DESTRUCTION OF THE MONASTERY OF ST. MARON. 703

was bravely maintained by the hardy natives of Mount Libanus. John Maron, one of the most learned and popular of the monks, assumed the character of patriarch of Antioch; his nephew Abraham, at the head of the Maronites, defended their civil and religious freedom against the tyrants of the East. The son of the orthodox Constantine pursued, with pious hatred, a people of soldiers, who might have stood the bulwark of his empire against the common foes of Christ and of Rome. An army of Greeks invaded Syria; the monastery of St. Maron was destroyed with fire; the bravest chieftains were betrayed and murdered, and twelve thousand of their followers were transplanted to the distant frontiers of Armenia and Thrace. Yet the humble nation of the Maronites has survived the empire of Constantinople, and they still enjoy, under their Turkish masters, a free religion and a mitigated servitude. Their domestic governors are chosen among the ancient nobility; the patriarch, in his monastery of Canobin, still fancies himself on the throne of Antioch; nine bishops compose his synod, and one hundred and fifty priests, who retain the liberty of marriage, are intrusted with the care of one hundred thousand souls. Their country extends from the ridge of Mount Libanus to the shores of Tripoli; and the gradual descent affords, in a narrow space, each variety of soil and climate, from the Holy Cedars, erect under the weight of snow, to the vine, the mulberry, and the olive trees of the fruitful valley. In the twelfth century, the Maronites, abjuring the Monothelite error, were reconciled to the Latin churches of Antioch and Rome,' and the same alliance

136

137

136 In the last century, twenty large cedars still remained, (Voyage de la Roque, tom. i. pp. 68-76); at present, they are reduced to four or five, (Volney, tom i. p. 264.) These trees, so famous in Scripture, were guarded by excommunication; the wood was sparingly borrowed for small crosses, &c.; an annual mass was chanted under their shade; and they were endowed by the Syrians with a sensitive power of erecting their branches to repel the snow, to which Mount Libanus is less faithful than it is painted by Tacitus; inter ardores opacum fidumqe nivibus-a daring metaphor, (Hist. v. 6.)†

137 The evidence of William of Tyre, (Hist. in Gestis Dei per Francos, 1. xxii. c. 8, p. 1022), is copied or confirmed by Jacques de Vitra. Hist. Hierosolym, 1. ii. c. 77, pp. 1093 1094). But this unnatural league expired with the power of the Franks and Abulpharagius, who died in 1286), considers the Maronites as a sect of Monothelites, (Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii. p. 292.)

*Of the oldest and best-looking trees, I counted eleven or twelve; twenty-five very large ones; about fifty of middling size; and more than three hundred smaller and young ones. Burckhardt's Travels in Svria, 2, 10-MILMAN. † Dr. Lepsius, on his return from Egypt, crossed Labinus, and passed through "a venerable forest of cedars in a great level bay of the mountain range. adds that there are others in more northern tracts. Single stems of these gigantic trees are forty feet in circumference and ninety feet high. The largest are stated to be 3.000 years old. Letters from Egypt, p. 350, edit. Bohn.-ENG. CH.

He

has been frequently renewed by the ambition of the popes. and the distress of the Syrians. But it may reasonably be questioned, whether their union has ever been perfect or sincere; and the learned Maronites of the college of Rome have vainly labored to absolve their ancestors from the guilt of heresy and schism.138

IV. The IV. Since the age of Constantine, the ARMEARMENIANS. NIANS 139 had signalized their attachment to the religion and empire of the Christians.* The disorders of their country, and their ignorance of the Greek tongue, prevented their clergy from assisting at the synod of Chalcedon, and they floated eighty-four years" in a state of indifference or suspense, till their vacant faith was finally occupied by the missionaries of Julian of Halicarnassus," who, in Egypt, their common exile, had been vanquished by the arguments or the influence of his rival Severus, the Monophysite patriarch of Antioch. The Armenians alone are the pure disciples of Eutyches, an unfortunate parent, who has been renounced by the greater part of his spiritual progeny. They alone persevere in the opinion, that the manhood of Christ was created, or existed without creation, of a divine and incorruptible substance. Their adversaries reproach them with the adoration of a phantom; and they retort the accusation, by deriding or execrating the blasphemy of the Jacobites, who impute to the Godhead

138 I find a description and history of the Maronites in the Voyage de la Syrie et du Mont Liban par la Roque, (2 vols. in 12mo., Amsterdam, 1723; particularly tom. i. pp. 42-47, pp. 174-184; tom. ii. pp. 10-120). In the ancient part, he copies the prejudices of Nairon and other Maronites of Rome, which Assemannus is afraid to renounce and ashamed to support. Jablonski, (Institut. Hist. Christ. tom. iii. p. 186), Niebuhr, Voyage de l'Arabie, &c., tom. ii. pp. 346, 370-381, and above all, the judicious Volney, (Voyage en Egypte et en Syrie, tom. ii. pp. 8-31, Paris, 1787), may be consulted.

139 The religion of the Armenians is briefly described by La Croze, (Hist. du Christ. de l'Ethiopie et de Arménie, pp. 269-402). He refers to the great Armenian History of Galanus, (3 vols. in fol. Rome. 1650-1661), and commends the state of Armenia in the third volume of the Nouveaux Mémoires des Mission du Levant. The work of a Jesuit must have sterling merit when it is praised by

La Croze.

140 The schism of the Armenians is placed eighty-four years after the council of Chalcedon, (Pagi, Critica, ad A. D. 535.) It was consummated at the end of seventeen years; and it is from the year of Christ 552 that we date the era of the Armenians. (L'Art de vérifier les Dates, p. 35.) †

141 The sentiments and success of Julian of Halicarnassus may be seen in Liberatus, (Brev. c. 19.) Renaudot, (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 132-303), aud Assemannus, (Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii. Dissertat, de Monophysitis, c. 8, p. 286.)

*See vol. ii. ch. xx. p. 179.-MILMAN.

+ Religious persecution drove the Armenians to revolt and facilitated the Persian conquest of the country. Chosroes promoted their separation from the Greek church; and under his sanction. Nierses, their first bishop or Catholicus, held a synod at Thriven at 536, by which the Monophysite system was confirmed and the council of Chalcedon anathematized. (Neander. 4, 271.)-ENG. CH.

FAITH OF THE ARMENIANS.

705

the vile infirmities of the flesh, even the natural effects of nutrition and digestion. The religion of Armenia could not derive much glory from the learning or the power of its inhabitants. The royalty expired with the origin of their schism; and their Christian kings, who arose and fell in the thirteenth century on the confines of Cilicia, were the clients of the Latins, and the vassals of the Turkish sultan of Iconium. The helpless nation has seldom been permitted to enjoy the tranquillity of servitude. From the earliest period to the present hour, Armenia has been the theatre of perpetual war; the lands between Tauris and Erivan were dispeopled by the cruel policy of the Sophis; and myriads of Christian families were transplanted, to perish or to propagate in the distant provinces of Persia. Under the rod of oppression, the zeal of the Armenians is fervent and intrepid: they have often preferred the crown of martyrdom to the white turban of Mahomet; they devoutly hate the error and idolatry of the Greeks; and their transient union with the Latins is not less devoid of truth, than the thousand bishops whom their patriarch offered at the feet of the Roman pontiff." The Catholic, or patriarch, of the Armenians, resides in the monastery of Ekmiasin, three leagues from Erivan. Forty-seven archbishops, each of whom may claim the obedience of four or five suffragans, are consecrated by his hand; but the far greater part are only titular prelates, who dignify with their presence and service the simplicity of his court. As soon as they have performed the liturgy, they cultivate the garden; and our bishops will hear with surprise, that the austerity of their life increases in just proportion to the elevation of their rank. In the fourscore thousand towns or villages of his spiritual empire, the patriarch receives a small and voluntary tax from each person above the age of fifteen; but the annual amount of six hundred thousand crowns is insufficient to supply the incessant demands of charity and tribute. Since the beginning of the last century, the Armenians have obtained a large and lucrative share of the commerce of the East: in their return from Europe, the caravan usually halts in the neighborhood of Erivan, the altars are enriched with the fruits of their patient

142 See a remarkable fact of the twelfth century in the History of Nicetas Choniates, (p. 258). Yet three hundred years before, Photius (Epistol. 11. p. 49, edit. Montacut.) had gloried in the conversion of the Armenians -λarpevel onuɛpov ὀρθοδοξως.

industry; and the faith of Eutyches is preached in their recent congregations of Barbary and Poland.143

V. The COPTS or EGYPTIANS.

V. In the rest of the Roman empire, the despotism of the prince might eradicate or silence the sectaries of an obnoxious creed. But the stubborn temper of the Egyptians maintained their opposition to the synod of Chalcedon, and the policy of Justinian condescended to expect and to seize the opportunity of discord. The Monophysite church of Alexandria" was torn by the disputes of the corruptibles and incorrup tibles, and on the death of the patriarch, the two factions The patriarch upheld their respective candidates. 145 Gaian was Theodosius, the disciple of Julian, Theodosius had been the A. D. 537-568. pupil of Severus: the claims of the former were supported by the consent of the monks and senators, the city and the province; the latter depended on the priority of his ordination, the favor of the empress Theodora, and the arms of the eunuch Narses, which might have been used in more honorable warfare. The exile of the popular candidate to Carthage and Sardinia, inflamed the ferment of Alexandria; and, after a schism of one hundred and seventy years, the Gaianites still revered the memory and doctrine of their founder. The strength of numbers and of discipline was tried in a desperate and bloody conflict; the streets were filled with the dead bodies of citizens and soldiers; the pious women, ascending the roofs of their houses, showered down every sharp or ponderous utensil on the heads of the enemy; and the final victory of Narses was owing to the flames, with which he wasted the third capital of the Roman world. But the lieutenant of Justinian

143 The traveling Armenians are in the way of every traveler, and their mother church is on the high road between Constantinople and Ispahan: for their present state, see Fabricius, (Lux Evangelii, &c., c. xxxviii. pp. 40-51,) Olearius, (1, iv.c. 40.) Chardin, (vol. ii. p. 232), Tournefort, (lettre xx), and, above all, Tavernier, (tom. i. pp. 28-37, 510-518), that rambling jeweler, who had read nothing, but had seen so much and so well.*

144 The history of the Alexandrian patriarchs, from Dioscorus to Benjamin, is taken from Renaudot, (pp. 114-164), and the second tome of the Annals of Eutychius.†

145 Liberat. Brev. c. 20, 23. Victor. Chron. pp. 329, 330. Procop. Anecdot, c. 26, 27.

For the superstition, ignorance, and attempted reform of the present Armenians, see Layard, Nineveh and Babylon, p. 47. 392, 405-7. In one of their churches a rude picture represents "a victorious St. George blowing out the brains of a "formidable dragon, with a bright brass blunderbuss."- ENG. CH.

Clinton, in his chronology of these patriarchs, (F. R. ii. pp. 544-548), has critically corrected the dates and collated the narratives of John Malalas, Theophanes, Victor Tununensis, Nicephorus, Liberatus, and others; and he has attentively examined Pagi and Renaudot, and supplied some omissions.-E. C.

PATRIARCHS PAUL AND APOLLINARIS.

707

Paul, A. D. 538.

had not conquered in the cause of a heretic; Theodosius himself was speedily though gently removed; and Paul of Tanis, an orthodox monk, was raised to the throne of Athanasius. The powers of government were strained in his support; he might appoint or displace the dukes and tribunes of Egypt; the allowance of bread, which Diocletian had granted, was suppressed, the churches were shut, and a nation of schismatics was deprived at once of their spiritual and carnal food. In his turn, the tyrant was excommunicated by the zeal and revenge of the people; and none except his servile Melchites would salute him as a man, a Christian, or a bishop. Yet such is the blindness of ambition, that, when Paul was expelled on a charge of murder, he solicited, with a bribe of seven hundred pounds of gold, his restoration to the same station of hatred and ignominy. His successor Apollinaris entered the hostile city in military array, alike Apollinaris, His troops, qualified for prayer or for battle.

A. D. 551.

the gates

under arms, were distributed through the streets; of the cathedral were guarded, and a chosen band was stationed in the choir, to defend the person of their chief. He stood erect on his throne, and throwing aside the upper garment of a warrior, suddenly appeared before the eyes of the multitude in the robes of patriarch of Alexandria. Astonishment held them mute; but no sooner had Apollinaris begun to read the tome of St. Leo, than a volley of curses, and invectives, and stones, assaulted the odious minister of the emperor and the synod. A charge was instantly sounded by the successor of the apostles; the soldiers waded to their knees in blood; and two hundred thousand Christians are said to have fallen by the sword: an incredible account, even if it be extended from the slaughter of a day to the eighteen years of the reign of Apollinaris. Two succeeding patriarchs, Eulogius and John, labored in the conversion of heretics, with arms and arguments more worthy of their evangelical profession.

147

146

146 Eulogius, who had been a monk of Antioch, was more conspicuous for subtlety than eloquence. He proves that the enemies of the faith, the Gaianites and Theodosians, ought not to be reconciled; that the same proposition may be orthodox in the mouth of St. Cyril, heretical in that of Severus; that the opposite assertations of St. Leo are equally true, &c. His writings are no longer extant except in the Extracts of Photius, who had perused them with care asd satisfaction, cod. ccviii. ccxxv. ccxxvi. ccxxx. cclxxx.

147 See the Life of John the eleemosynary by his contemporary Leontius, bishop of Neapolis in Cyprus, whose Greek text, either lost or hidden, is reflected in the Latin version of Baronius, A. D. 610, No. 9, A. D. 620, No. 8). Pagi, (Critica. tom. ii. p. 763) and Fabricius, (1. v. c. 11, tom. vii. p. 454), have made some critical observations.