CHAP. rejected as a dire and dangerous blasphemy, and the rash
XLVII.

innovation had nearly cost the emperor Anastasius his throne
and his life.78 The people of Constantinople was devoid of
any rational principles of freedom; but they held as a lawful
cause of rebellion, the colour of a livery in the races, or the
colour of a mystery in the schools. The Trisagion, with and
without this obnoxious addition, was chaunted in the cathe-
dral by two adverse choirs, and, when their lungs were ex-
hausted, they had recourse to the more solid arguments of
sticks and stones: the aggressors were punished by the em-
peror, and defended by the patriarch; and the crown and
mitre were staked on the event of this momentous quarrel.
The streets were instantly crowded with innumerable swarms
of men, women, and children; the legions of monks, in regu-
lar array, marched, and shouted, and fought at their head.
“ Christians! this is the day of martyrdom; let us not desert
“our spiritual father; anathema to the Manichæan tyrant;
“he is unworthy to reign.” Such was the Catholic cry; and
the gallies of Anastasius lay upon their oars before the pa-
lace, till the patriarch had pardoned his penitent, and hush-
ed the waves of the troubled multitude. The triumph of
Macedonius was checked by a speedy exile; but the zeal of
his flock was again exasperated by the same question, “Whe-
“ther one of the Trinity had been crucified?” On this mo-
mentous occasion, the blue and green factions of Constanti-
nople suspended their discord, and the civil and military
powers were annihilated in their presence. The keys of the
city, and the standards of the guards, were deposited in the
forum of Constantine, the principal station and camp of the
faithful. Day and night they were incessantly busied either
in singing hymns to the honour of their God, or in pillaging
and murdering the servants of their prince. The head of his
favourite monk, the friend, as they styled him, of the ene-
my of the Holy Trinity, was borne aloft on a spear; and the
fire-brands which had been darted against heretical struc-
tures, diffused the undistinguishing flames over the most or-
thodox buildings. The statues of the emperor were broken,
and his person was concealed in a suburb, till at the end of

a

three days, he dared to implore the mercy of his subjects. CHAP. Without his diadem, and in the posture of a suppliant, Anas

XLVII. tasius appeared on the throne of the circus. The Catholics, before his face, rehearsed their genuine Trisagion; they exulted in the offer which he proclaimed by the voice of a herald, of abdicating the purple; they listened to the admonition, that, since all could not reign, they should previously agree in the choice of a sovereign; and they accepted the blood of two unpopular ministers, whom their master, without hesitation, condemned to the lions. These furious but transient seditions were encouraged by the success of Vitalian, who with an army of Huns and Bulgarians, for the most part idolaters, declared himself the champion of the Catholic faith. In this pious rebellion he depopulated Thrace, besieged Constantinople, exterminated sixty-five thousand of his fellow-Christians, till he obtained the recal of the bishops, the satisfaction of the pope, and the establishment of the council of Chalcedon, an orthodox treaty, reluctantly signed by the dying Anastasius, and more faithfully performed by the uncle of Justinian. And such was the event of the first of First relithe religious wars, which have been waged in the name, and gious war; by the disciples of the God of Peace.79

Justinian has been already seen in the various lights of a Theologiprince, a conqueror, and a lawgiver: the theologian 80 still cer and goremains, and it affords an unfavourable prejudice, that his vemment

of Justitheology should form a very prominent feature of his por- nian, A.D. trait. The sovereign sympathised with his subjects in their 519...565. superstitious reverence for living and departed saints: his Code, and more especially his Novels, confirm and enlarge the privileges of the clergy; and in every dispute between

A. D. 514.

a

CHAP. a monk and a layman, the partial judge was inclined to pro XLVII.

nounce, that truth, and innocence, and justice, were always on the side of the church. In his public and private devotions, the emperor was assiduous and exemplary; his prayers, vigils, and fasts, displayed the austere penance of a monk; his fancy was amused by the hope, or belief, of personal inspiration; he had secured the patronage of the Virgin and St. Michael the archangel; and his recovery from a dangerous disease was ascribed to the miraculous succour of the holy martyrs Cosmas and Damian. The capital and the provinces of the East were decorated with the monuments of his religion ;81 and, though the far greater part of these costly structures may be attributed to his taste or ostentation, the zeal of the royal architect was probably quickened by a genuine sense of love and gratitude towards his invisible benefactors. Among the titles of Imperial greatness, the name of Pious was most pleasing to his ear; to promote the temporal and spiritual interest of the church, was the serious business of his life ; and the duty of father of his country was often sacrificed to that of defender of the faith. The controversies of the times were congenial to his temper and understanding; and the theological professors must inwardly deride the diligence of a stranger, who cultivated their art and neglected his own. “What can ye fear,” said a bold conspirator to his associates, “ from your bigotted tyrant? “ Sleepless and unarmed he sits whole nights in his closet, “ debating with reverend grey-beards, and turning over the

pages of ecclesiastical volumes." 82 The fruits of these lucubrations were displayed in many a conference, where Justinian might shine as the loudest and most subtle of the disputants; in many a sermon, which, under the name of edicts and epistles, proclaimed to the empire the theology of their master. While the Barbarians invaded the provinces, while the victorious legions marched under the banners of Belisarius and Narses, the successor of Trajan, unknown to the camp, was content to vanquish at the head of a synod.

Had he invited to these synods a disinterested and rational CHAP. spectator, Justinian might have learned, " that religious con

XLVII. “troversy is the offspring of arrogance and folly; that true “piety is most laudably expressed by silence and submis. “sion; that man, ignorant of his own nature, should not presume to scrutinize the nature of his God; and, that it is “sufficient for us to know, that power and benevolence are " the perfect attributes of the Deity:"83 Toleration was not the virtue of the times, and indulgence His perse

cution to rebels has seldom been the virtue of princes. But when the prince descends to the narrow and peevish character of a disputant, he is easily provoked to supply the defect of argument by the plenitude of power, and to chastise without mercy the perverse blindness of those who wilfully shut their eyes against the light of demonstration. The reign of Justinian was an uniform, yet various scene of persecution; and he appears to have surpassed his indolent predecessors, both in the contrivance of his laws and the rigour of their execution. The insufficient term of three months was assigned of heretics; for the conversion or exile of all heretics ; 84 and if he still connived at their precarious stay, they were deprived, under his iron yoke, not only of the benefits of society, but of the common birth-right of men and Christians. At the end of four hundred years, the Montanists of Phrygia's still breathed the wild enthusiasm of perfection and prophecy, which they had imbibed from their male and female apostles, the special organs of the Paraclete. On the approach of the Catholic priests and soldiers, they grasped with alacrity the crown of martyrdom ; the conventicle and the congregation perished in the flames, but these primitive fanatics were not extinguished three hundred years after the death of their tyrant. Under the protection of the Gothic confederates, the

83 For these wise and moderate sentiments, Procopius (de Bell. Goth. I. i. c. 3.) is scourged in the Preface of Alemannus, who ranks him among the political Christians...sed longe verius hæresum omnium sentinas, prorsusque Atheos...aboininable Atheists who preached the imitation of God's mercy to Dian (ad Hist. Arcan. c. 13).

84 This alternative, a precious circumstance, is preserved by John Malala (tom. ii. p. 63. edit. Venet. 1733), who deserves more credit as he draws towards his end. After numbering the heretirs, Nestorians, Eutychians, &c. De expectent, says Justinian, ut digni veniâ judicentur : jubemus eniin ut. convicti et aperti hæretici justæet idonexanimadversioni subjiciantur. Baronius cupies and applauds this edict of the Code (A. D. 527, No. 39, 40).

85 See the character and principles of the Montanists, in Mosheim, de Re. bus Christ. ante Constantinum, p. 410...424. VOL. VI.

G

CHAP. church of the Arians at Constantinople had braved the seXLVII.

verity of the laws: their clergy equalled the wealth and magnificence of the senate ; and the gold and silver which were seized by the rapacious hand of Justinian might perhaps be

claimed as the spoils of the provinces and the trophies of the of Pagans ; Barbarians. A secret remnant of Pagans, who still lurked

in the most refined and the most rustic conditions of mankind, excited the indignation of the Christians, who were perhaps unwilling that any strangers should be the witnesses of their intestine quarrels. A bishop was named as the inquisitor of the faith, and his diligence soon discovered in the court and city, the magistrates, lawyers, physicians, and sophists, who still cherished the superstition of the Greeks. They were sternly informed that they must chuse without delay between the displeasure of Jupiter or Justinian, and that their aversion to the gospel could no longer be disguised under the scandalous mask of indifference or impiety. The patrician Photius perhaps alone was resolved to live and to die like his ancestors : he enfranchised himself with the stroke of a dagger, and left his tyrant the poor consolation of exposing with ignominy the lifeless corpse of the fugitive. His weaker brethren submitted to their earthly monarch, underwent the ceremony of baptism, and laboured, by their extraordinary zeal, to eraze the suspision, 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 muniof Jews; ficence of Justinian.86 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.87

:

86 Theophan. Chron. p. 153. Jolin 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. ij. p. 85).

87 Compare Procopius (Hist. Arcan. c. 28. and Aleman's Notes) with Thcophanes (Chron. p. 190). The council of Nice has entrusted 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 epis. tles of S.. Cyril. Since the reign of Monophytism in Egypt, the Catholics