A.D. 356. GEORGE OF CAPPADOCIA. 171 madness exhibit the most contemptible and odious picture of human nature; but the massacre of Alexandria attracts still more attention, from the certainty of the fact, the rank of the victims, and the splendour of the capital of Egypt. George,119 from his parents or his education, surnamed the Cappadocian, was born at Epiphania in Cilicia, in a fuller's shop. George of From this obscure and servile origin he raised himself Cappadocia by the talents of a parasite; and the patrons whom he assiduously flattered procured for their worthless dependent a lucrative commission, or contract, to supply the army with bacon. His employment was mean; he rendered it infamous. He accumulated wealth by the basest arts of fraud and corruption; but his malversations were so notorious, that George was compelled to escape from the pursuits of justice. After this disgrace, in which he appears to have saved his fortune at the expense of his honour, he embraced, with real or affected zeal, the profession of Arianism. From the love, or the ostentation, of learning, he collected a valuable library of history, rhetoric, philosophy, and theology; 120 and the choice of the prevailing faction promoted George of Cappadocia to the throne of Athanasius. The entrance of the new archbishop was that of a barbarian conqueror; and each moment of his reign was polluted by cruelty and avarice. The catholics of Alexandria and Egypt were abandoned to a tyrant, qualified, by nature and education, to exercise the office of persecution; but he oppressed with an impartial hand the various inhabitants of his extensive diocese. The primate of Egypt assumed the pomp and insolence of his lofty station; but he still betrayed the vices of his base and servile extraction. The merchants of Alexandria were impoverished by the unjust and almost universal monopoly, which he acquired, of nitre, salt, paper, funerals, &c. : and the spiritual father of a great people condescended to practise the vile and pernicious arts of an informer. A.D. 356. oppresses Alexandria and Egypt. as an original, though not impartial, witness. He was a native of Gaza, and had conversed with the confessor Zeno, who, as bishop of Maiuma, lived to the age of an hundred (1. vii. c. 28). Philostorgius (1. vii. c. 4, with Godefroy's Dissertations, p. 284) adds some tragic circumstances of Christians who were literally sacrificed at the altars of the gods, &c. 119 The life and death of George of Cappadocia are described by Ammianus (xxii. 11), Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. xxi. p. 382, 385, 389, 390), and Epiphanius (Hæres. Ixxvi. [p. 912, ed. Paris, 1622]). The invectives of the two saints might not deserve much credit, unless they were confirmed by the testimony of the cool and impartial infidel. 120 After the massacre of George, the emperor Julian repeatedly sent orders to preserve the library for his own use, and to torture the slaves who might be suspected of secreting any books. He praises the merit of the collection, from whence he had borrowed and transcribed several manuscripts while he pursued his studies in Cappadocia. He could wish indeed that the works of the Galilæans might perish; but he requires an exact account even of those theological volumes, lest other treatises more valuable should be confounded in their loss. Julian. Epist. ix. xxxvi. [p. 377, 411]. 172 66 A.D. 361. DEATH OF GEORGE OF CAPPADOCIA. CHAP. XXIII. The Alexandrians could never forget, nor forgive, the tax which he suggested on all the houses of the city, under an obsolete claim that the royal founder had conveyed to his successors, the Ptolemies and the Cæsars, the perpetual property of the soil. The Pagans, who had been flattered with the hopes of freedom and toleration, excited his devout avarice; and the rich temples of Alexandria were either pillaged or insulted by the haughty prelate, who exclaimed in a loud and threatening tone, "How long will these sepulchres be permitted to stand ?" Under the reign of Constantius he was expelled by the fury, or rather by the justice, of the people; and it was not without a violent struggle that the civil and military powers of the state could restore his authority, and gratify his revenge. The messenger who proclaimed at Alexandria the accession of Julian announced the downfal of the archbishop. George, with Nov. 30. two of his obsequious ministers, count Diodorus, and Dracontius, master of the mint, were ignominiously dragged in chains to the public prison. At the end of twenty-four days the prison was forced open by the rage of a superstitious multitude, impatient of the tedious forms of judicial proceedings. The enemies of gods and men expired under their cruel insults; the lifeless bodies of the archbishop and his associates were carried in triumph through the streets on the back of a camel ;* and the inactivity of the Athanasian party 121 was esteemed a shining example of evangelical patience. The remains of these guilty wretches were thrown into the sea; and the popular leaders of the tumult declared their resolution to disappoint the devotion of the Christians, and to intercept the future honours of these martyrs, who had been punished, like their predecessors, by the enemies of their religion. 122 The fears of the Pagans were just, and their precautions ineffectual. The meritorious death of the archbishop obliterated the memory of his life. The rival of Athanasius was dear and sacred to the Arians, and the seeming conversion of those sectaries introduced his worship into the bosom of the catholic church. 123 The odious He is massacred by the people, Dec. 24, 121 Philostorgius, with cautious malice, insinuates their guilt, x«ì cǹv 'Adavacíov yrúτην στρατηγῆσαι τῆς πράξεως, l. vii. c. 2. Godefroy, p. 267. 122 Cineres projecit in mare, id metuens ut clamabat, ne, collectis supremis, ædes illis exstruerentur ut reliquis, qui deviare a religione compulsi, pertulere cruciabiles panas, adusque gloriosam mortem intemeratâ fide progressi, et nunc MARTYRES appellantur. Ammian. xxii. 11. Epiphanius proves to the Arians that George was not a martyr. 123 Some Donatists (Optatus Milev. p. 60, 303, edit. Dupin; and Tillemont, Mém. Ecclés. tom. vi. p. 713, in 4to.) and Priscillianists (Tillemont, Mém. Ecclés. tom. viii. p. 517, in 4to.) have in like manner usurped the honours of catholic saints and martyrs. " Julian himself says that they tore him to pieces like dogs, rodμā dāpes, worię a εύνι;, σπαράττειν. Epist. x. [p. 380].-Μ. A.D. 361. PARTIALITY OF JULIAN. and 178 stranger, disguising every circumstance of time and place, assumed the mask of a martyr, a saint, and a Christian hero; 124 and the infamous George of Cappadocia has been trans- worshipped formed 125 into the renowned St. George of England, the and martyr. patron of arms, of chivalry, and of the garter. 126 as a saint About the same time that Julian was informed of the tumult of Alexandria he received intelligence from Edessa that the proud and wealthy faction of the Arians had insulted the weakness of the Valentinians, and committed such disorders as ought not to be suffered with impunity in a well-regulated state. Without expecting the slow forms of justice, the exasperated prince directed his mandate to the magistrates of Edessa, 127 by which he confiscated the whole property of the church: the money was distributed among the soldiers; the lands were added to the domain; and this act of oppression was aggravated by the most ungenerous irony. "I show myself," says Julian," the true friend of the Galilæans. Their admirable law has "promised the kingdom of heaven to the poor; and they will advance "with more diligence in the paths of virtue and salvation when they "are relieved by my assistance from the load of temporal possessions. “Take care,” pursued the monarch, in a more serious tone, "take care "how you provoke my patience and humanity. If these disorders “continue, I will revenge on the magistrates the crimes of the people; " and you will have reason to dread, not only confiscation and exile, "but fire and the sword." The tumults of Alexandria were doubtless of a more bloody and dangerous nature: but a Christian bishop had 124 The saints of Cappadocia, Basil and the Gregories, were ignorant of their holy companion. Pope Gelasius (A.D. 494), the first catholic who acknowledges St. George, places him among the martyrs "qui Deo magis quam hominibus noti sunt." He rejects his Acts as the composition of heretics. Some, perhaps not the oldest, of the spurious Acts, are still extant; and, through a cloud of fiction, we may yet distinguish the combat which St. George of Cappadocia sustained, in the presence of Queen Alexandra, against the magician Athanasius. 125 This transformation is not given as absolutely certain, but as extremely probable. See the Longueruana, tom. i. p. 194. 126 A curious history of the worship of St. George, from the sixth century (when he was already revered in Palestine, in Armenia, at Rome, and at Treves in Gaul), might be extracted from Dr. Heylin (History of St. George, 2nd edition, London, 1633, in 4to. p. 429) and the Bollandists (Act. SS. Mens. April. tom. iii. p. 100-163). His fame and popularity in Europe, and especially in England, proceeded from the Crusades. 127 Julian. Epist. xliii. [p. 424.] The late Dr. Milner (the Roman catholic bishop) wrote a tract to vindicate the existence and the orthodoxy of the tutelar saint of England. He succeeds, I think, in tracing the worship of St. George up to a period which makes it improbable that so notorious an Arian could be palmed upon the catholic church as a saint and a martyr. The Acts rejected by Gelasius may have been of Arian origin, and designed to engraft the story of their hero on the obscure adventures of some earlier saint. See an Historical and Critical Inquiry into the Existence and Character of Saint George, in a letter to the Earl of Leicester, by the Rev. J. Milner, F.S.A. London, 1792.-M. 174 RESTORATION OF ATHANASIUS. CHAP. XXII. fallen by the hands of the Pagans; and the public epistle of Julian affords a very lively proof of the partial spirit of his administration. His reproaches to the citizens of Alexandria are mingled with expressions of esteem and tenderness; and he laments that, on this occasion, they should have departed from the gentle and generous manners which attested their Grecian extraction. He gravely censures the offence which they had committed against the laws of justice and humanity; but he recapitulates, with visible complacency, the intolerable provocations which they had so long endured from the impious tyranny of George of Cappadocia. Julian admits the principle that a wise and vigorous government should chastise the insolence of the people; yet, in consideration of their founder Alexander, and of Serapis their tutelar deity, he grants a free and gracious pardon to the guilty city, for which he again feels the affection of a brother. 128 Restoration A.D. 362, After the tumult of Alexandria had subsided, Athanasius, amidst the public acclamations, seated himself on the throne from whence his unworthy competitor had been precipitated: and as the zeal of the archbishop was tempered with discretion, the exercise of his authority tended not to inflame, but to reconcile, the minds of the people. His pastoral labours were not confined to the narrow limits of Egypt. The state of the Christian world was present to his active and capacious mind; and the age, the merit, the reputation of Athanasius, enabled him to assume, in a moment of danger, the office of Ecclesiastical Dictator.129 Three years were not yet elapsed since the majority of the bishops of the West had, ignorantly or reluctantly, subscribed the Confession of Rimini. They repented, they believed, but they dreaded the unseasonable rigour of their orthodox brethren; and if their pride was stronger than their faith, they might throw themselves into the arms of the Arians, to escape the indignity of a public penance, which must degrade them to the condition of obscure laymen. At the same time the domestic differences concerning the union and distinction of the divine persons were agitated with some heat among the catholic doctors; and the progress of this metaphysical controversy seemed to threaten a public and lasting division of the Greek and Latin churches. By the wisdom of a select synod, to which the name and presence of Athanasius gave the authority of a general council, the bishops who had unwarily deviated into error were admitted to the 128 Julian. Epist. x. [p. 378.] He allowed his friends to assuage his anger. Ammian. xxii. 11. 129 See Athanas. ad Rufin. tom. ii. p. 40, 41; and Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. xxi. p. 395, 396; who justly states the temperate zeal of the primate as much more meritorious than his payers, his fasts, his persecutions &c A.D. 362. HE IS EXPELLED BY JULIAN, 175 communion of the church, on the easy condition of subscribing the Nicene Cree, without any formal acknowledgment of their past fault, or any minute definition of their scholastic opinions. The advice of the primate of Egypt had already prepared the clergy of Gaul and Spain, of Italy and Greece, for the reception of this salutary measure; and, notwithstanding the opposition of some ardent spirits,130 the fear of the common enemy promoted the peace and harmony of the Christians.131 expelled by A.D. 362, Oct. 23. The skill and diligence of the primate of Egypt had improved the season of tranquillity before it was interrupted by the He is perhostile edicts of the emperor.132 Julian, who despised the secuted and Christians, honoured Athanasius with his sincere and Julian, peculiar hatred. For his sake alone he introduced an arbitrary distinction, repugnant at least to the spirit of his former declarations. He maintained that the Galilæans whom he had recalled from exile were not restored, by that general indulgence, to the possession of their respective churches; and he expressed his astonishment that a criminal, who had been repeatedly condemned by the judgment of the emperors, should dare to insult the majesty of the laws, and insolently usurp the archiepiscopal throne of Alexandria, without expecting the orders of his sovereign. As a punishment for the imaginary offence, he again banished Athanasius from the city; and he was pleased to suppose that this act of justice would be highly agreeable to his pious subjects. The pressing solicitations of the people soon convinced him that the majority of the Alexandrians were Christians; and that the greatest part of the Christians were firmly attached to the cause of their oppressed primate. But the knowledge of their sentiments, instead of persuading him to recall his decree, provoked him to extend to all Egypt the term of the exile of Athanasius. The zeal of the multitude rendered Julian still more inexorable he was alarmed by the danger of leaving at the head of a tumultuous city a daring and popular leader; and the language of his resentment discovers the opinion which he entertained of the courage and abilities of Athanasius. The execution of the sentence 130 I have not leisure to follow the blind obstinacy of Lucifer of Cagliari. See his adventures in Tillemont (Mém. Ecclés. tom. vii. p. 900-926); and observe how the colour of the narrative insensibly changes, as the confessor becomes a schismatic. 131 Assensus est huic sententiæ Occidens, et, per tam necessarium concilium, Satanæ faucibus mundus ereptus. The lively and artful dialogue of Jerom against the Luciferians (tom. ii. p. 135-155 [tom. ii. p. 193, ed. Vallars.]) exhibits an original picture of the ecclesiastical policy of the times. 132 Tillemont, who supposes that George was massacred in August, crowds the actions of Athanasius into a narrow space (Mém. Ecclés. tom. viii. p. 360). An original fragment, published by the Marquis Maffei, from the old Chapter library of Verona (Osservazioni Letterarie, tom. iii. p. 60-92), affords many important datez, which are authenticated by the computation of Egyptian months. |