σφισιν αυτοις οι Χριστιανοι διαμαχονται. He seems to promise an ecclesiastical history. It would have been curious and impartial.

The bishops of the patriarchate of Aquileia were reconciled by pope Honorius, A. D. 638 (Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. v. p. 376); but they again relapsed, and the schism was not finally extinguished till 698. Fourteen years before, the

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