XLVII. ed, or rather the same words were repeated, by all the CHAP. Christians whose liturgy was performed in the Greek or the Latin tongue. Their numbers, and visible splendour, bestowed an imperfect claim to the appellation of Catholics: but in the Fast, they were marked with the less honourable name of Melchites or Royalists109; of men, whose faith, instead of resting on the basis of scripture, reason, or tradition, had been established, and was still maintained, by the arbitrary power of a temporal monarch. Their adversaries might allege the words of the fathers of Constantinople, who profess themselves the slaves of the king; and they might relate, with malicious joy, how the decrees of Chalcedon had been inspired and reformed by the emperor Marcian and his virgin bride. The prevailing faction will naturally inculcate the duty of submission, nor is it less natural that dissenters should feel and assert the principles of freedom. Under the rod of persecution, the Nestorians and Monophysites degenerated into rebels and fugitives; and the most ancient and useful allies of Rome were taught to consider the emperor not as the chief, but as the enemy, of the Christians. Language, the leading principle which unites or separates the tribes of mankind, soon discriminated the sectaries of the East, by a peculiar and perpetual badge, which abolished the means of intercourse and the hope of reconciliation. The long dominion of the Greeks, their colonies, and, Perpetual above all, their eloquence, had propagated a language of the Oridoubtless the most perfect that has been contrived by ental the art of man. Yet the body of the people, both in Sy-sects. ria and Egypt, still persevered in the use of their national 597, &c.). Theodore, a monk of Tarsus in Cilicia, had been named to the primacy of Britain by pope Vitalian (A. D. 668. See Baronius and Pagi), whose esteem for his learning and piety was tainted by some distrust of his national character-ne quid contrarium veritati fidei, Græcorum more, in ecclesiam cui præesset introduceret. The Cicilian was sent from Rome to Canterbury under the tuition of an African guide (Bedæ Hist. Eccles. Anglorum, l. iv. c. 1). He adhered to the Roman doctrine; and the same creed of the incarnation has been uniformly transmitted from Theodore to the modern primates, whose sound understanding is perhaps seldom engaged with that abstruse mystery. 109 This name, unknown till the tenth century, appears to be of Syriac origin. It was invented by the Jacobites, and eagerly adopted by the Nestorians and Mahometans; but it was accepted without shame by the Catholics, and is frequently used in the Annals of Eutychius (Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii. p. 507, &c. tom. iii. p. 355. Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alexandrin. p. 119). Ημεις δελοι τε Βασιλέως, was the acclamation of the fathers of Constantinople (Concil. tom. vii. p. 765). separation XLVII. CHAP. idioms; with this difference however, that the Coptic was confined to the rude and illiterate peasants of the Nile, while the Syriac, from the mountains of Assyria to the Red Sea, was adapted to the higher topics of poetry and argument. Armenia and Abyssinia were infected by the speech or learning of the Greeks; and their Barbaric tongues, which have been revived in the studies of modern Europe, were unintelligible to the inhabitants of the Roman empire. The Syriac and the Coptic, the Armenian and the Ethiopic, are consecrated in the service of their respective churches; and their theology is enriched by domestic versions both of the scriptures and of the most popular fathers. After a period of thirteen hundred and sixty years, the spark of controversy, first kindled by a sermon of Nestorius, still burns in the bosom of the East; and the hostile communions still maintain the faith and discipline of their founders. In the most abject state of ignorance, poverty, and servitude, the Nestorians and Monophysites reject the spiritual supremacy of Rome, and cherish the toleration of their Turkish masters, which allows them to anathematise, on one hand, St. Cyril and the synod of Ephesus; on the other, pope Leo and the council of Chalcedon. The weight which they cast into the downfal of the Eastern empire demands our notice, and the reader may be amused with the various prospect of, I. The Nestorians. II. The Jacobites. III. The Maronites. IV. The Armenians. V. The Copts; and, VI. The Abyssinians. To the three 110 The Syriac, which the natives revere as the primitive language, was divided into three dialects. 1. The Aramaæan, as it was refined at Edessa and the cities of Mesopotamia. 2. The Palestine, which was used in Jerusalem, Damascus, and the rest of Syria. 3. The Nabathæan, the rustic idiom of the mountains of Assyria and the villages of Irak (Gregor. Abulpharag. Hist. Dynast. p. 11). On the Syriac, see Ebed-Jesu (Asseman, tom. iii. p. 326, &c.), whose prejudice alone could prefer it to the Arabic. 111 I shall not enrich my ignorance with the spoils of Simon, Walton, Mill, Wetstein, Assemannus, Ludolphus, La Croze, whom I have consulted with some care. It appears, 1. That of all the versions which are celebrated by the fathers, it is doubtful whether any are now extant in their pristine integrity. 2. That the Syriac has the best claim; and that the consent of the Oriental sects is a proof that it is more ancient than their schism. 112 On the account of the Monophysites and Nestorians, I am deeply indebted to the Bibliotheca Orientalis, Clementino- Vaticana of Joseph Simon Assemannus. That learned Maronite was despatched in the year 1715, by pope Clement XI. to visit the monasteries of Egypt and Syria, in search of MSS. His four folio volumes published at Rome 1719-1728, contain a part only, though perhaps the most valuable, of his extensive project. As a na. tive and as a scholar, he possessed the Syriac literature; and, though a dependant of Rome, he wishes to be moderate and candid. XLVIL. former, the Syriac is common; but of the latter, each is CHAP. discriminated by the use of a national idiom. Yet the modern natives of Armenia and Abyssinia would be incapable of conversing with their ancestors: and the Christians of Egypt and Syria, who reject the religion, have adopted the language, of the Arabians. The lapse of time has seconded the sacerdotal arts, and in the East, as well as in the West, the Deity is addressed in an obsolete tongue, unknown to the majority of the congregation. NESTORI I. Both in his native and his episcopal province, the I. The heresy of the unfortunate Nestorius was speedily oblite- ANS, rated. The Oriental bishops, who at Ephesus had resisted to his face the arrogance of Cyril, were mollified by his tardy concessions. The same prelates, or their successors, subscribed, not without a murmur, the decrees of Chalcedon; the power of the Monophysites reconciled them with the Catholics in the conformity of passion, of interest, and insensibly of belief; and their last reluctant sigh was breathed in the defence of the three chapters. Their dissenting brethren, less moderate, or more sincere, were crushed by the penal laws; and as early as the reign of Justinian, it became difficult to find a church of Nestorians within the limits of the Roman empire. Beyond those limits they had discovered a new world, in which they might hope for liberty and aspire to conquest. In Persia, notwithstanding the resistance of the Magi, Christianity had struck a deep root, and the nations of the East reposed under its salutary shade. The Catholic, or primate, resided in the capital: in his synods, and in their dioceses, his metropolitans, bishops, and clergy, represented the pomp and power of a regular hierarchy: they rejoiced in the increase of proselytes, who were converted from the Zendavesta to the Gospel, from the secular to the monastic life; and their zeal was stimulated by the presence of an artful and formidable enemy. The Persian church had been founded by the missionaries of Syria: and their language, discipline, and doctrine, were closely interwoven with its original frame. The Catholics were elected and ordained by their own suffragans; but their filial dependence on the patriarchs of Antioch is attested by the canons of the Oriental church. In the Persian 113 See the Arabic canons of Nice in the translation of Abraham Ecche ។ CHAP school of Edessa", the rising generations of the faithful Syriac version the ten thousand volumes of Theodore lensis, No. 37, 38, 39, 40. Concil. tom. ii. p. 335, 336. edit. Venet. These vulgar titles, Nicene and Arabic, are both apocryphal. The council of Nice enacted no more than twenty canons (Theodoret, Hist. Eccles. 1. i. c. 8.) and the remainder, seventy or eighty, were collected from the synods of the Greek church. The Syriac edition of Maruthas is no longer extant (Asseman. Bibliot. Oriental. tom. i. p. 195. tom. iii. p. 74.) and the Arabic version is marked with many recent interpolations. Yet this code contains many curious relics of ecclesiastical discipline; and since it is equally revered by all the eastern communions, it was probably finished before the schism of the Nestorians and Jacobites. Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. xi. p. 363-367. 114 Theodore the reader (1. ii. c. 5. 49. ad calcem Hist. Eccles.) has noticed this Persian school of Edessa. Its ancient splendour, and the two æras of its downfal (A. D. 431 and 489), are clearly discussed by Assemanni. (Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii. p. 402. ¡¡i. p. 376, 378. iv. p. 70. 924. XLVII. sole mas. A. D. 500, nion of the Christian world, and the blood of seven CHAP. thousand seven hundred Monophysites or Catholics, confirmed the uniformity of faith and discipline in the churches of Persia 15. Their ecclesiastical institutions ters of are distinguished by a liberal principle of reason, or at Persia, least of policy: the austerity of the cloyster was relax- &c. ed and gradually forgotten; houses of charity were endowed for the education of orphans and foundlings; the law of celibacy, so forcibly recommended to the Greeks and Latins, was disregarded by the Persian clergy; and the number of the elect was multiplied by the public and reiterated nuptials of the priests, the bishops, and even the patriarch himself. To this standard of natural and religious freedom, myriads of fugitives resorted from all the provinces of the Eastern empire: the narrow bigotry of Justinian was punished by the emigration of his most industrious subjects; they transported into Persia the arts both of peace and war: and those who deserved the favour, were promoted in the service, of a discerning monarch. The arms of Nushirvan and his fiercer grandson, were assisted with advice, and money, and troops, by the desperate sectaries who still lurked in their native cities of the East; their zeal was rewarded with the gift of the Catholic churches: but when those cities and churches were recovered by Heraclius, their open profession of treason and heresy compelled them to seek a refuge in the realm of their foreign ally. But the seeming tranquillity of the Nestorians was often endangered, and sometimes overthrown. They were involved in the common evils of Oriental despotism: their enmity to Rome could not always atone for their attachment to the gospel and a colony of three hundred thousand Jacobites, the captives of Apamea and Antioch, was permitted to erect an hostile altar in the face of the catholic, and in the sunshine of the court. In his last treaty, Justinian introduced some conditions which tended to enlarge and fortify the toleration of Christianity in Persia. The emperor, ignorant of the rights of conscience, was incapa 115 A dissertation on the state of the Nestorians has swelled in the hands of Assemanni to a folio volume of 950 pages, and his learned researches are digested in the most lucid order. Besides this fourth volume of the Bibliotheque Orientalis, the extracts in the three preceding tomes (tom. i. p. 203. ii. p. 321-463. ili. 64-70. 378—395, &c. 403-408. 580-589) may be usefully consulted, |
