10. BOOK V, CHAPTER IV

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—Gottschalchus—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 Druzes—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 Crusade—Third 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

CONFUSION OF THE EMPIRE AND THE CHURCH.

doubtful names will be admitted into the subsequent chapters of this martyrology, except sometimes, for the sake of illustrating the dominant spirit of the church, or of the times.

The source of this uncertainty is chiefly to be found in the early, and at length the inveterate, confusion of the secular and the sacred, of the world and the church; so that the quarrels of the one were identified with the controversies of the other. We have already seen the first Christian Emperor—if, indeed, he could be justly called "Christian," when both unbaptized and unregenerate—presiding over the affairs of the church of Christ. But the church acquiesced in, and even courted, this interference; and never more so than in the fifth century, the period at which we have now arrived. Leo the Great, for example, Bishop of Rome, although thwarted in his controversy with the Bishop of Constantinople, who was favoured by the ruler of the Eastern empire, desired that the royal authority should defend the church in matters pertaining to divine confession; * and Ambrose reminded Valentinian III., that his father had not only sanctioned religion in word, but by laws also.† The codes of Theodosius and Justinian made the law of the empire to be that of the church; and the same sanction upheld the profession of evangelical truth, and made heresy illegal. Discontented vassals of the Roman see have often cited this general fact as a precedent to justify their recourse for protection to the temporal power; and in several modern states, the Prince or Magistrate has actually resumed the exercise of this external discipline: but, leaving altogether the important questions which have been agitated until the present day, in consequence of the collision of the temporal and spiritual powers, our only business is to observe the mischief to the Christian world which resulted from their confusion. The enemies of the empire were generally the enemies of the church. If they were merely Pagans, the church in their eye was the assemblage of all who bore the Christian name; or, if they were proselyted barbarians who had not received the faith of the New Testament, but the corrupt doctrine known as Arianism, the orthodox, or Catholics, became the objects of their twofold enmity.

The Vandal persecution in Africa has been described. Their expedition into that province was by invitation of a discontented Governor; their hostile position was taken merely for the sake of conquest, adding treachery towards Count Boniface to enmity towards his master; but, after they had obtained possession of the country, by relentless oppression and slaughter of the orthodox, they showed that their hatred was that of sectarian bigotry; and the facts narrated are evidence to justify the classification of the sufferers with Christian martyrs.

The martyrs in Persia, in the fourth century, were, at the same time, victims of political and pagan hatred. On this island, on

* "Qur ad divinam confessionem pertinent, et regia...defendat auctoritas." (Leo. Mag., Epist. ad Pulcher. August.)

† "Non solum sermone respondit, sed etiam legibus sanxit." (Ambros., Ep. xxxii., ad Valentin.)

3 K the contrary, the Britons were not harassed by the Picts and Scots, as might be inferred from the statements of our great Martyrologist, John Foxe,* because they were Christians, but only for the sake of plunder. During those incursions there does not seem to have been any religious persecution, for the barbarians cared for nothing more than booty; but when the cowardly Britons were delivered from that scourge, these began to persecute their pious brethren. "When the ravages of the enemy at length ceased, the island began to abound with such plenty of grain as had never been known in any age before. With plenty, luxury increased; and this was immediately attended with all sorts of crimes; in particular, cruelty, hatred of truth and love of falsehood, insomuch that if any one among them happened to be milder than the rest, and inclined to truth, all the rest abhorred and persecuted him, as if he had been the enemy of his country. Nor were the laity only guilty of these things," (these are the words of Bede,) "but even our Lord's own flock, and his Pastors, also, addicting themselves to drunkenness, animosity, litigiousness, contention, envy, and other such like crimes, and casting off the light yoke of Christ."† Again "the northern nations," as the same historian calls them, renewed their depredations; and the Saxons, whom the natives invited to their aid, also turned their arms against them: and then, when "public as well as private structures were destroyed, the Priests everywhere slain before the altars, and the Prelates and people, without any respect of persons, destroyed with fire and sword;"‡ the indiscriminate slaughter could not be regarded as a martyrdom, but rather as a righteous retribution in penalty of prevalent ungodliness.

But it was far otherwise in the distant East. The misguided zeal of a Christian Bishop, who caused a fire-temple to be demolished in Armenia, had, indeed, provoked the worshippers to persecution. Sapor, the first Persian Sovereign of that country, amply avenged the wrong; but the Magi could not forgive it, and their violence broke forth again in the year 441, in the reign of Izdegerd II., without any immediate provocation. An Armenian historian furnishes a distinct narrative, which may be preferred to less certain accounts collected by Socrates; and we borrow it in Mr. Neumann's translation. "Yasgerd (Izdegerdes) belonged to the accomplices of Satan; he sent forth his accumulated venom, and offered it as a useful and deceptive remedy. And the horn of iniquity began to sound, and the mighty cloud of dust spread over all the four quarters of the earth. The hater and adversary of all believers in Christ appeared; he persecuted and tortured the Christians, and took from them their guiltless lives; for his delight was in desolation and bloodshed; wherefore he constantly thought how he might fully vent the bitterness of his venom, and whither he might shoot the multitude of his arrows. With immoderate fury he fell, like a wild beast, on the country of the Greeks, pressed on as far as the city of Midspin, laid waste sundry provinces of the Romans,

* Acts and Monuments, book II.

† Bede's Ecclesiastical History, chap. xiv., edited by Giles.

‡ Ibid., chap. xv.

ARMENIA.

and, after pulling down the churches, dragged the booty and prisoners after him, filling all the troops in the land with fear and trembling. Now the excellent Emperor Theodosius, (the younger,) being a great lover of peace in Christ, would not give battle to the enemy, but sent his General for the East, Anatolius by name, to meet him, with much treasure. Those Persians who, by reason of their Christian belief, had fled and found refuge in the imperial city, were assembled and delivered into the hands of the King; and all things required by him were acceded to. By this submission he was prevailed upon to stay his further progress, and to return to his city Dispon (Ctesiphon, on the Tigris, opposite to Seleucia). As fire increases by the addition of fuel, so began the unbelieving Prince to meditate something further, when he saw that his iniquity was successful. Knowing now that he was secure, and that all danger of opposition was removed, he proceeded to turn all from the holy faith; some with mere threats, others with dungeons and chains. If any one died under persecution, he seized on his property, personal and real; and acted in all things with the grossest injustice. He suspended misery over the whole land. He called his officers of state together in council; and all who were attached to idolatry by indissoluble bonds, burned like a flaming furnace against the belief of the holy church." His first measures, however, were cautious: he did little more than impose new burdens on his Armenian subjects, and levy conscriptions on them for war against some Scythian tribes; but at length, "when the King saw that the Romans remained true to the treaty that they had concluded with him, and that peace reigned through all his dominions, he sent the joyful tidings to all the fire-temples in his kingdom; he brought fat oxen and long-haired animals in numbers to the holy fire, as a burnt-offering; and was, besides, incessantly employed in performing his impure idolatry. He honoured the Magi, more particularly the Mogbeds,* with crowns and other marks of distinction. He then issued an order for depriving the Christians of the goods and property which they possessed in Persia." A succession of oppressive acts followed in execution of this iniquitous order: the Christians were placed under the jurisdiction of those Mogbeds who were invested with all the prerogatives of high state-functionaries; and his Grand Vizier issued a proclamation against them, containing a sort of confession of faith of Magianism, and a remarkable, but by no means singular, injunction: "Be mindful, that whatsoever faith your Sovereign holds, the same must you also receive, especially for this reason, that we have to render an account of you to God!" Thus, while the Priests of Constantinople and Rome were hotly disputing which of them should be the greater, and were only hindered from setting themselves up as gods by the superior temporal power of their respective coun-

* The Magi were Priests, and the Mogbeds Chief Priests. "The first and most ancient order of the Persian priesthood was the Mogh, or Mugh, that is, Magus. Over the ordinary Magi of those times, there was a superior order, each member of which was called Mugh-bad, or chief of the Magi." They were, in fact, the Prelates of the royal religion of ancient Persia. (Hyde, Historia Religionis veterum Persarum, cap. xxx.)

3 K 2 tries, the crowned fire-Prelates of Persia, headed by a Supreme Pontiff, at once Priest of the Sun and King of men, were elate in the enjoyment of a spiritual despotism which was caught up by the semi-pagan hierarchy of the West, about the same time that it passed away from them. The Armenian Clergy held a council in the royal city of Artaxata,* to consider the proclamation; and an answer to it was drawn up in the name of Joseph, Bishop of Ararat, and his brethren. Izdegerd, infuriated at this opposition, summoned to his court the most distinguished of the Armenian Princes; commanded them to worship the sun; and swore by that god, that if on the morrow they did not so, he would inflict the most cruel vengeance on them, their families, and their country. They were preparing for death rather than apostacy, when a renegade from Christianity, who fancied that by retaining a sort of secret faith in Christ his guilt would be covered, advised them to dissemble also. They returned laden with Persian honours, but, in the eyes of their countrymen, with everlasting disgrace. A large army followed, bringing seven hundred Magi, to teach the Armenians their system; and many, both Priests and people, submitted to profess Magianism. The Persians broke open and desecrated the churches; and the Armenians, headed by their Bishops, prepared justifiable resistance, and, rising in the mass, attacked the strong-holds of their enemies, and drove them from the land. "They destroyed the places, and carried away the men and women, together with their property and possessions, treasures and riches, into captivity. They pulled down and laid waste their dwellings, and burned their houses of idolatry,—the houses for the worship of fire. They removed the horrors of false worship; and taking the utensils away from the fire-temples, they placed them in the holy churches, where they were consecrated by the Priests to be ornaments to the altar of the Lord. Instead of the idolatry which had been performed in all the heathenish places, they now set up the cross of Christ the Redeemer; they purified all the holy altars, established holy and life-giving principles, and appointed Priests and Curates; and, in all the land, gave themselves up to steadfast hope." This hope, however, was not exclusively placed in God. They were involved in war; were not satisfied with a position of defence; many of their brethren had apostatized, instead of awaiting deliverance in faithful prayer; and they sent to the Emperor Theodosius to implore his help, in order to withstand the vengeance which their temporary victory could not but provoke. Theodosius, however, was killed by a fall from his horse, shortly after the arrival of the envoys at Constantinople; and his successor, Marcian, so far from helping them, immediately entered into a close alliance with the Persian Sovereign, willingly stipulating to withdraw all succour from the distressed Armenians. The motive to this desertion was his abhorrence of the doctrines of Nestorius, which they had received, or, at least, had not rejected. For several years the Armenian soil was almost incessantly wet with blood: in one great battle 1,036 Christians were reported to have fallen, and so

* The present Ardisher, or Ardaschal, but more probably the latter.

ARMENIA.

had 3,544 of their foes; but the defeat was theirs, in the death of Vartan their leader. At last, although invited by a proclamation to return to the peaceful cultivation of the country, the Christians, dreading the sway of the treacherous Vasag, successor of Izdegerd, "quitted their homes, their cities, and boroughs; the bride left her couch, and the bridegroom his chamber; the old abandoned their chairs, and the infants their mothers' breasts; the youths and maidens, and all the men and women, arose and fled to inaccessible fastnesses, and to impregnable places among the mountains. To them," if the historian has not overwrought the picture, "a life led like that of the wild beasts in caves, with the fear of God, seemed better than comfort in their dwellings, if purchased with apostasy. Without murmuring, they lived upon herbs, and forgot their accustomed flesh-meals; the caves they considered like the chambers of their lofty dwellings, and the subterranean abodes like their ornamented halls. The songs which they sang were Psalms, and they read the sacred Scriptures with a perfect joy. Each was to himself a church, each was to himself a Priest; their bodies served them for the holy altar, and their souls were the offering. No one mourned despairingly for those executed by the sword; nor were any greatly troubled for their nearest friends. With peace of soul they suffered the loss of all their goods, and it never occurred to their recollection that they had once possessed them. Patiently they endured all fatigues, and met every attack with great valour, although they looked forward to no joyful hope, and had no means of accomplishing any great feat of arms; for the greater number of their most distinguished Princes, their brothers, sons and daughters, with many of their friends, were scattered in various places of security. Some were in the gloomy land of the Chaldeans; many others in the southern provinces, in the unapproachable fastnesses of the Dmorians; a part were in the dense forests of Ardsakh, while others lived in the central parts of the country, in various mountain-castles. All bore their sufferings with much patience, fixing their hopes on God, and only imploring of him that he might not suffer them to witness the fall of the holy church."* Nor did they. The Persian King was obliged to cease from all effort to coerce them into Magianism, and to grant them perfect religious liberty. Having obtained this liberty, they had a synod in the year 491, rejected the decrees of the tumultuary Council of Chalcedon, held under the authority of Marcian, and became subject to the charge of heresy from the Latin and Greek churches.

We now enter on the sixth century. In consequence of the disintegration of the Western empire, those provinces of Christendom which once lay within its boundaries, are now uncovered to the attacks of barbarian violence; the Roman eagle no longer protects the follower of Jesus; and he must learn how vain, at last, is the help of man. The Vandal Chief, whose persecution of the Catholics in Africa was last related, was succeeded by another who treated them with kind-

* History of Vartan, in Introduction to Smith and Dwight's Missionary Researches in Armenia.

ness. Under the reign of Guntimund, their churches were re-opened and repaired, the exiles permitted to return, Pastors again ordained over the long-scattered flocks, and worship restored. Eugenius, the faithful Bishop of Carthage, had influence over Guntimund, and engaged him to recall the Bishops banished by his predecessor. The work of restoration had steadily advanced during a reign of twelve years; and the African dioceses might have presented the singular spectacle of ecclesiastical prosperity under the mild sway of a Vandal and Arian Monarch, had not death terminated his reign, leaving the vacant throne to his brother Thrasimund, who was saluted King in September, A.D. 496. To avoid, perhaps, a sudden change from mildness to severity, which would have provoked even his Arian subjects into disaffection, he began to offer places, promotions, money, and exemptions, as the price of defection from orthodoxy. Thence advancing to bolder measures, he prohibited the ordination of Bishops to vacant sees. Roused into resistance by this unrighteous prohibition, the entire episcopate resolved to fill up vacancies regardless of it, trusting that the reason of the case, and their peaceable demeanour, would moderate his displeasure; or, if not, that the new Bishops, associated with themselves, would succeed in encouraging the people to brave persecution again, rather than surrender the liberty of the church, and to prefer the crown of martyrdom to life spent under the sway of an enemy of the truth. Ministers and people united with enthusiastic haste to ordain Presbyters, and then to raise them to the episcopal office, until the kingdom was furnished with them more abundantly than at any time since the landing of Genseric; but the Sovereign could command forces that were not to be resisted, and an extensive banishment was the consequence, Victor, the historian of the persecutions, being the first embarked. In the year 505, sixty Bishops are said to have been torn from their flocks in the province of Byzacena alone; and from the whole kingdom two hundred and twenty.* From this blow the African church never recovered; and it has been reserved to our times to evangelize the northern part of that continent, where purity of doctrine, and independence of discipline, were, for a time, so faithfully maintained.

Passing from Africa to the neighbouring continent, we there find an unquestionable example of true Christian martyrdom, not sullied by any mixture of sectarian or political passion in the sufferers. Arabia yemen, or "happy Arabia," was at that time tributary to the Sovereign of Ethiopia, a Christian King; and the Homerites, as they are usually called, received their ruler by the appointment of the powerful Monarch who reigned at Axum.† By circumstances which will appear in the narrative now to be related, Dhu Nowás, otherwise called Dunaan, a Jew, or Jewish proselyte, managed to get into the throne, and, actuated by twofold hatred, of the Christians and of the Romans, and perhaps thinking, like Saul of Tarsus, that he was doing

* Fleury, Hist. Eccles., xxxi., 57, 61.

† By laborious examination of Ethiopic inscriptions, compared with other ancient records, Henry Salt, Esq., in his "Travels in Abyssinia," has thrown clear light on this historical fact, and on the first part of the Syrian narrative. See his Travels, chap. x.

ARABIAN MARTYRS.

God a service, slaughtered his unoffending subjects without pity. Simeon, Bishop of Beth Arsam, in Persia, (the Arsamopolis of the Greeks,) was sent by the Emperor Justin with proposals of peace, to Monder, a King of the Scenite Arabs, and during that embassy obtained the information, which he immediately communicated, by letter, to Simeon, Abbot of Gabula, a town on the banks of the Euphrates. Assemann has published this letter, if not from the autograph, at least from a very ancient copy; and, as it will be quite new to the English reader, it shall be translated here literally and without abridgment.* "We must inform your benevolence, that on the 20th day of last Conún (January) of the present year, 835, (of the Greeks, and A.D. 524,) we left the territory of Naamon, with Abraham the Presbyter, the son of Euphrasius, who was sent by the Emperor Justin to Monder, King of the Arabs, to negotiate peace. And, as we wrote concerning him in our first epistle, both we and all the faithful acknowledged his goodness in taking part with us; and he is aware of what we wrote, as well as of what we are now writing. By the desert, then, travelling for ten days towards the south-east, we reached Monder, encamped opposite the Sandy Mountains, as we call them, by the Arabs known as the Ramle. When we entered the camp of Monder, we were met by heathen Arabs, and people from the sea-coast, who addressed us thus: 'What will ye do now that your Messiah is expelled from the borders of the Romans, the Persians, and the Homerites?' Thus did the Arabs jeer us. But we stood silent with the excessive grief which seized us, especially when a messenger came with a letter from the King of the Homerites to King Monder, full of arrogance, and written after this tenor:—

"Be it known to thee, my brother, King Monder, that the King whom the Ethiopians placed in our land, died. And the season of winter came, but no Ethiopians had arrived to appoint a Christian King according to their custom, so that I reign over all the country of the Homerites. And, first of all, I laid hold on all the Christians who believe in the Messiah, and threatened them with death, unless they would become Jews like us. Then I slew two hundred and eighty Priests that were found, and some Ethiopians who kept a church; and their church I converted into a synagogue for ourselves. And then, with one hundred and twenty thousand men, I marched upon Nagran, (Negra,) their royal city; and, having sat down before it some days without being able to take it, gave them an oath, which, however, I did not intend to keep with Christians, my enemies. So I commanded them to give up their gold and silver and treasures, which they brought to me, and I received. Then I asked for Paul, their Bishop, and they told me he had died; but I did not believe them, until they had showed me his sepulchre, and I took out his bones and burnt them. Their church, too, and their Priests, and as many as I found taking refuge in the church, I consumed with fire; but endeavoured to compel the remainder to deny the Messiah and the cross, which they would not do; but made their confession that

* Assem., Biblioth. Oriental., cap. I., p. 364, et seq.

he is God, and the Son of the blessed One, and rather chose to die. And their Chief, too, (Arethas,) said many things against me, and spake insolently: therefore I commanded all their chief men to be put to death. And I had their wives brought, and commanded them to deny (Christ), when they had seen the death of their husbands for the Messiah, and to have pity on their sons and their daughters. They would not consent; but complained that virgins had been killed in preference to them; and the wives of the chief men threw themselves upon their husbands, and said that they ought to die with them. So they were all killed, except Rumai, wife of him who was to have been their King, whom I would not allow to die; but urged her to deny the Messiah, that her daughters and her wealth might be spared, and she become a Jewess. We even commanded her to go and be made Queen; for the guards of our army were waiting to do her honour. But she went away, clad, as she was, in sackcloth, with her royal tiara, and her face uncovered, a woman that since her childhood had not been seen in public by a man, (but had worn a veil, according to the universal custom,) and, lifting up her voice, she cried aloud: 'Women of Nagran, my sisters, Christians and Jewesses and Heathens, hear me. You know me to be a Christian; you know my family and my descent, and that I have gold and silver, and menslaves and women-slaves, and money and revenue, and that my husband is now slain for the sake of Christ. If I desired another husband, I could offer him forty thousand pieces of gold, and great store of jewels of gold and silver, and pearls, and precious garments, besides my husband's treasures. You well know that I speak not falsely. And you well know that there is no day more joyful to a woman than the day of her wedding-feast; but after this come sorrows, the pains of child-bearing, and then anguish at the death and burial of her children. From this day forward, therefore, I have no more of these things. Joyful was I on the first day of my marriage, and now with gladness I have betrothed my five virgin daughters adorned unto Christ. Look on me, my sisters, look on me again. For, as you saw me on my first marriage carried to the house of my husband, so now you see me going home to Christ my Lord, my Master, and my God, who humbled himself for our sin, and suffered for us. I renounce all these things, for I need them no longer; I no more need beauty, nor thereby will I be corrupted to deny him to these Jews; but it shall witness for me before the Lord, that none can seduce me to the sin of denying Him to save my life. Far be it from me, far be it from me, my sisters, that I should deny Christ my God in whom I trust. I and my daughters were baptized in the name of the holy Trinity, and I adore the cross,* and for it will I gladly die, I and my daughters, even as He suffered in the flesh for

* Here is superstition mingled with true piety; but the event has shown that superstition naturally degenerates into idolatry, which continues after piety has decayed. We must, however, observe, that there is no evidence of idolatrous adoration of the crucifix in all this narrative, and that the Jewish usurper does not charge the Christians with worshipping the image of Christ, which he would certainly have noticed if such an object had been exhibited at Negra, and approached with reverence like that now rendered by the Papists.

ARABIAN MARTYRS.

us. I leave all that is desirable to the eye, and pleasant to the body, and depart hence. Happy are ye, my sisters, if you hear me, and follow my words, and acknowledge the truth, and love Christ our God, for whom I and my daughters die. And now, peace and quiet be to the people of God. The blood of these my brothers and sisters that are slain for Christ, shall be to this city for a wall, if it trust in Christ my Lord. See, that with my face unveiled I quit this city, where I have been as in a temporary lodging-place, and go with my daughters to the eternal city, where they shall find the Spouse to whom I have delivered them. Pray for me, my sisters, that Christ the Lord may receive me, and be gracious to me; for I have waited three days after my husband.' And when we heard, continues Dhu Nowas, 'the sound of great lamentation in the city, we asked the messengers whom we had sent, and who were now returning, what meant that unusual clamour; and they related to us what we have now written, saying that Rumai went out into the city, followed by women, her companions, whom she encouraged, raising an outcry in the city; the forbearance of the guards allowing what they would only have permitted in a woman; and we should therefore have put them to death, if the entreaties of some had not mitigated our anger. And, behold, the woman herself came out of the city with her head bare, and leading her daughters, elegantly attired, as if they were going to the marriage-chamber, and stood erect in our presence. Then, holding aside her dishevelled locks, she laid bare her neck, and cried, 'We are Christians; we die for Christ. Take off my head, and send me quickly to my brothers and sisters, and to the father of my daughters.' But notwithstanding the great folly of the woman, I still endeavoured to persuade her to deny Christ, or at least not to say that he is God. But I could not persuade her, and one of her daughters began to reproach me for speaking thus. When, therefore, I was certain that the woman would not be induced by any force or any art to deny the Messiah, then, in order to strike terror into the other Christians, I commanded her to be thrown on the ground, and her daughters to be held over her, and their throats cut, so that the blood flowed on her face, and had her killed last of all. I swear by Adonai, (God,) that I am exceedingly sorry when I think of the great beauty of the woman and her daughters. However, because it appears both to our Priests and to me, that innocent children should not be punished for the sins of their parents, which, indeed, our laws forbid, I therefore published a decree that the young children should be taken care of by our soldiers, and when they come to be of sufficient age, they shall either embrace the Jewish religion, or, if they prefer the Christian, shall be put to death. These things I have thought well to write to thee, O King, and at the same time to advise thee not to let any Christians live in thy kingdom unless they will change their religion for thine; but continue, brother, to treat the Jews, my brethren, with the same kindness thou hast always shown to them, for which I thank thee, and expect a letter to assure me that these thanks are accepted.'

"So wrote the wicked Jewish King to Monder. And, after we

VOL. II. 3 L had come thither, Monder called together his army, and commanded the King's letter to be read to them, and the messenger attested that it was true, adding more concerning the slaughter of the Christians, and their flight from the country of the Homerites. Then Monder, addressing the Christians, of whom there were many in his army, said, 'You hear what has happened: will you now deny Christ? For I am no better than other Kings that have expelled the Christians.' Then a Christian soldier of the army courageously answered, and said to the King, 'We were not made Christians at thy age, O King, that we should now deny Christ.' To whom Monder said in anger, 'Dost thou prate thus in my presence?' 'When I have to speak in the fear of God,' replied the soldier, 'no man shall compel me to be silent. My sword is not shorter than others, and I am not afraid to fight to death.' Monder was silent, awed by the noble spirit of the man, who was known for valour among the Captains in battle.

'And when we returned to the land of Naamon, which we reached on the first Sabbath of the fast, we found there a messenger of the deceased King of the Homerites, who, when he learnt from us the slaughter committed by the tyrant of the Jews, hired a man of Naamon, and sent him with all speed to the city of Nagran, to ascertain, with the utmost care, all that had taken place. This man afterwards related to the Christian messenger, in our hearing, all that we have told, and added that there were slain, on the same occasion, three hundred and forty chief men who came out of the city to meet the tyrant. He also added that the Jew insulted Caleb the son of Arethas, their Prince, and the husband of Rumai, in these words: 'See what thy faith in the Messiah has brought thee to, by making war against me. Now, wretch, repent, and deny Christ: consider thy old age, lest thou perish with thy companions.' To whom Arethas: 'I only repent that I gave no heed to those who advised me not to trust thee. I said, indeed, that we should stay in the city, and not heed thy sayings, but settle the matter with arms, not words; that Christ would finish the war for us, and that, having abundant supplies, we should hold out; but they determined otherwise, deceived by thee. I therefore think thee unworthy of the name of King, and call thee rather a deceiver. For Kings, of whom I have seen many, keep their engagements, and hate tricks and fraud. But I keep my faith with Christ, and will not become a Jew, an apostate, like thyself. And I well know that life and death are not in my power: I have lived long enough already, and leave many children and grandchildren; and, Christ helping me, have won great fame both in peace and war. As for the future, my hope is not doubtful, but sure, that as the vine yields more grapes when the superfluous shoots are pruned away, so shall our Christian people in this city be more numerous, and the church which thou hast burned be restored more magnificently. The Christian religion, too, shall reign with renewed power; it shall subdue Kings; the sect of Jews shall be covered in darkness; thy kingdom shall fall, and thy people shall perish. Boast not of thy deed; for in boasting thou shalt come to nought.' Thus

ARABIAN MARTYRS.

spake the great and venerable old man, Arethas; and then, addressing the Christians who surrounded him, he said: 'Do you hear, brethren, what I have witnessed to this Jew?' They answer, 'Yes, father.' 'Is it true, or no?' 'True,' said they. 'If any one here is afraid, and thinks of casting off his faith in Christ, let him go his way.' Here, with a loud cry, they all exclaimed, 'God forbid that we should be afraid, father: we will all die with thee for Christ; none of us will leave thee.' Then Arethas, addressing the mixed multitude of Christians, Jews, and Pagans: 'Hear,' said he: 'if any one of mine falls away from Christ, and follows that Jew, I disown him, I disinherit him; and I will that my goods be used for building a church. But if any one of mine keeps faith towards Christ, and his life be preserved, I bequeath to him my property, and declare him to be my heir; but whomsoever the church shall elect, let him have the three estates which are my patrimony, and keep the building in repair. And as for thee,' said he, turning to the King, 'thee, and whosoever have rejected Christ, do I reject, abjure, deny. Behold, we stand before thee.' And his companions, taking courage, cried, 'Behold, Abraham, chief of the fathers, welcomes thee, and us with thee: whoever leaves thee, and denies Christ, is by Him denied.'

"Then the tyrant commanded that they should all be taken to a river, and there killed, and their bodies thrown into the stream. Arethas raised his hands towards heaven, and said: 'O Christ our God, come to our help, and give us strength, and receive our souls; precious to thee be the blood of thy servants shed in thy cause: set us in thy presence, and confess us before thy Father, as thou hast promised, and let thy church be builded, and let there be a Bishop in this city in place of thy servant Paul, whose bones were burned.' Then they gave each other the kiss of peace; and Arethas the aged made the sign of the cross over them,* and presented his head first to the sword. And his companions ran together with joy, were sprinkled with his blood, and were all martyred.

"There was a child five years old, whom his mother, as she was going to be put to death, led by the hand. Seeing the King sitting, and clothed in his royal garments, he left his mother, ran to him, and kissed his knees; and the King took him and caressed him, and said, 'Which wilt thou do, my child,—go and die with thy mother, or stay with me?' 'I must go to my mother: I want to die with her; for she said to me, Come, my son, we are going to die for Christ. But let me go: I must go to my mother, or she will die, and I shall not see her; for she tells me that the King of the Jews has commanded that all who will not deny Christ shall die; but I will not deny Him.'

* Where an external mark, a stigma, a phylactery, or a form of words pronounced, or a sign made, is the signal of a distinct religious profession, as in many countries of the East, to make the sign of the cross may be an innocent and proper custom. But where it is not usual to make such outward signals of confession, or where the signing has been associated with pretensions to some mysterious or magical power, it may become expedient to avoid the action, however harmless in itself. The word used in the text of this letter precisely answers to the Hebrew בְּרִית—and signifies to "seal," or "confirm," because the profession of the Christian faith was confirmed by the person making the sign. The custom is purely Oriental. For our part, we are quite satisfied to be "living epistles, known and read of all men," and need no better sign.

3 1. 2

Then said the King, 'Where hast thou known Christ?' 'Every day,' said the child, 'I see him in the church, when I go there with my mother.' 'Which dost thou love best,' said the King, 'me or thy mother?' 'My mother, to be sure,' said he. 'Then dost thou love Christ or me best?' 'I love Christ better than thee.' 'Then why didst thou kiss my knees?' 'I thought thou wast the King of the Christians that I have seen in the church; I did not know that thou wast a Jew.' 'But I will give thee nuts and almonds and figs.' 'O no,' said the child; 'I will not eat Jews' nuts; but let me go, I must go to my mother.' 'Stay with me,' said the King, 'and thou shalt be my son.' 'I will not,' said the child: 'thou smellest badly, not sweet like my mother.' Then said the King to them that were standing by, 'See what a bad race this is: the Messiah perverts them from their infancy.' Then one of the chief men spoke to the child: 'Come with me, and I will take thee to be the Queen's son.' 'O no,' said he, 'my mother is better to me than the Queen; for she takes me to church.' When he found they were holding him fast, he bit the King on his thigh, and cried out, 'Let me go, thou wicked Jew: I must go to my mother, and die with her.' But the King gave him to one of the chief men, and commanded him to be taught until he should be grown up; and then, if he denied the Messiah, he should live; but if not, should die. As a servant was taking him away, he struggled hard to escape, and called to his mother: 'O my mother, come, help me, and I will go with thee to the church.' The mother answered him, 'Go, now, my son; trust in Christ; weep not: wait for me in the church with Christ until I come.' And as she was speaking, they beheaded her.

"When these things were known, both by letters and reports, all the Christians in these parts were filled with grief; and we have thought well to relate them to you, that the holy and faithful Bishops may know what has happened to the Homerite Christians, and make a memorial of the holy martyrs. We entreat you to communicate this to the heads of monasteries, and the Bishops, and especially to the Bishop of Alexandria, that he may exhort the King of Ethiopia to send help to the Homerites. And you will also endeavour that the Chief Priests of the Jews at Tiberias write to this Jewish King, and urge him to abstain in future from persecuting the Homerites."

Caleb, the Ethiopian King, called by the Greeks Elesbaas, on hearing of the usurpation and cruelties of the Jew, went over into Arabia with a powerful army, gained a signal victory; and Dunaan is said by the Arabian historians to have ridden into the sea in despair after the battle, and drowned himself. The massacre of the Christians of Negra was long remembered with horror: incidents not related in the letter of Simeon were also made the subject of traditional tales: one of them, the burning of a large number of Christians in a pit, was marked with especial detestation; and about a century afterwards, Mohammed made reference to it in a chapter of his Koran, where we now read these remarkable sentences: "Cursed were the contrivers of the pit, of fire supplied with fuel, when they sat round the same, and were witnesses of what they did against the true believers. And

JUSTINIAN AND CHOSROES.

they afflicted them for no other reason, but because they believed in the mighty, the glorious God, unto whom belongeth the kingdom of heaven and earth; and God is witness of all things. Verily, for those who persecute the true believers of either sex, and afterwards repent not, is prepared the torment of hell, and they shall suffer the pain of burning." * According to Mohammed, then, the Christians were true believers; and it is also worthy of remembrance that, although he would make war on Christians as well as others for the extension of his own sect, deference to a common feeling of humanity constrained even him to declare against the dastardly atrocity of those who would not dare to fight in open field, but could destroy the defenceless and unoffending.

In the neighbouring kingdom of Persia, the Christians were again subject to severe persecution, not, however, on account of religion only. The Grecian and the Persian empires were now the two principal political powers of the known world, they were contiguous along a considerable extent of frontier, and were governed by eminent and ambitious Sovereigns. Justinian, the Greek, was earnest in his attachment to Christianity, but bigoted, and intimately possessed with the prevalent idea that it devolved on him to govern the church as well as the empire. Chosroes, on the other hand, (or Nushirvan,) was also a zealot for Magianism, was not at all inferior to Justinian in ostentation of justice, honoured by his subjects with the appellation, "Just," and again honoured by posterity with a place among the ten sages of Persia, with the praise of wisdom receiving also that of justice. Both those men were ambitious and powerful; perhaps both were vain; and in the relative position of their respective dominions, even if there had been no reasons for mutual disgust, they would have found it difficult to maintain a cordial understanding. But each of them was at the head of a hierarchy opposed to the other by reason of the impassable barrier of truth or error. Two such Monarchs could not disagree merely as civil rulers; and, independently of their religious opposition, various incidents, which it belongs to the secular historian to relate, kept them at variance during almost the entire period of their contemporary reigns. The Christians in Persia then lost the benefit of previous treaties in which their interests had been considered; were exposed to the unconquerable hatred of the sun-worshippers, whose fire-temples had been hated by the pagan Greeks, and which they profoundly abominated; and regarded the Greek Emperor, a Christian like themselves, as far more worthy of allegiance than the Persian. This position, therefore, renders their claim to the honour of being martyrs very questionable; although there were many, doubtless, to whom that honour would be allowed, if, instead of the political historian, Procopius, and the superstitious Evagrius, some more trustworthy witness had related those events. Bearing in view, however, what these authors state, and passing over in silence the foolish tales which are copied by Romish compilers, a few facts shall be gathered from Abulpharagius, who must have drawn his information from original, or at least from Eastern, sources. Arme-

* Koran, chap. lxxxv., Sale = translation.

nian Christians, harassed by the efforts of Persians to compel them to worship the sun and fire, crossed the borders into the Grecian territory. Chosroes demanded that they should be given up to him; but Justinian replied, that if Christian people threw themselves on his protection to avoid the worship of demons, he would not surrender them into his hands, and went so far as to say that if such persons were his, the country where they dwelt was his also. Chosroes did not perceive the absurdity of that doctrine, which he would as readily have maintained in his turn; but contented himself with demanding tribute. A question of tribute or territory was then confounded with one of religion. The war between them took a correspondent character. From Nisibis, for example, the Christian population was driven out, and their lands laid waste. Chosroes entered Apamea with promise of peace; but dispersed the inhabitants, after selecting two thousand Christian maidens to send as a present to the Turks, who were in Perida. When these captives were within five miles of the Turkish camp, and resting on the bank of a deep river, they begged the soldiers who were conducting them to retire for a little, that they might be alone; and as the men had been commanded to drive them gently, and treat them kindly, that they might be given to the Turks in good health and appearance, they readily withdrew. No sooner were their charge free from hinderance, than, calling on the name of Christ their Saviour, to avoid the degradation and impurity to which they had been destined, they plunged into the flood. The guards hurried to the spot when they heard the shout; but only in time to see them carried down the stream, without power to save one.* Their case was deplorable, no doubt; yet prayer and faith might have sustained them; God could have delivered them; and martyrdom might have been recorded instead of suicide. Comparison of the conduct of the Christians in Apamea with that of those in the Arabian city, Negra, indicates a far more elevated standard of piety in the latter, who do not seem to have been spoiled by politics.

In Europe a flood of barbarism overwhelmed the church, which was almost everywhere devoid of true religion. She had trusted in Princes, but they were fallen; and now she could only sit in sackcloth, and weep amidst a desolation which the triumphant faith of Christ would have cheered; but she had not that faith. The Lombards, a tribe of Germans, together with a mixed multitude of other hardy barbarians, invaded Italy, and were regarded as enemies of Christianity; but even those who lay the calendar before them when writing history, and enrich their pages with names of martyrs not crowned in heaven, cannot but reveal the humiliating truth, that the approach of the invaders towards an Italian city was usually the signal for the flight of the Bishop, carrying with him, of course, the treasure of the church, the sordid treasure of accumulated oblations and gifts, but leaving the flock to sustain the brunt, and the inferior Clergy to suffer the indiscriminate violence of pagan invaders, utterly indifferent to all religious distinctions. The Lombards are mentioned here, because sometimes classed among the troublers of the church;

* Bar Hebrai Chronicon, Dynast. viii.

HERMENEGILD. CHOSROES II.

but they soon accepted the name of Christians from the conquered natives, no test of sincerity being proposed, nor any abstinence from sin earnestly exacted. In Spain, too, the claim of many whose lives were taken in the name of religion to be enrolled among the martyrs, is more than doubtful. Hermenegild, who is worshipped as one of the guardian saints of that country, is a famous example of the kind; for, according to the diffuse panegyrics written to his praise by native authors, he was educated in Arianism, but, having been ill-treated by an Arian step-mother, and then better instructed by a Catholic wife, took up arms against his father, led a civil war, was defeated, imprisoned, and beheaded. It is said, indeed, that in the solitude of the prison his mind became softened, and that, not satisfied with the hardship inseparable from such a situation, he did much voluntary penance; but his warmest admirers produce no evidence of true repentance. He is extolled, however, for the impiety of raising a rebellion against his father because a heretic; and a gold coin which he caused to be struck during that rebellion, bears on one side his own image, and on the other the significant inscription, Hombre huye del Rey, "A man flees from the King," in allusion to the direction given by St. Paul to avoid* a man that is a heretic. Saint Leander, a Bishop of Seville, inspirited the "holy youth" to seek his father's kingdom and life; Gregory of Rome declared that he was in heaven; he was duly canonized as saint and martyr; and his history admirably illustrates the Papal doctrine which enjoins the destruction of heresy at any cost of rebellion, impiety, perfidy, or bloodshed.† England was invaded by the Anglo-Saxons in the preceding century; and at this time the Britons were driven into Wales and Cornwall; but their sufferings cannot be attributed to religious persecution. The conversion of a part of our Saxon ancestors to Christianity, not yet debased so far as to have lost its hallowing influence, yet far inferior to the divine religion which was first promulgated in England, was indeed a great event, but belongs to general ecclesiastical history.

The seventh century is marked by events which gave an entirely new aspect to the subsequent condition of the world. Magianism made its last effort to subdue the religion of Christ when the Persian hosts under Chosroes II., grandson of Nushirvan, invaded Palestine. A multitude of Arabs, and twenty-six thousand Jews, accepted pay from the Persian Monarch, and were the most zealous in wreaking vengeance on the Christians. They approached the Holy City, no longer fortified as when it withstood the siege of Titus, and soon took it by assault. The magnificent churches reared by the munificence of Constantine and Helena were in flames, the brutal soldiery gave loose to unreined fury, and thousands of Priests, Monks, and virgins perished by the sword. The Jews, it is said, not satisfied with this, purchased a large number of Christian captives for the mere purpose of putting

* Vulg. devita.

† Mariana, Hist. Esp., lib. v., cap. 12, and the Spanish Moreri's Biographical Dictionary. The legend in the Breviary at April 13th is in gross contradiction to those facts, the falsehood being extracted from the Dialogues of St. Gregory, and adopted by "the Church" in her solemn prayers.

them to death, until the number of slain rose to ninety thousand. But one week before this catastrophe, the monastic establishment of St. Sabas was broken into by a party of Arabs, who found only a remnant of the anchorites remaining, as the younger and more timorous had escaped; but aged persons of both sexes, after cruel tortures and indignities, were cut into pieces, and when, after the retreat of the Pagans, some of the Monks returned, they gathered their severed limbs and mangled bodies, which were solemnly interred.* But after this time the followers of Zoroaster were no more able to fight against Christianity. Chosroes himself was murdered by his son, and the Persian empire passed away before the new power which suddenly issued from the Arabian peninsula. The year 622, when Mohammed fled from the Korcistites, who were plotting to take his life, is the first of the era of the Hegira, or flight; and from this time the progress of his arms and those of his successors was rapid beyond example. In the year 637, Jerusalem was again taken by the Mussulmans, led by Abu Obeidah, after making long and courageous resistance. The Christian Patriarch at that time was the chief man in the city, and would only surrender on condition that Omar, the Chaliph, or successor of Mohammed, should himself come and ratify the treaty for the occupation of Jerusalem. Omar consented, came from Medina, signed the articles, and delivered them into the hand of the noble-minded Patriarch.† Hard as were those

* Fleury, Histoire Ecclésiastique, xxxvii., 10; Gibbon, Decline, &c., chap. xlii.

† Ockley, in his valuable History of the Saracens, (Omar, Hej. 16, A.D. 637,) translates these articles from an Arabic history of Jerusalem, and observes that as they are the pattern which Mohammedan Princes have chiefly imitated, it is "not inappropriate" to present them to his readers. For the same reason they are inserted here.

"1. The Christians shall build no new churches, either in the city, or the adjacent territory. 2. They shall not refuse the Mussulmans entrance into their churches, either by night or day. 3. They shall set open the doors of them to all passengers and travellers. 4. If any Mussulman should be upon a journey, they shall be obliged to entertain him gratis for the space of three days. 5. They (the Christians) shall not teach their children the Koran, nor talk openly of their religion, nor persuade any one to be of it: neither shall they hinder their relations from becoming Mohammedans, if they have an inclination to it. 6. They shall pay respect to the Mussulmans, and, if they are sitting, rise up to them. 7. They shall not go like the Mussulmans in their dress, nor wear the same caps, shoes, or turbans, nor part their hair as they do, nor speak after the same manner, nor be called by the names used by the Mussulmans." (While this note was in the hands of the compositor, a member of the Senate at Madrid, who had made an incidental allusion to the authority of the Queen of England over her Protestant subjects, was rebuked by "El Catolico," organ of the priesthood, for having forgotten one of their familiar maxims:—"Cum hareticis nec nomina debemus habere communis." The very sentiment in almost the same words! Pope and Turk were with reason put together in an old Litany. See "El Catolico," Madrid, April 13th, 1849.) "8. They shall not ride upon saddles, nor bear any sort of arms, nor use the Arabic tongue in the inscriptions of their seals. 9. They shall not sell any wine. 10. They shall be obliged to keep to the same sort of habit whithersoever they go, and always wear girdles upon their waists. 11. They shall set no crosses upon their churches, nor show their crosses nor their books openly in the streets of the Mussulmans. 12. They shall not ring, but only toll, their bells; nor shall they take any servant that has once belonged to the Mussulmans. 13. They shall not overlook the Mussulmans in their houses.

"The Christians having submitted on these terms, Omar gave them the following writing under his hand:—

"In the name of the most merciful God. From Omar Ebn Al Khattab, to the inhabitants of Ælia. They shall be protected and secured both in their lives and fortunes, and their churches shall neither be pulled down, nor made use of by any but themselves."

CONSTANTINE-SYLVANUS, THE PAULICIAN.

conditions, they were not so severe as might have been feared from such a conqueror; but the Mohammedans threw aside gentleness towards the vanquished when they attained to greater power; and even this milder example suffices to show that Christians could expect nothing but degradation under their dominion. The doctrine which, even in our own day, has great prevalence with some European and nominally Christian statesmen, that proselytism is to be prevented, or at least by all means discouraged; that the Evangelist is to be silent, notwithstanding the injunction of his Master to go into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature; was understood by the Mohammedans as best calculated to enervate the church, and smother the life of Christianity. Mohammedan, rationalist, and Jesuit can perfectly agree in discouraging or prohibiting all efforts to turn sinners from the error of their way; but the Christian can only deserve his name and maintain his piety by seeking, according to the opportunities and talents he possesses, to honour Christ, the good Shepherd, by gathering the lost into his fold. And in doing this he will not so much desire to promote the interests of his particular church, as the glory of the Saviour in the salvation of sinful men. The rise of Mohammedanism and the rancour of sects, added to the extreme ignorance and moral degradation of society, threw a gloom on the face of Christendom which would discourage any further reference to those times, but for evidence that amidst so much calamity and wickedness the influences of the Holy Spirit were not utterly withdrawn.

About the year 650, an Armenian Deacon, who had been carried captive into Syria, and must have there acquired a knowledge of the language of the country, slowly returning towards his native land, reached an obscure town, named Mananalis, not far from Samosata, (the present Samisat in the pachalic of Aleppo,) and found hospitable entertainment in the dwelling of Constantine, most probably a countryman of his, and resident in that place. When a few days' rest had worn away his weariness, he bade his host farewell, and presented him with two books in acknowledgment of his kindness. These were the Gospels and the Epistles, bound in distinct volumes, according to the general custom of antiquity, and the second volume deficient of the two Epistles of Peter and the Book of Revelation, which, indeed, could not be there, as they were not extant in the Syriac version, nor were they yet received by the Syrians as canonical. Neither was the Old Testament, or any part of it, included in the gift; either because the Deacon did not possess it, or, as the whole Bible was not yet circulated as one work, he might have retained it as independent of the New. Until that day the written word of God seems to have been unknown in the neighbourhood, except to the Priests, and to them but slightly, while the laity regarded themselves as profane persons, unworthy to read the sacred books. The public mind, too, was corrupted with Gnosticism, the Manichean heresy was prevalent, and Constantine might have considered the Old Testament, if he had ever heard of it, as exclusively adapted to an inferior dispensation, or even as the work of a spirit hostile to the God of the Christians.

3 M

But he read these books, his only guide, with close attention. The Holy Spirit, by whose inspiration they were written, enlightened his mind. Convinced of the absurdity of Manicheanism, he rejected the theology of Manes, and the voluminous writings of that sect which then abounded, although the word of God was unknown, and the two books given him by the stranger became the standard of his faith, as they had been the instrument of his conversion. But he found Christianity there without any of its corruptions; and as that was the only source whence he drew religious knowledge, his faith came to be in direct opposition to the most cherished notions and practices of the Clergy who were designated orthodox. He paid no worship to the Virgin, nor any veneration to cross or image. He sought not the intercession of any saint, saw no virtue in a relic, nor entertained exaggerated notions of sacramental grace. A few early prepossessions, which might have been removed by fair and brotherly instruction, but could not be dislodged by force, are said to have retained possession of his mind,—vestiges of an erroneous education, but not hindering faith in the Redeemer. He was brought to God. The fruits of the Spirit were manifest in his deportment, and in the effect of his labours; for, obeying the commission which God gave him at a time when the corrupt church would have withheld her orders, even if he could have desired them, he went into Pontus and Cappadocia, exhorting sinners to repent, and everywhere teaching that both Priests and people should study the books which had made him wise unto salvation. If he had merely opposed existing errors, and striven to demolish the fabric which he could not own as the church of Christ, his spirit would have been worldly and violent, and his followers would have been like him. Even enemies testified to the purity of their conduct, and the earnestness of their piety, but, of course, charged them with hypocrisy. To mark his admiration of the great Doctor of the Gentiles, Constantine assumed the name of one of his companions, Sylvanus, and some of his converts also took new names from others of the followers of the Apostle; while those whom he gathered into communion were called Paulicians, in honour of Paul himself, whose doctrine they professed to hold, or familiarly designated each other "fellow-pilgrims," as seeking the heavenly country. Their churches, too, were distinguished by names borrowed from the New Testament. For twenty-seven years Constantine-Sylvanus prosecuted his arduous mission among the votaries both of Manes and Zoroaster with constant success and increasing influence, until the Catholics, as they called themselves, did what the Arabs, who by that time had succeeded the Persian Governors of that region, although Mussulmans, had never thought of doing. Pretending to regard him as a heretic condemned by the imperial laws, the ecclesiastical authorities appealed to the Emperor, who sent one Symeon, a Greek officer, to Pontus, armed with the twofold power of the empire and the church, with orders to put him to death, reclaim or disperse his disciples, destroy whatever books he might find containing the doctrines of the new sect, or inflict capital punishment on any who should secrete them. A few of his flock were induced to

THE FIRST UNIVERSAL BISHOP, SO CALLED.

recant; and these men were brought into an open place, drawn up in a line, and commanded to stone their former Pastor, who was placed before them. They gathered stones, indeed, as if to perform the execrable deed; but when they saw the man whom they had once regarded as a messenger from God, they dropped the stones, slipped their hands into their girdles, and stood shuddering in the horror of apostasy. One, however, named Justus, as the Catholic historian writes, indulging heartlessly in the alliteration Justus, justa personit, "executed the act of justice," and slew the martyr. But it was an awful scene. Conscience paralyzed the party who had denied the Gospel; Christ himself was present at the martyrdom with spiritual power; and that very Symeon who had made so great ostentation of zeal in discharging his murderous commission, bowed under a conviction of his own sinfulness, accepted the truth, confessed Christ, united himself with the Paulicians, and afterwards joyfully gave up his life in testimony to the energy of converting grace. Nor could any persecution yet prevail against the Paulician church, although imperfectly constituted; and it will come to view again as we advance from century to century.*

The pagan idolater, the Magian, and the Jew, have henceforth little power to persecute the Christian, but are themselves persecuted. Mohammed and his successors fight against idolaters, and impose tribute on Jews and Christians, as far as their victories extend; while the elevation of the Bishops of Rome to temporal power becomes the source of most of the persecutions that have taken place in following times. The Emperor Maurice had undertaken a war with the Avars, a barbarian people, whose doubtful, and often perfidious, alliance had been resorted to in order to swell the imperial forces against Persia. But Maurice was not a soldier: his army perceived his incapacity, and was disheartened and alienated by his parsimony. A Centurion, Phocas by name, was presented by the soldiers as candidate for the purple, entered Constantinople amidst the acclamations of the populace, was consecrated by the Patriarch; and, fearing that one of the factions by which the city was divided would attempt the restoration of his predecessor, who had fled, he sent ruffians to Chalcedon with orders to take his life. The fugitive was dragged out of a church where he had taken sanctuary, and, after five of his sons had been murdered before his eyes, he was also beheaded. All the bodies were thrown into the sea, and the heads carried to Constantinople and exposed in public, until, being putrid, the tyrant reluctantly allowed them to be buried. Gregory I., then Bishop of Rome, perhaps influenced by a charge or suspicion of heresy which had fallen on Maurice, despatched a messenger to Constantinople, bearing a letter of congratulation, wherein he lauded, among other equally unreal excellencies, the piety

* An Inquiry into the History, &c., of the ancient Vallenses and Albigenses, by George Stanley Faber, B.D., vindicates Constantine from the charge of Maulechanism, Facts and Documents illustrative of the History, &c., of the ancient Albigenses and Waldenses, by the Rev. S. R. Maitland, are cited on the other side; but the facts, as above related, are too clear to be misunderstood. Gibbon (chap. liv.) relates them fully and impartially; except that, as usual, he ascribes the zeal of the martyr to "spiritual ambition."

3 M 2 of Phocas. If either of the two Emperors possessed piety, it must have been Maurice, notwithstanding his acknowledged defects as a Sovereign; for it is certain that he made public confession of sin, which Phocas never did; and although his prayers were mingled with superstitious offerings, according to the fashion of the time, it is undeniable that he implored divine pity with every appearance of sincerity; and when, after four of his sons had been murdered in his presence, and he saw an infant taken from its nurse's arms, also to be immolated to the jealousy of the usurper, but perceived that the woman had substituted her own child for his, his conscientious regard of justice refused the extraordinary contrivance to preserve the youngest of his family, and he desired that the proper child should be delivered to the sword. The bearer of Gregory's letter to Phocas was an assiduous courtier, although a Priest; and when afterwards elected in Rome as Bishop, received ample compensation from the Emperor, who authoritatively decided in his favour the long dispute between the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Bishop of Rome as to who should be the greater, by declaring him to be the universal Patriarch of the Christian world. The rude and depraved Centurion who had waded through blood to the imperial dignity could know nothing of the merits of an ecclesiastical dispute; but the truth was, that the Patriarch had humanely endeavoured to protect the widow of Maurice when she took refuge in the sanctuary of St. Sophia, and the elevation of Boniface III. to the headship of the Catholic church, as he fondly imagined, was evidently intended to mortify his less tractable competitor. This was the first establishment of the Papacy at Rome, in the year 606; this its title to lordship over God's heritage.

The massacre of the Monks of Bangor, in Wales, which took place the year after, is usually recounted among the calamities of the church. When the British Clergy, who had retired into Wales, were represented by some of their Bishops and others in the last Synod summoned by Augustine the Monk, the emissary of Gregory I. to this island, in order to effect a union, and there refused submission to the Bishop of Rome; Augustine, disappointed at the failure of his endeavours, angrily and imperiously told them, that if they would not join in unity with their brethren, they should be warred upon by their enemies; and if they would not preach the way of life to the English nation, should at their hands undergo the vengeance of death. Popish writers ascribe to "the man of God," as they call Augustine, the gift of prophecy; but an impartial reader would rather understand such language as a menace; and the event tends to confirm the suspicion. Some time afterwards, Ethelfrid, a Northumbrian King, a Pagan, invaded Wales, and made, Bede says, "a great slaughter of that perfidious nation" in the neighbourhood of Chester. At Bangor there was an immense monastic establishment, "in which, it is reported, there was so great a number of Monks, that the monastery being divided into seven parts, with a ruler over each, none of these parts contained less than three hundred men, who all lived by the labour of their hands. Many of these, having observed a fast of three days, resorted, among others, to pray at the aforesaid

CHRISTENDOM IN THE EIGHTH CENTURY.

battle, having one Broemail appointed for their protector, to defend them whilst they were intent upon their prayers to be delivered from the swords of the barbarians. King Ethelfrid, being informed of the occasion of so unusual an assemblage, said, 'If, then, they pray to their God against us, in truth, though they do not bear arms, yet they fight against us, because they oppose us by their prayers.' He therefore commanded them to be attacked first, and then destroyed the rest of the impious army, not without considerable loss of his own forces." The Saxon chronicle relates that two hundred Monks were slain; Bede counts twelve hundred, but probably includes in this number all who perished in the destruction of the monastery, which immediately followed. The venerable Bede closes his account by saying, that "thus was fulfilled the prediction of the holy Bishop Augustine, though he himself had been long before taken up into the heavenly kingdom, that those perfidious men should feel the vengeance of temporal death also, because they had despised the offer of eternal salvation;" that salvation, in the estimation of Augustine, being dependent on their submission to his authority as representative of Gregory I. of Rome. Strange condition of salvation!*

The history of Europe in the eighth century affords little material, if any, for an authenticated martyrology. In France the Mayors of the palace having become too powerful for the Kings, their masters, a new race of Princes arose by their flagrant usurpation of the throne; and at last Charlemagne, during a very long reign, extending beyond the latter half of the century, recompensed the Pope for his sanction of that usurpation, by taking the church under his protection, and again served his own purposes by using it as an engine of political power. The irruption of the Saracens into Spain and other parts of Southern Europe, the establishment of their dominion, and a conflict not less political than religious with their Christian neighbours, kept the priesthood so much on the alert against the Mussulmans, as generally to divert them from the persecution of heretics; and the quarrel and war between the Greeks and Italians, which originated in the zeal of the latter for image-worship, and the determination of the former to resist the innovation, but which was aggravated by many personal and political considerations, confounded the idolater and the iconoclast under equal condemnation, and tended to extinguish every remaining spark of true religion. Great Britain was sunk in the most abject superstition; British independence could no longer bear up against the violence and overwhelming numbers of Anglo-Saxon adherents to the Roman see, which lorded it alike over Priests and people. The writings of the "venerable Bede," as he was called, are a humiliating evidence of the puerile superstition then prevalent; and the Roman taxation of our ancestors, who then began to pay "Peter's pence," finished and sealed their degradation. The miserable religion of that age is represented in the credulity which allowed currency to tales of miracles, visions, and prodigies, monstrous to the last degree,

* Bede, Ecclesiastical History, book ii., chap. 2; Foxe, Acts and Monuments, book ii.

with scarcely a vestige of heart-felt and sanctifying Christianity. There are some obscure traces of the Paulicians in Thrace, in course of emigration from Armenia, but so slight as not to warrant confident narration. For martyrs, properly so called, we must go to Syria and Arabia.

The Caliph Omar II. signalized his piety in the eyes of the Mussulmans by prolonged recitation of prayers, or devout sentences, until, wearied with prostrations, he would continue the exercise supported on a cord which hung from the top of his chamber, and proved his zeal in the cause of islam, or "devotion," to his Prophet, by employing greater severity than any of his predecessors had used for perverting Christians from their faith. Apostates were immediately exempted from the payment of tribute, according to general custom; but it is said, that when such inducements failed to overcome the constancy of Christians, he put many of them to death, and forbade the testimony of a Christian to be received in any case against a Mohammedan.* Walid II. is related to have cut out the tongue of Peter, Metropolitan of Damascus, and then banished him to Arabia, where he died. The offence which drew forth the vengeance of this Caliph, was a public denunciation by the Prelate of the errors of the Mohammedans as well as of the Manichees. The Roman Martyrology celebrates another Peter, who, being sick, sent for the principal Arabs in his neighbourhood, and, calling them around his bed, exhorted them to believe in Christ, to confess the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, and thus allow him to recompense them for many acts of kindness. For the moment they fancied him to be delirious; but when he recovered, and, with even greater earnestness, ceased not to entreat them to renounce their errors, the stroke of a scimitar delivered them from his importunity, and added his name to the catalogue of martyrs.† The avidity of Governors was not unfrequently the real cause of the murder of Christians, irrespective of every other consideration, and the carnage of war was often increased by the violence of bigotry; but amidst the brief records of such events, there are a few fine instances of evangelical confession. Abulpharagius ‡ ascribes to this same Walid II. intense hatred of the Christians, and proves it by the following examples:—Christian scribes were no longer permitted to draw up public documents in the Greek language, but in Arabic. Schamel, a Chief of the Arab Christians of Taglib, was reproved by him for worshipping the cross at the same time that he was a Chief among the Arabs. Concerning the veneration of the material cross, if such it were, we have already spoken; and it may only be necessary to observe that, at this period of our history, public adoration of the crucifix could not have been permitted in Arabia, where every form of idolatry was utterly abolished, and that the language of Walid, being evidently contemptuous, cannot be taken as descriptive of the existing mode of Christian worship. The reply of Schamel was admirable: "As Chief of all the men of Taglib, I should fear, that, if I were to become

* Theophanes, cited by Fleury, A.D. 723.

† Dynastia x.

† Ibid., A.D. 741.

RENEGADES AT ALEPPO.

a Mohammedan, destruction would overtake them all. For if I deny the faith, they also may deny Christ." The impatient Caliph commanded him to be smitten on the cheek, and taken out of his presence, swearing that he should eat his own flesh unless he would consent to be a proselyte; but no threatening could subdue his faith, and he submitted to have a piece of flesh cut out of his side, which was roasted and thrust into his mouth. Still unmoved, he was cast into prison until the wound was healed, and, bearing the honourable scar, persevered in confession of our divine Master to the day of his death. As for Walid, he grew in zeal, and, like other persecutors, artfully confounding good and bad, at the same time had wizards swum to death,* and Christian captives in all the cities of Syria taken into the churches and there slain; which is an important fact, for it shows that those captives had refused to save their lives by renouncing Christianity. Henceforward the alternative of death or apostasy is constantly enforced, not only on captives, but on inoffensive and defenceless multitudes. It is related of the Caliph Al Mahdi, that he was met by a great multitude of people in the neighbourhood of Aleppo, when visiting that city, some of them well mounted and richly dressed; but that, on hearing that they were all Christians, he was exceedingly angry, and required them instantly to become Mussulmans. About five thousand men did change their external profession; the women, as of less value, were allowed free choice; and of one man only it is recorded that he played the martyr,† that he was not less meek than constant, and that his name was Lit. The name was not recorded in any formal narrative, but remained in the tradition of survivors as in the records of heaven. As for the apostates, their town was taken by a hostile tribe about twenty years afterwards, the wealth preserved for so little time by the sacrifice of conscience fell into other hands, and they were dispersed beyond recovery.

While the conditions imposed on Christians by the victorious Saracens diminished their number, and, in some countries, swept away the last vestige of their religion, there were a few, both in the East and the West, who still preferred to die for Christ, and, knowing that ambiguous concession or partial conformity would neither satisfy the persecutors nor please God, even courted martyrdom. They saw their churches falling into ruin, the congregations rapidly diminishing by the defection of the timid and the worldly, the efforts of reviving piety often frustrated by resistless violence; and when the comparative liberality of a less bigoted ruler had allowed the re-erection of a sanctuary, notwithstanding the law which forbade the building of churches, the inflexible zeal of his successor would probably lead to the demolition of the edifice, or its occupation as a mosque. To them death would be more desirable than life; the name of Mohammed was

* "Jussit etiam incantores, qui in regione Akulensi vivebant, interfici. Ligno alligati suspensique, ne mox interirent, in flavium projecti sunt. Qui natarunt occisi sunt, quia praestigiis natarunt. Qui autem submersi sunt, suis sorti relicti sunt. (Ab. Pharag. Vers. Lat., ed. Kirsch., p. 122.) One would scarcely have expected to find such an identity of superstitious barbarism in Arabia and England, and that after an interval of a thousand years or more.

† This is the expressive phrase of the historian, as already cited.

as hateful as that of Christ was precious; and notwithstanding the scantiness of scriptural knowledge, the multiplying corruptions of worship, and the degeneracy of the Clergy, there was a residue of simple and unyielding faith in the bosoms of a few, and from their lips an univocal confession to the divinity of the Saviour claims our respect, and exemplifies the power of Gospel truth whenever it is the subject of sincere and humble faith. The Greek Emperor Theophilus, in one of his expeditions into Syria, had destroyed Sozopetra, a small town, the birth-place of the Caliph Al Motassem. The Vicar of the Prophet vowed reprisal, caused Amorium, the name of the Phrygian city where the father of Theophilus first saw light, to be painted on the shields of his army, now united into one vast body, and marched toward the devoted place. Theophilus rejected the advice of his counsellors to evacuate the town and leave its empty palaces only to fall before the fury of the Saracen, but avoiding the loss of life. He prepared for battle, and Amorium was encouraged to stand a siege. The siege began; the brave inhabitants withstood the enemy for fifty-five days, until a domestic traitor led Motassem to storm the city at the weakest place, and enabled him to race it to the ground. Equal barbarities were committed in those wars on both sides, and Mohammedans were murdered as cruelly as Christians; but among the chief persons and officers carried as prisoners of war to Bagdad, there were a few who not only shared the fortune of war, but patiently endured suffering for the sake of Christ. In a prison so dark that not a ray of light could penetrate, and the prisoners could only distinguish each other by the voice, they were confined in irons. Their only companions were the jailers, their food bread and water, their bed the bare ground. Sometimes they were permitted to walk in chains through the streets of Bagdad to solicit alms, each accompanied by ten soldiers; and when the charitable had given them bread, the loaves were cut up in daylight by the keepers, lest they should contain letters. As soon as they were seen to be enfeebled and emaciated through long imprisonment, attempts were made to induce them to change religions. The Caliph sent the ablest Mussulmans, who at first came only in the character of humane visitors, bringing money and clothing, and then began to talk of the kindness of their master, "who counted the conquest of a city as a little thing, in comparison with winning souls." When the Christians rejected the overture with horror, the Missionaries gently renewed their solicitations, reminding them of their parents, wives, children, and country. To recover all these they advised them only to dissimulate a little, merely to submit to circumcision, and recite a prayer with the Caliph. They would have riches and favours heaped on them; and, watching the chances of war, might return to their homes, and embrace Christianity again. "Would you do so," said the captives, "if you were in our place?" They swore that they would; for nothing was so dear as liberty. "Then," they replied, "we cannot accept advice as to leaving our religion from men who are not steadfast in their own." Again the tempters brought alms, and, sitting down beside them, made large professions of commiseration. "Are not these persons, whom we find here laden with

CONFESSORS AT BAGDAD.

fetters, relatives of the Emperor, men of spirit and courage, brave warriors? Have they not numerous troops? What renders all these advantages useless, but their denial of the Prophet, by whose servants they have been conquered? We are not surprised, however, at their unbelief, since they have never been instructed: their ignorance entitles them to forgiveness." Then, addressing the prisoners, they said: "Leave this rugged path in which the Son of Mary requires you to go, and enter on the pleasant way which our Prophet has shown us, both for this life and for the other. What does he teach incredible, when he says that God can give to those who serve him all kinds of pleasure in this life, and Paradise in the other? Reject not these benefits: God is good, and, seeing that men are too weak to keep the law of Jesus, hard and difficult as it is, he has sent his Prophet Mohammed to release them from those burdens, and save them by faith alone." The Christians refuted this charge of imperfection and difficulty, and finished by declaring that nothing should separate them from the love of Christ. Some time afterwards a party of Fakirs came to the prison with alms again. After presenting the gift, they kissed them, sat down, and one began a sort of argument. "You see to whom God gives power: is it to the Romans or the Mussulmans? To whom gives he fruitful lands and victorious armies? Is it not to us? But he is just. Then if we did not observe his commandments, he would not give us such good things; neither would he have subjected you to us, if you had not refused to believe his Prophet." The Christians replied, "Now suffer us to ask you a question. When two men dispute for possession of an estate, if one does no more than cry that it is his, without producing any witnesses, and the other, without debating, brings many witnesses, and worthy of credit, to which of the two will the inheritance be adjudged?" "To him," said the Mussulmans, "who brings good witnesses." The Christians continued, "Jesus Christ came of a Virgin, as you yourselves say, having as witnesses all the ancient Prophets, who foretold his coming. You say that Mohammed came to bring a third law; but should he not have had two or three Prophets at least to accredit his mission? And as for the advantage you pretend to draw from your conquests, do you not know of those of the Persians, who subdued almost all the world; and of the Greeks, who conquered the Persians; and of the ancient Romans, whose empire was so extensive? Did they follow the true religion? Were they not idolaters? But God sometimes grants victory to those who serve him; sometimes he permits them to be conquered, when they have offended him, that he may chastise them by the hands of the wicked." In the endurance of such conflicts they spent seven years in prison, praying for the conversion of the Mohammedans, and maintained a clear conscience,* until the

* Fleury, Hist. Eccles., xlviii., 2. The French historian ends his narrative with, "Rendant grâces à Dieu, de ce qu'il leur donnoit le moyen d'expier leurs péchés passés, et priant," &c. This looks like a superfluous addition; but even if they did at any time fancy their sufferings to be meritorious, which in so dark an age is not improbable, they might have understood the spirit of the promise, "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God." (John vii. 17.) And no doubt they knew more of Christ after suffering in his cause, his grace enabling them thus to suffer.

3 N successor of the Caliph, Al Wathek, caused them to be put to death.*

From the East we return to Spain, where the Saracens are acknowledged to have exercised a sway far less severe than that of their brethren in Asia: yet even there they persecuted unto death. Abdalrahman II., and Mohammed, his son, Caliphs of Cordova, although bound by treaty to tolerate Christianity, were not displeased when occasion occurred to promote its ruin. Liberty of worship was, indeed, allowed to the original possessors of the country: Priests, Monks, and Nuns appeared in the streets of the metropolis in their distinctive costume, without any molestation; churches and monasteries rose by the side of mosques; from the towers and from the minarets the mixed population were summoned by criers and by bells to their respective solemnities; and in return for this toleration, the Christians were required to observe silence in regard to Mohammedanism. Whoever should utter a word of blasphemy, as it was called, against the Prophet, would thereby incur the penalty of death. They were also forbidden to enter the mosques. On the one side, silence and perfect submission, and on the other, zeal with absolute power, was the condition of society approved by the invaders of the Peninsula; and, if it could have been maintained, would have left abject Christianity to die away without a blow. But the Christian population were incessantly subjected to petty grievances. The taxes, light at first, were gradually increased until they became oppressive; and remonstrances, however reasonable, drew down visitations of arbitrary power which often made the life of the Christian an almost insufferable burden. Conciliation was at an end, and the two races regarded each other with bitter hatred. While the Spaniards were secretly contriving how they might throw off the yoke, their Mussulman neighbours looked on them with an abhorrence each day more virulent, and thought themselves defiled by even touching the garment of a Christian. They jealously observed their words, their looks, and most trifling actions; used towards them every expression of contempt, and endeavoured to draw them into quarrels where public power would in the end give vengeance to private enmity. The Spaniards, justly indignant, were often betrayed into the utterance of language which exposed them to the utmost consequence of blasphemy, and suffered the mitigated penalty of stripes and imprisonment, after which the oppressors took credit to themselves for not having inflicted that of death. Renegades were constantly presenting themselves to the Magistrates to purchase temporal freedom at the fearful cost of everlasting ruin; and one of these, named Perfecto, a Priest, who had first exposed himself to danger, by some conduct or language offensive to the Mohammedans, and then apostatized, being at last wounded in conscience, could not repress the utterance of his real sentiments in familiar conversation with his new companions. "Christ," said he, "is God over all, blessed for ever; and if I may tell you, my friends, in strictest confidence, what the Christians think of the Prophet, they believe him to be one of the false Prophets predicted in the

* Fleury, Hist. Eccles., xviii., 26. A.D. 845.

"THE MARTYRS OF CORDOVA."

Gospel; that he has led many astray, and will suffer, with them, the vengeance of eternal fire. But I tell you this only in answer to your questions, and trusting in your promise to keep the secret." They repeated the assurance that they would not betray him; but a few days afterwards, as he was walking in the street, these same persons shouted that he had blasphemed the Prophet, the bystanders seized him, and he was instantly dragged into the presence of the Cadi, who sent him to prison as one that had denied the Prophet after making a profession of islām, and condemned him to be put to death at the next great festival. He spent his time in fastings and prayer, and, when brought out for execution, cursed Mohammed and his followers, and was beheaded. This malediction spoils the whole; but it shows the spirit of the times, and leads to the observation, unhappily too applicable to all the "martyrs of Cordova," as they are generally called, that Perfecto, self-condemned for his defection from the Christian cause, and actuated by bitter hatred of the party to which he had been reluctantly attached, had not the mind of Christ. The nine or ten years of persecution which followed afford material for the history of persecution, rather than for a Martyrology, although a crowd of saints—saints in the estimation of their Church, because they died on account of religious profession—are found in the Roman Calendar, and honoured with special commemoration under the above historical title. The Christian population of the Caliphate were so enraged at the sight of these executions, that the Mohammedan authorities feared a revolt, and would fain have tolerated solemn protestations against their religion, if such apparent unfaithfulness to the honour of Islamism would not have exposed them to the fury of their own people. But a powerful party arose among the Spaniards themselves, who, from timidity, prudence, or unfaithfulness, either so indifferent to all religion as to think martyrdom a folly, or so persuaded of the mixture of human passion with the zeal of those who came forward unsought, to solicit and provoke the sentence of death, opposed the zeal of the confessors in an extraordinary manner. They maintained that Christians should be satisfied with liberty of worship, and with a meek and seasonable confession of Christianity, but should not wantonly provoke their adversaries. They affirmed that persons who thus suffered death were not martyrs; and adduced the easy disproof of their claim to that honour, by showing their dead bodies in a state of putrefaction, whereas a true martyr's body, as it was vulgarly believed, would be without corruption. The Bishop Recaphredo, and the Count Servando, led this party; and, by an unwonted coalition with the enemies of the Christian name, assisted in apprehending the most zealous of the confessors, who were confined in prison, that they might be prevented from compelling the Cadi to shed their blood. Abdalrahman himself rejoiced in this interference, and, at their request, he, the Vicar of Mohammed, the pledged extirpator of every other religion from the face of the earth, summoned a number of Bishops to meet at Cordova, in order to check the zeal of Christians by an ecclesiastical decision. The "false Synod," as Romish writers not unreasonably call it, met,

3 N 2 and declared that all who broke the conditions of the confederation with the Moors should be regarded as malefactors. This decision was not without effect. Many withdrew from the scene of conflict; while others, resolving to obey God rather than man, and believing that God required the sacrifice of their life, hastened to snatch the crown of martyrdom, and deserved, at least, the praise of undoubted sincerity and heroic, if not Christian, devotion. Their case is decided at a higher tribunal, and it becomes not us to pronounce a decision on motives which can be known only to the Lord in whose name they chose to die. It is remarkable that Abdalrahman died suddenly, after he had been looking on the bodies of some Christians that had hung too long on a gallows, and directing that they should be burnt. He fell while giving the orders, was carried speechless into his chamber, and died the same night.*

But the nominally-Christian priesthood were not less intolerant than the Saracens, as the case of Gotteschalcus, a German Monk, who suffered stripes and imprisonment for maintaining the peculiar doctrine of Augustine, respecting election and predestination, sufficiently demonstrates. Rabanus, Archbishop of Mentz, and Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims, headed a formal persecution of their erring brother, after they had failed to influence his judgment by angry disputation; and having had him examined by a company of thirteen Bishops appointed by that Synod, and his alleged heresy proved, he was condemned, according to the canons of the Council of Agde, and the rule of St. Benedict, to be scourged with rods and imprisoned. Being of the diocese of Soissons, within the province of Hincmar, he was placed in his hands. In the presence of Charles the Bald, King of France, the barbarous penalty was inflicted, and he was there forced to drop a bundle of his writings into the fire; but rather confirmed than shaken in his notions of predestinarian doctrine, he was forthwith thrown into prison, suffered patiently for conscience' sake, and after an honourable endurance of not less than twenty-one years was translated, it may be reasonably hoped, into that happy world, where the saints no longer see through a glass, darkly, but know even as they are known. It was a saying of Charlemagne, that God had given two swords for the government of the world, one to the Pope, and the other to the Emperor; and it was his policy to act in concert with the Pope by keeping the temporal sword unsheathed in terror to all who should resist or despise the spiritual authority. Yet he placed himself at the head of the Church in the empire, ruled the Clergy, exacted compensation for his patronage by chastising them gently for their immoralities, opposing image-worship, and interdicting adoration of the saints. He more than made amends for that interference by an unsparing persecution of heretics; and whoever refused baptism, being as yet unconverted from Paganism, or presumed to eat flesh in Lent, was threatened with pain of death.†

* Fleury, Hist. Eccles., xlviii., 47, 54; xlix., 1, 14, 35, 42; Mariana, Hist. Esp., vii., 15.

† Menzel, Hist. of Germany, part i., chap. 116, et passim; Hallam's Europe during the Middle Ages, chap. i., part 1.

CLAUDIUS OF TURIN.

So entirely was persecution the fashion of the times. The ferocious barbarism of general society thoroughly imbued the church,—to use the word in its lax and popular acceptation. A Pope, Eugenius II., hoping to promote the ends of justice, when few respected the sanctity of oaths, made superstitious appeals to the judgment of God by ordeal an ecclesiastical institution. By making the accused drink holy water under imprecation, by plunging him into a river, by requiring him to walk on red-hot iron, or between fires, or by bringing parties litigant, or their champions, to single combat, the Priests hoped to improve on the ordinary administration of justice, which had become extremely ineffective, and to prevent the desecration by perjury, of altars, crucifixes, and relics, on which persons abjured or sworn had been used to lay their hands without fear; * and those ordeals were attended with appointed forms of prayer, notwithstanding the prohibitions of Councils. The labours of Amalarius the Fortunate, and others of the same kind, mark the ninth century with a strong character of ritualism, as might be expected when inward piety was scarcely known; and at the same time the monstrous invention of transubstantiation distinguishes that age as the midnight of the Church, when, under Cimmerian darkness, the evidences of sense and reason and Scripture were buried out of sight in western Christendom; while, in the East, the human understanding, struggling against the absurdities of image-worship, and contending with the efforts of the Bishop of Rome and his adherents to plunge the world into idolatry again, was as unhallowed as Heathenism itself; and a calamitous warfare, excited by those efforts, failed, because not waged aright, and left the name of iconoclast, or "image-breaker," as a byword of discredit to be equally applied to godly men who should endeavour, actuated by a purer spirit, to remove idols from the sanctuaries of Christian worship. Such an one was Claudius of Turin. That deservedly-eminent man was a Spaniard, a disciple, in his youth, of Felix of Urgel, who held the doctrine of Nestorius; but Claudius thought for himself, and does not appear to have accepted the opinions of his master. After having sustained the office of Chaplain in the court of Louis the Pious, when that Prince succeeded to the empire, he was appointed by him to the bishopric of Turin, where idolatry was then making great progress. He entered on that charge with the advantage of an established reputation for piety and learning, a reputation which is confirmed at this day by the remnants of his writings, extant chiefly in manuscript. Of these it is enough to say, that they prove him to have been evangelical as a theologian; and, in every essential point, a Protestant in discipline. His imperial patron protected him amidst the attacks of his hostile brethren, constantly affirming that his ministry and government were necessary to the welfare of the diocese of Turin, and that he could not be removed thence without irreparable injury to his flock. He is chiefly known to us as a reformer, who had the images removed from all the churches of that diocese, preached against saint-worship, and discouraged pilgrimages; and an extract from one of his writings, as translated by Allix, will most exactly

* Fleury, Hist. Eccles., xliii. 30.

exhibit the views of this first precursor of the Protestant Reformation. "Mark what the followers of the false religion and superstition do allege: they say it is in commemoration and honour of our Saviour, that we serve, honour, and adore the cross; whom nothing pleaseth in our Saviour, but that which was pleasing to the ungodly; namely, the reproach of his passion, and the token of his death. They witness hereby that they perceive only of him, what the wicked saw and perceived of him, whether Jews or Heathens, who do not see his resurrection, and do not consider him but as altogether swallowed up of death, without minding what the Apostle saith, 'We know Jesus Christ no longer according to the flesh.' God commands one thing, and these people do quite the contrary: God commands us to bear our cross, and not to worship it; but these are all for worshipping it, whereas they do not bear it at all, neither will they bear it, either corporally or spiritually: to serve God after this manner, is to go a whoring from him. For if we ought to adore the cross, because Christ was fastened to it, how many other things are there which touched Jesus Christ, and which he made according to the flesh? Did not he continue nine months in the womb of the Virgin? Why do not they, then, on the same score, worship all that are virgins, because a virgin brought forth Jesus Christ? Why do not they adore mangers and old clouts, because he was laid in a manger, and wrapped up in swaddling clothes? Why do not they adore fisher-boats, because he slept in one of them, and preached to the multitudes, and caused a net to be cast out, wherein was caught a miraculous quantity of fish? Let them adore asses, because he entered into Jerusalem upon the foal of an ass; and lambs, because it is written of Him, 'Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world.' But these sort of men would rather eat live lambs, than worship their images. Why do they not worship lions, because he is called 'the Lion of the tribe of Judah?' or rocks, because it is said, 'And the Rock was Christ?' or thorns, because he was crowned with them? or lances, because one of them pierced his side? All these things are ridiculous, rather to be lamented than set forth in writing; but we are forced to set them down, in opposition to fools, and to declaim against those hearts of stone, whom the arrows and sentences of the word of God cannot pierce; and therefore we are fain to fling such stones at them. Come to yourselves again, ye miserable transgressors: why are you gone astray from truth? and why, being become vain, are ye fallen in love with vanity? Why do you crucify again the Son of God, and expose him to open shame; and by this means make souls by troops to become the companions of devils, estranging them from their Creator by the horrible sacrilege of your images and likenesses, and precipitating them into everlasting damnation?" *

The people of Piedmont could not be insensible to the force of

* Allix's Remarks upon the ecclesiastical History of the ancient Churches of Piedmont, chap. ix., gives so full an account of Claudius as entirely supersedes every other reference.

ADALBERT OF PRAGUE.

these familiar illustrations. His rejection of images was reversed after his death; but the memory of the reformation and the tradition of the doctrine were deposited in the public mind, and reappeared in later ages. The Paulicians, too, were still migrating into Europe from Armenia in small companies, and assiduously spreading their views in the provinces northward and westward of Constantinople, and are regarded by many as the living materials of a future renovated church, laid up by divine Providence simultaneously with those of northern Italy. Unless history has been falsified beyond example, and that by numerous and distinct witnesses; and unless the persecutors of heretics were as accomplished in deception as they were unanimous in bigotry, which is too much to be credited; the majority of wandering Paulicians, without a complete Bible, unable to assemble for stated worship, except during brief and uncertain periods, destitute of regularly-appointed Teachers and of communion guarded by discipline, irritated by ill-treatment, and involved in the general ignorance and wickedness of the times, gradually imbibed Manicheanism, while they would reject even truth, because coming to them from the Priests, and aided in spreading widely fantastic speculations like those of Manes throughout Europe. But of a few, it appears to be not less capable of proof that they were Protestants before Luther. The main body of the followers of Constantine-Sylvanus remained in Armenia; were goaded into rebellion by the cruelty of persecutors; and, after having waged formidable war with the Grecian Emperor, Basil, were finally defeated, and their name now disappears from the pages of oriental history.

Tales of ascetic devotees, not less regardless of decency than of comfort, and prodigal of a life that was oppressed with penance, abound in the annals of the tenth century. The barbarians of northern Europe preyed on the Christian states; churches were desecrated, monasteries pillaged, and ecclesiastical persons murdered in common with others; or, when they made themselves conspicuous to the enemy, in preference to others. It would be uncharitable to affirm so much of all, but of many it is impossible to doubt that they rushed on death by the sword or arrow of the barbarian as wantonly, if not as proudly, as did the old Gymnosophists when they displayed their rude contempt of life by dying on flaming pyres, to the astonishment of the beholders. They were admired with superstitious veneration, canonized, and worshipped. Here and there appeared a confessor whose history, although encumbered with fabulous inventions, deserves to be remembered. Such an one was Adalbert, Bishop of Prague. The Priests of his diocese opposed him, because he objected to their custom of taking wives; and, although there can be no question as to who was in the right, their manner of contending for that liberty does not prove that they possessed true religion, any more than would his obstinacy, on the other side, prove him to be utterly unenlightened. His education, like that of all his brethren, had been miserably defective. But the people were savage and licentious; he could not safely live among them, and was obliged to flee. Hastening to Rome, he resigned his mitre to the Pope, and retired to the monastery of

Monte Cassino, in Naples. Yielding to the entreaties of his Archbishop, who desired to see the diocese of Prague restored to order, he soon left that retreat, and solicited of the Bohemians permission to dwell among them again. This denied, he determined to endeavour to raise a new church among the Heathen; proceeded to Dantzic, and there taking ship, landed, after a few days, on some part of the shore of the Baltic, where a small monastery had been established, and thence, with two of the brethren, went to a small island, or delta, formed by the outfalls of a river, and began to preach to the inhabitants with great boldness. But the chief men of the island attacked him with clenched fists; and, on another occasion, one of them levelled him to the ground with the stroke of an oar. Rising on his feet again, he meekly said, "I thank thee, O Lord, that I have suffered this stroke for Him who was crucified for me." He then crossed the river to the main-land; but, before a day was over, the Chief of the village made him prisoner; the savages gathered from all parts, with vociferous expressions of rage, and seemed ready to tear him limb from limb. They asked him who he was, and why he came thither. "I am a Sclave by nation," said he, "by name Adalbert, by profession a Monk, once a Bishop, now your Apostle. The object of my voyage is your salvation, that you may leave your deaf and dumb idols, and acknowledge your Creator, who is God alone; and that, believing in his name, you may have life, and receive as recompence eternal joy in heaven." Their anger was bridled for the time; but they refused to allow him entrance into their country, and threatened that if he remained another day he should lose his head. That night he and his companions departed, and rowed on the river till they reached another village, where five days were spent in silence, or deliberation. He then proposed that they should lay aside their habit, which had shocked the Pagans, allow their hair and beard to grow after the fashion of the country, and, being dressed like natives, converse familiarly with them, refrain from formal preaching, and earn their food by labour. He also proposed to visit a tribe with whose language he was familiar, and to whom, therefore, access would be more easy. Next morning the party set out on the proposed journey, singing psalms cheerfully as they went, and at mid-day rested in an open country, where they first solemnly communicated, then took a meal, and, after walking a little further, laid them on the ground to rest, and soon fell asleep. Then came a party of Heathen, headed by Siggo, an idol-Priest, and bound the defenceless Missionaries hand and foot. Adalbert exhorted his brethren to suffer courageously for Christ, when the Priest hurled a dart at him, others did the same; and he, being thus transfixed with the deadly missiles, and reeking in his blood, raised his eyes towards heaven, prayed in a loud voice for his own soul and for his persecutors, and in a few moments expired. The savages cut off his head, and carried it away on the point of a stake as a sign of their success in resisting Christian innovation; and the trembling companions of his mission returned to their monastery with the appalling tale. The single-mindedness and persevering devotion of Adalbert, equally free from rashness and

ORIGIN OF THE CRUSADES.

ostentation, mark him as worthy to be called a martyr.* The necessary brevity of this part of our work precludes the few other examples of the same class contained in the annals of that age.

The condition of Christendom was everywhere deplorable. Either there was war with Pagans, or Christian Princes were using favourable conjunctures to engage them to submit to baptism, and enter into matrimonial alliances; so deepening and perpetuating the character of Paganism, which had already been impressed on the populations of the dismembered empire. Priests and Monks were, at the same time, religious propagandists and political emissaries, pledged to conquer or to die in prosecution of the holy war. The first shock with Mohammedanism was over. In the East, and in Africa, Christians, such as they were, became habituated to absolute submission; multitudes everywhere fell away to the religion of their rulers, and the defection of even dignitaries in the church ceased to excite surprise. Those renegades seldom failed to court the favour of their patrons by vexing their former brethren, as is related by the chronicler, in a single line, of one of those perverts, a Nestorian Metropolitan of Dakuka, a city of Assyria.† In Spain the extraordinary elevation of the Caliphate overawed and dazzled both Jews and Christians; and the latter, for the sake of peace, and to avoid incurring subjection to ruinous exactions, sank into a state of abject servitude and habitual compromise of religious principle, until that principle became almost extinct. But the torpor of the public mind was soon to be broken. Gerbert, a French Monk, who had pursued his studies at Cordova for the sake of hearing the Moslem professors, and had also witnessed the splendour of the church at the court of the French King, having his mind enlarged by learning, to the horror of many a poor cleric, who attributed his intellectual superiority to Satanic inspiration, and with his imagination impressed by experience of the contrasted fortunes of the Christian people, was elevated to the See of Rome, and took the name of Sylvester II. There he heard lamentable tidings from Palestine, where the pilgrims to the "holy sepulchre" learned the sufferings of Christians by participation, as well as by report, and issued a letter hortatory to arouse Christendom, if possible, to some great effort for emancipation. Here originated the Crusades; a system of armed intervention in promotion of ecclesiastical interests wherever endangered, either by infidel or dissident, that will appear in subsequent chapters with unhappy frequency.

Voluminous indeed would be a full history of persecution at this period; for the zeal of churchmen chiefly displayed itself in violence. In the year 1017, or 1022, a number of persons were discovered at Orleans who held private meetings, and whose doctrine differed from that of the church. To ascertain their doctrine, one Arefaste, a nobleman, received permission from the Bishop to pretend to be an

* Fleury, Hist. Eccles., Ivii., 47, 48; Moreri, Great Historical Dictionary.

† Abulpharagius, Dynast. x., where the version of Kirsch, Dedakuka, is an oversight for de-Dakuka, of Dakuka. The name of the apostate Metropolitan seems to have perished.

3 o inquirer, get introduction to their assemblies, and solicit admission to membership, with an injunction to make known their secret doctrine and usages. To fortify himself against the illusion of their errors, he was directed to communicate privately as a "Catholic" every day, and so obtain sacramental grace for the deletion of daily guilt, and the more successful prosecution of the imposture. In due time he fulfilled the commission; and, guided by his information, Robert, King of France, and the Prelates, caused some of the Canons of the cathedral, men in high repute for learning and sanctity, other persons of respectability, and Stephen, once the Queen's Confessor, among the rest, to be arrested. They were examined by the King and the Bishops in the cathedral with closed doors, and the discordant reports of their examiners and enemies are the only original materials extant by which to judge of them. They were condemned under the name of Manicheans; but the accusation of Arefaste laid abominations to their charge as exorbitant as his own hypocrisy and perfidy, too polluting to be repeated, and too monstrous to be believed. Their final answer, as reported by those examiners, throws some light on their character. "The doctrine," they said, "which you," the Bishops, "hold, you may tell to those who savour of earthly things, and who believe the figments of carnal men written upon animal parchment. But, to us, who have the law written in the inner man by the Holy Ghost, and who relish nothing save what we have learned from God, the Creator of all things, you vainly propound matters which are superfluous, and altogether alien from sound divinity. Put, therefore, an end to your words, and do with us what you list. We clearly behold our King reigning in heavenly places. With his own right hand he is raising us to an immortal triumph; and is, even now, about to bestow upon us the fulness of joy celestial." Bad men, who had been careful to avoid punishment by congregating in secret for the perpetration of obscene orgies, would rather deny an imputed heresy than suffer death by confession. Good men, who had been so prudent as to guard against persecution by the private exercise of their religion, might be bold enough to avow the truth when dragged before such a tribunal. They were instantly condemned to die. To prevent the mob from pressing into the building, the Queen herself kept the door of the cathedral when they were taken out to be burnt; and to show her zeal, if not to vent her spite on the man who had perhaps been too strict in watching her conduct, with a stick she thrust out an eye of Stephen, her former Confessor, who was dragged in that condition to the stake. It is said that a Priest and a Nun recanted, but that ten Canons and four laymen were committed to the flames, and that when they began to feel the fire, they cried out that they had been deceived; but it was then too late to save them. Whether too late or not, the fact that they were burnt to death is certain; and there is good ground for conjecture that they had received the doctrine of the Paulicians, taught, at first, by an Italian lady who came to live in France, and that they held nothing more in common with the ancient Manicheans than some trifling speculations, which might have been maliciously inter-

REACTION OF PAGANISM.

preted, and said to be derived from those heretics.* In Hungary there were many victims to the profession of Christianity. The nation had been recently proselytized by means of royal authority, which was exerted in the distribution of rewards and punishments, with all the usual appliances of temporal inducement to profess a faith honoured in the highest places. But the King's religion fell with the King himself before a general insurrection of the Hungarians, who invited three fugitive nobles to head the revolt, under the condition of allowing them to live as Pagans, follow their old customs, kill the Bishops and Clergy, demolish the churches, and worship idols. A man named Vatha was the first who openly relapsed. Following his exhortations, the multitude again offered sacrifices, and indulged their Tartarian taste in feasting on horse-flesh. They killed Christians, both Priests and laics, and burnt several churches: then, in full revolt against their King, Peter, they murdered the Germans and Latins whom he had brought into the country, and threatened to massacre all the Bishops, Priests, and collectors of tithes. By this time two of the insurgent Chiefs were marching on Pesth. Four Bishops, on their approach to the city, went out to meet them, endeavoured to avert their fury by showing them signs of honour, and then returned within the gates, where Vatha and a crowd of Pagans surrounded and assailed them with a shower of stones. The Bishop, Gerard, was riding in a chariot, and for some time suffered no injury, but pronounced benedictions on the raging multitude, until they overturned the chariot, and stoned him as he lay upon the ground. "O Lord Jesus Christ," he cried with a loud voice, "lay not this sin to their charge: they know not what they do." Transpierced by a lance, he breathed his last. Other two Bishops, and a great number of Christians, were slain the same day; and so that half-barbarous people terribly repaid the severities by which they had been coerced into the profession of an unfelt, and therefore unknown, religion, and avenged themselves for the contributions unwisely levied for its support. The King was killed; one only of the rebel Chiefs survived the civil war, and gained the crown, which, notwithstanding his promise to the contrary, he caused to be placed on his head by three Bishops, who had escaped the slaughter; and then, thinking perhaps to stone for his temporary re-establishment of Paganism, he suddenly commanded all his subjects to become Christians again under pain of death, and they once more submitted to profess a faith inwardly more despised than ever.† Revolutions of the same kind were not unfrequent in northern Europe. The Sclavonians beyond the Elbe, northward of Saxony, had yielded in great numbers to the efforts of their Prince, Gotteschale, to bring them over to a political profession of Christianity; but, in the year 1065, he was killed while saying mass by some Pagans whom he had been endeavouring to convert. A Priest named Hippo suffered with him, killed also at the altar; and

* Inquiry into the History and Theology of the ancient Vallenses and Albigenses, &c., by George Stanley Faber, B.D., book ii., chap. 4; Maitland, Albigenses and Waldenses, sect. iv.; Fleury, Hist. Eccles., lviii., 53-56.

† Fleury, Hist. Eccles., lix., 7.

3 o 2 many others, both lay and cleric, were at the same time put to death. John, an aged Scotch Bishop, who had baptized many thousands, was beaten with rods, led about several towns amidst the derision of the Heathen, and, as he remained steadfast in confessing the faith of Christ, they first cut off his hands and feet, and then beheaded him, and presented his head before the image of one of their gods. The widow of Gotteschale was subjected to shameful indignities; the savages overran the entire province of Hamburg with fire and sword, and razed the city to the ground. Schleswig, too, fell a prey to their fury, and all who persisted in professing Christianity were massacred. The Sclavonians altogether returned to Heathenism, as they had done twice before, after having apparently abandoned it in compliance with the will of Charlemagne and Otho.*

But the less than half-converted Europeans were everywhere sinking towards their original condition, and the forms of Christianity were strangely mingled with those of the old idolatry. Two memorable examples will serve to characterize the age. The Popes of Rome had, for some time past, been anxious to supersede the ancient Spanish, or Mozarabic, Liturgy by their own Roman; and Gregory VII., with characteristic perseverance, urged the adoption of his Breviary on the Spanish Sovereigns, but without success. At length the question was brought to a final discussion at Toledo, in the presence of Alfonso, King of Castile, who had recently recovered that city from the Saracens. On an appointed day the King and Queen, who both desired the innovation, the Archbishop, the Legate, the Clergy, and an immense multitude of people, were gathered together to determine whether the old book or the new should be the standard of their devotions. The Clergy, the representatives of the army, and the chief of the people contended during some hours for the preservation of their national formulary; while the King, supported by Papal authority, and excited by his wife, urged the adoption of the other, and spared not threatenings to the terror of the people. Neither party would give way; and it was gravely determined that two soldiers should be chosen to settle the matter at once by single combat. The champions were elected; the great assemblage deferred the choice of their prayers to the issue of the fight; and the sponsor of the Gothic form vanquished him of the Roman amidst the loud exultation of army, Priests, and people. But Queen Constance besought her consort not so readily to yield, but to try his cause by fire. The public assented; and the Priests, tolerably certain of good success, prepared to submit their devotionary to the searching test. The Primate, the Legate, and the Clergy united in exhorting the people to prepare themselves by prayers and fasting for a second appointed day. A pile of wood was kindled, and, when in hottest conflagration, the two books were thrown into the flames. To the admiration of the uninstructed, neither was consumed. The Roman, warped by the heat, showed a slight motion; the Gothic was singed a little on the surface; but both were taken entire from the embers. The Roman, having endured the trial without any visible change, was

* Fleury, Hist. Eccles., lxl., 17.

FIERY ORDEALS.

received generally; but the Gothic, or Mozarabic, being singed, yet otherwise uninjured, was deemed worthy of preservation on a few altars, and is to this day honoured with occasional recitation in Toledo. The King gave this decision, establishing the pleasure of the Pope in his dominions; and on that day originated the Spanish proverb, Allá van leyes, do quieren Reyes, "When Kings say whither, the laws go thither."* No doubt the King believed himself to be pronouncing truly when he said that both rituals pleased God, and the people were sincerely persuaded that they had seen a twofold miracle; but the cunning clerics had used the interval appointed for prayer and fasting to prepare the volumes by a solution that would make them fire-proof.† Despite the prohibitions of Popes and Councils, "a great fire" often superseded the only and legal methods of obtaining real evidence; for the elements were thought to be all under angelic influence, either malign or beneficent; and in that mysterious world, where natural and supernatural were intimately confounded, they fancied that God held a tribunal, to be approached with confidence of receiving an infallible decision. A Bishop of Florence, usually called Peter of Pavia, was accused of simony; and so notorious were his simoniacal practices, that a considerable portion of the Clergy separated from him, and the people commonly called him Simon Magus. But the higher Clergy and the Pope supported him, as it might be expected that accomplices would do; and the Florentines, disgusted with the man, took occasion during the solemnities of Lent, 1067, to appear in sackcloth, with lamentations, and cry to God for deliverance from "Simon the Magician." The churches were closed, the belfries silent, and a large body of Clergy, followed by a dense multitude, appeared at the gate of the monastery of St. Salvatore to demand an audience of the Friars there living in community. They were all fasting. Florence was under a voluntary interdict: no mass, no meal. Even the sucking babes were denied their mothers' breasts; and the brethren of St. Saviour were entreated to prepare a great fire. The same request had been made in vain to the Bishop; who, of course, refused to hazard his bishopric, perhaps his life, on the event of an ordeal which others must prepare; but the Abbot signified the consent of his brotherhood to take part in the awful ceremony, and one of them, also called Peter, readily presented himself to pass through the fire, and therein to be consumed if the Bishop were innocent of simony. His appearance, as a living man, should prove Peter of Savoy to be guilty. Faggots were brought in from all directions, and the people raised two piles, each ten feet long, five broad, and four and a half high; a narrow passage between them was covered with dry wood; and during the construction of the pyre psalms and litanies were chanted. Peter then went to the altar of the convent church, by order of the Abbot, to celebrate mass, which was performed with great solemnity, many of the people and

* Joan. Pinii Tractatus de Liturgia Mozarabica, Romae, p. xlv., seq.; Mariana, Hist. Rap., lib. ix., cap. 18.

† Beckmann, History of Inventions. Jugglers, Rope-dancers, Automata, &c., and notes, Bohn's edition.

Priests weeping through excitement. When they came to the words, Agnus Dei, "Lamb of God," four Monks went to light the faggots, one carrying a crucifix, another holy water, the third twelve consecrated candles, and the fourth a censer full of incense. The people raised a shout as they appeared; chanted Kyrie eleeson, "Lord, have mercy upon us," in a mournful tone; and then prayed to Jesus Christ to defend his cause, and to the Virgin, St. Peter, and St. Gregory, to assist by their intercession. Next came Peter, carrying a cross, and followed by Abbots and Monks chanting a litany. Silence being had, a strong-voiced Monk read up a prayer, to which all signified assent. Then an Abbot raised his voice, and said, "My dear brethren and sisters, God is our witness that we do this for the salvation of your souls, that you may henceforth avoid simony, with which nearly the whole world is infected: for you must know that this crime is abominable, and that others are almost nothing in comparison." The burning was by that time beginning to abate, and the heap glowed red. Then the champion, by order of the Abbot, made his prayer: "O Lord Jesus Christ, I beseech thee that if Peter of Pavia has usurped the see of Florence by simony, thou wouldst succour me in this terrible judgment, and preserve me from the power of the fire, as thou didst of old preserve the three children in the furnace." When all present had said "Amen," he gave his brethren the kiss of peace, and asked the people how long he should stay in the fire: they answered, "As long as you can walk slowly through." Fixing his eyes on the cross, he walked steadily through, with his feet bare, emerged at the further end, looked gaily around, and returned to the middle of the burning path to pick up his handkerchief which he had let fall there. He would have gone in again, but the bystanders prevented him, covered him with kisses from head to foot, pressed on him to touch if it were but the hem of his garment; and a deafening cry proclaimed Peter the Monk blessed, and Peter the Magician a detestable simoniac. The Pope ventured to confirm the sentence, and to depose the Prelate, who covered himself under a profession of repentance, turned Monk, found bread in a monastery, and "Peter the Catholic" follows next on the catalogue of Florentine Bishops, in ostentatious contrast with his less fortunate predecessor, "Peter the Simoniac."* The monastic juggler is immortalized in Italian history as "fiery Peter," and completes the triad. These ordeals are described at length to supersede any further description of such ceremonies, and to convey a distinct idea of one of the instruments used on subsequent occasions for the suppression of truth, or the ruin of obnoxious persons. Silver and steel, fire and sword, were now the acknowledged resource and weapons of the church militant. Simony, acknowledged by the above-mentioned Abbot as almost universal, was inseparable from a church which had become wholly secular. Pagans were dragooned into submission to that church, and Jews were robbed, tormented, and murdered beyond all example in the preceding history of Christendom. At Rome, for

* Fleury, Hist. Eccles., lxl., 27, 28; Moreri, s. v., Pedro del Fuego; Macquer, Hist. Eccles.

FIRST CRUSADE.

example, there was a shock of earthquake on Good Friday, just after the worship of the cross; a wretched Jew said that some of his brethren had laughed at a crucifix, and that the earth had trembled with horror at their profanity. The Pope informed himself of the truth of the information, and instantly had a few Jews' heads taken off: the weather, which was tempestuous at the time, forthwith became serene, public vengeance was satisfied, the cross was adored with tenfold assiduity, the Jews were hated more intensely than ever, and the end of the invention was fully answered.* Coercion by brute force was used over the inferior Clergy, to compel the licentious to put away their concubines, and the honest to repudiate their wives: force was often resisted by equal or superior force, and lives were sacrificed in Italy itself during the discreditable conflict.† In Germany there was a formal revolt of "concubinary Clerks," as married Ministers were ignominiously designated; and finding that scriptural argument had no weight with their superiors, they forcibly dispersed a Council which met at Erfurt, in 1074, to devise methods of compulsion, leaving the Archbishop of Mayence, as ex-President of that Council, to anathematize them once a year, amidst the derision of their wives and children.‡

The too successful contention of Gregory VII. with the Sovereigns of Christendom for the confirmation of ecclesiastical prerogatives, and the interminable controversy respecting investitures, cannot be related intelligibly on pages which must be principally occupied by other subjects; but the student of church history will find abundant material for reflection in the annals of the eleventh century, by whomsoever edited or compiled. The Crusades must now engage our attention for a few moments. Sylvester II. had called for pity towards the suffering Christians of the East, so that Europe was already prepared to entertain the project, when Gregory, amidst his innumerable schemes for aggrandizement, for some time cherished this also. He corresponded on the subject with the Greek Emperor, Michael, who had thought it politic to solicit his sympathy, and wrote urgent letters to the Emperor of the West, and others, asking for assistance; saying that fifty thousand men were already anxious to set out on the holy war, if he would march at their head, which he would gladly do, if he could have increased co-operation. But the grand idea of a universal arming of the church for the destruction of Saracen, Pagan, and schismatic, was not carried into experiment until nearly twenty years later, in the pontificate of Urban II. A French pilgrim at Jerusalem, mingling with the crowd of devotees who visited the spot reputed to be the sepulchre of Christ, "the holy sepulchre," beheld with grief the injuries suffered by the Christian population and the pilgrims. Encouraged by the Patriarch, he hastened his return to Europe; and, in the twofold character of pilgrim and hermit, threw himself at the feet of Urban, who received him as a chosen messenger of God, and encouraged him to arouse Christendom to vengeance on the Saracenian tyrants who desecrated the holy city. Although Peter was mean in personal appearance, the

* Fleury, Hist. Eccles., lviii., 42.

† Ibid., lxi., 25.

‡ Ibid., lxii., 12.

one idea that possessed his whole soul gave extraordinary power to his utterance; rusticity of manners and extreme asceticism made him the more acceptable to the multitude; while the force of his appeals, and the grandeur of his favourite conception, captivated persons of the highest rank. Immense congregations heard his descriptions with amazement, caught his indignation, and groaned with impatience to reconquer the "glorious resting-place" of their Saviour's body, and avenge the oppressions of Christian people. While Peter traversed his native country, everywhere kindling a flame of popular enthusiasm, the Pope convened a Council at Placentia, in Italy; and then, by adjournment, at Clermont, in France, where hundreds of Prelates, with Princes and soldiers, and uncounted multitudes of spectators, conducted or witnessed the discussion of various measures of external reform, all subsidiary to the object of sending a great army to Palestine for the conquest of the land, and the expulsion of the infidels. From a platform erected in the market-place the Pope harangued the people, who needed no persuasion; and the acclamation of that day, "God wills it," was adopted as the cry to be repeated on the fields of battle. Urban desired them to wear on the breast, or shoulder, a red cross;—the cross as the symbol of redemption, the colour to signify the sacrifice of blood offered in the cause of the Crucified;—and promised plenary indulgence to every one who should set out with the sacred host, and the glory of martyrdom beside to every one who should die in the service of the Cross. Nothing could be more agreeable to myriads than predatory warfare, no penitential toil more adapted to their ferocious propensities; and where there existed less courage, restless conscience, aroused, but unenlightened, by the strange fanaticism, rejoiced in the prospect of a new and glorious method of salvation. The immediate effect of these incitements was the assemblage of a vast and promiscuous multitude, gathered by families, encumbered by the infirmities of age and sex, and without any knowledge of geography or tactics to serve them on their military pilgrimage. In the wilds of Hungary, on the Thracian mountains, along the broad and uncertain tracks towards the passage of the Bosphorus, and on the plain of Nice, where the more hardy remnant were surrounded and cut to pieces by the Turks, the wretched horde fell victims to their fantastic zeal. But the example of their departure had roused others into action; and from France, Piedmont, Lombardy, the Italian peninsula, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, England, and even from Scotland and Ireland, by various routes, with diverse fortunes, and after great losses, the various sections of croisés, or persons marked with the red cross, were encamped under the walls of Constantinople, to the terror of the Emperor Alexius, who had asked for some addition to his own forces to counteract the power of the Mussulmans, which then threatened his metropolis and empire; but saw, instead of a reasonable contingent, such an immense array of warriors as, if well disciplined and conducted, might have been a resistless enemy; in whose good faith, as mere allies, he could place no confidence, and whose necessities it could not be possible for him long to satisfy. The complication of

RACK OF JERUSALEM.

intrigues arising from his well-grounded jealousy is traced by the historians of the Crusades. The pilgrim host was at last mustered on Asiatic ground, to the number, it was said, of one hundred thousand fighting men, mounted and equipped, besides armed foot-pilgrims, estimated so high as six hundred thousand; but certainly a formidable army, if the term "army" could fairly be applied to an assemblage so undisciplined. Nice fell before them; but Alexius, their doubtful ally, contrived to plant his standard on the walls; then Antioch, and finally Jerusalem. Never did an infuriated army dishonour humanity more deeply than the depraved zealots who sacked that city. For three days they toiled in the horrid work of carnage. Seventy, some say one hundred, thousand vanquished and unresisting Saracens, men, women, babes,—for there was no pity,—perished by the Christian sword. The Jews were thought deserving a special mark of abhorrence, and therefore burnt alive in their synagogues. Even a company of three hundred Moslems, to whom two of the Chiefs had given a standard as a pledge of exemption from the slaughter, were brought out and murdered. When the greater part of this butchery was finished, and the air was already infected, the Christians put off their blood-soaked garments, washed themselves, left Saracen slaves to carry away the bodies of the slain, with bare feet and uncovered heads went up the hill of Calvary, reciting solemn anthems, and devoutly kissed the stone which was said to have covered the sepulchre of our Lord. One shudders in thinking of the horrid details boastfully related by crusaders themselves; but we may again rejoice in the consideration that those men were not indeed soldiers of the Cross, that their religion was anything but Christianity, and that the teaching of Him in whose name they played the demon, and the known spirit of His holy religion, are as opposite to those deeds as heaven is to hell. We blush not for them, although we may weep over the record of their madness and obduracy; for "they were none of His." The Crusades were not a work of Christianity, but of dark fanaticism; and whatever of good there may have been in the first intention, it was utterly lost in the wickedness of those who were impelled by the eloquence of the hermit, the authority of the Pope, and perhaps actuated in some slight degree by pity for afflicted brethren. Who can calculate the injury done to the cause of Christ in Asia by the traditional abhorrence of those murderous avengers? As might have been expected, the sensuality of the crusaders was as gross as their thirst of blood was intense; their ambition and avarice were insatiate; and when their arms were not employed together for the destruction of the Saracen, they turned them against each other in quarrels of cupidity, jealousy, and revenge. He who so loved us that he endured the cross and despised the shame at Jerusalem, was thus dishonoured in that city in the last year of the eleventh century.* The writer of this brief notice would gladly have enjoyed the poetry, the ideal romance, of that part of medieval history. He might pleasantly have borrowed ideas of the Crusades from Tasso, who tells us that he invoked his muse among the blessed choirs of heaven, wearing of

* Mills, History of the Crusades; Gibbon, Decline and Fall, &c., chap. Iviii.

3 P stars immortal the golden diadem, and breathing celestial ardour into the poet's breast; * but it would be heartless affectation to whiten and adorn the sepulchre, forgetful of the unpitied victims whose remains lie mouldering within.

English history at this time affords little to our purpose. Canute the Dane, having completed the conquest of England, took the church under his unremitting care. After spending about fifteen years in the consolidation of his kingdom, he went to Rome, "to pray for the forgiveness of his sins, for the safety of his dominions, and for the people under his government." He there, in imagination, adored the Apostles Peter and Paul, and a multitude of other saints, who seemed to have revisited that holy city. At their altars or shrines he deposited costly gifts, acknowledged the power of Peter and his successors over the kingdom of heaven, conferred with the Emperor Conrad, who was there during the solemnities of Easter; and obtained from him and one Rodolfo, "a King," and other Princes, promise of greater freedom for his subjects on pilgrimage towards Rome through their territories, and from the Pope, John XX., another promise of reduction of charges on the English Clergy. The return rendered to His Holiness for that concession was not merely a vow to reform his life, but the proceeds of a rigorous exaction, from the nobles and people of England, of "the pence owing to Rome for St. Peter, whether from cities or villages; and, in the middle of August, the tenth of the produce of the earth; and, on the festival of St. Martin, the first-fruits of seeds, to the church of the parish where each one resided, which was called in English circset." Returned home, he enriched Coventry with the arm of St. Augustine, bought at Pavia with a hundred talents of silver, and a talent of gold, of his subjects' money. For the love of heaven, for the pardon of his sins, and the remission of the transgressions of his deceased brother Edmund, he granted to the church of "the holy Mother of God, Mary," at Glastonbury, various perquisites, and immunity of its lands from all claim and vexation, equally with his own, confirming the exclusive jurisdiction of the "island" of Glastonbury to the Abbot and convent.† The Clergy were supreme. Bishops and Abbots were the fountains of dignity, as well as the guides of conscience; and their hands dispensed the honour of knighthood, together with sacraments and absolution.‡ When the Normans conquered England, they came under the blessing of Pope Alexander II., who had sent a consecrated banner to Duke William,§ afterwards the Conqueror; and William accepted and acted on the Laws of King Edward, wherein it is affirmed, that "the King, because he is the Vicar of the highest King, is appointed for this purpose, to rule the earthly kingdom and the Lord's people; and, above all

* "Ma su nel cielo infra i beati cori

Hai di stelle immortali aurea corona;

Tu spira al petto mio celesti ardori."

Gierusalemme Liberata, 1., 2.

† William of Malmesbury, book ii., chap. 11.

‡ Ibid., book iv., chap. 1.

§ Foxe, Acts and Monuments, book iii., A.D. 1066. William the Conqueror.

ANSELM.

things, to reverence his holy church, to govern it and to defend it from all injuries; to pluck away wicked doers, and utterly to destroy them."* The Conqueror, however, maintained the regal dignity, in relation to the priesthood, far more than his Danish predecessors; and his son Rufus went so far as to prohibit all persons, both lay and clerical, from making appeals to Rome, or even going thither without royal permission. His evil passions, no doubt, had something to do with this hostility to the Pope; and Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, had reason to complain of the King's tyranny when he embarked penniless at Dover, to lay a complaint before his ecclesiastical Chief. And here it may be noted, that twelve years after the famous ordeal at Toledo to determine the superiority of the Roman Breviary or Missal,† the English Archbishop, writing to the Bishop of Naumburg on the subject of ritual uniformity, displays a spirit of liberality superior to his age. "Your Worship," he writes, "complaineth of the sacraments of the church, that they are not made everywhere after one sort, but are handled in divers places after divers sorts. And truly, if they were ministered after one sort, and agreeing through the whole church, it were good and laudable; yet, notwithstanding, because there be many diversities which differ not in the sum of the sacrament, in the strength of it, or in the faith, or else can be gathered into one custom, I think they are rather to be borne with in agreement of peace, than to be condemned with offence. For we have this from the holy fathers, that if the unity of charity be kept in the catholic faith, the diversity of customs hurteth nothing. But if it be demanded whereof this diversity of customs doth spring, I perceive no other cause thereof than the diversity of men's wits, which, although they differ not in strength and truth of the thing, yet they agree not in the fitness and comeliness of the ministering; for that which one judgeth to be meeter, oftentimes another thinketh to be less meet."‡ But Anselm was not always so liberal and gentle, as we soon shall see.

Notwithstanding the zeal of the crusaders for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre, and the compassion excited by descriptions of the sufferings of pilgrims and others in Jerusalem, the civil condition of Christians in the East, with the exception now to be noticed, appears to have become very tolerable, and often equal to that of their Moslem neighbours. Conquered and tributary as they were, many of them at this time held the highest offices in the state, royalty alone excepted, and not only served in arms, but even commanded armies. They had not that zeal for the propagation of the Gospel which would have provoked persecution; submitting to refrain from external display by litanies, processions, or even crosses erected on churches, or carried through the streets, their worship was generally undisturbed,

* Foxe, Acts and Monuments, book iii., A.D. 1066. William the Conqueror. "Utterly to destroy them" is the phrase which, very slightly varied, occurs in all the engagements taken by both Princes and Bishops to their acknowledged Superior in Rome, for the extirpation of heretics.

† To confound the Breviary and Missal would now prove extreme ignorance; not so when speaking of a volume which partook of the character of both.

‡ Foxe's translation, Acts and Monuments, book iv., A.D. 1098. William Rufus

3 P 2 except in times of war; and both Mohammedans and Christians regarded each other with forbearance. The prevalent characteristic of the Oriental Christians was indifference. If the Patriarch of Jerusalem had deemed it prudent to recount, in his letters to the European Princes, a persecution which overwhelmed Jerusalem more than eighty years before, but was followed by the repentance of the persecutor; or if the western Clergy were not profoundly ignorant of eastern languages and history; that event would have been related by the chroniclers of the eleventh century with the usual decoration of portent and miracle. Their omission is supplied from other sources. In the year of the Arabs, 386, and of Christ, 1008, the Caliph Hakem began his reign in Egypt. His first Vizir was a Christian, for Christians were usually intrusted with that office; and when he had provoked the Egyptians to an insurrection by murdering a too faithful servant, Pahed, a Christian again, was hastily invested with "royal robes," and shown to the people as Vizir, in order to appease their fury by a popular appointment. After three years' favour, he, too, was killed, to satisfy two Arabs who were jealous of him; but who, being themselves raised to power over Syria and Egypt, equally oppressed both Mussulmans and Christians, until the sister of Hakem, by tears and entreaties, persuaded him to have one of them beheaded, which was done accordingly. The other soon suffered the same fate, and the people of both provinces were content. Manzur, a Christian, was then placed over the entire caliphate, and also became the object of incessant complaint, together with many Christians whom Hakem, with his characteristic versatility, caused to be scourged to death. Manzur himself was scourged until they thought him dead, and left him to be eaten by dogs; but as some one saw the body move, he was taken home, where he revived, and the Caliph endeavoured to compensate for the barbarous usage by receiving him to favour again, and, with the restoration of dignity, gave him a new name, Sufficient. The reign of Hakem was one of terror. As he rode on his ass through the streets at night, for he was fond of nocturnal rambling, people were afraid to approach to do him the accustomed honours, and the way was clear and silent. His pride grew to such a height, that he fancied the adorations performed in the presence of the Vicar of Mohammed, (resembling those which are still rendered to the pretended Vicar of Christ at Rome or elsewhere,) to be an acknowledgment of superhuman dignity, and was so weak as to avow what others may have imagined in their blindness, but not often ventured to express aloud. Among his servants were some who publicly addressed him as a god. "Peace to thee, thou only one and without companion; Peace to thee, O thou that killest and makest alive, and enrichest and makest poor;" and the idolatrous salutations were accepted with complacent smiles. One of his flatterers went to Mecca, struck the black stone in the Caaba with his lance, and then said to the bystanders, "Ye fools, why do ye worship a thing which cannot either do you good or harm, and forsake him in Egypt who can both kill and make alive." But the hero-god in Egypt heard that by the tricks of Monks in Jerusalem, the Christians there were

HAKEM, PROPHET OF THE DRUGES.

made to believe that in the church of the Holy Sepulchre celestial fire descended by miracle in answer to their invocations, (the same absurd fraud is performed there yearly, to the present time,) and, unable to brook the visible pretension of any other divinity to receive popular adoration, he commanded that church to be emptied of its furniture, and then razed to the foundations. The command was readily executed; thousands of other churches throughout his dominions were levelled to the ground; and criers everywhere proclaimed his pleasure, that all Christians and Jews should embrace the faith of the Arabs, and accept honours and rewards, or be exposed to shame. The Christians who would not renounce their faith were required to wear a cross, suspended from the neck; the Jews, an image of a calf's head, in memory of the golden calf which their fathers worshipped in the desert. Neither Jew nor Christian should wear rings, nor ride on horse-back. They might only mount mules or asses, without saddles of the kind in general use, and with wooden stirrups. Many left his dominions, a few apostatized, the remainder wore ornamental crosses, and rode on ornamented saddles of a new sort, and the Jews carried a small trinket fashioned after the pattern prescribed by Hakem; but the tyrant was moved to anger at the partial evasion of his edict, and compelled them, under pain of death, to wear wooden crosses, each weighing four pounds, by the Bagdad standard,* and the calf's head was to be of similar material, and equal weight. After a few years, however, he condescended to recall the decree, and allow the reluctant proselytes to profess Christianity and Judaism again, the exiles to return, and the churches to be rebuilt in better style than before. When he had reigned five years longer, worshipped by the court and their adherents, and detested by the nation, letters were frequently presented to him during his nightly rides, which, read within doors, disclosed the bitter hatred of all classes of his subjects. Anonymous charges against favourites, the work of malevolence as well as revenge, were mingled with imprecations on himself. Burning with anger, having no certain object on which to wreak punishment, and tormented with suspicion, his sister, who, at the commencement of his reign, had persuaded him to murder the Governor of Syria, became a chief object of distrust. Aware of her danger, she hurried away to the house of one of the chief men, whose life was also threatened, contrived a plan by which to murder Hakem that very night; and when going to a neighbouring hill to gaze on the stars, for he was a superstitious astrologer, riding on his ass, and attended by a little boy, it is said that he commanded his other servants to remain at the foot of the hill, ascended to the top, dismounted, and, seated on the ground, anxiously fixed his eyes on the starry firmament. Turning eastward, he saw Mars just risen above the horizon. Astrology had no bright omen for him, nor conscience any comfort. "Art thou up?" he muttered, "art thou up, thou cursed star, shedder of blood? My hour is come." He might have remembered that it was written in his horoscope, that if he should escape peril on a

* The Bagdad idea, or "pound," is supposed to have been between twelve and thirteen ounces.

certain night, or, as his historian writes it, if the cup of that hour should pass from him, he would live eighty years. But shall he escape? He sat with fixed gaze on the ascending star: the hour was indeed come; two hired ruffians, concealed near the spot, threw a cord on his neck from behind, and strangled him. No cry betrayed the deed. The little boy was killed, and the beast hamstrung. The body of the god, the killer and the reviver, was conveyed to his sister's dwelling. The next morning various rumours unsatisfactorily accounted for his disappearance. His sister set abroad the notion that he had killed the boy to prevent discovery, and then gone into the desert for meditation. This gained credit with many, and was eagerly caught by his admirers; for fanaticism had been mixed with pride, and gained even him a few deluded followers; and to this day the Druses on Mount Lebanon, and even in India, believe that Hakem did not die, but disappeared; that he still lives, will return when it pleases him, will reign over all the earth, throughout all ages; that men of all other sects and religions will be subjected to him, put in irons and laid under tribute; but that the Unitarians, as they call themselves, will reign with him throughout all ages. This singular sect, we may add, is a living evidence of the most remarkable imposture of the darkest period in the history of the Christian church, and a humiliating example of the imbecility of our fallen nature.*

We must not hurry over the twelfth century. Observing the sequence of events from the twelfth to the nineteenth, we recognize the beginnings of the great social renovation now in happy progress; and although it is too early to speak of "the dawn of the Reformation," or to select any eminent person who shall be honoured as the "morning star" of the day now brightening to its noon, it is not too early to discern the hand of God, in sovereign energy, preparing instruments, if not yet raising up the living agents who are to rebuild his ruined church. The human mind begins to awaken from its lethargy. Not generally, not in the masses of the people, not in the thousands of the Clergy, not exclusively among Christians; but where Christianity is prostrate, extinct, or alien as yet, where the ultimate benefit of this increasing mental activity cannot appear to human foresight, the Father of spirits is gently awakening the world from the mental slumber of many ages. After the Saracens had thrown down the feeble barriers which opposed their progress, and possessed an empire exceeding the Roman in geographical extent, and scarcely inferior to it in grandeur, although less famous by classical association, and less familiar to the people of the western world; they cultivated, in various degrees, the arts of peace. In Spain, where no desert lay to receive tents like those of the Arabian nomades, and where, instead of the neighbourhood of savages like those of Africa, the valour of France, and the indomitable courage of the Spanish

* Abulpharagius, Dynast. x., Jowett, Researches in Syria, (Druses,) and Milman, Gibbon, vol. x., pp. 363-365, have supplied this account of Hakem. The Exposé de la Religion des Druses, by M. Silvestre de Sacy, 2 vols., Paris, 1838, which the author has not seen, will probably give the most complete information both of Hakem and his sect.

STATE OF LEARNING.

mountaineers in the northern marches and the Pyrenees, commanded their respect; and the multitude of Spanish subjects compelled them to a course of moderate government; they became more reflective, grew familiar with subjects hitherto unknown, and, by their occupation of Greece also, conceived a desire of perusing the histories, philosophical treatises, and even poems written in the language of that country. Interpreters were always ready to transfer the speculations of Plato and Aristotle to the sublime vernacular of the European caliphate, and to render the problems of Euclid intelligible to the Arab who watched the stars from the plains of Sinaar. A science of medicine, however imperfect, succeeded to empiricism. Chemistry, although struggling at its birth with alchemy, was pursued in laborious experiment; and astronomy, although charmed by the reveries of the astrologist, and mistaken for magic by the vulgar, was really studied under the light of pure geometry. Christians began to frequent the colleges of Cordova, where they could not lose much religion, having but little or none to lose; but gained knowledge, or at least acquired the habit of study. By this intellectual commerce, the horizon of science, and the field of labour, became suddenly enlarged.* Nor were the Jews inactive in this important change. Never since the dispersion of the academies of Babylon and Tiberias had literature, crude and unsatisfying as it was, made any progress among them: but it now revived; and Jarchi, Aben Ezra, David Kimchi, and Maimonides, to say nothing of men of inferior note, were ornaments of that age; men of extensive travel and unwearied industry, whose volumes still adorn our libraries, and whose labours facilitate our studies.† In Constantinople, too, Christian literature, in a garb of Attic elegance, was cultivated under the patronage of the Patriarch Anchialus, jealous of the counteractive influence of the Latin Church, and encouraged by the example of the Princess Anna Comnena, as it had been by that of the Empress Eudocia; while the voluminous productions of Suidas, Tzetzes, and others, attest their industry.‡ An eminent political writer, still living, marks this as the period of "a vivid aspiration after freedom of thought" in France;§ and the future originators of the University of Paris, the first established in the world, were already surrounded by disciples in the schools of that city. Scholastic theology, with all its defects, both of material and method, first arose in the schools of the twelfth century, and, at least, indicated a transition from torpor into life. There were some intervening ages of subtle and angry disputation, serving to put away indifference, if not to increase knowledge; and scholasticism, no longer esteemed, having finished its work, in our day exists only within the covers of tomes unread. Happily for the cause of revealed religion, a set of commentators arose simultaneously with the dialecticians; and although their com-

* Gibbon, chap. iii., a trusty guide where Christianity is not in the way, well compendiates the materials of extensive reading; and his notes point out abundant sources of information to learned inquirers into the history of Arabian learning.

† Schoettgen, Rabbinicarum Lectionum lib. i., cap. iii., sect. 2; Lindo, History of Spanish Jews, chap. vii., viii.

‡ Mosheim, Eccles. Hist., cent. xli., part ii., chap. i.; Gibbon, chap. liii.

§ Guizot, Civilization in France, first Lecture.

ments were fantastical, and seldom contained sentences of real exposition, they tended to preserve the inspired volume from utter neglect, and by rendering, or professing, deference to divine authority, so far maintained a principle which contentious Ecclesiastics had for ages overlooked. But the lucubrations of schoolmen, the cabalistic ingenuities of Monkish commentators, the various studies pursued at Cordova, Paris, or Bologna, were only influential on a select minority of the Clergy, and a few laymen who left promiscuous society to form a circle of their own. The new light was too feeble to illuminate society; and, therefore, a note of the historical importance of these beginnings of intellectual action must not lead to the expectation that we shall find the masses of any country perceptibly improved by them. When minds of some energy, yet not cultivated by the study of authentic history or true science, nor enlightened by theology, nor learned from the Bible, nor hallowed by the influence of God's Holy Spirit, perceived the vices of the priesthood and the absurdities of the doctrine received as Catholic, they could produce nothing better than antagonist error, wild and grotesque creations of their own, which entertained multitudes passive to every casual impression, and strengthened the pretext of the Clergy to persecute and to calumniate. The Pasagini in Lombardy, and the Caputiati in France, seem to be complete examples of this kind of reaction; * and it must be acknowledged, that among the sects which are classed by the Romanists as heretical, a few which are claimed by some of ourselves as kindred reformers, although worthy of honourable remembrance on account of their honest avowal of sentiments which exposed them to persecution even unto death, were undoubtedly heretical on some important points; and, like men of extreme views in all ages, carried their dissent from one kind of error so far as to fall into the opposite. Many of their followers believed in two principles, or, to speak more intelligibly, in two gods; uttering openly the proposition which the whole brood of Monkery condemned in words, but acted out in practice, that an evil god was the creator of the world, author of carnal infirmities and passions, and to be renounced in the renunciation of marriage, and abstinence from the ordinary comforts, if not the necessaries, of life. Because the priesthood was corrupt, they poured contempt on the idea of a Christian ministry, which we know to be an institution perfectly distinct from the sacrificers and official rulers of conscience, with whom alone they were acquainted. Seeing that the sacraments of the eucharist and baptism were substituted for those originally appointed, they simply rejected them, without attempting to restore the others. In their disgust at materialism, as developed in the common worship, they denied that our Lord had been incarnate in a substantial body; and in their horror of idolatry they not only taught that images should be destroyed, but that churches should be demolished. Some, paying blind and indiscriminate deference to the Old Testament, would have revived Judaism; others, in headlong zeal for the Gospel, would have severed it from the law, and obliterated the Old Testament altogether. Conscientiously interpreting one sentence of holy Scripture,

* Mosheim, cont. xli., part 2.

FOULQUES DE NEUILLY.

which perplexed the ignorant, and forgetful of others which ought to be collated with it, they refused to be sworn judicially; and dwelling on the image of a "natural face," referred to by St. James, nourished their beards with sacred scrupulosity. And not a few, mixing together heavenly and earthly notions, contended for the abolition of the magistracy as well as of the priesthood. Individual fanatics there were in the middle age, as well as now; their names are recorded; and the cruelties inflicted on them were outrages on our common humanity; but their vagaries are not taken into account in this description of the darker side of the dissent of the twelfth century. It is only necessary to observe, that the difference between the profession of those extreme and eccentric notions then and at the present day, consists chiefly in that they were then propagated with undue zeal, and opposed with ferocious cruelty, now they are thrown into the shade, a few instances excepted, by the good sense and truly Christian piety of the excellent men who entertain them. But still, as the writer ventures to believe, they are the effects of reaction, and will pass away as the church of Christ becomes more diligent in the performance of the great work confided to her hands.

Now to the brighter side. Even the extravagancies of a half-awakening age are better than death; and after death has brooded over the pulpit for ages, the slightest token of revival there is most encouraging. Such a token we find in the history of Foulques de Neuilly. In the village of Neuilly on the Marne, not far from Paris, a parish Priest of obscure parentage and extreme ignorance was conspicuous only by scandalous immorality of life. By some means not recorded, he was moved to compunction. He felt himself to be a degraded sinner; and the sincerity of his conviction was evidenced by reformation of his conduct, and assiduity in the discharge of his parochial duties. He began to preach with earnestness, not only in the church, but probably in the open air,* agreeably to universal custom, exhorting the people to despise the things of this world. He reproved sinners with severity, especially attacking usurers and women of loose character, probably his former associates. His style was rude, for it scarcely could have been other, and unsparing reproofs, launched forth on persons of all classes, brought upon him the contradiction and contempt of all; and the labour of two years was not rewarded with any visible fruit. But contradiction and contempt did him good, by convincing him of his ignorance, at least; and he was therefore used to walk into Paris, take a seat among the students in the schools of theology, and place in a note-book, not analyses of the lectures, a performance to which he was probably unequal, but passages of Scripture, striking sentences, and moral maxims. On each Sunday he delivered the fruit of his week's application, and repeated the weighty sentences with the full advantage of hallowed earnestness. Peter the Chanter, a celebrated lecturer, known by his works as an expositor, to the best of his knowledge, of holy Scripture, marked the village Priest, soon became interested in the advancement of his auditor, and engaged him to preach in the church of St. Severin in Paris, in his pre-

* "— aux environs."

3 Q sence, and in that of many students. The village Priest spoke with so much eloquence and power, that his master and the other hearers declared that the Holy Spirit had spoken by his lips; and from that time the Doctors and their disciples crowded to hear his sermons, simple and homely as they were. But the very homeliness and common sense of those addresses commended them the more; so different were they from the intricate effusions of the wise men of the day, ponderous and dead, with divisions, sub-divisions, allegories, common-places, and dull alliterations, playing on the words of Scripture with no sobriety of reason, with not a breath of influence.* One day, as Foulques was preaching at Paris in the place de Champeaux, a market-place, before a great multitude of Clergy and people, he spoke with so much force, that many, stung with compunction, rushed to his feet, spoiled themselves of their garments; and bare-foot and half naked, with rods and thongs in their hands, publicly confessed their sins, and besought him to direct them what they should do. The astonished Preacher knew not how to lead them to our only Saviour; but he gave thanks to God, embraced the penitents, did not enforce penance, but counselled the usurers and thieves to make restitution. Prostitutes cut off their hair, forsook their sin; many of them were afterwards married at his hands, and others took refuge in an asylum which he provided for them, sided by the charity of admiring citizens. From that time the Parisian Preachers thronged to hear him, wrote down his sayings, and endeavoured to repeat them in their pulpits; but what flashed with resistless energy from the lips of Foulques, was tamely ridiculous when doled out from theirs. They mimicked his intonations and sped his gestures; but all was vain: they had no power, they could not gather congregations. "Be short," said he, "speak plainly and naturally; and cut off all vain subtitles and superfluous questions." Some, however, caught a little of his spirit; and Peter the Chanter, leaving his chair of divinity, Peter de Rouissi, two Abbots, the Archdeacon of Paris, and some others, did no less than form themselves into a company with the rustic orator at their head, and travel with him over France, preaching also. No doubt their endeavour was, to some extent, successful; but the Priest of Neuilly retained his pre-eminence; and at the invitation of Bishops, went preaching through France, Flanders, and a great part of Germany; and was received throughout his course as if he were an angel. Unhappily, he either pretended to work miracles, or was flattered into a belief that he could do so; and the biography which began in fact terminates in fiction. The fiction we do not copy. Men of his order were allowed entire freedom of speech; and an anecdote is related of him not less characteristic of the age than of the person. It is said that he addressed King Richard I. of England, in such words as these: "I am come to tell thee, from Almighty God, that thou hast three daughters, very vicious, whom thou must marry out, or it will be worse for thee." To which the King answered angrily: "Thou art

* Fleury, (Hist. Eccles., lxv., 12,) from whom this narrative is principally taken, cites the sermons of Pierre de Celles, Pierre de Blois, and Etienne de Tournai, as specimens.

"IMMACULATE CONCEPTION" OF THE VIRGIN MARY. 483 a lying hypocrite, I have not one daughter." "You have three," persiated Foulques, "Pride, Avarice, and Uncleanness." "Well," said the King, turning to his Barons, "I give my pride to the Templars, my avarice to the Cistercian Monks, and my uncleanness to the Prelates of the Church." Rapid elevation to so much popularity and honour spoiled a well-meaning, but weak and unenlightened, man. Employed by the Papal Legate in France to preach a crusade, followed by a train of black and white Monks, and regular Canons, each bearing a red cross, and receiving the lavish offerings of devout crowds, who made him their treasurer for the "holy war," he became suspected of enriching himself at the expense of the cause, and gradually sank into obscurity again, leaving his tale to be told for the admonition of those who are in peril by popular applause. The impulse, however, given to the Preachers of France and Germany, could scarcely have been unproductive of good; for although the increasing power of the pulpit was abused to the propagation of error, and strengthened, for a time, the ascendancy of an ungodly priesthood, it invited the public mind to take some part in the reception of professedly sacred truths, and the ultimate result proved that that mind cannot be at the same time appealed to for assent, or even required to accept the lessons of authority, without relaxing, although imperceptibly, the trammels of passive acquiescence and implicit faith. The immediate consequence was, a bolder development of error, a multiplication of heretical sects, real or reputed. Some of the heretics, as they are called, no doubt deserved the name in its worst acceptation, while others are thought to have been calumniated by their persecutors; and as their case is often doubtful, and embarrassed by long controversy, it cannot be adequately represented by any statement sufficiently brief to consist with the character of our present work. The ambiguous sects and persons of the twelfth century may, therefore, pass unnoticed; leaving one heresy of Romanism, and some other elections of doctrine (*aipires*) which merge into evangelical orthodoxy, if they do not unite with it, to be treated of with deliberate attention.

The fable of the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary, as it contradicts numerous passages of holy Scripture which declare the universality of original sin, is undoubtedly a heresy of Romanism.* In the year 1140 we find Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, censuring the Canons of Lyons for having introduced a festival into their church in honour of the immaculate conception of the mother of our Lord. The rise of this corrupt doctrine is frequently referred to this century, on account of the historical fact now mentioned; and as the persecuting spirit of the Roman Church, even towards its most eminent members, is seen in the history of the doctrine since made so prominent, we will trace its progress from the beginning until the present day. The beginning, however, strange to tell, is not found in any Father of the

* The books chiefly consulted in the preparation of this history of the doctrine of the immaculate conception, are the Koran; Fleury's Histoire Ecclesiastique; Fra Paolo Sarpi, History of the Council of Trent, Courayer's French edition; Pallavicini, Hist. Conc. Tridentini; El Porque de la Iglesia, Barcelona, 1786; L'Enfant's Council of Constance.

3 Q 2 church, but in the Koran of Mohammed. Possibly from some apocryphal Gospel no longer extant, or from his own imagination, which is more probable, the Arab drew the tale that Hannah, wife of Imran, vowed to devote to God her yet unborn child; that when, with disappointment, she found it to be a female, she called her MARY, and commended her and her issue to the divine protection, "against Satan, driven away with stones;" alluding, at the same time, to a tradition that Abraham had driven away Satan with stones, and to the superstitious notion entertained by the old Arabians, by the Moslems, and also by the Church of Rome, that every child born into the world is touched or possessed by Satan, or an angel of Satan. He then describes the annunciation, almost in the language of the Evangelists, and the birth of "Christ Jesus, the Son of Mary." He affirms that God chose Adam, Noah, the family of Abraham, and the family of Imran, above the rest of the world; that his wife Hannah was accepted with a gracious acceptance, caused to bear an excellent offspring, one that was purified, and that she became the mother of Jesus.* The vulgar tale of Joachim and Hannah is precisely similar to that of the Koran,† whence it must have been transfused into Christian traditions by the Saracens in Spain, during a long period of familiar intercourse. From Spain it would be carried into France, where the influence of the Moslem schools was powerfully felt; and the spirit of conciliation could not but gather strength from the production of such fragments of that sacred book as made honourable mention of the Christian Prophet, of his mother, and of her family. The excessive honour which was paid to Mary, and the protest against Nestorianism implied in the increasingly frequent use of the epithet, "mother of God," (Mater Dei,) in the Latin Church, as of "God-bearer," (Θεοτόκος,) in the Greek, encouraged the circulation of whatever fable tended to exalt her above women, and to bias the thoughts of those who reasoned on the sinless purity of the incarnate Son of God. One of those, Anselm, a native of France, already mentioned as Archbishop of Canterbury, after his visit to Rome from England, retired to an estate belonging to the monastery at Bec, and gave himself entirely to exercises of devotion, and to meditation on the mysteries of religion. There (A.D. 1098) he composed a tract, entitled, "Why did God become Man?" intended for infidels, and argumentative rather than scriptural, instructing his readers "not to arrive at faith by reason; but to understand and contemplate that which they believe, and to be able to render a reason of their faith to others." The infidels, according to the style of the Church, must have been the Jews and Mussulmans; and he, evidently in view of the latter, referred to the notion of the exemption of Mary from original sin, by answering an objection derived from the contrary idea of her sinfulness, in such terms as these: "Since it is certain that this man is God, and the author of the reconciliation of sinners, there can be no doubt that he is absolutely without sin; and we should not be perplexed because we cannot comprehend how he has been taken untainted from the sinful

* Koran, chap. iii., "The Family of Imran."

† El Porque, &c., Tratado 4.

"IMMACULATE CONCEPTION" OF THE VIRGIN MARY. 485 mass." He avoids speaking of Mary's original sin; but observes that she was of the number of those who were purified from sin by Jesus Christ, not saying *when*. This caution, however, was not long observed. The Saracenic invention found such favour with his countrymen, that in about forty years from the composition of that tract, the Canons of Lyons had so entirely made it their own, that they instituted a festival in honour of "the immaculate conception of the holy Virgin." Then it was (A.D. 1140, *circ.*) that Bernard addressed to them his famous letter, expressing great surprise that some among them should have introduced a new festival unknown in the usage of the Church, and neither authorized by reason nor tradition. "Are we wiser," he asked, "or more devout than our fathers? It is a dangerous presumption to meddle with matters which their prudence left untouched; and this is of such a nature that it could never have been overlooked by them. But you will say that the mother of God deserves great honours. You are quite right; but they should be rendered with judgment. She needs not false honour, covered as she is with titles of real dignity." He concedes that Mary, like Jeremiah and John the Baptist, *may have been* sanctified before her birth; but contends that such a sanctification could not have a retroactive effect on her conception, which he believes to have been in sin, according to the Scripture; and further argues that sanctification must have been either subsequent to conception, or anterior to it. If anterior, she must have been sanctified before she had a being, which was impossible; if subsequent, the conception was not immaculate. This dilemma could only be avoided by supposing her conception to have been miraculous; but he rightly maintains that "the privilege of being conceived without sin was reserved for Him alone who should sanctify all others; that is to say, for Jesus Christ, who alone was holy before conception." He reprobates innovation as "the mother of temerity, the sister of superstition, and the daughter of levity." In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries it is known that there were festivals in the Greek Church in honour of the conception of both John the Baptist and the Virgin, which were regarded merely as notable events,—yet some thought that observance to be ridiculous; and it is reported that there were such in Armenia; but without the notion of exemption from original sin. The superstition had taken root in France; but although, in the thirteenth century, (A.D. 1288,) a Bishop of Paris bequeathed a sum of money to keep up a special service in honour of the conception of the Virgin, theologians were far from giving their sanction to the novelty. Even John Duns Scott, a Scotchman, and Franciscan Monk, who taught first at Oxford, and then in the University of Paris, and through zeal against the Dominicans, who contended for the contrary, was exceedingly anxious to establish the new doctrine, could only plead, after acknowledging that it was commonly said that the Virgin was conceived in sin, that God *could* have exempted her entirely from original sin, or allowed her to be in sin but for an instant; or suffered her to be born in sin, and purified her afterwards; that God alone knew which of the three he had done; but that it seemed right to attribute to Mary that which is most excellent, saving the authority of the Church, and of Scripture. (A.D. 1305 or 1306.) The Franciscans went beyond their Doctor in confidence as to the degree of probability; the University of Paris, supported by the reputation of the Franciscans for sanctity, accepted and defended the absurdity; and Scott, encouraged by their applause, is said to have withdrawn in Paris the modest qualification which appeared in his manuscript written at Oxford. The mention of a feast in honour of the conception of the Virgin, as observed in England, is not sufficient to prove that the notion of immaculacy was admitted here, any more than in Armenia, where it was unheard of. Although the Saracenic heresy was received so early in France, even there it soon became the subject of violent disputation. Juan de Monzon, a Spaniard, who had taught theology at Valencia, came to Paris, occupied a chair in that University, and gradually excited attention by the boldness of his propositions. Those propositions chiefly related to the authority of holy Scripture, and to the universality of original sin. He denied the exemption of the Virgin from the depravity and curse of our fallen nature, and pointed out the consequences that would follow from allowing that any mere human being was born without sin. The Dean desired him to retract this error, for so they called a plain declaration of the word of God; but he became more earnest than ever in teaching that all, even Mary, were born in sin, and shapen in iniquity. The majority of the Doctors were enraged, and threatened; but he was undaunted, and declared that he would rather die than suppress the truth. At last the University declared his doctrine to be false, presumptuous, scandalous, and contrary to the piety of the faithful. Pierre D'Orgemont, Bishop of Paris, as ordinary Judge in that case, had the judgment placed in his hands, and cited Juan de Monzon to appear before him; but the Professor, knowing that justice was not to be expected at that tribunal, disobeyed the summons. He was therefore forbidden to teach the obnoxious truths, under penalty of excommunication and imprisonment; and his life would have been taken, had not the Inquisitor been a Dominican, and therefore, agreeing with him on the single point that Mary was conceived in sin, refused to act. The confusion that followed was inconceivable. Those who embraced his doctrine suffered bitter persecution; and all that could not save themselves by flight were cast into prison. A few recanted, and among them a Bishop, the King's Confessor. The Dominicans were expelled the University; and as these were the Preachers, the men who prosecuted the work of pulpit renovation, begun by Foulques de Neuilly, and by many powerful adversaries of the priesthood, and who performed the double work of disputation and persecution for the suppression of heresy, yet happened to be now on the better side, the pulpits were deserted, the students were disgusted, and for many years the University languished, being almost unfrequented. From the Bishop of Paris, Juan de Monzon appealed to Clement VII., Pope, or Antipope, (for the Roman see was disputed by two aspirants,) then holding his court at Avignon; and the Pope wisely avoided hazarding his infallibility, by appointing a Committee to consider the fourteen propositions. After the Commit-

"IMMACULATE CONCEPTION" OF THE VIRGIN MARY.

tee had entertained the case for about eighteen months, the University clamoured for a decision, and the Pope forbad the Professor to quit Avignon until the decision should be pronounced. Foreseeing that the University would obtain the sentence they desired, he left the court, placed himself under the jurisdiction of the other Pope, Urban VI., and vigorously maintained his doctrine by the pen. (A.D. 1387—1389.) The dispute thenceforth agitated all Popedom, and the immaculatists spared no pains in courting popularity and patronage. At the Council of Constance, (A.D. 1416,) the famous Gerson preached a sermon on the subject; but nothing resulted from his advocacy there. The Council of Basle went further, and, after hearing the report of a Cardinal who had been employed to search the libraries for evidence, as if the Bible contained none, declared (A.D. 1439) that "the opinion of the immaculate conception is pious, agreeable to the worship of the Church, right reason, and holy Scripture; that all Catholics should approve it; that no one should be permitted to preach or teach the contrary; that the feast of the conception should be celebrated everywhere on the 8th of December; that an office composed by John of Segovia should then be chanted; that indulgences should be given to all who went to church that day." After all, the legitimacy of the Council of Basle was disputed, as well it might be, and its declaration had little force. The University of Paris, however, settled their own faith by a juridical conversion of all new Bachelors and Doctors, who were sworn on admission after the following manner. The Dean interrogated thus: "Do you swear that you will abide by the decision of the faculty touching the immaculate conception of the holy Virgin Mary; that is to say, that she was preserved in her conception from the original stain?" The submissive Doctor or Bachelor answered, "I swear;" and thenceforth that was his faith, or he must bide the consequences. A little Council at Avignon (A.D. 1457) gave its entire deliberations to this subject, and propped up the doubtful work of its predecessor by a decree forbidding Priests and people to preach or speak to the contrary, under the dreadful penalty of excommunication. Strangely beset by the idea, its advocates missed no occasion of proclaiming it. The snows of the Appennines dissolving too rapidly, caused the Tiber to overflow its banks, and Pope Xystus IV. called on the worshippers of the immaculate to drive back the waters by supplications to the Queen of heaven. (A.D. 1475.) Of course, the inundation subsided just in proportion to the rapidity of its rise, and the fable passed into undoubted credit with the more ignorant Italians. Then rose a miraculous image of the immaculate "mother of God," and the following Bull was issued (A.D. 1483) to demonstrate the Mariolatry and the tyranny of Papal Rome:—"The holy Roman Church, having established the feast of the conception of Mary, without spot, and ever virgin, as also an office proper for this feast, we hear, notwithstanding, that some Preachers of different orders cease not to preach daily to the people that all who believe that the glorious Virgin was conceived without the stain of original sin, sin mortally, or are heretics; and that they who say the office or hear the sermons of Preachers who teach the contrary, sin grievously. We, to arrest their presumptuous and scandalous proceedings, and to prevent the evils that might arise from them to the Church, by our own movement, and our certain knowledge, condemn the propositions of those Preachers who dare to affirm that they who preach the immaculate conception of the mother of God sin mortally; and that they who celebrate the office, or hear the sermons, are not exempt from sin. We declare those propositions to be false, erroneous, and quite contrary to the truth. We reprobate the books written against this doctrine, and their authors, whoever they may be, and we pronounce against them the penalty of excommunication, from which they shall not be absolved by any but the Sovereign Pontiff, and by him only in the article of death. And that no one may plead ignorance, we order all Ordinaries to publish this Bull in their parishes and dioceses at high mass and sermon. If any one presume to act, preach, or write against this decree, we declare that he shall incur the wrath of God, and of his Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul." Every genuine devotee of Rome must have bowed in silence before this terrible decree; but some there still were who presumed to involve even Popes in the charge of heresy and mortal sin. Such an one was Wigand, a Dominican of Frankfort, who, in an anonymous book, attacked Trithemius, author of a panegyric of St. Anna, Mary's mother, a person unmentioned until Epiphanius made her known in the fourth century; but anonymous antagonists, like blanched weeds, cannot flourish in daylight, and Wigand, being discovered, begged pardon of Trithemius. (A.D. 1494.) With signal constancy the University of Paris reiterated its thunders, whether to appal an imprudent Dominican, (A.D. 1497,) or to show resistance to the great Reformation in the person of Luther, (A.D. 1521,) until it was found to be resistless. Before the light of the Reformation, the dream of the immaculate conception had well-nigh passed away. The Council of Trent (A.D. 1546) was divided on the question, and would probably have passed over it in silence; but, after warm debate, and, as Fra Paolo says, without being contradicted by his antagonist, Pallavicini, *to obey the Pope*, they appended the following sentence to the decree on original sin:—"This holy Synod also declares that it is not its intention to comprehend in this decree, where original sin is treated of, the blessed and immaculate Virgin Mary, mother of God; (*Dei genitricem*;) but that the constitutions of Pope Xystus IV., of happy memory, are to be observed, under the penalties contained in the said constitutions." The Bull itself is before the reader, who there sees how the Church of Rome prepares persecution for its own more enlightened members. Thirty years had not elapsed from the decree of the Council of Trent, before the Jesuit Maldonat was censured by the University of Paris (A.D. 1575) for teaching that the doctrine was problematical; but the Bishop of Paris supported the Jesuit, and excommunicated the University. The question is now more unsettled than ever; and yet the present Pope, Pius IX., (A.D. 1849,) has solicited from all his Bishops assent to an ardent wish he entertains to have the adjective *immaculate* inserted in the Roman Liturgy.

BASIL THE PAULICIAN.

Should they assent, the next step will be for them to add the "holy family" of Epiphanius, "the revelations" of St. Bridget, and "the family of Imrán" to the holy Gospels; those documents being classical in the history of the superstition.

We return to the twelfth century, and trace the dealings of the dominant Church with reputed heretics. The theological descendants of the Armenian Paulicians of the seventh century reappear from the eastern to the western extremity of Europe. At Constantinople they became well known from their great number in the neighbouring provinces, particularly Bulgaria, whence they were sometimes called Bulgarians, and at that time Bogomiles, from a phrase or epithet in their language which signified "prayer to God;" as a more ancient sect in the same country had been called Euchites, or Massalians,* that is, "praying people." From their enemies only we have the narrative of a persecution which they suffered in the reign of the Greek Emperor, the first Alexius Comnenus; but it is clear enough to show that they were victims of the most ruthless bigotry. They were acknowledged to be distinguished by the appearance of great piety, dressed plainly, were often observed to ejaculate prayer, and by their habit and gravity of deportment resembled Monks. No longer dispersed over the provinces, they appeared openly in Constantinople, and made such an impression there that the Bogomiles became the subject of universal conversation. The Emperor, who had taken of the treasures of the Church to meet the exigences of the State, endeavoured to soothe the resentment of the Clergy by affecting great zeal for religion under the assumed character of theologian. He therefore sent for some of the heretics to gain information of their proceedings. They told him that their chief Minister was Basil; that there were other twelve called Apostles, and some women also who followed him; and that he travelled extensively, propagating his doctrine. It further appeared that he was, or had been, a Physician; and that, after joining their communion in his youth, he had spent fifty-two years in the labours of his ministry. Alexius then commanded Basil to be brought. He came to the palace without delay, and stood before the Emperor: a venerable old man he was, tall in stature, thoughtfulness and self-denial marked his countenance; his dignified bearing, with flowing beard and monastic garb, commanded involuntary reverence. Alexius rose from his chair to receive him, bade him be seated, invited him to take refreshment, sat at the same table, conversed with familiar condescension, intimated a wish to become his disciple, together with his brother Isaac; and even assured him that he would receive his instructions with as much deference as if they were oracles, and take him as his spiritual guide. Basil resisted, at first, so excessive condescension; and the Emperor and his brother, perceiving that the man was not so insignificant as they fancied a heretic must be, changed their style, and managed, during repeated interviews, to win his confidence. Without reserve, the aged Minister answered their questions, and explained his doctrine. If Alexius can

* Suicer, Thos. Ecclesiast., s. v. Exxírac, gives an elaborate account both of the name and of the sect, with the Chaldee, Arable, or Syriac synonyme, כְּצֶלֶן or כְּשָׁלִים.

be trusted, and Euthymius also, if the notes of the one and the treatise of the other are faithful records of the statements of Basil, which is altogether incredible, he was a Manichean; but it may be collected from the latter, and only extant evidence, that those Paulicians had added to the New Testament the Psalms (probably the Hagiographa, or Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Canticles, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles, contained in a distinct volume, and anciently called, among the Jews, by the title of the first, "The Psalms") and the Prophets, or at least a part of them, and thereby approached considerably towards union with other anti-Romish Christians. They still refused to acknowledge the divine inspiration of the Pentateuch, retained the scepticism of many of the sectarians of the earlier ages in respect to the humanity of our Lord, and, with them, entertained erroneous notions of the sacraments. But their sin, in the eyes of the priesthood, lay in abhorrence of image-worship and of prayer to the saints. Basil is said to have acknowledged the Greek iconoclasts as orthodox, regarding the Prophets, Apostles, and martyrs as true saints, which he certainly could not have done had he been indeed a Manichean. But the fashion then was to lay the reproach of Manicheanism and all other old heresies on dissenters from the prevailing system; and sufficient provocation to do this was given, in this instance, by his declaring roundly, that "the Catholics" were Pharisees and Sadducees; (than which nothing could be more true;) that their learned men were Scribes; that the two orders of Clergy were symbolized by the two demoniacs who dwelt in the tombs, the churches occupied by the Priests and Monks being converted into sepulchres by the deposition of relics therein; that the foxes having holes were figures of the crafty Friars, and the birds in their nests types of the Stylites on their pillars. The fact that they had been often hunted to death is proved by a confession put into the mouth of Basil, that they dissimulated and hid themselves in order to save their lives; and the weakness of the effort to make them out Manicheans is betrayed by an acknowledgment that they often ate flesh, eggs, and milk, not excepting their Ministers, whom, after all, Euthymius scarcely ventures to confound with the elect of the pretended prototypes. The Emperor caused the account of the errors of the Bogomiles to be written, and his credit may be estimated by what follows. The wily Greek was in an inner chamber of his palace, playing the part of a disciple; Basil, with unsuspecting earnestness, was expounding his doctrine, and answering questions which he thought to be put in good faith, and therefore detected not their drift. Behind a curtain was concealed a Secretary, who wrote down whatever might be made use of to condemn the victim. "Then the Emperor," these are the words of Fleury, "raised the mask, assembled the senate and military officers, summoned the Clergy and the Patriarch Nicholas, and caused the writing containing the doctrine of Basil to be read. Basil, seeing himself convicted, denied not, but offered to maintain his doctrine, and declared that he was ready to suffer fire, torments, and death." He was committed to prison, visited there by "Catholics," and by

BASIL MARTYRED.

some of his followers, and often taken from the prison to the palace, to be exhorted by Alexius, but resisted every persuasion to recant. The Apostles of Basil, as they are called, were also apprehended, with many others, and subjected to the same trial; but they endured it with equal constancy. So far from being discouraged were the Bogomiles, that they preached everywhere, and their doctrine spread; entire families, including some of high rank, joined them, and so did a multitude of people. The Emperor then sentenced all the prisoners to be burnt. Many, however, had been imprisoned who denied that they were of the sect, and Alexius had recourse to a singular expedient to ascertain the truth. He was mounted on his throne, in a public square, surrounded by the Senate, the chief of the Clergy, and some choice Monks; two fires were prepared, with a cross planted near one of them. He then caused the prisoners to be brought, told them they must all burn, as life would not be worth saving by any suspected of heresy, however innocent; but that, as the Christians would of course prefer dying in that character, they should be consumed in the fire where the cross was erected. At his command those who had not joined the Bogomiles went to the cross: the people murmured when they saw them, as it seemed, on the point of being thrown into the flames: the Emperor graciously gave them their lives, and those who had stood true to their confession were sent back to prison. A few afterwards gave way, and were liberated; the greater number died there; but Basil, as an impenitent heresiarch, was judged worthy of death by the secular Clergy, the Monks, and the Patriarch himself, the Greek Church thus proving itself as cruel as the Roman. The Emperor consented to the sentence, and, after many useless conversations, commanded a pile to be kindled in the middle of the hippodrome, with a cross on the opposite side. Basil was placed between, with an offer of life if he would accept it at the cross, or, if not, he must go into the flames. Some foolish sayings are put into his mouth; but the probability is that he felt, but soon overcame, a sudden terror, sang praise to God in the language of inspired Scripture, and rejoiced in the certain prospect of near deliverance from the toils and persecutions of a lengthened pilgrimage. He was thrown into the fire, and soon consumed, in the presence of the Emperor and Clergy; and the stately ceremoniousness of that martyrdom might have given the model for similar "Acts of Faith" afterwards performed by the Inquisition. Proud of his deed, and like a hound that has once tasted blood, Alexius continued the pursuit of the Paulicians to the end of his life; but history does not preserve a detailed record of exploits* which were insufficient to extirpate a heresy that, with all its defects, was no doubt superior to the orthodoxy of the Greek Church, and would have changed the character of that Church had free course been allowed its teachers. A few years afterwards, Cosmas II., the Patriarch of Constantinople, was deposed on charge of having fallen into the same heresy.†

Disaffection to Rome and to the Clergy overspread Europe, and was sometimes made use of by licentious and ambitious men to

* Fleury, Hist. Eccles., lxvi., 10, 11, 53. † Ibid., lxix, 27.

3 R 2 gratify their passions. Tanchelmus, or Tanquelin, in Flanders, is said to have been guilty of the most disgusting excesses; and in hatred of everything ecclesiastical, many of the Flemings long retained an approving remembrance of his errors. But the original Paulicians, who had spread even to the shores of the German Ocean, were honourably distinguished from mere rebels against episcopal authority by an appearance of sanctity which their enemies called hypocrisy. Many suffered death rather than make shipwreck of a good conscience. The hearths were first prepared at Utrecht, where some were burnt alive (A.D. 1135) by command of the Emperor Lotharius for denying transubstantiation, although that doctrine was not yet put forth under canonical authority. Others fled, hoping to escape death by self-expatriation; but a number of them were discovered at Cologne, and imprisoned in a barn, whither Egbert, the Abbot of Schonaug, was sent to convince them of error. He disputed with three of them, but failing to overcome by argument or authority, saw them burnt alive. The Cardinal Archbishop of Rheims, in quality of Papal Legate, laboured hard to win or to compel the numerous seceders to come into the communion of his Church, but with small success. They endeavoured, on their side, to purchase liberty of worship, or at least toleration, offering him six hundred marks of silver as a voluntary tax, after the manner of the Jews; but the Legate would not hear of composition, and, after trying other means for about fourteen years, had several of them burnt. (A.D. 1183.)* In the country now known as Rhenish Prussia, persecution quickly followed; and the new, but horrible, method of destroying heretics, which began in the hippodrome of Constantinople, and was imitated at Utrecht, was repeated, after a very short interval, at Cologne. The heretics there were described by a Priest, who had taken part in the inquisition and punishment, and wrote an account of them to Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, wherein they are distinguished as if a part were Manicheans, and the others not. There may not have been two separate communions; but the fact of a doctrinal difference, added to that of an enlarged canon of holy Scripture, which we have just observed in the narrative of the Bogomiles at Constantinople, indicates a simultaneous advancement in doctrine, highly creditable to the Paulicians in general, and illustrative of an intellectual and moral progression throughout Europe, which must be attributed to the care of God in preparing Christendom for the slowly approaching Reformation. They denied, according to our inquisitorial witness,† that the body of Christ was made on the altar, because, as he very doubtfully phrases his relation, all the Priests of the Church were not consecrated. They said that the apostolical dignity was corrupted by engaging itself in secular affairs while sitting in the chair of Peter; that because the Pope did not wage warfare as Peter did, he had deprived himself of the power of consecrating, which was so great in Peter; (a concession, be it noted,

* Brandt's Reformation in the Low Countries, vol. I, pp. 11-13, London, 1720 Fleury, Hist. Eccles., lxxi., 50.

† Evertinus, as cited by Allix, Ancient Churches of Piedmont, chap. xvi.; and Trithemius, in chap. xvii.

MARTYRS OF COLOGNE.

that they were not likely to make twenty years before even the Romish Church had solemnly adopted the doctrine of transubstantiation;) and that the power of consecrating others, which the pontifical dignity did not possess, Archbishops and Bishops, who lived like men of the world, could not receive from it. They cited the words of Christ, "The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' chair; what, therefore, they bid you do, that do," to prove that such men as the Priests of that day had only the power of preaching and commanding, but nothing more. The writer complains that thus they made void the priesthood of the Church, and condemned the sacraments; baptism alone excepted, which they would only allow to adults, who, they said, are baptized by Christ himself, whoever be the Minister of the sacrament:—that they alleged against infant baptism the words of the Gospel, "Who-soever shall believe, and be baptized, shall be saved:"—that they called second marriage fornication; quoting for this the words of the Saviour, "What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder," (as if God only joined unmarried persons, as were our first parents before their union,) as also our Lord's words when disapproving of divorce. He states that they put no confidence in the intercession of saints; maintained that fasting, and other afflictions undertaken for sin, were not necessary, because, when the sinner repents of his sins, they are all forgiven him, and because all other things observed in the church, besides those commanded by Christ and the Apostles, were superstitious:—that they did not believe in purgatorial fire after death; but maintained that souls, as soon as they depart out of the bodies, enter into rest or punishment; proving it from the words of Solomon, "Which way soever the tree falls, whether to the north, or to the south, there it lies:"—and that they made void all prayers and oblations of the faithful for the deceased. He spoke of many having been burnt to death with extreme complacency; but let Bernard know that those who had returned to the Church said that there were great numbers of their persuasion scattered abroad every where, and that amongst them were many Clergy and Monks. And he reported that some who had been burnt said in their defence that their heresy had continued from the times of the Apostles, and was preserved in Greece, and in some other countries. There were some, they said, who called themselves Apostles, and had a Pope of their own; whereas others despised the Pope of Rome, and yet had not another; which may amount to this, that some were Episcopalians, and others not. "These Apostles of Satan," he adds, "have amongst them continent women, (as they call them,) widows, virgins, their wives, some of whom are among the number of their elect, others of their believers; as in imitation of the Apostles, who had power to lead about women with them." Bernard exaggerated this circumstance into a charge of hypocrisy and immorality; but it is easy to perceive that Evervinus merely described their condition as married Ministers, who were careful to live in the society of their wives, a caution which would indicate purity of domestic conduct, contrasted with prevalent licentiousness, under the demoralizing influence of priestly celibacy. They were known by various names, expressive of the contempt of their persecutors, or of some peculiarity of their history or habits. In Germany they were called Cathari or Catharini, a word as yet unexplained; in Flanders they were known as Piphles or Turlupins, for some unknown reason; and in France people called them Tisserands, or "weavers," because many of them were of that occupation, and their devotional meetings were held in weaving-rooms and cellars, where they professed to enjoy an assurance of the divine presence.

Nowhere did clearer vestiges of primitive Christian doctrine remain than in sub-Alpine Italy. The independence of the dioceses of Piedmont and Lombardy from the see of Rome until the eleventh century is a most notorious fact of ecclesiastical history. In the twelfth, although the Bishops had lost their independence, there were various elements of disaffection to the dominant Church still existing among the people,—a desire of independence, some remaining perception of evangelical truth, Manicheanism lingering in the speculations of many mere dissenters, and the purer, yet imperfect, doctrinal system of the Paulicians. They were not careful to enforce uniformity among themselves; and even if historical documents were much more abundant, it would be impossible to analyze the confused mass, or to place even the more eminent persons each in his proper class. Relinquishing so hopeless an attempt, let us fix our attention on some undoubted evidences of religious revival, and the correspondent instances of Romish persecution. As to doctrine, the most ancient document extant from which a knowledge of the doctrine of the Vaudois, or Christian inhabitants of the valleys of Piedmont, can be derived, is "The Noble Lesson," a metrical compendium of doctrine and precept, so called from the words, "noble lesson," occurring in the first line. From internal evidence, which will presently be given, it is assigned to the year 1100, or a few years later, and therefore may appropriately precede a notice of Italian martyrs of the twelfth century. A manuscript containing it was deposited by Samuel Morland, Esq., who had been for some time resident in Piedmont, in the library of the University of Cambridge, and is printed in his "History of the Evangelical Churches of the Valleys of Piedmont. London, 1658." These verses, written in the vernacular dialect of the eleventh century, impressed with popular simplicity, and breathing scriptural truth, were probably recited or sung by the Vaudois in their cottages, to preserve the belief and keep alive the spirit of the fathers in the bosoms of their children. The first eight lines, comprehending the title and the date, may serve as a specimen of the whole, which shall be briefly compendiated:—

"O frayre entendé una nobla Leyçon.

Sovent deven velhar e istar en oreson.

C.* nos veen aquest mont esser pres del chavon.

Mot curios deorian esser de bonas obras far.

C. nos veen aquest mont de la fin apropiar.

Ben ha mil a cent an compll entierament.

Que fo scripta lora C. son al derier temp.

Poc deorian cubitar C. son al remanent."

• C. Car, for.

THE NOBLE LESSON.

"O brethren, hear a noble lesson. We should often watch, and be at prayer; for we see this world to be near its end. We should be very careful to do good works; for we see this world draw near its end. A thousand and a hundred years are full well complete, since it was written to them: 'For we are in the last time.' Little should we covet; for we are at the end." The prevailing impression of some great approaching change is then expressed with powerful solemnity of language. They daily saw the signs of such a change accomplished in increasing evil and decreasing good, perils foretold in Scripture, by the Gospel, and by St. Paul. As no man living could know the end, nor could they be certain whether they should die on that day or the morrow, they ought to fear. But when the day of judgment should come, every one would receive full recompence, either good or evil. "The Scripture saith,—and we must believe it,—'All men of the world shall take two ways: the good to glory, the wicked to torment.' He who will not believe in this distinction, must search the Scripture, where he will find that, from Adam until his own time, few in comparison have been saved. But whoever will do good works, must begin with honouring God the Father, and must implore the aid of his glorious Son,—dear Son of holy Mary,—and of the Holy Spirit, who gives us a good way: these three, the Holy Trinity, full of all power, wisdom, and goodness, ought to be invocated. Men should pray for grace to overcome the world, the devil, and the flesh, to know the way of life, and keep the soul pure, both soul and body in the way of charity, loving God and their neighbour; not only them who do them good, but them who do them evil. They should have firm hope in the heavenly King, who will lodge them in his glorious home at last; but whoso will not do what is contained in this lesson, shall not enter the holy house. This is hardly to be received by wicked people who love gold and silver, contemn the promises of God, keep not his law, nor suffer those who would. How came this evil among men? Because Adam sinned at first, eating the apple. Then sprang the evil seed, then he died, and all that followed. Well may we call that an evil morsel! But Christ has redeemed the good by his passion." We are told in this Lesson that "Adam was miscreant to God his Creator, and that men grow worse and worse, forsaking God, and believing in idols, to their own destruction. They now break the law which God put into their hearts, and abuse their power of doing good or evil, as did Cain. The law given to man at first, and written in the heart of every man, was to love, fear, and serve God, keep matrimony firm,—that noble covenant,—have peace each with his brother, and love all beside; hate pride, love humility, and act with equity. Few kept this law; more broke it, believed the devil, loved the world, served the body, and therefore perished. Therefore he is to be reproved that says, God did not make the people to let them perish. But let each one take heed that the like befall not him." Then follows a sententious, full, and purely scriptural compendium of sacred history, almost every line capable of practical application. From the history of the New Testament this "Noble Lesson" passes to that of the early ages of Christianity, and then to the time of the writer. The description here is important, and must be translated without abridgment. "After the Apostles, were some teachers who taught the way of Jesus Christ our Saviour. One here and there is found even in this present time; but he is manifest to very few people. Such teachers strongly desire to point out the way of Jesus Christ, but are so persecuted that they can do but little; so blinded are the false Christians with error, and, more than all others, they who are Pastors: for they persecute and hate them that are better than themselves, and let the false deceivers live in peace. By this may they be known who are not good Pastors; that they love not the sheep, except for the fleece; for the Scripture saith,—and we may see,—that if they find one that is good, that wishes to love God and Jesus Christ, one that will neither curse, nor swear, nor lie, nor commit adultery, nor kill, nor cheat his neighbour, nor avenge himself of his enemy, they say that he is a Vaudés, and ought to be punished. They find occasion, by lies and deceit, to take from him what he has gotten by his just labour. But strongly is he comforted that is thus persecuted for the fear of the Lord; for the kingdom of heaven shall be given to him when he leaves this world; then shall he have great glory if he has had dishonour here. But in this is their great malice very manifest, that he who will curse, and lie, and swear, and lend out on usury largely, and kill, and live licentiously, and take vengeance on those who have offended him; they say that he is a fine fellow, (prodome,) and he passes for a loyal man. But let him take heed that he is not deceived at last. The mortal sickness comes, death seizes him, he can scarcely speak, and the Priest asks if he will confess. But, according to the Scripture, he has too long delayed what it commands, and says, 'Confess while thou hast time, and put it not off until the last.' The Priest asks him if he has any sin. Two words or three he answers, and has quickly finished. Well says the Priest to him that he cannot be eased if he does not restore all to his neighbour, and amend his wrong. But when he hears this, he has great trouble: he thinks within himself, that if he restores it entirely, what will remain for his children, and what will the people say? Then he commands his children that they amend the wrong, and makes a bargain with the Priest that he may be eased. If he has a hundred livres of another man's, or even two, the Priest acquits him for a hundred sous,* and sometimes for less, when he can get no more, and bids him give so much in alms, and promises him pardon if he will have masses said for himself and his parents, and promises pardons for them, too, whether they have been just or wicked. Then he lays his hand upon his head; and, when he walks away, the more money he carries off the more merry is he, and makes him understand that he is well absolved: but ill are they compensated who have suffered wrong, and he shall be deceived in such an absolution; and he that makes him believe it commits mortal sin." Then follows a denial that Popes, Cardinals, Bishops, Abbots, and the like, have any power to forgive sin, but God only. After some good instructions, the

* Whatever change the coinage of Piedmont may have undergone, it is enough to note that, at present, twenty sons make one livre.

ARNOLFO, AN ITALIAN MARTYR.

Lesson closes with a prayer: "May it please the Lord, who formed the world, that we be of his elect, to dwell in his court." One article, however, is wanting in this document,—that article of the standing or the falling church, justification by faith in Christ alone. If this were included, the confession of faith would have been complete, free, as it is, from any antischirpual doctrine. So familiar were the Priests with the language of public reprobation, that hitherto the Vaudois had not suffered persecution unto death, but yet were kept in perpetual dread of every sort of vexatious oppression short of martyrdom. Now the hatred of the Priesthood rises higher; and notices appear of persons who suffered death for truth's sake. A man, of great zeal and piety,—whether Presbyter, Monk, or hermit, the narrators of the event scarcely knew, but certainly an impressive Preacher, and who had travelled through France,—came into the north of Italy; and, in the spirit of the Noble Lesson, declaimed there, also, against the corruption of the Clergy, and was attended by the celebrity naturally arising from the bold eloquence and justice of his discourses, as well as the sanctity of his deportment. Even the Priests were constrained to respect him, and acknowledge him to be a holy man, although acting independently, as it would seem, of all episcopal jurisdiction; which he might the more easily do in a country where there were so many nonconformists, and where the Priests themselves had fallen but recently under the Papal yoke. But he proceeded to Rome, and there cried aloud, sparing not, until "spiritual men," as they were called, moved with anger at his reproofs of their crimes, licentiousness, and errors, put him to death; some say by hanging; others, with greater probability, affirm, that he was secretly assassinated, or drowned in the Tiber. He had forebodings of a violent death; but, not ceasing to pour forth admonitions, exclaimed, "You contemn both me and your Creator, him who, by his only-begotten Son, hath redeemed you. And no marvel if you seek my death, being a sinful person, preaching unto you the truth; when, if St. Peter himself were here this day, and rebuked your sins, you would not spare him either. For my part, I am not afraid to suffer death for the truth's sake; but this I say to you, that God will look upon your impurities, and will be revenged; for you, being full of all wickedness, play the blind guides to the people committed to you, leading them the way to hell: but God is a God of vengeance." His apprehensions were verified: the name of Arnulph, or Arnolfo, stands at the head of the Italian martyrs. To the honour of Pope Honorius II. it is recorded, that he was angry at the murder, but he abstained from seeking out and punishing the murderers; perhaps fearing lest he should follow, having the Ecclesiastics all against him.* The sermons of Arnulph were not yet forgotten, when another Preacher arose, as if to avenge his death on the Church that had rejected him. At Brescia, in Lombardy, a young man of daring spirit and ready utterance, who had received only the lesser order of Reader, took up the same strain, and declaimed, with vehemence, on the corruption of the Clergy, from the Pope to the Acolyth, mingling, with cutting invective, new and singular opinions. He taught that

* Foxe, Acts and Monuments, London, 1843, vol. ii., p. 182, and Appendix

3 8 there could be no salvation for those wealthy Clerks, lordly Bishops, and endowed Monks; that church property rightfully belonged to the temporal Sovereign, who alone should dispose of it at his pleasure; that the Clergy ought to be maintained by the tithes and voluntary offerings of the people, and be content with a bare supply of necessaries for a life of poverty and self-denial. Explaining, in this style, the sacred text, he aroused the population of Brescia, already weary of the Priests, to such a pitch of excitement, that they forsook the churches, and the Clergy fell into extreme contempt. At the instance of the Bishop of his diocese in the second Council of Lateran, the Pope silenced him. He then left Brescia, crossed the Alps, took up his abode at Zurich, where he resumed his attacks on ecclesiastical abuses, kindled a flame there also, and prepared the way for Zuinglius, who arose nearly four centuries afterwards, by impressing a new character of freedom on the inhabitants of Switzerland. Not only the laity, but the heads of the Church, supported him by connivance, if not by sanction. The Bishop of Constance, to which diocese Zurich belonged, treated him with marked esteem; and the Papal Legate received him openly at his table. Bernard, in whom dwelt the ruling spirit of the age, addressed letters of earnest entreaty to them both, beseeching them to have him imprisoned, because his preaching did irreparable damage to the Church; and cautioning them against the milder measure of expulsion from the diocese, because, if banished from one country, he would betake himself to another, and there spread the pestilence of heresy and disaffection. "O that his doctrine were as sound" (wrote the trembling Abbot) "as his life is blameless!" He suggested to the Legate that if he would not have him imprisoned, he should undertake to convert him; although that he considered to be hopeless. So thought both the Legate and the Bishop, who deferred to the superior talent and better cause of the learned and enthusiastic Reader. The Pope himself (Innocent II.) wrote to the Archbishops of Sens and Rheims, under whose jurisdiction, severally, were Arnold, and his former master, Abelard,* commanding the latter to be put to silence, and both of them to be not only silenced, but placed in solitary confinement. His mandate, however, was not obeyed. Being at war with the King of Sicily, he was himself made prisoner; an Antipope disputed the chair with him; the Romans revolted; and, longing to be delivered from the rule of a priestly King, invited Arnold to visit them. Instead of being immured in a prison, he hastened to Rome, harangued the citizens in classic language, as far as such language could be spoken in that age; and, with an incongruous mixture of passages from the Bible, and from Latin historians and poets, he exhorted them to emulate the spirit of the ancient Romans, and to aspire after "Christian" liberty. But he told one mighty truth, which Rome remembers at this day, and never will forget,—that the temporal government pertains not to a Bishop, who should be contented with spiritual authority. For above ten years he was the true King of Rome, although the ancient republican form of government was revived; and an important precedent was afforded for the effort made

* A person far inferior to Arnold in moral character.

ARNOLD OF BRESCIA.

by the Romans in the years 1848 and 1849, to deliver themselves from Papal tyranny. Frederic Barbarossa then restored the temporal power to the Papacy; but republican medals are treasured in the cabinets to recall the memory of that brief period. The fall of Arnold was compassed thus: A Cardinal passing through "the sacred street" on his way to the Pope, Adrian, the Englishman, was wounded by some unknown persons. Adrian caught the occasion, and placed the city under an interdict, until Arnold, and his principal adherents, as they were called, should be expelled. From Christmas to Easter the Romans endured the suspension of all religious ceremonies; but, in "the holy week," the Senators, pressed on one side by the Priests, and on the other by the populace, came to the Pope, swore on the Gospels that they would expel Arnold from the Roman territory; which they did forthwith, and he remained in Tuscany, until the German Emperor, marching towards Rome, and met there by a deputation from Adrian, acceded to their request to compel his friends to deliver the arch-republican into their hands. They carried him to Rome, burnt him at the stake in the presence of the inconstant public, and cast his ashes into the Tiber, lest they should be gathered as the relics of a martyr (A.D. 1155). Sad end of a political Preacher! The whole affair, however, was characteristic of the foreign aid by which alone the Roman Pontiffs could afterwards retain their regal power, and of the only argument by which they can ever silence heretics.* Yet impatience of Papal tyranny was increased, rather than overawed, by the remembrance of that momentary defeat; and, while the Roman insurgents were too numerous to be punished, and the Pope was restricted to the exercise of his ecclesiastical functions, the States of the Church were threatened by an outbreak of discontent in the episcopal city and province of Orvieto. While Arnold flourished in Rome, a Florentine (Diotesalvi) was performing a similar part in the provincial city, but rather as a Christian Preacher than the leader of a political movement. He is described as a man of venerable appearance, and modest exterior, who preached against the doctrine of sacramental grace, and was therefore called a Mauichean, of course. He taught that every good man is equal to St. Peter, and that every sinner will be punished as Judas. For twenty years, at least, he preached such truths, (from 1150, until after 1169,) until the reigning Bishop succeeded in banishing him and another Preacher from the city. The believers in his doctrine, which was probably that of the Vaudois, do not appear to have left the dominant Church, but rather to have been active in endeavouring to reform it. Two ladies are mentioned as remarkably zealous and influential over the women of Orvieto, and with them a great number of the men, including the Bishop himself; until the Bishop, finding that he had hazarded his dignity by allowing freedom to his conscience, renounced the perilous convictions, took advice of the Canons and others of that class, at their instigation professed himself to be undeceived, and confirmed the recantation by a bitter persecution of the reputed heretics. Some were hung, others beheaded, others burnt alive,

* Gibbon, chap. lxix.; Fleury, lxviii., 55, 66, 67; lxix., 10; lxx., 4.

3 8 2 others banished; and others, who died without submitting to the ceremonies of Popery, were harmlessly accursed, and their remains not admitted to ecclesiastical burial. But they were not all dead and buried. All Italy was permeated by the influence of truth; and soon afterwards, while Innocent III. prosecuted a territorial quarrel with my Lord of Orvieto, and kept him prisoner at large at Rome, a body of reforming Preachers came from no more distant a region than the patrimony of St. Peter, to recall, with encouragement of brethren from Viterbo, the inquirers of Orvieto. The reformed, as we may venture to call them, flocked into the latter city, and, by rapid conversions to the new doctrine and accession of strangers, the "Catholic" population became a small minority. They then conceived the unhappy idea of fortifying themselves as a reformed town; and, to avoid this, the residuary population sent a deputation to Rome to ask for help. Pietro di Parenzo, a noble Roman, was sent to support the Bishop, who had been at last liberated, but was unable to enforce obedience to the clerical Sovereign, which he rashly attempted to do, by demolishing the towers of the principal houses, and commanding those who had left the Church—for the secession was then complete—to return, under pain of canonical punishment. The summons availed but little: therefore he proceeded to execute the threat, by putting some in irons, flogging others publicly, subjecting others to banishment, fines, or confiscation, and causing several houses to be pulled down. The indignant inhabitants threatened him with vengeance. He went to Rome, to keep Lent, as could scarcely be done in Orvieto. The Pope gave him unlimited authority, with plenary absolution for whatever sin he might commit in chastising the heretics; and he returned, boasting, by God, the holy Virgin, and St. Peter, that he would defend the Catholic faith, though he should die for it; and that, if he did die a violent death, it should be by the hands of heretics. A few evenings after his return, as he was going to bed, a party of men came to his palace, were admitted by a servant who was in the plot, and called his master from his chamber. They gagged him, bound him hand and foot, carried him out of the city, and murdered him (A.D. 1199). The Bishop had him buried in the cathedral; miracles were duly performed at his tomb; and the church of Orvieto honours his martyrdom annually on the 21st of May.* This event, with others not dissimilar, goes far to explain the suppression of doctrinal reform in Italy, which could not be promoted by human passions, even though the guilt might possibly be extenuated, in the apprehension of the guilty, by the excess of provocation given.

Having marked the awakening of the public mind in the Netherlands, a part of Germany, and subalpine and central Italy, during this century, with the uniform resistance of the higher Clergy, except in one instance, we come to France, now the most interesting section of the European field. The impulse given to preaching in the Romish pulpits by Foulques de Neuilly towards the end of the century has already been noticed as remotely beneficial; but we can trace a succession of unspeakably more beneficial events beyond the enclosure

* Fleury, Ixxv., 22, 23.

PIERRE DE BRUIS.

of that fallen Church. In the provinces of Dauphiny and Provence, many, very many persons, branded with ignominious epithets, maintained doctrines hostile to those which were enforced by ecclesiastical authority. The piercing, unrelenting vigilance of the Bishops gradually wearied them out, and, after wandering through Languedoc, most of them found brief respite in Gascony and the neighbouring country, where they worshipped God in private assemblies, or, as the cruel taunt of an enemy intimates, (sibi foveus præparavit,) "the foolish and impious heresy prepared itself dens," found "hiding-places" (latibula). The above-mentioned Prelates, not content with the expulsion of those persons from their dioceses, or aware that the innovation advanced through all the south of France, despite their efforts to prevent it, brought a complaint to the Council held at Toulouse (A.D. 1119) of the Bishops and Abbots of Languedoc, Gascony, Spain, and Brittany, with Callistus II., newly elected Pontiff, at their head, and easily obtained a canon condemnatory of those "who feigned an appearance of religion, condemned the sacrament of the body and blood of our Lord, the baptism of infants, the priesthood, and other ecclesiastical orders, and legitimate marriages." To know certainly what those dissidents did reject or deny, we should have some testimony of their own, which unfortunately does not exist; but if their original neighbourhood with Piedmont and the course of their emigration be considered, and their alleged heresy compared with the Noble Lesson of the Vaudois,* it will not appear probable that their opinions are fairly stated. However that might be, the Fathers pretended to expel them from the Church (with which, indeed, they chose to hold no communion) as heretics, and ordered that they should be put down by the secular powers. They subjected their defenders to the same condemnation, unless they would repent. With equal zeal they pronounced excommunication against all laymen who laid hands on the property of deceased Bishops, which some Princes conceived they had a right to do, and on Monks, Canons, and Clerks who renounced their profession, or allowed their hair and beards to grow like those of laymen. This looks as if there had been defection from the ranks of the Clergy, and agrees with a charge brought against the Vaudois, (so to call them for want of a better name,) that they had compelled Monks to take wives; a ridiculous accusation, especially when brought against the very men who were said by the Council to condemn marriage. Their most eminent Minister was Pierre de Bruis, who had preached in those provinces for twenty years, when some devout Priests, failing, no doubt, to borrow the sword of magisterial authority, engaged ruffians to make a riot, and burn him at St. Gilles, (A.D. 1126,) for having burnt a cross, as they said, or crosses, cooked his dinner therewith, and eaten it on a Good Friday: an offence not unlikely to be committed at a time when Priests renounced their orders, Monks their vows, and idolaters their idols. From his Latin name, Petrus de Bruis, the appellation of Petrobrusians was given to his followers,†

* Supra, p. 495.

† Allix, Albigenses, chap. xix; Faber, Vallenses and Albigenses, book ii., chap. 6; Fleury, lxvii., 2; lxix, 24.

who multiplied after his martyrdom. Disgust of idolatry led many to remove altars, destroy crucifixes, empty churches of their images, and, it is said, re-baptize converts, as if the corrupt baptism of Romanism were a nullity. Alarmed at the rapid secession from his Church, Pope Eugenius III. despatched an Italian Bishop, who had acquired experience as Legate in Syria and in England, to represent him at Toulouse (A.D 1147). He was commissioned to attack Henry, not a disciple of Peter, as they alleged, but, like him, an eminently successful Minister. When Henry began his ministry, he was a young man, but of commanding exterior. Tall, with animated countenance, piercing eye, and a full sonorous voice, attired carelessly, and bare-footed, he presented an appearance of poverty, opening the way to popular acceptance. But his reputation for holiness and learning chiefly bespoke attention. When he entered the town of Mans, he was preceded by two others, carrying staves, surmounted by small iron crosses, his own staff being similarly adorned; and they might have passed for Monks on penitential pilgrimage.* It was then Ash Wednesday. The Bishop Hidelbert received them kindly, directed that they should be allowed to enter the town, and that the Archdeacons should permit Henry to preach. The people crowded to hear him, were delighted with his eloquence, convinced by his reasonings, and soon alienated from their former superstition. The Priests found themselves neglected, masses were abandoned, and the living no longer prayed for the dead, but for themselves. When the Bishop returned from Rome, whither he had gone just after the arrival of Henry, the people received him coldly on his ceremonious entrance, and he was surprised to see that they set no value on his blessings. He therefore required the unwelcome Preacher to quit his diocese, and thought it enough to boast of, that two persons had relinquished profession of the novel doctrine. The Legate, on his arrival in Languedoc, found things in a remarkable condition. The churches were without people, the people separated from the Priests, and the Priests despised. The old worship was no longer esteemed holy, feasts were not kept, people died without the last ceremonies; and so extreme was the re-action against rites, that infants were not baptized. The Legate, with usual pomp, made a progress through the alienated provinces, but was everywhere received with mortifying coldness. It was well for his cause that he had a companion whose high reputation drew together that portion of the population which yet retained any attachment to the hierarchy, or were so undecided as to yield to the charm of a great name. Bernard, founder and first Abbot of the monastery of Clairvaux, who had frequently been invited by the Clergy of Toulouse to visit them, consented, in that emergency, to accompany the Legate; and, if his biographer may be believed, which is more than doubtful, the country was everywhere stirred up to meet him, and crowds, both day and night, pressed on him to receive his benediction.

* Those who call him a disciple of Pierre de Bruis overlook several marks of difference. Peter was charged with having burnt crosses: he carried one. His field of action was far distant from that of Peter. A distinct catalogue of heterodox opinions was laid to his charge.

PIERRE DE VAUD, OR WALDO.

In every place he performed miracles. Bread, infused with miraculous power by his touch, healed the sick, whether they had faith or no, for he declared faith to be unnecessary; a paralytic was raised up by virtue of his blessing; and the greatest of all his miracles, as we can most easily imagine, was performed when every one in the congregation, which, doubtless, consisted of admirers, raised his hand to vote against heresy, in compliance with his request at the close of a sermon. The most truthful part of the narrative is that which states that many noblemen and Ecclesiastics, both secular * and regular,† were attached to the new doctrine, and that the most ignorant persons, after they had joined them for a week, became so knowing that it was impossible to convince them of heresy; that when the Legate entered Alby, people marched before him, leading asses, and beating drums, instead of the honorific procession which usually greeted the entry of a Legate; that only thirty persons could be collected at mass, but that Bernard was afterwards received with tokens of respect; that the gentlemen of Toulouse promised Bernard that they would not suffer the weavers to meet again in the town; and that afterwards the Legate pronounced a sentence of excommunication against the heretics and their abettors, a sentence equivalent with outlawry; and that the said excommunication followed a preamble describing Henry as an apostate, a lewd person, and a vagabond. Bernard tracked the excommunicated Preacher, laboured with poor success to regain for the Clergy the confidence of the people, but so far succeeded with the chief men of several towns, that Henry was persecuted, hunted from place to place, and at last brought in chains to the Bishop. Bernard, having left the diocese, missed the gratification of seeing him burnt at a stake,‡ by command of the Legate. Others say he died in prison. Be it as it may, he was a martyr. On his return Bernard wrote to the people of Toulouse, exhorting them to persecute heretics without relenting, until they should have driven all out of the country; and repeated an exhortation often given them before, never to receive a strange Preacher unless he could produce a licence of the Pope, or obtained the sanction of the Bishop.

Neither did zeal for the dominant Church in the Clergy, nor alienation from it in the people, diminish after the expedition into Languedoc. Both parties continued, and the public mind retained the perception of a few wholesome truths. Twelve or thirteen years after the death of Henry, the Head of the church raised up another and more eminent Evangelist. Some of the principal citizens of Lyons were one day together, when one of the company died suddenly, (A.D. 1160,) and another, Pierre de Vaud, or, as he is sometimes incorrectly called, Peter Waldo, a rich merchant, was so impressed with that visitation of divine Providence, that he resolved forthwith to lead a new life. Had he been a true Romanist, he would probably have retired to a monastery, and given his wealth to the Priests; but, instead of idle seclusion, he devoted himself to the good of his neighbours, distributed his property among the poor, and

* Priests. † Monks.

1 Fleury, Ixix., 24, 25; Allix, Albigenses, xiv.; Faber, Vallenses and Albigenses, vi.

began to exhort all around him to repent also. His beneficence to the poor, and the earnestness of his discourses, attended with that more than human influence which certainly draws congregations, caused him to be followed by a multitude of all classes, but chiefly of the indigent. Voluntary poverty was then esteemed as an evidence of piety. Some others followed his example, became poor for Christ's sake, and dispersed themselves over the country, preaching the Gospel. And as the Latin Bible could not then be so easily understood, as when the language was less corrupted in the vernacular dialect, he lost no time in translating into French, for the benefit of the common people, the text of the New Testament and part of the Old. This was the first version of the holy Scriptures into any of what may be called the modern languages of Europe, and must have largely tended to promote sacred knowledge among the opponents of Romanism, and impart a more vigorous character to the incipient Reformation: for we cannot overlook the fact that the Reformation began in the twelfth century. The Archbishop endeavoured to silence Waldo, but in vain. He dreaded not threatened excommunication; and maintained that, although a layman, he had a divine right to publish the Gospel to all within his reach. The Archbishop then endeavoured to apprehend him; but he escaped from Lyons, was followed by many of his converts, thus cast out upon the world in a state of utter destitution, and therefore known, wherever they came, as the poor men of Lyons. The same designation, or that of WALDENSES, from Peter Waldo, continued to be applied to them. Few historical notices of this holy man remain; but his work could not be destroyed; and while a wanderer, he was also an Apostle. Picardy, whither he fled at first, was soon the scene of sanguinary persecution, and in Bohemia, where he finished his course, (A.D. 1179,) Papal domination found memorable resistance.* The struggle between the Papacy and evangelical dissent was fairly begun, and persecution became systematic. The Synod of Tours (A.D. 1163) commanded all the Bishops and Priests of the diocese of Toulouse to take care to forbid all persons, under pain of excommunication, giving reception, or the least assistance, to the followers of the Waldensian heresy, whenever they should be discovered. Neither were they to have any dealings with them, in the way of buying and selling, to the end that, being deprived of the common succours of life, they might repent of the evil of their way. All who contravened this order were to be included in the excommunication; and as many as could be found were to be imprisoned by the "Catholic Princes," and their property confiscated.† The French Clergy having so ordained, the secular arm was ready to enforce their pleasure, and many unrecorded acts of persecution doubtless followed. Nine persons were found at Vezelay, a town of Burgundy, charged, as usual, with the follies of Manicheanism, (A.D. 1167,) and placed in solitary confinement, until Bishops, and other persons of authority, could make it convenient to assemble in

* Faber, Vallenses, &c., chap. xii.; Milner, Hist., cent. xiii., chap. 1; Foxe, Acts and Monuments, vol. ii., p. 264, seq.

† Limborch, History of the Inquisition, book I., chap. 9.

CONFERENCE OF ALBY.

the place, and undertake their conversion, as they were used to speak. They lay in prison two months, harassed by the visits of Priests, who employed threats and smiles alternately, labouring to move them, but without effect. Bishops, Abbots, and Doctors then met together, drew up a catalogue of heretical opinions and practices, but withheld their sentence. Easter approached: they were told that they must be tried by a fiery ordeal, and two of them, overcome by terror, begged that they might be tried by water, to prove that they believed what the Church believed. The whole company was then made to walk in procession round the cloister of a convent, in the presence of a crowd of people, the Clergy rejoicing over the inconstancy of the two, until the Abbot raised his voice, and asked the people what should be done with the seven. "Burn them, burn them," was the desired answer; and they were accordingly committed to the flames. The two were tried by water. One was declared innocent, and the other guilty; towards whom the Abbot graciously exercised clemency by sparing him from the stake, but commanding him to be whipped publicly, and then banished.* Next came the famous Council, or Conference, of Alby. The Waldenses had become so numerous, and were so well known in Languedoc, that no existing power could suppress them. The nobility in the neighbourhood of Lombers, a small town near Alby, openly protected them, and they were honourably known as good men, although the Priests branded them with the name of an old heresy. To proceed summarily against persons who had thus risen into favour, would have been imprudent; but if they could be convicted of heresy, and that with show of condescension and forbearance, by the dignitaries of the Church, the tide of public opinion might be turned against them. The Archbishop of Narbonne determined to convene the Bishops of his province at Alby, (A.D. 1176,) to examine some of those people; and, having heard their tenets, or extorted answers unfavourable to themselves by questioning or cross-questioning, to pronounce a formal refutation. They met: several Waldenses, as we shall now call them, were present. The conference proceeded without any disorder; the reporter or historian duly made them out to be Manicheans; the arguments, however, were perplexing: "After divers reasons alleged on both sides, in presence of the Bishop of Alby, they chose and settled Judges on both sides, with consent of that Bishop" as diocesan. The Judges cited authorities out of the New Testament, and then, by command of the Bishop of Alby, the Bishop of Lyons pronounced sentence. The sentence is long, but demonstrates that they were very like what we now call Protestants. It ended in a notice, that they would be denounced as heretics in all Catholic courts. On hearing this sentence, they turned their backs on the Bishops, and appealed to the assembled people, one speaking for all, in these terms, if correctly related by the Romish annalist:—"Good people, the faith which we now confess, we confess for your sakes. We believe that there is one only God in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and that the Son of God hath taken our flesh upon

* Fleary, lxxi., 50.

3 T him; that he was baptized in Jordan; that he fasted in the wilderness; that he hath preached our salvation; that he suffered, died, and was buried; that he descended into hell; that he rose again the third day; that he ascended into heaven; that he sent the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost; that he shall come at the day of judgment, to judge both the quick and the dead; and that all shall rise again. We know, also, that what we believe with our heart, we ought to confess with our mouth. We believe that he is not saved who doth not eat the body of Jesus Christ; and that the body of Jesus Christ is not consecrated but in the Church, and by the Priest, be he good or bad; and that it is no better consecrated by a good Priest than by a bad one. We believe also that none can be saved but those who are baptized, and that little children are saved by baptism. We believe also that man and wife are saved, though they be carnally joined, and that every one must repent with his mouth and heart, and be baptized in the church by a Priest. And if they could show us more from the Gospels, we would believe and own it." It would be unfair to interpret too rigidly an oral confession, pronounced under the excitement of an artful and wearisome controversy, even if correctly reported from their lips; but most unfair so to interpret such a confession when related by an enemy. Their statements were defensive: as to the sacrament of the Lord's supper, the heresy of transubstantiation afterwards forced on the Church by Innocent III. was a favourite speculation, and the acknowledgment of consecration by a Priest, if really made, might have been intended to parry the dispute. A notion of salvation by baptism might have been held by the speakers; but of this it is impossible to be certain: it only proves that they did not reject infant baptism. The acknowledgment of marriage was a necessary answer to a vulgar slander, and that of oral confession was elicited by what had passed in the conference. If the Bishop of Alby or of Lyons, like the Abbot of Vezelay, had then appealed to the people, they would certainly not have cried out, "Burn them," nor could the extemporaneous confession be interpreted as heretical. Yet the Priests were not baffled altogether; for the good men had avowed an objection to judicial oaths, and my Lord of Lyons, quite prepared for such an emergency, instantly required them to swear to the confession. That was impossible; and the Bishop of Lodeve, by command of the Bishop of Alby, at that instant stood up and declared them suspected of heresy, and infamous. In vain did they remind the latter that he had promised not to require them to swear; deaf to remonstrance, he gave notice to the militia of Lombers that they must not protect their townsmen. Nine Bishops, Clerks, Abbots, and laymen appended their signatures to this conclusion, and the Council of Alby ended without any important result. It only gave the good men of Lombers notoriety, and to them and their brethren the new name of Albigeois, or ALBIGENSES.* No doubt the persecutors were mortified at having done no more than talk to so little purpose. That part of Languedoc must have seemed more heretical than ever. Toulouse was always disaffected to Rome, and from generation to

* Allix, Albigenses, chap. xv.

PERSECUTION AT TOULOUSE.

generation had been so full of what Papiats call heresy, that a monkish writer styles the city "mother of heretics, and tabernacle of robbers." Bernard, after his visit, wrote that the plague had seized the whole population; that, from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot, there was scarcely any soundness. There, he said, the heretics were chief among the people, and ruled in the Clergy: when heretics spake, they were listened to with admiration; but if a "Catholic" opened his mouth, people said, "Who is this?" He complains that they had Missionaries who went to preach at a distance, and had even other Gospels, referring evidently to the vernacular translation. Raymond V., the Count of Toulouse, wrote to the Abbot and Chapter-general of the Cistercians, repeating the same statement, asking their advice and prayers, saying that the spiritual sword was not sufficient, but that his material sword was at the service of the Church. He expressed a desire that the King of France would come to make an end of the evil by his presence, and offered to throw open the towns to his troops, put the fortified places into his hands, point out the heretics, and shed his own blood, if necessary, to crush the enemies of Jesus Christ. The King of France, together with the King of England, almost determined to accept the invitation; but, fearful of hazarding their dignity in such an expedition, devolved the work on Peter, Cardinal of Chrysogon, the Pope's Legate, attended by Archbishops Guerin of Bourges, and Pons of Narbonne; Bishops Reynolds of Bath, and John of Poitiers, and Henry, successor of Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, with several other personages. To these representatives of the Church were added Raymond, Count of Toulouse, the Viscount of Turin, and others, as representatives of royalty (A.D. 1178). They hastened with their formidable trains to the seat of heretical pravity; and the measure first determined on was to swear the Bishop of Toulouse, some of the Priests, the Consuls, and a few more, to present, in writing, the names of all the heretics they knew, none excepted on any consideration. The list grew rapidly, and a person of consequence was chosen as the first object of attack,—Pierre Moran, an aged gentleman who had two houses, one in town, and the other in the country, very rich, extensively related, and of great influence in Toulouse. Although a layman, he had held meetings in the evenings in one of his houses, and preached to the persons assembled. The Count sent Serjeants to cite him into his presence, and with some difficulty induced him to appear. With deep seriousness he rebutted accusations of Arianism and Manicheanism, but denied the doctrine held by his examiners, who instantly condemned him as a heretic. His age, respectability, and dignified Christian demeanour softened them for a moment, or seemed to soften. They allowed a tear or two to betray or simulate compassion, but sent him from their presence to the common gaol. Threatened with death, he was overcome, promised to recant, stood barefoot and in his shirt before the Commissioners, bound himself by oath to submit to the orders of the Legate, and the public were invited to see him do penance next day in the church of St. Sermin. The building was crowded to excess, and Pierre Moran was made to walk barefoot and naked as before through the congregation, scourged by the Bishop on

3 T 2 one side and the Abbot of St. Sernin on the other, at every step, until he reached the high altar, where he fell at the Legate's feet, besought reconciliation to the Church, and received the words of peace. Then the triumph over him might have been deemed complete; but it had only begun. All his property was confiscated. By way of penance, he was to quit the country within forty days, go to Jerusalem to serve the poor for three years, and meanwhile appear at all the churches in the city every Sunday, in the same guise of penitential degradation, to be scourged in each; and the house where his brethren had knelt with him in prayer was to be razed to the ground. The Legate and his company having summoned two others to appear before them in the cathedral on charge of heresy, they came, bringing a written confession of faith, resembling that of Alby, and were nearly released, when the zealous Count rose in great anger, declaring that they were liars. The Ecclesiastics then required them to clear themselves by oath, but, unable to prevail, called for lighted tapers, and excommunicated them with all possible solemnity. The Count next promised on oath, before all the people, to enforce the terrors of that sentence, and never to favour heretics. This done, the Commissaries gladly closed their labours, not venturing to take life, persuaded that they had made the most of their authority, covered only by royal sanction, and backed by the swords of their attendants, and lost no time in going each to his own place.*

Henry of Clairvaux, successor of Bernard, rewarded with a scarlet gown, and invested with the honours of Cardinal, Bishop, and Pope's Legate, went into Burgundy (A.D. 1181) to enforce discipline on the Clergy, and persecute the Albigenses. Instead of a train of Priests, he led an army, compelled Roger of Beziers and some other feudal Chiefs to abjure heresy, and returned to Rome, boasting that he had stormed a castle, that of Lavaur, and converted many to the bosom of his Church, outdoing his predecessors in monstrous descriptions of diabolical fables and inhuman licentiousness attributed to the Albigenses, who withdrew from the churches as soon as he had set his face towards Rome.† Waldensian Preachers and Missionaries renewed their efforts; and the intimate political connexion at that time existing between the southern provinces of France, and the northern kingdom of Spain, laid open the latter country to the innovations which were now spreading over a great part of Europe. The Pope, Celestine III., aware of this, sent a Cardinal Legate into Spain, who held a Council at Lerida, and exhorted the King of Arragon, Alonso II., as Marquis of Provence, and Lord of some other counties north of the Pyrenees, to issue an edict against the heretics, after the tenor of the acts of the Council of Verona. Alonso consented, and (A.D. 1194) commanded the Waldenses, the Inzapatados,‡ or Poor Men of Lyons, (these being only various names for the same people,) and all other heretics, to be expelled from his dominions, prohibiting all

* Faber, Vallenses, &c., book ii., chap. 10, 12; Fleury, lxxiii., 12, 13.

† Allix, Albigenses, chap. xxi.; Fleury, lxxiii., 35.

‡ So called from the Spanish word, zapato, "a shoe," because of the clumsy wooden shoes the Albigensian peasants wore; as, indeed, did others, but this marked their poverty, and was conspicuous in Missionaries.

PERSECUTION IN NIVERNOIS.

his "vassals" to abet any in concealment, under penalty of being dealt with as guilty of treason, their property to be confiscated, of course. He commanded Bishops and Governors of towns to cause this edict to be published every Sunday in all their churches, under the same penalties. By All-Saints' day in that year the said heretics were required to be out of the country; and if any were found after that day, whoever, whether of high or low condition, should inflict evil, disgrace, or suffering on such persons, except death or mutilation, would thereby render himself grateful and acceptable to His Majesty, and, so far from incurring punishment, should be entitled to royal favour. After All-Saints' day every living dissenter, though he were indeed a saint, was delivered to the malice of whomsoever would plunder and torment him. Alonso soon passed into the state where every one receives righteous judgment; but his second son, Peter II., finding that the humanity of his father's vassals had shielded the Poor Men of Lyons from the effects of both excommunication and edict, assembled the Archbishop of Tarragona, and the Bishops of Gerona, Barcelona, Vique, and Elna, (A.D. 1197,) and, repeating the terrible threatenings of the former edict, commanded all civil authorities to drive the heretics beyond the bounds of their respective jurisdictions within a time appointed. All Governors and Judges were forthwith to swear before their Bishops that, within a week, they would discover and punish all heretics, or suffer the penalties due to them. This document, which was fortified by the signatures of almost all the grandees of Castile, implied an acknowledgment that the preceding mandate had not been effectual, and by its very stringency almost invited disobedience.*

In Nivernois, where popular superstition was more intense, the seceders appear to have been persecuted with greater violence. At Corbigni, some who had relapsed into Popery discovered their former associates; and Terrie, their chief, as he is called, after he had been concealed for some time in a cavern, was dragged out and burnt. Several of the principal inhabitants of Charité on the Loire, when summoned to appear on the charge of heresy, fled, were excommunicated, and delivered to the secular arm. The Dean of Nevers, and the Abbot of St. Martin, in the same town, were marked as unsound in doctrine, suspended from their functions, and commanded to answer to charges before the Archbishop at Auxerre, having two Bishops for assessors. The Dean came boldly, with several Lawyers, well skilled both in canon and civil law; and the Archbishop seeing him so strongly environed, adjourned the case. The Abbot, who was accused of immorality also, appealed to the Pope, but was bound to appear again at Sens with the Dean. Both causes were remitted to Rome, where the Dean, probably the better man of the two, and conscious of a good cause, presented himself without delay, (A.D. 1199,) was heard in the Consistory, but gained nothing there, and was sent back to submit to the judgment of his Archbishop.†

* Llorente, Hist. Inquis. Española, cap. i., art. 4; Limborch, Hist. Inquisition, book i., chap. 9.

† Fleury, lxxv., 7.

No sooner had Innocent III. mounted the Papal throne than he applied himself, with the zeal of a new comer, to the extirpation of alleged heresy in the south of France (A.D. 1198). He wrote to the Archbishop of Auch a command to root it out of Gascony, employing to that end, if necessary, the arms both of Princes and of people. He sent two Cistercian Monks to carry the command into execution, or, in his language, to convert the heretics. An encyclical epistle bound the Bishops to receive the envoys favourably, help them in their labours, and execute, with inviolable fidelity, whatever they might think proper to be done against the stubborn heretics and their abettors. "We also," added the Pope, "command the Princes, the Counts, and all the Lords of your province, to assist them effectually against the heretics, with the power that they have received for the punishment of evil-doers. Therefore, after Friar Rainier shall have pronounced excommunication against them, the Lords must confiscate their property, banish them from their territories, and punish them more severely if they shall dare to linger. Now we have given power to Friar Rainier to compel the Lords by excommunications, and by interdict on their lands. We also write to all the people of your province, that as soon as they shall be required by Friar Rainier and Friar Guy, they march against the heretics; and to those who shall faithfully assist them we grant the same indulgence as if they had gone to Rome or to St. James." To make the matter more sure, the Pontiff sent copies to the other Archbishops of France, their Suffragans, and the Lords of the dioceses. These two Friars, let it be observed, were in reality the first Inquisitors, armed with powers independent of the Clergy, and responsible only to the Pope,* whose office thereby became exclusively that of arch-murderer; his single and incommunicable prerogative that of wearing out the saints of the Most High by the agency of his emissaries, while the episcopal office, notwithstanding its superior claims to a scriptural original, was reduced to a nullity.† Although some of the Bishops must have perceived the tendency of a proceeding that subsequently became the source of extreme dissatisfaction to their order, others no doubt thought themselves highly honoured by an injunction to send information to the Pope himself of heretics in their dioceses. We are indebted to the servility of Bertrand, Bishop of Metz, for a precious fragment in contribution to the history of evangelical progress. In the city and diocese of Metz (A.D. 1199) a great number of the laity, both men and women, "touched with a desire to understand the holy Scripture," had obtained a French translation of the Gospels, the Epistles of St. Paul, the Psalms, and some other books of the Old Testament, and applied themselves with so much earnestness to the reading of these portions of the sacred volume, that they held secret meetings, where they read and exhorted one another. They thought little of persons who neglected that study, avoided their society, and when some Priests had reproved them for their conduct, they plainly taxed the Ecclesiastics with ignorance, and proved from Scripture that they ought not to be hindered. They contrasted their own

* Fleury, Ixxv., 8.

† Llorente, Hist. Inquis. Esp., ii., 2; Limborch, i., 9.

BIBLE-READERS AT METZ.

familiar acquaintance with the word of God with the ignorance of the Preachers, and scrupled not to say that they could expound the Bible better. No doubt they could. And what said the Pope? He deigned to write a letter to the people of Metz, in these terms:—

"Although the desire to understand the holy Scriptures, and to draw thence subjects of exhortation, is rather laudable than reprehensible, those persons appear much to be blamed for holding their conventicles in secret, for taking upon themselves to preach, for deriding the simplicity of the Preachers, and despising the company of those who are not like themselves. Jesus Christ commanded his Apostles to preach upon the house-tops; and when interrogated by the High Priest, he answered that he had always taught publicly, and spoken nothing in secret. Besides, St. Paul says that there are different offices in the church, and that God has established some Apostles, others Prophets, others Teachers, and that they cannot preach except they are sent. But if these people answer that they have received an invisible mission from God, more excellent than the visible, they must be told that this inward mission being hidden, it is not enough merely to say that such an one is sent of God, since any heretic may say as much: he must prove it, either by miracles, like Moses, or by an express testimony of Scripture, like St. John the Baptist. Now, although learning is very necessary to Priests that they may teach, they who are learned should honour in them the sacerdotal ministry, and not despise their simplicity. It belongs to the Bishop to correct with gentleness the Priest who is subject to him; but it does not become the people proudly to reprove their Pastor. If the Pastor is unworthy, or unable to lead his flock, the case should be regularly laid before the Bishop, who has power to appoint and also to remove from office. As for those who despise others, and pretend to be the only righteous, they must be ranked with the Pharisees; since from the beginning of the church there have been many saints that were not to be compared with these new perfect ones. And to them may be applied this saying of Scripture, 'Be not many masters.'"

Innocent concluded his epistle by exhorting the citizens of Metz to cast off the delusion, and not allow themselves to be deceived by an empty semblance of piety and virtue. Then, in another letter to the Bishop and Chapter of Metz, he wrote thus:—"While Prelates should be careful to discover heretics, they should also take care not to wound the pious simplicity of the faithful by their impatience, nor to give them occasion of revolting against the Church. Now you have not said, in your letter, that those of whom you complain err in faith, or depart from sound doctrine; and we are also in utter ignorance of the reputation and conduct of those who have made this version of the Scripture, or of those who have made use of it in teaching. We therefore command you to exhort them earnestly to desist from what is reprehensible in their conduct, and by no means to assume the ministry of preaching, which becomes them not. Do you also ascertain carefully who is the author of this version, with what intention he made it, what is the faith of them who use it, what has excited them to teach, and if they respect the Holy See and the

Catholic Church, that we may better know what should be done." This despatch from the royal Pontiff no doubt put the Bishop and Chapter of Metz in the way of proceeding more systematically than before; and after a few months a report from them was forthcoming at Rome, bearing intelligence that some of those against whom the indefinite complaint had been transmitted had openly refused to obey the orders of the Holy See, being resolved rather to obey God than man. Others said the same in private. Notwithstanding prohibition, they continued their private meetings and their preachings. They were said to despise others, or, in truth, to reprove sinners; and were so attached to their version of the Bible that they protested a determination to disobey Bishop, Metropolitan, and Pope, should they require it to be suppressed. Three Abbots were then sent by Innocent to Metz, with orders to join the Bishop, summon the contumacious, endeavour to correct them, and, if unsuccessful, report the issue. So matters stood at the close of the twelfth century in France; the controversy with Rome no longer relating to the vices of the Clergy, the sacraments, saints, and ceremonies, but to the right which every man has to read and to obey the word of God.*

England was not unvisited by the early dawn of better times. William of Newbury relates that, in the reign of Henry II., some erring persons, as he calls them, (erronei quidam,) came into England, and were supposed to be Publicans, or Paulicians, of whom there were many in the broadest provinces of France, Spain, Italy, and Germany, multiplied, to borrow the language of a Prophet, above the sand of the sea; sometimes concealed in hiding-places, because of persecution; but, at other times, ranging the land without restraint: rustic and unlettered men, dull in argument, but immovable in purpose, and, having once tasted the cup of poison or of life, as it was diversely regarded, seldom known to change. Hitherto, from the expulsion of the Britons by the Saxons, nothing had disturbed the quiescence of our forefathers, who slept under the leaden sway of Popes, Legates, and submissive Princes. But the seeds of truth were sown by a few foreigners, a little colony of about thirty Germans, who, probably to escape persecution, crossed the Channel, hoping to find refuge here. They made no stir, conducted themselves most inoffensively, and had a good man named Gerard at their head, distinguished by some fruits of education, and probably acting as their Minister. Indeed, they had to learn English before they could hold intercourse with their neighbours. After all, one person only was known to have adopted their opinions, an Englishwoman, who had probably shown them hospitality as foreigners, and become familiar with the manners and religious observances of her stranger-friends; and her convictions were attributed, by our eminently superstitious forefathers, to the power of witchcraft. That conversion, however, was probably unknown, when some persons, having discovered that they were of a strange sect, thought it right to lodge them all in prison. The King, hearing that so dread a novelty had entered his dominions, commanded a Council of Bishops to be holden at Oxford,

* Fleury, lxxv., 24.

MARRIED PRIESTS IN ENGLAND.

and the sectarians to be there examined. Gerard, speaking for the rest, said that they were Christians, and received with reverence the doctrine of the Apostles. But they denied sacramental grace, bore with the charge of Manicheanism, implied or expressed, mildly declined controversy, refused to join the Romish Church; and, when threatened with punishment, their venerable advocate replied, in the words of the beatitude, "Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." The Bishops, therefore, had no more to do than to declare them heretics, and leave them to suffer any punishment that the King might think proper to inflict. By royal decision, the brand of heresy was to be laid on their foreheads, and, in sight of the people, they were to be beaten with rods as they walked out of Oxford, and forbidden to pollute the city again by their presence. When they heard the sentence, far from showing dismay, they appeared happy, and retired from the court rejoicing, leaving on the ear of the Bishops the words of our Lord, "Beati eritis cum vos oderint homines:" "Blessed are ye when men shall hate you." "So greatly," writes the historian, "were their minds deceived by the spirit of seduction." So triumphantly, we should say, were they supported by the Spirit of God. "Then," he adds, "that detestable company, having their foreheads cauterized, were subjected to a just severity: he who bore pre-eminence over them, on account of his ministry, suffering the dishonour of a double brand, on the chin as well as on the forehead. Their garments being torn down to the middle, they were publicly flogged, with resounding stripes driven out of the city, and, through the inclemency of the weather, (for it was winter, and a hard frost, and no one showed them the least pity,) they miserably perished."* More than a thousand years before, a satirist had enumerated Britons among the most rude and cruel barbarians of the known world; and this atrocious treatment of defenceless and unoffending foreigners, in which King, Bishops, citizens, and peasants all took part, demonstrates that Roman Christianity had done nothing, in all that time, for our country. We pass over a horrible massacre of Jews which took place about the same time at York, and wrongs innumerable sustained by that ancient people, both in England and abroad, because it is painful to relate such examples of barbarity, and because they belong to another branch of history. But murder of Jews and Germans cannot appear strange to any one who observes the constitutional obduracy and impetuosity of the higher Clergy towards their brethren, as displayed by Anselm of Canterbury and his Bishops. English Priests had still been permitted to take wives, perhaps because they would not submit to be prevented; but Council after Council, and letter after letter from the High Priest at Rome, commanded them to turn their wives out of doors, never see them again, except in the street in the presence of two witnesses; and threatened married Priests with degradation, and, consequently, ruin. Great difficulty had dissolute Popes and Cardinals to quench the spark of honesty and manly honour yet remaining in the bosoms of poor parish Priests; and at one time they were so much perplexed in

* Guliel. Neubrig. Rev. Anglican. lib. ii., cap. 13, cited by Faber, Vallenees, &c., ii., 8.

3 U their ungodly and inhuman enterprise, that the Archbishop required, in writing, the Bishop of Norwich and other persons "to persuade the people of Norfolk and Suffolk that, as they professed Christianity, they should subdue them, as rebels against the Church, and utterly drive both them and their wives out of the country, placing Monks in their room."* Here, then, is pure sacerdotal Christianity, to raise the mob on all the married Priests of Norfolk and Suffolk, with stones and bludgeons, to drive them, their wives, and little children, out of every town and village, on a cold winter night, it might be, none showing the least pity, that the rebels might perish like the martyrs at Oxford.

The third Council of Lateran and that of Verona were of great importance in relation to subsequent events. The former was held by Alexander III., (A.D. 1179,) during the persecution of the Albigenses in the south of France. To give efficiency to the priesthood, who had now to cope with "heresy" almost everywhere, it was ordained that in every cathedral there should be a master maintained, to give gratuitous instruction to poor Clerks. There were many regulations tending to the same object, and others relating to Jews and Saracens; but the last canon is the most remarkable. It set forth that the Church, although she rejects bloody executions, does not refuse to be aided by the laws of Christian Princes; and the fear of bodily punishment sometimes drives people to the spiritual remedy. Heretics, under the names of Catharines, Patarines, and Publicans, were become so strong in Gascony, the district of Alby, the territory of Toulouse, and elsewhere, that they no longer hid themselves, but taught their errors publicly. They were therefore put under anathema, both they and their protectors, and even any who should presume to transact any business with them: if they died in sin, there was to be no oblation for their souls, and the bodies were not to have Christian sepulture. As for certain provincial heretics, in Brabant, Arragon, Navarre, and other places, who paid no respect to churches or monasteries, who spared neither widows nor orphans, nor age nor sex, who pillaged and laid waste everything as if they were Pagans, (which is quite a new piece of description,) it was equally ordained that they who listened to them, retained or protected them, should be read out in the churches every Sunday and feast-day, as excommunicate, and not absolved until they should have renounced their pestiferous society, and abjured their heresy. All who had been engaged with them by any agreement were informed that they were released from all homage or oath which they might have rendered. All the faithful were required, for the remission of their sins, courageously to oppose their ravages, and take up arms to defend Christians against those wretches, whose property ought to be confiscated; and it was declared that Princes might reduce them to slavery. All who, being truly penitent, should die in fighting with such persons, were assured that they need not doubt of receiving pardon of their sins, and eternal glory. (Here we have a taste of the Korán again.) Two years of indulgence were offered to all who would take up arms in the holy cause; the Bishops might enlarge this bounty; and, while so fighting, they were to be

* Foxe, Acts and Monuments, vol. ii., p. 160.

COUNCIL OF VERONA.

privileged persons, under the protection of the Church, like those who visited the holy sepulchre. Those who despised the exhortations of the Bishops, to bear arms against sinners, should be excommunicated. And Bishops who did not vigorously enforce this decree were to be suspended from the functions of their office.* It is said that at this Council some poor Waldenses made their appearance, bringing a French book, as a specimen of their writings, and asking permission to preach. If so, they had a more tolerable reception than might have been expected. A waggish Clerk was desired by the Pope to examine them theologically. The selection of the examiner was a signal for merriment; and after the third question they were dismissed amidst roars of laughter.† They were probably weak folk, who reverenced the Pope, while they could not be satisfied with Popery.

Lucius III. celebrated a Council at Verona, (A.D. 1184,) whither he had gone in consequence of a quarrel with the Romans. The Council was graced by the presence of the Emperor; and they accepted, from their spiritual head, a constitution to the following effect:—"The vigour of the Church ought to be aroused to abolish the various heresies which have begun to spring up in all directions; especially since they have found support in the imperial power. Therefore, in the presence of our dear son, the Emperor Frederic, with the advice of our brethren, the Cardinals, Patriarchs, Archbishops, and Bishops, and of many Lords assembled from diverse parts of the world, we condemn, by this decree, all heresies of whatsoever name; among others, the Catharines and Patarines, and those who are falsely called Humiliati, or Poor Men of Lyons, the Passagiati, Josephins, and Arnoldists. We place them all under a perpetual anathema. And because some, under pretence of piety, arrogate authority to preach, we comprehend under the same anathema all who shall dare to preach in public or in private, without having mission and authority from us and the Bishop of the place; all who think or teach otherwise than the Roman Church, touching the sacrament of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, baptism, remission of sins, marriage, and the other sacraments; and, in general, all those who shall have been judged heretics by the Roman Church, by each Bishop in his diocese, with the counsel of his Clergy, or, the see being vacant, by the Clergy alone, or, if necessary, with the advice of neighbouring Bishops. We also condemn all who shall give entertainment or protection to these heretics, whether they be called Comforted, Believers, Perfect, or known by any other superstitious name. And because the severity of ecclesiastical discipline is sometimes despised by those who do not comprehend its power, we ordain that those who shall be manifestly convicted of the abovesaid errors, if they be Clerks or religious, be deprived of every order and benefice, and abandoned to the secular power, to receive convenient punishment; unless the offender, as soon as discovered, makes abjuration in the hands of the Bishop of the place. The layman also shall be punished by the secular Judge, unless he makes abjuration. Suspected persons shall be punished in

* Como. Lateran. iii., decret. 27.

† Faber, Vallensee, &c., book iii., chap. 19.

3 v 2 the same manner, unless they prove their innocence by due purification; but those who relapse after abjuration or purification shall be left to the judgment of the secular authority, without being heard again, and the property of Clerks shall be applied, according to the laws, to the churches they had served. This excommunication against all heretics shall be renewed by all the Bishops at the grand solemnities, or when occasion shall be presented, under penalty of being suspended for three years from episcopal functions." And, after some directions to Bishops and others, the decree continues:—"We also ordain that Earls, Barons, Rectors, and Consuls of cities and other places, promise on oath to follow the monition of the Bishops, to aid the Church effectively against heretics and their accomplices, when required, and apply themselves in good faith to execute to the utmost what the Church and the empire have ordered in this matter. If not, they shall be deprived of their dignities, not admitted to any other, and shall be excommunicated besides, and their lands laid under interdict. The city that resists this decree, or that, being informed by the Bishop, shall neglect to punish transgressors, shall be cut off from the commerce of other cities, and lose episcopal dignity. All the abettors of heretics shall be branded with perpetual infamy, and as such be incapable of being advocates, or witnesses, or of holding any public office. Those who are independent of the Bishop, and subject only to the Holy See, shall nevertheless abide by the judgment of the Bishops as delegates of the Holy See, their privileges notwithstanding."

This aggression on the civil liberties of Christendom has been extenuated by the plausible, yet feeble, allegation that the temporal power concurred with the spiritual, and that therefore the laity, as well as the Clergy, had only to submit to the decision of their superiors in that Council. But every one must know that the incessant conflict between the two powers, which contributed largely to the turbulence of those ages, could not be ended by now and then an amicable interview of Emperor and Pope. The actual union of powers in a swarm of Prince-Bishops, and the prostration of regal dignity in Priest-ridden Kings, left the civil magistracy of Europe devoid of energy, and the people shorn of their strength. And if there had been no such disagreement or usurpation existing, as to preclude the possibility of a common understanding between the hierarchy and the states, nor any usurpation of secular power by the Church, it would even then be vain to imagine that Frederic at Verona could represent the interests, or would be very careful to guard the rights, of nearly all Europe. What really appears in these two Councils, and in the intermediate proceedings of the Legate Henry in France, is the beginning of the Inquisition. Bishops were, by any means, to inform themselves of the private actions and opinions of all persons at whom the finger of detraction or cupidity might point; common rumour or malicious information was to supersede legal evidence; persons were to be classified in secret registers as suspected, convicted, penitent, or relapsed; correspondent penalties were to be inflicted; the secular arm was to wield the sword of vengeance in obedience to the ecclesiastical head. As yet, indeed, Inquisitors-general and their subalterns

INQUISITORIAL TYRANNY.

were not appointed, the Bishops were not laid under the terror of a Holy Office; but Commissioners, not ordinary Legates, were sent to supply the deficiency of zeal or courage in the Bishops, for the inquisition and extirpation of heresy, and their will was to be sovereign, their decision without appeal. And although the Bishops were temporarily appointed to act against heretics, that was not to be done by virtue of their office as overseers, but in pursuance of a special delegation of power from the Pope.

And here we must also mark the inaccuracy of a vulgar apology for the Church, that the Inquisition, not she, has been guilty of those solemn and judicial cruelties. The third Council of Lateran, or eleventh of those called General, the Council of Verons, all the Popes, and every ecclesiastical body contemporary with the defections from the Romish Church, from the pontificate of Alexander III. to that of Leo X., and all Popes and Councils from Lateran to Trent, have maintained the doctrine of which the Inquisition was—thank God we cannot now say is—the full expression. Each act of the Inquisition was as truly that of the Church, as the acts of the executive are those of the State.

Facts will be adduced to show that the majority of the Clergy, who, in their own estimation, are the Church, always cherished that murderous institution, and resisted the endeavours of the laity to effect its abolition; but it is encouraging to observe, even amongst them, the leavening of a better principle, the element, not of reform in Popery, which is impossible, but of a development in the condition of the nominally Christian world which we had not yet been so happy as to witness. Some expressions of Fleury—an accomplished and liberal, if not altogether unbiassed, historian, nor sufficiently careful to separate fact from fable—deserve notice, as showing, once for all, the spirit of an important class of persons within the Romish Church. "Of all changes of discipline," he writes, "I see none that has more discredited the Church than the severity exercised against heretics, and other excommunicated persons." After enumerating examples of tolerance in earlier times, marking the eighth century as the age in which the holy discipline of gentleness and long-suffering was forgotten, and giving instances of censurable severity while as yet the Church endeavoured to avoid the crime, or at least the infamy, of shedding blood, he points out a discrepancy between the theory and the practice of his brethren. "In practice this has not been always followed. When Pope Innocent III. wrote to King Philip Augustus to employ his arms against the Albigeuses, and when he caused a crusade to be preached against them in France, was that rejecting bloody executions? I shall speak of the Crusades in another discourse: here I am only speaking of the persecution of heretics; and I confess that I cannot bring the conduct of the Ecclesiastics of the thirteenth century to agree with that of the saints of the fourth. When I see Bishops and Cistercian Abbots at the head of those armies which made such slaughter of heretics, as at the taking of Béziers; when I see the Cistercian Abbot desiring the death of the heretics of Minerbe, although, being Monk and Priest, he did not dare to condemn them openly; and when I see the Crusaders burning those unhappy people with so great glee, as said the Monk of Vaux-Sernai in many passages of his history; in all this I no longer recognise the spirit of the Church."* These are indeed sorrowful reflections, (tristes reflexions,) but honourable to the learned Prior of Argenteuil, with whom we join in the inevitable conclusion that in the Church of Rome the spirit of the church of Christ is no longer to be recognised. The truth is, that the spirit of that Church is tyrannous, even over her own members. The inferior Clergy were oppressed equally with the laity, and the humiliation of both went on with equal progress. We have just seen Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, endeavouring to raise the people of Norfolk and Suffolk upon the parish Priests of those counties, who were thus excited to employ sticks or stones for the chastisement of their spiritual Pastors, at the instigation of their own chief Minister, and of a future saint. A curious letter of the same dignitary gives a glimpse of monastic discipline in his day. A certain Monk was reported by his Abbot to have presumed to say that he would rather whip himself than be whipped by order of his monastical Superior, that he would prefer doing voluntary penance to being flogged at the discretion of another. Anselm piously composes a lengthy epistle to teach him otherwise. Kings and rich proud men command themselves to be whipped, and this he calls "kingly." Monks are whipped contrary to their own desire, and this kind of whipping he properly calls "monkish." "Therefore, be thou sure that one whipping of a Monk by obedience is of more merit than innumerable whippings taken by his own mind. But whereas he is such that he ought always to have his heart ready, without murmuring, obediently to be whipped, we ought to judge him then to be of a great merit, whether he be whipped privily or openly."† The principal form of this oppression in the twelfth century was frequent coercion of incontinent Clerks, as they were called; forcible injunction of celibacy, severing the Clergy from all domestic ties, breaking their spirit, and placing them at the mercy of their superiors. Stubborn resistance and even murderous revolt were provoked, adding guilt to degradation; but such proceedings were ineffectual to remove the evil.

Not only Rome, but Jerusalem also, called a holy city, was the seat of a temporal power that abused the sanction of Christianity. The warriors who had won the city, and a few places of lesser consequence, would not, indeed, submit to the desire of a Patriarch to take the reins of government into his hand, as one superior to all secular jurisdiction; but they allowed the Clergy exorbitant power in their petty kingdom; bishoprics were ridiculously multiplied, Prelates sat with Barons to elect the Sovereign and to rule the State; the crown was set on the head of the person so elected by the hand of the Patriarch, not so much a Minister of God, as representative of the Church, and especially of the supreme Pontiff; heresy was punished by confiscation, apostasy by burning; Moslems were vexed

* Quatrième Discours sur l'Histoire Ecclésiastique, sect. xiv.

† Foxe, Acts and Monuments, vol. ii., p. 171.

CRUSADES IN THE EAST.

or murdered in the name of Christ on every pretext or opportunity; ecclesiastical interests were craftily and greedily promoted, while those of the nation were perilled by rapacity, jealousy, and faction. The knighthood of Jerusalem were barbarously chivalrous towards pilgrims; but honour, or even bare compassion, towards a vanquished Moslem was no part of their chivalry; and, in mad forgetfulness of the small extent of that newly-acquired territory, imperfectly defended against innumerable hosts of Saracens, they provoked hostility by contempt, rapine, and every form of reckless insolence. Christianity, as, by desecration of that sacred name, the religion of the Franks was called, was probably inferior, in the eye of the world, to the dark and intolerant system of Islam. The Jerusalem Christians had to cry for help, and Europe was again invited to enter on crusade. The history of those wars must be sought elsewhere; but some notice of them is necessary to complete the picture of a Church busied in destroying men's souls, rather than in saving them.

While the Pope, Eugenius III., was at Viterbo, (A.D. 1145,) and Rome under the sway of Arnold of Brescia, some Armenian Bishops, deputed by their Metropolitan, presented themselves at his feet to solicit communion with the Roman Church. If their tale may be credited, they had slowly passed through perils by land and sea for the space of eighteen months; their Catholic, or Patriarch, had a thousand Bishops under his jurisdiction; and they had been involved in minute controversy with the Greeks. But their Catholic had been driven from his see by the Turks or Tartars; * they were rent into factions, and sought a centre of ecclesiastical unity in the expatriated and feeble Pontiff. At the same time, a Syrian Bishop appeared before Eugenius, to ask his sanction of a demand urged by himself and brethren at Antioch, to enjoy a tenth of all spoils taken from the Saracens, after the precedent of Abraham, who had given a tenth of the spoils to Melchizedec. Tidings also came of the fall of Edessa into the hands of the Turks, and of the perilous condition of Jerusalem. The Pope, recently elected to the pontificate, and taken from monastic retirement, to borrow the comparison of Bernard, like a babe from the bosom of his mother, had not energy nor opportunity to help Edessa and Jerusalem while the gates of Rome were shut against him; but Bernard supplied the deficiency, and preached in France, urging to the holy war with a force and authority over Princes, like that which Peter the hermit had exerted on the common people. The King of France had already determined to cross himself, and gave the weight of royal authority and example to aid the exhortations of the Abbot. Both these personages pleaded for the kingdom of Jerusalem as if it had been the kingdom of heaven,

* These names, which originally belonged to single tribes, and were afterwards applied to entire peoples, are sometimes interchanged. In the present instance, some historians attribute the troubles of Armenia to the Turks, but it is, perhaps, more exact to say Tartars, at whose head Goughiz Chan and his successors struck terror into the inhabitants of all Asia, and some part of Europe.

and the second Crusade resulted from that movement. Bernard wrote a circular letter exhorting the people of Europe to fulfil the will of God, and above all other inducements placed the merit of such devotion. Almighty God, he affirmed, had deigned to call to his service murderers, thieves, adulterers, and perjured men, to make himself debtor for their services, and pay them in pardons and eternal glory. But many thought that if sin could be blotted out by killing Saracens, the murder of Jews must be at least equally effectual; a monkish Preacher of the Crusade on the banks of the Rhine preached up death to the Jews, and multitudes of that people were massacred. St. Bernard found it in his conscience to reprove the zealot, and to teach that the descendants of Ishmael might be meritoriously slain, but not those of Jacob; and the mystery of his distinction was removed by an exhortation of the Abbot of Clugni, addressed to St. Louis, to spare the lives of the Jews, but to take their money, which could not be forthcoming if the nation were extinct. The advice was taken: blood ceased to flow, gold being exacted in its stead; and two Sovereigns deserted their dominions to seek after glory in Palestine. The Emperor, Conrad III., assembled his army at Ratisbon, the French King, Louis VII., joined his at Mayence, and they simultaneously marched towards Constantinople (A.D. 1147). Treachery of the Greek Emperor, Manuel, fatigue, hunger, floods, and battles minished the forces of both Sovereigns; cabals and treason stole victory out of their hands. Damascus, for example, was lost ere well conquered, through the corruption of the army by Moslem gold, and the Monarchs returned with but a small remnant of their hosts. The soldiers of the West thenceforth regarded Palestine and Syria as the great field on which their prowess could be most gloriously displayed. Popular superstition was made subservient to the ambitious projects of their rulers. The Kings of England and France agreed (A.D. 1177) that they would take the Cross; but prudence again checked the zeal of Henry, and death frustrated the intention of Louis. The idea, nevertheless, laid hold on their subjects, and the Ecclesiastics incessantly fanned the reviving flame. But when intelligence came that Saladin, Lord of Egypt and Syria, had defeated the Christians in a great battle near Tiberias, and then taken Jerusalem, (A.D. 1187,) all Europe was smitten with terror, or burning with revenge. From Constantinople to London all were of one purpose; but France, Germany, and England made the greatest efforts to revenge the loss, and our own lion-hearted Richard showed himself excellent in valour. Yet that expedition only served to prolong, for a little, the existence of the unprofitable kingdom of Jerusalem; and Richard, made prisoner by his former allies, on his return homeward, was only restored to England on the payment of an immense ransom, to the injury of his subjects, who had not yet learnt that a religious war cannot be forwarded by the divine blessing, but is, of all others, the most hateful and most disastrous. A fourth time (A.D. 1195) Western Christendom was summoned by the publication of a Crusade, to waste human life and treasure in an armed migration for the recovery of Jerusalem. Saladin had died;

CRUSADE IN THE NORTH.

the Mohammedans were exhausted after long warfare, chiefly with Richard; and it was thought that the "Holy Land" might then be fully conquered. The English were suffering too severely from the preceding experiment to hazard a second, perhaps a fatal, failure; but some Germans and French obeyed the summons of Pope Celestine III. As if blighted by the breath of Heaven, the combined army wasted away before the scimitar of the infidel; the Chiefs quarreled as usual, some of them even deserted their camp at night; and they who had taken the sword shamefully perished by the sword. A fifth time the pretended Vicar of Christ endeavoured to call up the declining chivalry of Europe for the service of the Church. Foulques de Neuilly, whose history is briefly related on preceding pages, had been long labouring to persuade the populace to seek heaven by making war upon the enemies of Christianity; and in the last year of this century, (A.D. 1200,) some French and Flemish Knights, imbued, by the habit of persecuting heretics at home, with the spirit that breathes threatening and slaughter towards infidels abroad, responding to the exhortations of the Preacher, applied to the Venetian Republic for ships to transport their forces to the shores of Palestine; but, soon deserted by multitudes who had engaged to contribute or to serve, became involved in debt to the commercial people of Venice, and were compelled to pay them an equivalent: first, by storming for them a town on the coast of the Adriatic, that had revolted; and then, to the amazement of Europe, by aiding in the conquest of Constantinople on behalf of a pretender to the throne of the Greek empire, despite the threatenings of the Pope, who was scandalized at seeing Christian Crusaders turn their arms, blessed for warfare with Saracens, against Christians untainted with any of the proscribed opinions, free from any heresy learned out of the Bible.

Besides heretics and Turks, the Church had another set of enemies whom she deemed herself bound to subdue or to extirpate. Rational and religious conversion was not contemplated. For in every war with an unconverted northern people, even if sufficiently justified on other grounds, the Paganism of that people was counted as a reason for hostility, until the notion became established, that the rejection of Christianity was alone sufficient to justify invasion; hatred of the worshippers of idols was esteemed a virtue; and the holy wars were only distinguished from others by callous disregard of usages which ordinarily softened the horrors of the battle-field, or the severities of conquest. During the progress of the second Crusade in Syria and Palestine, the Pope readily acceded to the requests of a multitude of Saxon zealots, and sanctioned a Crusade against the Pagans of the North. Frederic, Archbishop of Magdeburg, the Bishops of Alberstadt, Munster, Merseburg, Brandenburg, Havelberg, and Olmutz, the Abbot of Corbey, and several lay Lords, led an army of sixty thousand men. Another armament of forty thousand was conducted by the Archbishop of Bremen, the Bishop of Werden, Henry Duke of Saxony, and other laymen. The King of Denmark, with the Bishops of his kingdom, put into motion all the Danish forces, both by sea and land, amounting to not fewer than a hundred thou-

3 x sand men, about half of the united armies. This host made a simultaneous attack on the Sclavonians at several points, spreading devastation, and murdering unarmed multitudes. Many towns were burnt, and, among them, Malchow, with a heathen temple in its neighbourhood. After three months had been spent in desolation rather than war, the German Princes were reminded that those provinces would yield no revenue if emptied of inhabitants. The lay Chiefs of the Crusade began to calculate the mischief, the men participated in fear of the consequences of such an event, and the sword was sheathed, not at the bidding of mercy, but at the suggestion of cupidity. Peace was made on condition that the Sclavonians should receive the Christian religion, and release the Danish slaves. Baptisms were administered, but no one confessed Christianity with sincerity; old and weakly slaves were emancipated, and the working-men retained. The Saxons were too politic to venture on extirpation, the Sclavonians too independent to bear the yoke of so hateful a religion, and the northern Crusade came to nothing.* One reflection, however, is suggested by it, that may serve the cause of charity. The Saxons were impelled by Popery to a general slaughter of their pagan neighbours, and only prevented from consummating their intention by a motive of self-interest. The Spaniards of the sixteenth century, so impelled, but not so restrained, did extirpate the aborigines of those regions of South America which fell under their power. Saxon and Spaniard were equally guilty; but although one race has produced a Luther, and the other none more illustrious in common fame than the Inquisitor and literary Cardinal Ximenes; they were both found obedient to the same impulse of bigotry. We Anglo-Saxons, then, have no reason to boast over the Spaniards, since Christianity on one side, and its corruption on the other, have made them and us what we now are; and proofs without number might be adduced to show that defects of national character are not intrinsic in the people, but originate in far deeper causes than diversity of climate, of race, or of political institutions. Without fear of exaggeration, we may venture to affirm, that the spirit of the Latin Church had become thoroughly martial. It was a military Church. There was no degree in either of the two divisions of the Clergy, secular and regular, that did not contribute of its members to the command or service of an army. The military orders naturally arose out of the habits and events of the twelfth century, and probably would have arisen under other names, if the Crusades had not produced Hospitallers and Templars. While Jerusalem was under the dominion of the Saracens, the Italian merchants had obtained permission from the Caliph at Cairo to erect a church in Jerusalem, where they might worship according to their own ritual. Besides a church, they had built two hospitals, one for each sex, and therein welcomed indigent pilgrims, as well as received the sick. After the conquest of the city, the hospital served for wounded soldiers also; and the humane diligence and self-denial of persons who voluntarily devoted themselves to that service, won universal respect. The institution was first

* Mosheim, cent. xli., part 1., chap. 1; Fleury, lxix., 30.

MILITARY ORDERS.

enriched by the donation of an estate in Brabant, from Godfrey, and afterwards by similar offerings from the more wealthy Crusaders. From the character of laymen they advanced to that of Monks, paying to the Patriarch vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience; and about the middle of the century, having received some special privileges from the Pope, and finding themselves elevated in honours and wealth, the Friars took the sword, and became Knights. Careful gradation of rank and distribution of duties gave efficiency to the institution; within the precincts of the hospital, the sick and the indigent found succour, while Knights and Serjeants were ready at every call to vindicate the cause of an oppressed or suffering Christian, or to attack the enemies of the faith, whoever they might be. They served in the wars of the Crusades, and afterwards were found all over Europe, classed according to nation or language, living on endowments, and ready to draw the sword according to the vocation of their order. The Templars originated in the benevolence and valour of some Italians and Frenchmen, who bound themselves by vow to watch the roads frequented by pilgrims passing through their respective countries towards the Holy Land, and to protect helpless brethren from the perils of the way, especially from the attacks of robbers. They, too, wore a cross on their garments, and were thence called Knights of the Red Cross, or soldiers of Christ. As their number increased, they gradually organized a system of government for themselves; and as the Hospitallers had added the military to the religious character, they added the religious to the military. Their order was confirmed by the Council of Troyes (A.D. 1128). Baldwin I. gave them permission to occupy part of the royal palace at Jerusalem, near to the site of the temple of Solomon; and hence came their appellation, "Templars." These examples were soon imitated. A warlike emulation glowed in the bosoms of cloistered Monks, who proved themselves far more valorous than devout; and, if space permitted, we might describe the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre, and those of Avis, "the bird," who were created at Evora, in Portugal, with the Spanish orders of Alcántara, Calatrava, and St. James. We might trace to the benevolence of a poor German on the skirt of the Christian army at the siege of Acre, who spread a sail over some posts, and under its shadow, assisted by his wife, dressed the wounds of his countrymen, the order of Teutonic Knights, and follow the progress of about a dozen such institutions in this century alone.* Most of them originated in good intention, and many of the earlier volunteers deserved unqualified commendation. Their charity was fervent, spontaneous, and disinterested; but those Knights errant, armed at the same time with steel and with ecclesiastical prerogative and royal sanction, became injurious both to Church and State. Monastic vows, generally broken in cell and cloister, would much less be kept by men who led a predatory life; and dignity

* Mill's Crusades; Moreri's Great Historical Dictionary; Fleury's Ecclesiastical History. Most of the ecclesiastical historians, and indeed all the historians of the respective countries, in their accounts of the twelfth century, furnish information respecting these military orders.

3 x 2 of sentiment could not possibly be sustained by military Friars, whose rude frames might resist the shocks of war, penance, and excess, but whose minds were utterly unfurnished, and their ignorance notorious. As for the state of the Christians in the East, it may be described sufficiently by saying that, in Palestine and Syria, it was that of war with the Saracens, and that, beyond the boundaries of Islamism, a deteriorated Christianity still continued to make some progress. The successes of the Crusaders must have produced an impression of discouragement in the Mohammedans, who saw, for the first time, the tide of conquest turned against them. One of their Preachers in Tarsus of Cilicia endeavoured to lead a reformation, and preached boldly on the insufficiency of bodily ablution without purity of heart. Even in the cities of Aleppo and Bagdad, a Fakir went about the streets weeping, and crying with a loud voice that the religion of the Arabs would be blotted out by the Franks; and so strongly persuaded were many that it would be so, that in one of the chief mosques the pulpit was broken up, and the congregation solemnly declared the accustomed prayers to be ended (A.D. 1110, 1111). The panic might have spread, and the Crusaders might have obtained easy victories, if such manifestations had not aroused the Sultan of Bagdad to desperate but successful efforts. The eastern Christians did not thank the Latins for their interference. Unlike the pilgrims at Jerusalem, they had domestic interests at stake, and could foresee no advantage in being made enemies of the established government, or driven to the alternative of renouncing Christianity. Indeed their Mohammedan masters scarcely expected them to do this; and it is observable that, in some instances, as at the recovery of Edessa by Zinghi, the Turkish soldiers, after the first slaughter on storming the city, spared both the Syrian and Armenian Christians there, but destroyed every Frank whom they could find. Joscelyn, who afterwards attempted to reconquer that city, is branded by Abulpharagius with the epithet of "wicked."* The Armenian Christians were wasting their zeal in controversy with the Greeks; but in the remote regions of Tartary the name of Christ was honoured by the external homage, at least, of multitudes who had, at first, followed the example of their Sovereign, Prester-John, if that be his name or title;† and it would seem that the hierarchy of his barbaric court might vie with the princely retinue of the western Pontiff. But that glory soon faded; and the Christian Tartars brought no succour to soldiers of the Cross in Palestine. They waited, say some, for the Tigris to be frozen over, that they might march across. But the Tigris is never frozen.

Before passing from the twelfth to the thirteenth century we must pause for a moment to mark an abuse of authority in the discouragement and eventual suppression of vernacular languages in worship, a

* Abulpharagii Chronicon, Dynasty. x.

† Mosheim, cent. xii., part i., chap. 1, gives the result of his reading in a few perspicuous sentences, and a note; but, in the absence of authentic history, they can afford little certain information. See also Asseman, Bibloth. Orient., tom. iii., pars ii., p. 489, et seq.; Ludolf Comment. in Hist. Æthiop., pp. 218, 219.

DISUSE OF VERNACULAR LANGUAGES.

measure introductory to the prohibition of versions of the holy Scriptures in these languages. The original language of a sacred book has indisputable pre-eminence over every version, and abides the only authentic document, the standard of comparison, the law to which appeal must be ultimately made for the settling of controversy. It has also an historical value, growing with advance of time. The Hebrew Scriptures are the chief example of an original text preserved amidst great and numerous vicissitudes, still sacred in the estimation of both Jew and Christian, superstitiously venerated by the most illiterate member of the synagogue, and not less revered by a Lowth than by a Maimonides. From this respect to the original language it is universally retained in Jewish worship, the liturgical books being also written in Hebrew. The New Testament, written in Greek, was for ages quite intelligible to the Greeks, and even to this day any Englishman who reads that language may find his way through a Romsic volume in a week. Ancient Greek, therefore, the liturgical language of the Greek Church, is not quite unintelligible in Athens, but utterly barbarian in St. Petersburg. The Latins received Christianity through the medium of their own language, as did all other nations, and their forms of public prayer were gradually compiled in the languages spoken by the people; but when the vulgar speech underwent change, (and the change was always a corruption,) the Greek, Latin, Syriac, Armenian, Coptic, and Ethiopic, as perhaps Arabic and other Liturgies now lost, retained their place in common use, with the sanction of antiquity, the charm of distinctness from low colloquial speech, and the recommendation of literary superiority. Indeed the vulgar dialects were seldom employed for writing; and even at this day, although the passion for writing is excessive, it would be difficult to collect written specimens of many dialects still spoken, or but recently extinct. Some, as the ancient Gaulish, are utterly lost, because not preserved in writing. Throughout a great part of Europe, the most civilized (using the term "civilized" comparatively) and the oldest nations were indebted for the little literature they possessed to the language of Roman conquerors; the Church was literally, as well as geographically, Latin; and the Bible, the service-book, the treatise of secular science or history, were alike written in Latin. The orthography of common dialects was not fixed, provincial differences precluded them from general use, and the one language of the imperial city was necessarily the medium of general communication. The same Preacher could make himself understood so late as the tenth century in all the pulpits of southern Europe; not to speak Latin was a mark of extreme ignorance; the accomplishment was expected, even though the speaker could not sign his name; and when Latin became so corrupted, that the illustration of glossaries is necessary for those who wish now to read the writings of the middle ages, so extensive an exchange had everywhere been made with the vernacular, that theological and many other terms were used by the common people in their most familiar language; ergo, igitur, item, etiam, and scores more, served for the commencement or the connexion of their sentences, or Latin combinations were borrowed to express ideas not yet embodied in the vulgar phrase. In fairness to the old Roman Church it must be acknowledged that the use of Latin prayers and Latin Bibles was not, at first, a violent imposition. On one hand, the Priests were exhorted to translate the Scriptures and the principal formularies of confession to their congregations, just as the leaders of Jewish restoration translated the law of Moses from Hebrew into Chaldee on their return to Jerusalem, for the instruction of those who had lost the language of their fathers; and, on the other, the northern peoples of Europe, or at least several of them, had versions of the Bible and prayers for daily worship in their respective languages, Latin having never prevailed among them. This use of the vernacular was not resisted at Rome until, perhaps, the ninth century, when the desire for absolute uniformity had laid hold of many Ecclesiastics; but the resistance was not yet uniform, and we even find Pope John VIII. (A.D. 872—882) repeatedly protecting the northern congregations in the exercise of their established liberty. The case, however, of nations proselyted later is different. They neither had, nor cared to have, prayer in intelligible words. The ancient churches of Tomi, (Tomisvar,) on the coast of the Black Sea, those of the Sclavonians in Poland, and of the Germans under Charlemagne, still afforded distinct examples of worship in their respective languages. But the zealots of the twelfth century, the age of reviving persecution, would regard a mass in vulgar tongue as an insufferable expression of independence, and the power now exercised by the Bishop of Rome over all the churches of the West would make perseverance therein impossible; except for some time in Bohemia, and in Poland, where, by a concession wrung from the Pontiffs by that brave people, the Sclavonic liturgy was celebrated in the fifteenth century in the Benedictine college of St. Cross, under an indulgence like that which allowed the Mozarabic to be heard in an endowed chapel at Toledo. The obnoxious version of Waldo, the writings of the Vaudois of Piedmont, the association of Bible-readers at Metz, and the appeal made to the word of God by people of all ranks against the dominant superstition, determined the priesthood to forbid every where the use of an understood language to disclose the meaning of either Bible or Prayer-book; and it was, is, and yet will be, vain for the Romish laity to plead the authority of St. Paul to the pretended successor of St. Peter in condemnation of the unreasonable practice of locking up truth in Latin.* These observations are preparatory to the narration of a series of persecutions "for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ," that will be found in the next chapter. The fall of Ireland under the domination of Rome, the beginning of the woes of that unhappy country, is one of those initiatory events which mark the present period of our history. It may be briefly told. A discontented Bishop, Malachy O'Morgair, having, no doubt, private understanding with brethren of Romeward tendencies, crossed the seas, threw himself at the feet of Pope Innocent II., volunteered his services to bring Ireland into submission, returned in the character of Papal Legate, bearing preliminary pro-

* Villanueva, De la Leccion de las sagradas Escrituras en Lenguas vulgares, cap. ix.; Krasinski, Reformation in Poland, vol. i., part i.

THIRTEENTH CENTURY.

posals, held a meeting, or, for greater dignity, we may say a synod, where fifteen Bishops, two hundred Priests, and a train of inferior Clergy, at his earnest entreaty, deputed him to present their homage to the Holy Father. Eugenius III., by that time succeeded to the Papal throne, gave him the second welcome, and despatched a Cardinal as Apostolic Legate, with four palls, to be worn by the four Archbishops. This livery was first accepted in the year 1152.*