Vandals. "How," said Genseric, "can you dare to ask so much? I have determined not to leave one of you alive." The interview took place on the sea-shore; and he commanded them to be drowned instantly in his presence. Some of his attendants, touched with compassion, begged for them to be spared, and they were dismissed. They went away sorrowful, celebrated divine worship where and as they could, yet always fleeing for life from place to place; and at last, when they thought they had got beyond the scene of slaughter, if any one of them, when preaching, happened to pronounce the name of Pharaoh, Holofernes, Nebuchadnezzar, or any one who is mentioned in Scripture as a persecutor, he was at once banished for an implied slander on the King. When they had been banished, no one was allowed to take their place; so that there arose a famine of the word of God, except where the people, deprived of their Ministers, comforted and instructed one another. Attempts were made to ordain new Bishops, but were effectually frustrated; and Victor, of Utica, to whom we are indebted for this mournful narrative, says, that of one hundred and sixty-four orthodox Bishops, only three were remaining when he wrote, one of whom-Quintianus-was then a refugee at Edessa. After taking breath for a short time from this carnage, the Vandal Chief commanded a general surrender of everything made use of in religious worship, and especially of the sacred books, hoping, it was thought, more easily to overpower the orthodox, if he could deprive them of the word of God. Valerianus, Bishop of the church of Habessina, finding it hopeless to resist any longer, left that city, that he might not witness the desecration, wandered about houseless, and was soon found dead, an old man, more than eighty years of age. In the village of Reia, a small company of Christians ventured to open a church which had been long shut up, that they might there observe the solemnities of Easter; but an Arian Presbyter fell on them with a band of armed men. The reader fell, transfixed by an arrow, part of the congregation soon lay dying in their gore, and those who escaped for the moment were seized, and, by slow tortures, all were put to death. In another place a Vandal mob broke into a church during the time of communion, and trampled the consecrated elements under foot. To maintain Arianism intact in the official portion of the state, Genseric imposed a test on all candidates for employment in his service; and those who feared sin more than death, proved their faith in the atoning Saviour by undergoing extreme cruelties. Among these confessors was Armogastus. The cords which bound his head and limbs caused unutterable pain; but, as he lifted up his heart in prayer to the divine Redeemer, the cords broke, and he found instantaneous relief. Other and stronger cords, some even made of horse-hair, were again wound round him; but again he cried to God in his necessity, and the power that released Peter from his chains once more set Armogastus free. He was then suspended by one leg, but seemed free from pain, proof against his tormentors. Theodoric, son of the tyrant, being present, would have beheaded him; but an Arian Presbyter, also standing by, suggested that his life should be taken by some slower method, lest he should be accounted a martyr. He was PERSECUTION BY THE VANDALS. 429 therefore sent to hard labour in the field; but, after a short time, brought nearer to Carthage to be a cow-herd, where he might be seen by passers-by. But he had a soul too lofty to be cast down thus; and, after suffering shame for Christ's sake, he sweetly fell asleep in the Lord. Genseric tried a gentler method with one Masculon, offering him great things if he would turn Arian. His faith could not be shaken, and the King commanded him to be put to death. But he secretly ordered the executioner to take his head off, if he waited in silence to receive the stroke; but, if he began to speak, not to kill him then, lest he should be regarded as a martyr,- -a witness to the divinity of Christ. But Christ gave him strength to make a prompt confession; so that while preparing to lay down his life in martyrdom, he, in fact, saved it. The royal persecutor now found that he had Christians even in his household, which he began to rid of them in like manner; but, weary and sickened of shedding blood, yet not relenting, he was constrained to relax the persecution, although it only ended with his life. Hunneric, his son and successor, began his reign with an artful appearance of moderation. At first, that he might get credit for piety,-by so erroneous a standard was piety estimated in that age,— he instituted a severe inquisition of heretics, especially of Manichees; and as many as were discovered he commanded either to be burnt or drowned. Yielding to the request of the Emperor Zeno, he consented that the Catholics of Carthage should have a Bishop of their own, after having been without one for twenty-four years; but he added the condition, that Arians should also be allowed entire liberty in Constantinople, and the other eastern provinces; and that, if any obstruction were offered to them in the exercise of this liberty, the new Bishop, and all the other Clergy throughout the province of Africa, should be forthwith banished, and driven to the Moors or Berbers, in the interior of the continent. When the Carthaginian church heard this, they said that, under such conditions, they would rather not have a Bishop, but continue still under the oversight of Jesus Christ, who had governed them hitherto. However, a Bishop was set over them,-Eugenius, a good man, who soon became obnoxious to the Arian Priests, and was required, by Hunneric, not to allow any person dressed as a Vandal to enter his church. To this he answered, that the house of God was open for all, and he could not forbid entrance to any. Murderous persecution then broke out again. Men were stationed at the doors with sticks armed with jagged iron, (palis dentatis,) to lay hold of the long hair (for such was the Vandal fashion) of those who came to worship. Some had their eyes torn out of the sockets, and women were scalped, and paraded in that condition about the town. All the orthodox who were found in any department of the public service were degraded, and made to work like slaves or convicts. In the seventh year of Hunneric's reign, these atro *The word Catholic is here used in its original and proper meaning, to denote universal, as opposed to sectarian; and orthodox in the fundamental truths of Christianity, as distinguished from heretical. It has an implied reference, at this period of ecclesiastical history, to the Arian and Manichean controversies. cities were again renewed at the instigation of Cyrila, an Arian Bishop, who incessantly had it sounded in his ears that his kingdom was in danger, and that nothing could save it but the extirpation of Dissenters. Many of the Dissenters were accordingly transported to Sardinia and Sicily; and in order to give a judicial colouring to those proceedings, the Christian Ministers were falsely accused of unchastity, and innocent females subjected to extreme indignities and tortures, with the hope of extorting something that might serve to criminate them. Not a word escaped their lips that could be made use of to dishonour their persecuted Pastors; but many died in consequence, and others were deformed through life from the injuries they received. At that time nearly five thousand persons were banished into the desert with circumstances of most revolting barbarism. From all parts of the country they were driven like cattle to one place, that there they might hear proposals to accept Arianism, or submit to the alternative of being abandoned to the savage Moors. Some persons of rank addressed the assemblage in terms of bland entreaty; but soft words were not enough to subdue the faith of men who had already endured such fiery trials, and their answer was worthy of their cause. "With a loud cry, and with one consent, they raised their voices, saying, 'We are Christians! We embrace the confession of the universal church,-God one and three!"" That was enough: they were taken to the desert, a vast human herd, and so crowded at the restingplaces that their appearance became loathsome, like that of negro slaves on the middle passage. Even the savage Moors sometimes pitied them. They possessed their souls in patience, and took for their by-word, "This honour have all his saints." The recital of their sufferings during this journey is heart-rending. Many aged and sickly people, and children, perished by the way; but none apostatized. Cyprian, Bishop of Uniziba, came to meet them, and gave them words of consolation, and was afterwards banished in consequence. Shortly after this expulsion of the Catholics, Hunneric convened an assembly of Ecclesiastics to discuss the controversy, rejecting, however, the petition of Eugenius, that the summons might also be sent to the provincial churches, banishing some Ministers whose talent was likely to be troublesome to the Arian Doctors, and having a few others flogged, to keep the rest in awe. On the morning of the first day of the Synod, if so it may be called, he had Lætus, a man eminent for piety, burnt alive. The orthodox who appeared there were made to sit apart from the Arians, covered with contempt, and forced to hear a royal edict read, sanctioned, and proclaimed, which was merely a compendium of the imperial edicts put forth from time to time against the Arians, and now, by change of names, turned against themselves. The execution of the edict was in exact agreement with the character of the Synod, and the record of the continued martyrdoms is not less illustrative of diabolical rage on the one hand, and of Christian constancy on the other, than any that preceded. But one event is related so perfectly miraculous, and yet so well attested, that it must be marked as perhaps the last great authentic instance of the kind in the history of the Christian church. PERSECUTION BY THE VANDALS. 431 And Gibbon, whose levity, infidelity, and heartless contempt of all who have ever suffered for the sake of Christ, often deprive even truth, in his hands, of its charm and evidence, shall supply the result of his own research,—a reluctant but sufficient witness. “Tipasa, a maritime colony of Mauritania, sixteen miles to the east of Cæsarea, had been distinguished, in every age, by the orthodox zeal of its inhabitants. They had braved the fury of the Donatists; they resisted, or eluded,* the tyranny of the Arians. The town was deserted on the approach of an heretical Bishop: most of the inhabitants who could procure ships passed over to the coast of Spain; and the unhappy remnant, refusing all communion with the usurper, still presumed to hold their pious, but illegal, assemblies. Their disobedience exasperated the cruelty of Hunneric. A military Count was despatched from Carthage to Tipasa: he collected the Catholics in the Forum, and, in the presence of the whole province, deprived the guilty of their right hands and their tongues. But the holy confessors continued to speak without tongues; and this miracle is attested by Victor, an African Bishop, who published his history of the persecution within two years after the event. 'If any one,' says Victor, should doubt of the truth, let him repair to Constantinople, and listen to the clear and perfect language of Restitutus, the Sub-Deacon, one of these glorious sufferers, who is now lodged in the palace of the Emperor Zeno, and is respected by the devout Empress.' At Constantinople we are astonished to find a cool, a learned, and unexceptionable witness, without interest, and without passion. Æneas of Gaza, a Platonic philosopher, has accurately described his own observations on these African sufferers. 'I saw them myself: I heard them speak: I diligently inquired by what means such an articulate voice could be formed without any organ of speech: I used my eyes to examine the report of my ears: I opened their mouth, and saw that the whole tongue had been completely torn away by the roots; an operation which the Physicians generally suppose to be mortal.' The testimony of Æneas of Gaza might be confirmed by the superfluous evidence of the Emperor Justinian, in a perpetual edict; of Count Marcellinus, in his chronicle of the times; and of Pope Gregory the First, who had resided at Constantinople, as the Minister of the Roman Pontiff.” † Procopius, also, who is acknowledged by Gibbon in a note, testifies that he had seen these persons in the streets of Constantinople talking without any inconvenience.‡ Drought and famine succeeded to the horrors of persecution; after famine a great mortality, until the dead were too numerous to be buried by the exhausted survivers; and, lastly, Hunneric himself ended his days in lingering and painful disease, induced, as it would seem, by constitutional decay. The force of true religion which had enabled the African church to resist the protracted persecution *"Or eluded," is a gratuitous addition, an example of the flippancy with which this writer manages on every page to insinuate what he has not the courage plainly to affirm. † Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. 37. Procopius De Bell. Vandal., lib. i., cap. 8. now compendiously described, might have excited the reasonable hope that Northern Africa would become one of the happiest countries in the world; that the prayers of so many faithful men would have been answered, and their example blessed, to the eventual revival of vital Christianity: but the lamp of doctrine was extinguished; the Ministers of truth were killed or banished; the multitudes were too ignorant, depressed, and scattered, to restore the means of grace among themselves; then also the Vandals rapidly declined, and with them even the name of Christianity passed away from that part of the world. And throughout the Roman empire, orthodoxy, excellent as it is, was substituted for life: right opinions were contended for; but right experience and right practice were forgotten. Councils, as at Ephesus, at Chalcedon, and at Constantinople, were convened to settle the differences of divided Christendom, differences often in reality no greater than varieties of opinion that now arise and pass away in religious society without notice, because they rather relate to words than things. Worldly passions embittered theologic hate, and reasons of party and impulses of ambition corrupted the purity even of men who had some zeal for the maintenance of fundamental truth, but endeavoured to sustain truth and put down error by dint of authority and force, instead of seeking the influences of the Holy Spirit, who alone can effectually teach the disciples of the Saviour. CHAPTER IV. Not all the Slain are Martyrs-Confusion of the Secular and the Spiritual— The Britons-Persecution in Armenia, and Religious War-Renewed Persecution in Africa-Massacre of Christians in Arabia—War between Justinian and Chosroes-The Lombards-Hermenegild, the Rebel, canonized-Chosroes II. takes Jerusalem-The Mussulmans also take Jerusalem-Constantine-Sylvanus and the Paulicians-Phocas and Boniface III.-The Monks of Bangor-State of Europe in the EIGHTH Century-Persecution in the East-In Spain-Gotteschalchus— State of the Church in the NINTH Century-Claudius of Turin-Pseudo-Martyrs of the TENTH Century—Adalbert of Prague-Sylvester II.-Canons of Orleans —Christianity rejected in Hungary—Ordeals—Propagandists of the ELEVENTH Century-First Crusade-England-Hakem, Father of the Druses-Intellectual movement in the TWELFTH Century—Speculations—Foulques de Neuilly— Heretics-Conduct of the Church towards Heretics-Albigenses-Councils of Lateran and Verona-Judgment of an enlightened Romanist respecting the Persecutions of those Times-Jews-Resistance to Ecclesiastical Power-Second CrusadeThird Crusade-Fourth Crusade-Military Orders-Condition of Christians in the East-Waldo and the Waldenses-Prohibition of Prayer in vernacular Languages. THE ecclesiastical historian must endeavour to distinguish between war and persecution. Religious, sectarian, and national antipathies were often so mingled, that it is not easy to ascertain the dominant principle, or to determine whether the victims of the conflict are to be honoured with the name of "martyrs," or left unmentioned amongst the millions who have perished in unholy warfare. The decision cannot be attained by conjecture; and in the absence of satisfactory evidence, no |