Schism of the A severe inquisition, the final sentence, lasted above three years. But this incident, so inconsiderable that it scarcely deserves a A. D. 315. place in history, was productive of a memorable schism, which afflicted the provinces of Africa above three hundred years, and was extinguished only with Christianity itself. The inflexible zeal of freedom and fanaticism animated the Donatists to refuse obedience to the usurpers, whose election they disputed, and whose spiritual powers they denied. Excluded from the civil and religious communion of mankind, they boldly excommunicated the rest of mankind, who had embraced the impious party of Cæcilian, and of the Traditors, from whom he derived his pretended ordination. They asserted with confidence, and almost with exultation, that the Apostolical succession was interrupted; that all the bishops of Europe and Asia were infected by the contagion of guilt and schism; and that the prerogatives of the Catholic church were confined to the chosen portion of the African believers, who alone had preserved inviolate the integrity of their faith and discipline. This rigid theory was supported by the most uncharitable conduct. Whenever they acquired a proselyte, even from the distant provinces of the East, they carefully repeated the sacred rites of baptism (8) and ordination; as they rejected the validity of those which he had already received from the hands of heretics or schismatics. Bishops, (8) The councils of Arles, of Nice, and of Trent, confirmed the wise and moderate practice of the church of Rome. The Douatists, however, had the advantage of maintaining the sentiment of Cyprian, and of a considerable part of the primitive church. Vincentius Lirinesis (p. 332. ap. Tillemont, Mém. Ecclés., tom. vi. p. 138.) has explained why the Donatists are eternally burning with the Devil, while St. Cyprian reigns in heaven with Jesus Christ. virgins, and even spotless infants, were subjected to the disgrace of a public penance, before they could be admitted to the communion of the Donatists. If they obtained possession of a church which had been used by their Catholic adversaries, they purified the unhallowed building with the same zealous care which a temple of idols might have required. They washed the pavement, scraped the walls, burnt the altar, which was commonly of wood, melted the consecrated plate, and cast the Holy Eucharist to the dogs, with every circumstance of ignominy which could provoke and perpetuate the animosity of religious factions (9). Notwithstanding this irreconcilable aversion, the two parties, who were mixed and separated in all the cities of Africa, had the same language and manners, the same zeal and learning, the same faith and worship. Proscribed by the civil and ecclesiastical powers of the empire, the Donatists still maintained in some provinces, particularly in Numidia, their superior numbers; and four hundred bishops acknowledged the jurisdiction of their primate. But the invincible spirit of the sect sometimes preyed on its own vitals; and the bosom of their schismatical church was torn by intestine divisions. A fourth part of the Donatist bishops followed the independent standard of the Maximianists. The narrow and solitary path which their first leaders had marked out, continued to deviate from the great society of mankind. Even the imperceptible sect of the Rogatians could affirm, without a blush, that when Christ should descend to judge the earth, he would find his true religion preserved only in a few nameless villages of the Cæsarean Mauritania (10). Trinitarian The schism of the Donatists was confined to Africa: the more The diffusive mischief of the Trinitarian controversy successively pene- controversy. trated into every part of the Christian world. The former was an accidental quarrel, occasioned by the abuse of freedom; the latter was a high and mysterious argument, derived from the abuse of philosophy. From the age of Constantine to that of Clovis and Theodoric, the temporal interests both of the Romans and Barbarians were deeply involved in the theological disputes of Arianism. The historian may therefore be permitted respectfully to withdraw the veil of the sanctuary; and to deduce the progress of reason and faith, of error and passion, from the school of Plato to the decline and fall of the empire. The genius of Plato, informed by his own meditation, or by the traditional knowledge of the priests of Egypt (11), had ventured to (9) See the sixth book of Optatus Milevitanùs, p. 91-100. (10) Tillemont, Mém. Ecclésiastiques, tom. vi. part i. p. 253. He laughs at their partial credulity. He revered Augustin, the great doctor of the system of predestination. (11) Plato Ægyptum peragravit ut a sacerdotibus Barbaris numeros et cœlestia acciperet. Cicero de Finibus, v. 25. The Egyptians might still preserve the traditional creed of the Patriarchs. Josephus has persuaded many of the Christian fathers, that Plato derived a part of his knowledge from the Jews; but this vain opinion cannot be reconciled with the obscure state and unsocial manners Plato. 360. The system of explore the mysterious nature of the Deity. When he had elevated Before Christ, his mind to the sublime contemplation of the first self-existent, necessary cause of the universe, the Athenian sage was incapable of conceiving how the simple unity of his essence could admit the infinite variety of distinct and successive ideas which compose the model of the intellectual world; how a Being purely incorporeal could execute that perfect model, and mould with a plastic hand the rude and independent chaos. The vain hope of extricating himself from these difficulties, which must ever oppress the feeble powers of the human mind, might induce Plato to consider the divine nature under the threefold modification; of the first cause, The LOGOS the reason, or Logos, and the soul or spirit of the universe. His poetical imagination sometimes fixed and animated these metaphysical abstractions; the three archical or original principles were represented in the Platonic system as three Gods, united with each other by a mysterious and ineffable generation; and the Logos was particularly considered under the more accessible character of the Son of an Eternal Father, and the Creator and Governor of the world. Such appear to have been the secret doctrines which were cautiously whispered in the gardens of the academy; and which, according to the more recent disciples of Plato,* could not be per of the Jewish people, whose scriptures were not accessible to Greek curiosity till more than one hundred years after the death of Plato. See Marsham, Canon. Chron. p. 144. Le Clerc, Epistol. Critic. vii. p. 177-194. * This exposition of the doctrine of Plato appears to me contrary to the true sense of that philosopher's writings. The brilliant imagination which he carried into metaphysical enquiries, his style, full of allegories and figures, have misled those interpreters who did not seek, from the whole tenour of his works and beyond the images which the writer employs, the system of this philosopher. In my opinion, there is no Trinity in Plato: he has established no mysterious generation between the three pretended principles which he is made to distinguish. Finally, he conceived only as attributes of the Deity, or of matter, those ideas, of which it is supposed that he made substances, real beings. According to Plato, God and matter existed from all eternity. Before the creation of the world, matter had in itself a principle of motion, but without end or laws: it is this principle which Plato calls the irrational soul of the world (ahoyos ugh); because, according to his doctrine, every spontaneous and original principle of motion is called soul. God wished to impress form upon matter, that is to say, 1. to mould matter, and make it into a body; 2. to regulate its motion, and subject it to some end and to certain laws. The Deity, in this operation, could not act but according to the ideas existing in his intelligence; their union filled this, and formed the ideal type of the world. It is this ideal world, this divine' intelligence, existing with God from all eternity, and called by Plato How then, fectly understood, till after an assiduous study of thirty years (12). The arms of the Macedonians diffused over Asia and Egypt the taught in language and learning of Greece; and the theological system of Plato was taught, with less reserve, and perhaps with some improve- Alexandria. 'ments, in the celebrated school of Alexandria (13). A numerous Christ, 300. (12) The modern guides who lead me to the knowledge of the Platonic system are Cudworth (Intellectual System, p. 568-620.), Basnage (Hist. des Juifs, 1. iv. c. 4. p. 53-86.), Le Clerc (Epist. Crit. vii. p. 194-209.), and Brucker (Hist. Philosoph. tom. i. p. 675-706). As the learning of these writers was equal, and their intention different, an inquisite observer may derive instruction from their disputes, and certainty from their agreement. (13) Brucker, Hist. Philosoph. tom. i. p. 1349-1357. The Alexandrian School is celebrated by Strabo (1. xvii.) and Ammianus (xxi. 6.). *, the action of the Deity; that is, order, the collective laws which govern the world: and, 2. the rational soul of the world (hoyorixn xh), or the cause of this result, that is to say, the divine intelligence. When he separates God, the ideal archetype of the world, and matter, it is to explain how, according to his system, God' has proceeded, at the creation, to unite the principle of order, which he had within himself, his proper intelligence, the óyos, the principle of motion, the irrational soul, the ahoyos fux, which was in matter. When he speaks of the place occupied by the ideal world (rónos vontos), it is to designate the divine intelligence, which is its cause. Finally, in no part of his writings do we find a true personification of the preten ded beings of which he is said to have formed a trinity and if this personification existed, it would equally apply to many other notions, of which might be formed many different trinities. : This error, into which many ancient as well as modern interpreters of Plató have fallen, was very natural. Besides the snares which were concealed in his figurative style; besides the necessity of comprehending as a whole the system of his ideas, and not to explain isolated passages, the nature of his doctrine itself would conduce to this error. When Plato appeared, the uncertainty of human knowledge, and the, continual illusions of the senses, were acknowledged, and had given rise to a general scepticism. Socrates had aimed at raising morality above the influence of this scepticism: Plato endeavoured to save metaphysics, by seeking in the human intellect a source of certainty which the senses could not furnish. He invented the system of innate ideas, of which the aggregate formed, according to him, the ideal world, and affirmed that these ideas were real attributes, not only attached to our conceptions of objects, but to the nature of the objects themselves; a nature of which from them we might obtain a knowledge. He gave then to these ideas a positive existence as attributes; his commentators could easily give them a real existence as substances; especially as the terms which he used to designate them, αὔτο τὸ καλον, αὔτο τὸ ἄγαθον, essential beauty, essential goodness, lent themselves to this substantialisation (hypostasis).-G. We have retained this view of the original philosophy of Plato, in which there is probably much truth. The genius of Plato was rather metaphy sical than impersonative: his poetry was in his language rather than, like that of the Orientals, in his conceptions.-M. *The philosophy of Plato was not the only source of that professed in the school of Alexandria. That city, in which Greek, Jewish, and Egyptian men of letters were assembled, was the scene of a strange fusion of the system of these three people. The Greeks brought a Platonism, already much changed; the Jews, who had acquired at Babylon a great number of Oriental notions, and whose theological opinions had undergone great changes by this intercourse, endeavoured to reconcile Platonism with their new doctrine, and disfigured it entirely lastly, the Egyptians, who were not willing to abandon notions for which the Greeks themselves entertained respect, endeavoured on their side to reconcile their own with those of their neighbours. It is in Ecclesiasticus and the Wisdom of Solomon that we trace the influence of Oriental philosophy rather than that of Platonism. We find in these books, and in those of the later prophets, as in Ezekiel, notions unknown to the Jews before the Babylonian captivity, of which we do not discover the germ in Plato, but which are manifestly derived from the Orientals. Thus God represented under the image of light, and the principle of evil under that of darkness; the history of the good and bad angels; paradise and hell, &c. are doctrines of which the origin, or at least the positive determination, can only be referred to the Oriental philosophy. Plato supposed matter eternal; the Orientals and the Jews considered it as a creation of God, who alone was eternal. It is impossible to explain the philosophy of the Alexandrian school solely by the blending of the Jewish theology with the Greek philosophy. The Oriental philosophy, however little it may be known, is recognised at every instant. Thus, according to the Zend Avesta, it is by the Word (honover) more ancient than the world, that Ormuzd created the universe. This word is the logos of Philo, consequently very different from that of Plato. I have shown that Plato never personified the logos as the ideal archetype of the world : Philo ventured this personification. The Deity, according to him, has a double logos; the first óyos évdtá0stog is the ideal archetype of the world, the ideal world, the first-born, of the the school of Before Before Christ, masters. 100. colony of Jews had been invited, by the favour of the Ptolemies, to settle in their new capital (14). While the bulk of the nation practised the legal ceremonies, and pursued the lucrative occupations of commerce, a few Hebrews, of a more liberal spirit, devoted their lives to religious and philosophical contemplation (15). They cultivated with diligence, and embraced with ardour, the theological system of the Athenian sage. But their national pride would have been mortified by a fair confession of their former poverty: and they boldly marked, as the sacred inheritance of their ancestors, the gold and jewels which they had so lately stolen from their Egyptian One hundred years before the birth of Christ, a philosophical treatise, which manifestly betrays the style and sentiments of the school of Plato, was produced by the Alexandrian Jews, and unanimously received as a genuine and valuable relic of the inspired Wisdom of Solomon (16). A similar union of the Mosaic faith and the Grecian philosophy, distinguishes the works of Philo, which were composed, for the most part, under the reign of Augustus (17). The material soul of the universe (18) might offend the piety of the Hebrews: but they applied the character of the LOGOS to the Jehovah of Moses and the patriarchs; and the Son of God was introduced upon earth under a visible, and even human appearance, to perform those familiar offices which seem incompatible with the nature and attributes of the Universal Cause (19). Ac (14) Joseph. Antiquitat. I. xii. c. 1. 3. Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, 1. vii. c. 7. (15) For the origin of the Jewish philosophy, see Eusebius, Præparat. Evangel. viii. 9, 10. cording to Philo, the Therapeutæ studied philosophy; and Brucker has proved (Hist. Philosoph. tom.ii. p. 787.), that they gave the preference to that of Plato. (16) See Calmet, Dissertations sur la Bible, tom. ii. p. 277. The book of the Wisdom of Solomon was received by many of the fathers as the work of that monarch; and although rejected by the Protestants for want of a Hebrew original, it has obtained, with the rest of the Vulgate, the sanction of the council of Trent. (17) The Platonism of Philo, which was famous to a proverb, is proved beyond a doubt by Le Clerc (Epist. Crit. viii. p. 211-228.). Basnage (Hist. des Juifs, 1. iv. c. 5.) has clearly ascertained, that the theological works of Philo were composed before the death, and most probably before the birth of Christ. In such a time of darkness, the knowledge of Philo is more astonishing than his errors. Bull, Defens. Fid. Nicen. s. i. c. i. p. 12. (18) Mens agitat molem, et maguo se corpore miscet. Besides this material soul, Cudworth has discovered (p. 562.) in Amelius, Porphyry, Plotinus, and, as : Deity; which it is sufficient to relate, to show what alterations Platonism had already undergone, and what was their source. Philo, moreover, of all the Jews of Alexandria, is the one whose Platonism is the most pure (See Buhle Introd. to Hist. of Mod. Philosophy. Michaelis Introd. to New Test. in German, part ii. p. 973.). It is from this mixture of Orientalism, Platonism, and Judaism, that Gnosticism arose, which has produced so many theological and philosophical extravagancies, and in which Oriental notions evidently predominate.-G. |