demands the Restitution of his Friend and Allye which being denied he declares War against the Traitor and this our worthy Libel calls a Breach of the Treaty of Peace between Gizericus and Zeno when the War was entered into purely in its defence against an Usurper And what was the Success of this War is vulgarly known the Vandals that had kept Africa 45 years were utterly beat out of it in 3 Months and their King carried Captive to Rome And if the Reader would know Procopius his own Judgment of it it was plainly this All past Ages have seen many things come to pass beyond Humane Expectation and so will all Ages to come as long as the State of Humane Affairs continues in the same posture And some things have been brought about that were supposed impossible and when they have been so they have astonish't the undertakers themselves But whether any thing hap'ned like this Transaction I remember not For what a Prodigious thing is it that 5000 Strangers that was the Number of all the Horse that Belizarius brought with him by whom alone the Vandals were vanquish't when they had not one Port to land in should in such a Moment of Time over-throw the Grand-Child of the Great King Gizerick and make an entire Conquest of a Kingdom of so great Wealth and Strength And this in my weak Opinion may very well pass for a Miracle both of Fortune and Vertue And as for the Gothick War in Italy as it had the same Cause so had it the same Event It was undertaken in defence of a Confederate Prince and ended in the Conquest and Captivity of the Usurper But of this we have given an Account already as far as Belizarius Acted in it but because the War was not ended when he was recall'd let us now see its last Event which our Author says was the utter devastation of Italy Belizarius being recall'd the War is Committed to Narses the only Captain equal to him for Conduct Courage Bounty Justice and Clemency and so he made as quick a dispatch in Italy as Belizarius had done in Africk He vanquish't that Great Captain Totilas in one pitch't Battel and Teias his Successor in another though they had call'd in the Franks to their Assistance and made such incredible slaughters of them that both the Nations were almost utterly extinquish't and at last condescends to grant Peace to the small Remainders upon condition of quitting Italian Ground forever and so drove them out of the Country like a Flock of Sheep so far Procopius to the 26th year of the Reign of Justinian But the Goths unwilling to lose their present Possessions in Italy as Agathias continues the History draw in the Franks and the Almans to joyn Forces against the Romans and bring an Army into the Field of Seventy Two Thousand Men who were all cut in pieces in the first Battel and that was the end of the War All which is elegantly enough summ'd up by his Nephew Justin in his Speech to the Ambassadors of the King of the Avares Sub quo Vandalici ceciderunt strage Tyranni Edomitique Getae pubes Alemanica Franci Totque aliae gentes famosaque regna per orbem Ardua sub nostris flectentia colla triumphis Suscepere jugum mentes animosque dedere Servitio nobisque manent ex hoste fideles This is the true Relation of Justinian's Wars which whether we consider their Cause their management or their success were the most justifiable and most glorious Wars that were ever waged from the beginning of the World They were not wantonly undertaken but either in defence of himself or his injured Allyes whom he was bound to assist in Justice as well as Humanity They were managed with all the strictness of Discipline and by all the Rules of Mercy and Clemency no Plunder committed no Violence offered to any of the Inhabitants no not to an Enemy unarmed insomuch that when Gilimer's Ambassadors that were sent to the King of the Vice-Goths fell unawares into the Power of Belizarius he treated them with Civility and sent them home with safety And lastly as for their success no Reign can equal them neither did he only stop the War for the present but for ever by rooting up as well as cutting down-all the Enemies of his Country In short when a very great part of it had for many years groan'd under the Tyranny of Barbarians he restored it entirely to its Ancient Liberties And yet this is the Devil the Plague the Fury that was sent into the World in an Humane shape for the utter destruction of the Roman Empire And thus having justified Justinian's Wars from all suspicion of injustice or cruelty let us briefly consider those other Actions by which he laid wast and depopulated the Roman Empire and that is best described in his Books de Aedificiis that were written four years after this counterfeit Libel and that is a very unhappy stumble of this barbarous Writer the ill timing of his Libel If he had written it after all the other Books of Procopius it might have had some seeming pretence to a secret History But a Libel placed between two Panegyricks looks very awkerdly and gives it self the Lie Now the Character that is given to Justinian in the Introduction to the Books de Aedificiis is but an Epitome of his eight Books of History that he recover'd the shatter'd Empire to its ancient splendor and greatness from the Barbarians and whereas Themistocles could only boast that he could make a little City great he added great and vast Kingdoms to his Dominions and divers large Provinces that were cut off from the Empire he re-united to it and built numberless new Cities And whereas the Church was torn in pieces with infinite Schisms and Factions he settled it in Peace and Unity He freed the Laws from confusion and obscurity and made the administration of Justice plain and easie he was merciful to his Enemies bountiful to all Men as much solicitous to preserve happiness of life to his Subjects as the Government of the Empire to himself He every where guarded the Frontiers and compass't in the whole Empire with new Fortifications to fence out the barbarous People that he had driven out Among the Princes of old Cyrus bears one of the greatest Names for his Vertues but whether Xenophon's description of him be altogether real or in a great measure Poetical I know not But as for Justinian I am sure he was a Father to his Country indeed and if we observe the course of his Reign that of Cyrus will appear but a trifle to it And this is best proved by his Actions for who can doubt of his Greatness when he sees the Empire so vastly enlarged or of his Clemency when he sees so many of those very Men that had conspired against his life not only to enjoy their own Lives and Estates but to be advanced to the greatest Commands in the Imperial Army and
willful Malice and apparent Forgery In the same undertaking he is followed 〈◊〉 Eichelius Professor at Heltusted in Franconia in the Year 1654 who has after the German Fashion of writing for Marts improved the little Treatise into a great Book by transcribing those Quotations at length which the other only referred to And though both the substance and the wit of his Book are too grosly borrowed and that sometimes in the very same words without owning his Author yet he was a Learned man and has added a great many useful Remarks of History from his own observation has prosecuted the design more at large and demonstrated the disingenuity of the Procopian Author from these 11 Topicks 1. That he writes many things impossible in themselves 2. Many things contradicted by Co-Temperary Writers 3. By himself 4. That what he vehemently commends in his other Writings he here as vehemently inveighs against 5. That what came to pass by chance or by other mens default he imputes to Justinian 6. That he blames many commendable Actions 7. That he praises what he ought to blame 8. That he exaggerates things indifferent to the disadvantage of Justinian 9. That he wrests many of Justinians bravest Actions to an ill sense 10. That he picks up all trifling Reports of the Vulgar against him 11. That he writes divers things of great moment that are no where attested by any Co-Temporary Writers All which are I think sufficient to over-whelm the Reputation of any Writer and yet they are all so visible through the whole Vein of this Libel as to expose themselves to every mans view without searching for them But though this Author has quitted himself in the Historical Part of his Book as became a Learned Man yet he being an Erastian by principle he has all along failed in his observations upon Matter of Fact proceeding every where in that Fundamental mistake about Justinian as if he had pretended to give not only his Ratification but the first Validity to the Laws of the Church And therefore though I shall gratefully accept and acknowledge any assistance that thâ—se Learned Men have given me I shall be forced to make my own observations especially as to those things that concern Religion in which they are both mistaken And as for the Historical Part I shall not trouble my self or the Reader with any later Writers as they have done such as Zonaras Nicephorus Cedrenus c. but shall meerly relye upon Co-temporaries or such as lived upon the next Confines of the Age that they write of as I have carefully done through this whole History And such are in the Age that we are now treating of Procopius himself Agathius Marcellinus Comes Facundus Hermianensis Liberatus Diaconus Cassiodorus Jornandes Victor Tunonensis Gregorius Turonensis Evagrius Scholasticus under Mauritius and the Chronicon Alexandrinum under Heraclius And from them though the greatest part of them were either enemies or disobliged Persons I doubt not but to shew the falshood of the Libel it self and the Malice of its Abettors In the first place we have all the reason in the World to reject the Book it self as a spurious Pamphlet dishonestly fathered upon Procopius when we find it never so much as mention'd by any of the Ancients or by any Writer whatsoever for many Ages after his own time And yet it is next to impossible but that they must have taken notice of a work of such a peculiar streâ—n if it had been extant in their time especially when his other Writings were so well known in his own and all following Ages Evagrius who writ in the same Age though some time after viz. under Mauritius commends his other Histories without any mention of this Agathias Scholasticus that both Epitomised and continued his History and Johannes Scholasticus that writ not long after the death of Justinian knew nothing of this work though both were so well acquainted with his other Writings Photius that diligent and judicious Critick gives an high Character of his other works but is utterly silent about this In short the first Author that makes any mention of it is that crude and injudicious Rhapsodist Suidas who lived not till the 11th Century 500 Years after Procopius but he comes too late not being vouch't by any more Ancient Testimony and then his own can be of no Credâ—t especially considering the humour of the man who was a meer Collector without choice or judgment setting down whatsoever came to his hands without examining into the truth of the Record so that it seems this Libel being forged before his time he imbraces it contrary to the fundamental Law of the Criticks without any ancient Testimony to certifie its legitimacy Alemannus pleads that the reason why it was so long unknown was because Procopius was forced to suppress it for the security of his own life That might be a good reason for Procopius his own time but certainly not for the long interval of so many Ages as from the sixth Century to the eleventh And to give any credit to a Book that never appear'd once in the World till 500 years after the death of its pretended Author is a Civility that the Criticks would never allow in any Case neither do I know it ever challenged unless in this I know indeed Books may have been buried five hundred or a thousand years but then they have always had some ancient Testimonies that there were once such Books written by such Authors and upon no other terms were they ever received and this was the case of St. Clement's Epistle But however this Vatican Plea for suppressing Procopius his Book for his own safety may be consistent with it self I am sure it is very inconsistent with the pretence that he has undertaken to make good viz. that it may be all proved out of Procopius his other Writings in which he tells many more and many worse Stories than in this little Epitome And yet they were not only seen but approved by the Emperor himself But if so he ought either to have suppress't all or none and not to have publisht the sharper Invective to gain the Emperor's favor and keep back the milder to avoid his displeasure These are pretty consistent Dreams that could never have come into any Man's head but in a Vatican Nap. But beside the want of sufficient Certificates to warrant the reception of the Book the thing is so very unlikely in it self that Procopius should write so dirty a Libel both against Justinian and Belizarius that it would require very strong proof only to make it a thing credible For when he had through his whole life been so infinitely obliged by both when he had been raised by Justinian from a low Condition to the highest Preferments in the Empire when he had ever kept the most entire and intimate friendship with Belizarius and lastly when he made it the great work of his life both before and after the writing of this Book to
consecrate their Fames and conveigh down the glory of their Actions to all future Ages who can easily suffer himself to believe that the same Man should endeavor to spoil all this by a railing Lampoon Though whenever or by whomsoever it was forged it is no wonder that it was laid to Procopius according to the custom of all Lampoons to fasten them upon Authors that of all Men living were most unlikely to write them To these we may add some other unlucky Objections suggested by Alemannus himself in his Preface As that the Glory of Justinian's Actions is so bright in it self as to be able to out-shine all detraction For what Man can believe that he ruin'd the Roman Empire that recover'd so many Cities Provinces and Kingdoms to it that conquer'd so many barbarous Nations and plainly recover'd the Empire that had been almost lost and tottering for many years to its full force and Power One would think that the Man who makes the Objection should be concern'd to rid himself some way or other of it and yet he fairly dismisses it with all Civility because he says it is at this time a thing only existing in History An admirable Vatican reason this but so it is whenever Men are over-seen and eager in their pursuit of Revenge that they always leave their Sense and Understanding behind them And whereas some Men conclude Procopius to be Father of the Bastard from the likeness of its features to his other Books I should from the same argument draw the contrary conclusion For though it is no hard matter for any Man to imitate or rather steal another Man's stile as to forms and schemes of Speech by making it familiar to himself with constant reading Yet the Spirit and the Genius of an Author is a thing very rarely imitable and that too plainly discovers it self in this counterfeit Procopius for if we compare the Anecdota with his other Books and observe what perspicuity and neatness of Method what gravity what candor what ingenuous freedom runs through all his other Writings And on the contrary in what confusion and indigested heaps things are laid together in this Libel with what silliness and malice with what buffoonry and affected rudeness the whole work is contrived it seems to me impossible that they should both be the Off-spring of the same Man And therefore it is but a true and a sharp censure that is given of it by Balthasar Bonifacius in his Epistle to Molinus In summâ sic statuo esse in hâc cujuscunque illa sit Auctoris rhyparographiâ loquentiae satis licentiae nimis insolentiae plus nimio multum livoris plus odii plurimum inscitiae pa um ordinis minus facundiae minimum judicii nihil memoriae minus nihilo sinceritatis In fine my Opinion is that in this rhapsody whosesoever it is is to be found babble enough rudeness too much arrogance more than enough much spite more hatred but most ignorance little order less eloquence least judgment nothing of memory but less than nothing of honesty From all which enormous defects it is but reasonable to conclude with him that the true Procopius so eminent for all the contrary perfections could never be the Author of the Libel And indeed the folly of the design makes it no less incredible than the meanness of the performance for if Procopius upon some affront at Court resolved to revenge himself by this Libel yet to own it and publish it to the World in his own name was a ranker piece of spite against himself than against his Royal Master for it not only blasts the Credit of all his other Writings but it leaves himself a base and unworthy Parasite upon Record who spent all his Wit and Life in magnifying the Vertues of a Man whom himself knew to exceed all Mankind in the studious practice of all wickedness For that is the Burthen of the Libel Neither is it to be less suspected from the time in which it pretends to have been brought forth viz. in the 32 year of the reign of Justinian as the Author often declares whereas Procopius his Books de aedificiis that are all panegyrick and abound with quite contrary Characters were not written till the 36 th year Now is it not very credible that when Procopius was fall'n out so bitterly with his great Patron after all the Obligations in the World as he is in this Libel he should afterwards be transported into so much kindness as he expresses in those books without blasting and retracting his own slanders Or if we can reconcile the possibility of the thing yet however the books de aedificiis are an unanswerable confutation of the anecdota and not only convict the characters of Malice but the Matters of Fact of false hood So that granting Procopius to be the true Father I will prove him guilty of rank falshhood through the whole tale both from his own Writings before and after from the testimony of his co-temporaries but most of all from the nature and the circumstances of the Actions themselves And as for the Librarians spiteful endeavors to improve the malice of the Libel I shall discover so much baseness in the Attempt as to leave him under that disgrace that is due to such ill-natur'd Pedants that will be gnawing at the Reputations of great Men. And to this purpose I shall reduce this confused heap of Calumnies to certain heads as the most easie way of confuting them for whilst they lye confused together they are not so easily discern'd or exposed but when parted like false Witness every Lye betrays it self § XXV The first crime that he lays to the Emperor's Charge is the worst that a Sovereign Prince can be guilty of and that is cruelty which the Author of the Libel aggravates in every Page at that extravagant rate as if he had out-done all the Tyrants that ever were in blood and slaughter For he was the Author of so many and so great Calamities to the Romans as exceeded all the Miseries of all former Ages he made nothing of siezing other Mens Estates he broke out into numberless slaughters so that he counted it a trifle to destroy innumerable Multitudes of innocent Persons The great devouring Plague that I described in my former Books and that reign'd through almost all parts of the habitable World spared as many as it destroyed But no Man escaped Justinian's cruelty who was sent as a Plague from Heaven to sweep all away Some he was so kind as to destroy but others he granted their lives to suffer all the miseries of want and poverty making them much more miserable than the others when they would be content to be deliver'd from the Evils that they endured by any the most exquisite Tortures Neither did he think it enough to destroy the whole Roman Empire but he endeavour'd to master Africk and Italy that he might throw those Nations together with the Provinces subject to himself into one
is too great a Work for this place so being a Matter purely Ecclesiastical and wholly transacted within the Church it self it would not be very proper For the design of this Work is to give an account of those Transactions of the Church in which the State was concern'd and thereby to exemplifie the exercise of the Civil Jurisdiction within it without invading the Churches own original Authority And therefore this Matter being wholly transacted within the Church without any interposition of the State it belongs not to this Argument and for that reason I shall at present wave it not forgetting that I am under an Obligation to Baronius of an hunting match for the painted Haâ—râ— In the mean time I proceed And as for the Laws of Theodosius they are to be divided into two Parts those that were enacted before the compiling of the Theodosian Code that are taken into the body of the Code it self under their several Titles and those that were made after it that are annext as an Appendix under the name of Novells The Code was composed in the year 438 and the 30 th year of his Reign out of the Rescripts of Christian Princes of both Empires from Constantine the Great to that time containing the Records of 127 years from the year of our Lord 312 to the year 438 taking in the Laws of 16 Princes Constantine and his three Sons Julian Jovian Valentinian Valens Gratian Valentinian the younger Theodosius the Great Arcadius Honorius Theodosius the Younger and his contemporary Emperors Constantius and Valentinian the third It was drawn up by eight Commissioners chosen out of his chief Officers and Ministers of State whose Names are recorded in the Emperor 's Novel for ratifying the whole Code His design was to make the Law more easie certain and intelligible for the time to come That Men may not wait for formidable Answers as it were of a profound Oracle from the formal superciliousness and falsly pretended Learning of the Lawyers when it is made so easie to understand how a Deed of Gift is to be drawn up what way an Inheritance ought to be sued for how a conveyance is to be made what Debts are certain or uncertain all which are drawn out of obscurity and placed in the light by this work of our Sacred Majesty And indeed this Reformation of Laws when they grow numerous intricate and perplexing is one of the noblest acts of Government for all Laws in process of time naturally degenerate into so much niceness and curiosity as to be of no use at last than only to defeat the very end for which they were instituted at first viz. the security of Mens Rights and Properties And when they are come to that pass as to perplex and involve rather than fix and clear their Titles they are then nothing but snare cheat and vexation which of all Governments is incomparably the most intollerable The most heavy Arbitrary Government is much more easie to the Subject than legal Oppression for when Men oppress without Law they are usually restrain'd within some bounds by Modesty because then the whole blame of it must light upon themselves but when they have Law or pretence of Law to abet their Oppressions then is the Abuse both boundless and shameless and how barbarously soever the poor People may be opprest the Law must bear the blame of all whilst the Oppressor runs away with all the profit And therefore it is but a weak distinction that is vulgarly made between Arbitrary Government and Government by Law for either may or may not be arbitrary as they are executed A Government without Law may tye it self to the Rules of Justice and a Government by Law may turn all the Laws into fraud and oppression and when they do so they are guarded and fortified in their Tyranny by the Law So that whereas there are two sorts of Arbitrary Government one without Law another with it the case of the first is very hard and deplorable when Men have no security from the Government for their Rights beside its own good Will But the case of the second is intollerable both because it takes off the grand restraints of modesty and discretion which all Men are under that have no other rule to justify their Actions beside the Justice and Equity of the Actions themselves and withal because it leaves Men at liberty under the shelter and formality of Law to do all the dishonest things in the World with confidence and a good grace And therefore the wisest Princes in all Ages have not been more careful to make good Laws for the security of the Subjects Rights than to see to their fair and easie execution For when Suits are made tedious difficult and chargeable and Men are generally forced to pay more for Justice than Justice is worth the Law serves no other end than to rob them of their Rights and when my neighbor has taken away one half of my Estate if I will seek to right my self by Law I must spend the other so that if I get the Victory and that is uncertain I get nothing if I lose it I am utterly undone The removing of this great Abuse which length of time had brought upon the Imperial Law was the Emperor's great design in this magnificent Work which though it have its defects is yet an excellent and useful body of Laws and has met with great acceptance in all Ages and civilized Nations And even the barbarous People themselves when they vanquisht the Empire submitted to its Laws as we shall particularly see in the Laws of the Goths and Franks I have here dropt in this short account of the Theodosian Code both because it came in my way under this Emperor's reign and because every Reader might understand the great Authority of this Book upon which we relye so much through this whole discourse But now I proceed to his own particular Laws His first in the Title de Episcopis in the year 416 was made for the regulation of the Parabolani of Alexandria a sort of Monks that practised Physick especially in times of the Plague or other contagious Diseases therein laying aside all regard to their own safety whence they had the name of Parabolani i. e. desperate or fearless Men hence in St. Paul's description of Epaphroditus his great Zeal for the Gospel he tells the Philippians among other Praises that for the sake of Christ he had been near unto death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 neglecting his own life or as an old Latin Interpreter renders it parabolatus est animam suam he parabolated his own life Now these Men taking upon themselves such a popular piece of Charity they as it naturally falls out in such Cases grew insolent and became very troublesom to the Government raised Tumults thrust themselves into Publick Affairs and will have all things govern'd by their own Will and Pleasure Upon this the Alexandrians Petition the Emperor to
Nestorians finding themselves every where excluded the Church by this Union spread abroad reports that Cyril had imbraced the Nestorian Faith and Letters are forged in his name condemning the Council of Ephesus and some new fanatick Hereticks plead his Authority for their own foolish Novelties And some over zealous Men of his own Party accuse him of too much complyance with the Hereticks and this cost Cyril some trouble and time to clear himself as well from the jealousie of his Friends as from the spite of his Enemies And so was the Catholick Church at length restored to Peace and Unity and as Cyril relates most of the Nestorians repenting of their Heresie were upon their submission restored to the Catholick Communion And to perfect the work Pope Sixtus writes to both the Bishops to commend them both for his white Boys quia ad beatum Apostolum Petrum fraternitas universa convenit And thus the Emperor having at last compast the Restitution of the Churches Peace for its lasting security he enacts a Rescript in the year 435 to root the Nestorian Heresie out of all his Dominions But why no sooner says Gothofred Because says he the Emperor might suppose that the Hereticks had been reclaimed by the sentence of the Council but now finding that they continued to spread abroad their Books and Opinions he thought it high time to stop the mischief by this severe Rescript This may be true though it is meer guess but if this learned Man had observed the contest between Cyril and John of Antioch and that it was 2 or 3 years after the Council before the Emperor could gain John and his Eastern Bishops intirely from the Party of Nestorius he would have found a very good reason why this Rescript was not sooner publisht viz. because till then Affairs were not ripe for it and if it had been publisht before this strong Party had been taken off it might have tempted them to join with the Heresie in good earnest But now when they had declared against it and Nestorius his own small Party was left alone it was seasonable to prevent its growth by the Execution of this smart Law and it did the work effectually for though for a time the Ghost of the Heresie skulkt up and down in other shapes and other languages yet it could never after get so much courage or confidence as to appear in its own form in publick The Rescript consists of three Parts First it commands That the followers of Nestorius should be call'd by no other name than the nick-name of Simonians from Simon Magus as if he were the Author of their Sect as Constantine the Great named the Arians Porphyrians Secondly that all his Books and all other Books whatsoever contrary to the Decrees of the Ephesine Council should be brought in and publickly burnt Thirdly that they should be debarr'd of all Meeting Places either in Publick or Private with the Penalty of Proscription of Goods upon all Offenders against any branch of this Law And because after this some Men publisht the same Opinions in new obscure and ambiguous Terms and indeavor'd to revive them under the Authority of some of the Ancients particularly Theodorus Mopsuestenus and Diodorus Tarsensis in their Writings against Eunomius and Apollinaris he publishes another Rescript in the year 448 against all such Attempts under the same Penalties The execution of both which Rescripts being injoined in good earnest by the Praetorian Praefects upon their Judges and Under-Officers soon did their own work And thus ended the Council and the Heresie together And things might have been much sooner and much more easily setled had they not been perplexed partly by the over-eagerness of Cyril in imposing his Anathema's as Articles of Faith which made John of Antioch and his Party fly off so that he was forced to quit that imposition before they could be reconciled But chiefly by the dishonesty of the Courtiers who took part with the Hereticks against the Authority of the Church and abused the Emperor with false tales and reports but otherwise all the proceedings in this Matter were fair and regular the Controversie was determin'd by the judgment of the Church and the judgment of the Church abetted by the Power of the Empire and that is the true and proper concurrence of both Jurisdictions in framing Ecclesiastical Laws § XVI The Nestorian Heresie being broke and vanquisht by the Authority of the Ephesine Council and the assistance of the Imperial Power the Church injoyed Peace for the space of eighteen years and govern'd it self by its own Provincial Synods without the need of any concurrence from the Civil State till the fiery Zeal of Abbot Eutyches an over-driving stickler against Nestorius broke out in new Combustions who out of too fierce and eager opposition to the exploded Heresie as it usually happens to Men of furious Tempers runs headlong into the contrary extreme So that whereas Nestorius held that the Divinity and Humanity in our Saviour were two distinct Persons as well as Natures he teaches that though they were two distinct Natures before the Incarnation yet after it they were blended into one And for this dull and absurd Metaphysicks of a thick-skull'd Monk or as Pope Leo calls it Error qui de imperitià magis quà m de versutiâ natus est not a whimsey of subtilty but dullness must the Christian World be set in Flames and Ashes rather then part with the honour of the deep Invention so that it brought much more perplexing trouble and disturbance to the Christian Church then the Nestorian Dream For though that was not overcome without great difficulty through the Treachery of the Eunuchs and the Courtiers yet Theodosius being now grown old and desirous of ease he submitted to their Power especially the Eunuch Chrysaphius who as he was his particular Favourite so was he Eutyches his particular Friend and he so managed the Emperor as Eusebius did Constantius and Eudoxius Valens that instead of assisting the Church with his Imperial Power he opprest and opposed it From whence it was that during all his Reign it could never cope with this Heresie though by the good providence of God it was effectually vanquish't under his Successor Marcian who came to the Crown both by the Marriage of Pulcheria Sister of Theodosius and the Choice of the Senate and the Army one of the greatest Princes in the Imperial Succession and the man that next to Constantine and Theodosius might have deserved the Sir-name of Great A Prince of great Conduct Courage Prudence and Piety a Lover of Justice and Honesty a strict observer of the Laws of the Church and the Empire and who by his wise management left all things in such a quiet posture as perhaps no other Reign can equal when the Successor came in not by Inheritance but Election And therefore I shall give the most exact account that I can of the Ecclesiastical Transactions of his Reign
Honor and all Men contend who shall give him most homage to the great contentment and satisfaction of the Emperor And that was the only true reason why he commanded not in the third Expedition against the Goths because the Emperor could not part with him from his own Person and so he continued at Court all the remainder of his life in the height of favor and glory till in his extreme old Age he rescued the Empire from the Huns and set in that glorious Action So dull a Fable is this of our Rhapsodist that he was the object of publick contempt ever after his return from Italy But though to blast a Mans good Fortune be an action barbarous enough yet to blot out his Vertues and place the blackest Vices in their stead so as to turn a Man of the greatest Honor in the World into a false and perjur'd Villain is a depth of malice below if it were possible the bottomless pit it self And among all the Evils under the Sun I think this a deplorable one from this Example that the Reputations of the greatest Men lye so much at the mercy and in the power of every ill-natur'd Pedant to dispose of them as they please to Posterity Though it is some comfort again that the Actions of great Men are too big and bright to be eclyps'd by the interposition of every trifling Meteor And that is ours in the case of Belizarius whose Glory will for ever out-shine and baffle all the Attempts of Envy and Malice both in figure and brightness And if we compare the true story of Belizarius his Actions with the little blind tales of this barbarous Pasquil it must for ever leave the Author of it under the most scornful indignation of all Men that have any regard for Worth or Honor. § XXVII And thus having done a little justice to the memory of this great Man the greatest perhaps in history unless the great Scipio Africanus may be his parallel to use some comparison with him we may now proceed in his Master's Cause and having already cast up the small retail of his Cruelties let us a little reckon for his whole-sale Executions And here the sum total in short is the Whole Empire and the Whole World But here who would not lift up Hands and Eyes to Heaven to find a Man so utterly bereft of all Sense and Modesty as to charge the utter subversion of the Empire upon that Prince whom he had before represented as immediately raised up by the divine Providence for its Recovery Whether it were a true or a Perkin Procopius he must rave and not know what he says when he talks of Justinian's losing the Empire that Charge being the most unluckily fastned upon him of any one Prince in the whole Succession I may safely challenge any Man to produce me any three Men either of the old Common-Wealth or the new Empire that did more service to their Country than this Prince alone The other great Men that were honor'd with the Titles of Fathers and Protectors of their Country only saved it from the Invasion of a single Enemy or perhaps two or three but he beat back the incursions of the whole barbarous World from all Points of the Compass and recover'd the greatest part of the Empire long since lost And thô it were over-whelm'd with Multitudes of Enemies on all sides yet he left it in a greater and a much firmer state than ever it was before at its greatest glory In short let any Man read Procopius his eight Books of the success of his Wars and parallel the undenyable greatness of those Actions if he can out of all the Records even of the Roman State it self If any Man can equal the Fortune of his Arms it is Caesar but as for the glory of their Wars there is this one unhappy difference that all Caesars aim'd at the subversion of the settled Government and all Justinians at its Preservation or rather Restitution So that as Agathias observes towards the conclusion of his History he was the first Man of all the Emperors that reign'd at Constantinople that could in good earnest pretend to the stile of King of the Romans both in Title and Reality But seeing this Procopian Libel is pretended by its Author to have been written in the 32 year of Justinian's Reign pray let us take a short view of his great Actions for the Empire both before and after that time And this is best done out of Procopius himself the first from his eight Books of History that were finisht in the 26 th year of that Reign the second out of his Books De Aedificiis that were composed in the 36 th year To these if we add Agathias who continues Procopius his History to the end of the Reign we shall then have a complete Prospect of that universal Desolation that Justinian brought upon his Empire The greatest Match for the Romans in the World were the Persians upon whom though it was often attempted by the Ambition of their greatest Captains they could never make any considerable Impression but rather were for the most part sent home with loss and shame And yet this powerful and war-like Nation Justinian at the entrance upon the Government so amazed with the Prowess of his Arms Conduct of his Captains and Courage of his Soldiers that even after a great Victory on the Persian side they were brought in the 6 th year of his Reign to sign an overlasting Peace between the Crowns an Article that I know not whether it were ever obtain'd by the Romans before that time This gave the Emperor opportunity to imploy his Arms in Africk and Italy with what success we shall see when we come to those Wars but it was so great that it provoked Chosroes the great King of the Persians out of pure Envy to the glory and fortune of Justinian to break the Peace as Procopius relates it to which he subjoins this Remarque That Chosroes and his Consederate Kings were angry at that which of all good Qualities was most commendable in a gallant Prince his care to enlarge the bounds and the glory of his Empire They might as justly have blamed Cyrus or Alexander for their great Actions And yet this was the very same man that our ingenious Author says was sent into the World for the destruction of the Roman Empire But Chosroes being a Man of a false Nature crafty apt to make Promises and seal them with an Oath which for Interest he would as readily break as take he contrary both to his Faith and the Law of Nations surprizes the Romans though his Confederates with an unproclaimed War so that the Emperor being unprepared for a speedy resistance and his Armies being then employed in Italy he was for the present forced to buy Peace upon dishonourable Terms But the next Campaign having finisht the War with Vitigis he sends Belizarius though with no great Army and after
their Wealth into his own Coffers This is pure Romance for there is not the least mention of any such Tribute in any other Author or Record and though Alemannus as himself declares searcht all the Vatican Manuscripts in quest of it yet he could never trace any Foot-steps of it in Antiquity And it is very likely that such a singular Oppression should pass so unobserved in such a writing Age as never to be so much as suggested by any Author but this Barbarian And as for the Praefecti Praetorio that belongs to the old Topick of corrupt Officers and Ministers of State and therefore needs no particular Answer and though Alemannus reckons up 17 or 18 in his reign yet he can find no more ill Men than Joannes Cappadox Petrus Barsames and Addaeus who was put into the Office in the last year of the Emperor's life when he was past business Though beside these he says there are divers others to be found in Evagrius Agathias Procopius his other Books Theophanes and Suidas That is his standing figure when he has reckoned up all the names that he can rake together to tell us of great numbers of People that shall be nameless And whereas the Author adds that it was the Emperor's constant Custom to drain these great Officers when they were well gorged by some sham-Accusation it is so far from truth that he never prosecuted any of them but Joannes Cappadox and when he put him from Court he suffer'd him to carry his Wealth along with him But he oppressed the honest labouring Farmers As how why first by never remitting their customary Tribute Very good but if it were due by Custom then it could be no oppression And if it be thought to be too hard upon the Subject yet I find that the ablest Princes were most averse to the abatement of their Land-Taxes and there are several peremptory Rescripts against it and therefore if Justinian were so too he might justifie himself by the Examples of some of his wisest Predecessors especially considering the vast Expences of his Wars and that a great part of the Empire paid Contributions to their Enemies And yet the suggestion is as false as foolish when he remitted the ordinary Taxes to the Inhabitants of Palestine upon the Insurrection of the Samaritans and made two Christian Bishops his Surveyors and Judges to determine what abatement was fit and reasonable And in the great Plague at Constantinople in which the Rich were reduced to the same state with the Poor their Servants and Attendants being swept away he appoints an Officer to take care of all the sick and to supply all that wanted with Money and that was a greater kindness than meer abatement of just dues But secondly he imposed the Corn-Tax for the maintenance of his Army and forced the poor countrey People to carry it to the Camp But alass this was an old Tax long before Justinian's time and there are so many Laws about it in the Imperial History that nothing but meer barbarous Ignorance could have derived its beginning from Justinian and accordingly Alemannus has voucht it by the Authority of that Ecclesiastick Romance of Simeon Metaphrastes In the next place the Souldiers were opprest and that divers ways first he set Muster-Masters over them and deducted the 12 th part of every Souldier's Pay for their Salary This is pure ignorance for that Office was ever in the Army and its Salary settled without any deduction from the Souldiers as appears from his 130 Novel Secondly the Companies were not full that is a common Fault but then it was the fault of the Officers not the Emperor who allowed them full Pay and then the surplusage of the vacant Places came into their own Pockets Thirdly he dismist his old Souldiers without maing any Provision for them This is likely that he should so wholly neglect them when he built so many Hospitals for the maintenance of Aged People in which it is not to be doubted but his super-annuated Souldiers that had been useful to the Common-Wealth were preferr'd in the first place Fourthly he left the Frontiers every where unguarded As we may see by those innumerable Garrisons and Fortifications that he built round the Empire to keep out the Incursions of the Barbarians It is pretty observable that when in the whole list of Emperors there were three very eminent for guarding the Frontiers that is Constantine Theodosius the Great and Justinian that these should be particularly branded for leaving them defenceless It is the head-topick of Zosimus his fanatick Invectives against Constantine and Theodosius the Great and here it is the very Chorus of all our Rhapsodists mournful Ditties And yet there was scarce a Garrison upon the Frontiers that was not built by one of these Princes though Justinian stopt every Passage and In-road so advantageously that he made the whole Empire but one entire Fortification to it self Fifthly from those of the Militia that refused to go to the Wars he with-drew their Pay An heavy Oppression this not to reward idle People that refuse to serve their Country Sixthly he defrauded his Guards of their â—ay But why because says our Author they were useless But if they were they deserved no Pay Lastly he with-drew the quinquennial Donative If he did first to with-hold a Gift is no Robbery and secondly he did wisely not to dispense his Rewards promiscuously but according to Mens deserts and to this purpose he created a new Officer call'd Extraordinary Quaestor of the Army to reward such as did any signal piece of Service and his Donatives being great and generous it made every Souldier forward to signalize himself In the next place he opprest Merchants and spoil'd the freedom of Trade That is to say when he had built that convenient Port at Constantinople that commanded the Haven he took an account of all Ships out-ward bound that they might not export the Commodities of the Empire but especially Arms to its barbarous Enemies That is the particular grievance of this Complaint the next is the regulation of the silk-trade from Persia which we have discoursed above The next that were undone were the Lawyers by lessening their Fees and shortning their Proceedings Then it seems their Fees were grown too high and their Proceedings too dilatory and then it was a great kindness to the Subjects to reform them Though Dr. Rive is my Author that before Justinian's time the Lawyers never received any Fees from the Client but were maintain'd by Pensions from the publick But he supprest the very Physitians and Professors of Learning i. e. because he enacted so many kind Laws on their behalf under the Title de Medicis et Professoribus But then he abolisht the old Circensian Games and all the other Heathen sports for ever Then he made a Reformation that all good Men had ever desired from the first settlement of Christianity in the World Lastly he opprest the Poor As
appears by those prodigious Provisions that he made that there should be no such thing as Poverty within the Empire but for the Readers satisfaction or rather amazement in this matter I must refer him to the Books de Aedificiis And now I hope I have sufficiently vindicated the Reputation of this matchless Prince against all the malicious Calumnies both of the Libel and the Librarian so as to make it appear that it could never be written by Procopius but by some Man in the barbarous Ages that was ignorant of the Customs and Transactions of that Time and that the whole Work is nothing but an heap of ignorance malice and false-hood And is proved so by the best and most undoubted Records of that Age. And I know not what can be done more for the Discovery and Conviction of an Imposture FINIS Books lately Publisht by the Author DIsputationes de Deo et Providentiâ divinâ I. An Philosophorum ulli et quinam Athei fuerunt II. A rerum finibus Deum esse demonstratur III. Epicuri et Cartesii Hypotheses de Universi Fabricatione evertuntur IV. Mundum neque prorsus infectum neque necessitate factum sed solo Opificis consilio extructum fuisse demonstratur V. A generis humani Ortu et Corporis humani structurâ Deum esse demonstratur VI. Contrâ—â— Sâ—epticorum Academicorum disciplinam potissimùm Ciceronis de Quaestionibus Academicis libros et Cartesii Meditationes Metaphysicas disputatur The divine right of the Law of Nature and the Christian Religion The Case of the Church of England stated An Account of the Government of the Christian Church for the first six Hundred years Religion and Loyalty or a Demonstration of the Power of the Christian Church within it self The Supremacy of Soveraign Powers over it Duty of passive Obedience or Non-resistance to all their Commands Religion and Loyalty Part the 2 d. or the History of the Concurrence of the Imperial and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in the Government of the Church from the beginning of the Reign of Jovian to the end of the Reign of Justinian Can. 2. (a) Invec 1. p. 80. A. (b) Am. Marcel l. 21. c. 2. (c) Theod. l. 4. c. 1. (d) l. 3. c. 22. (e) Sozom. l. 6. c. 3. (f) Greg. Naz. in laud. Athanas (g) Athanas de fide ad Jovian (h) Soc. l. 3. c. 25. (i) Sozom. l. 6. c. 5. (k) lib. 6. c â— (l) Lib. 26. c. 1. (m) de Males et Mathemat l. 9. v. Sozimus lib. 4. (n) ibid. l. (o) De Medicis et Professor l. 5. (p) ibid. l. 6. (q) Sozim l. 6. c. â— L. 20. Qutru Appellat sint suscip (r) Soc. l. 4. c. 12. Saeculi 40 pars prima § 14. (s) Theod. l. 4. c. 8. (t) Epist. 74. (u) Soz. l. 6. c. 12. (w) Hilarii frag l. 1. pag. 40. (x) Athanas ad Episc Afric (y) Athanas ep ad Epictelum (z) Sozom. l. 6. c. 12. (a) Theod. l. 4. c. 13 14. (b) Epist. 61. (c) Sozom. l. 4. c. 27. (d) Epist. 10. (e) ibid. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (f) Socrat. l. 4. c. 13. (g) Socrat. l. 4. c. 14. Sozom. l. 6. c 13. V. Baroâ— an 317. N. 29. et Vales. not in Socrat (h) Socrat. l. 4. c. 15. Sozom. l. 6. c. 13. (i) lib. 4. c. 19. (k) Basil Epist. 69. (l) Epist. 70. (m) V. Greg. Naz. de laud. Basil. (n) Theod. l. 5. c. 10. de Haeret. l. 33. (o) Theod. lib. 4. c. 6. (p) Cod. Theodos. de Episc Cler. l. 3. (q) Can. Apost 80. (r) Am. Marcel lib. 30. C. 6 (s) Epist. 140. (t) Soc. l. 3 c. 25. (u) Orat. 9 (w) lib. 30. (x) Ne Baptisma iteretur l. 1. (y) l. 3. * L. 75 de Decurionibus (z) de Haeret l. 4. (a) Soc. l. 5. c. 2. Sozom l. 7. c. 1. (b) Theod. l. 5.12 (c) l. 2. (d) de Haeret l. 5. (e) de Epist l. 23. (f) de concord l. 2. c. 1. § 4. (g) Novel 83. (h) Am. Marcel l. 31. (i) in Cron. (k) l. 7. c. 33. (l) lib. 4.35 c. 37. (k) Soc. l. â— c. 2. Soz. l. 7. c. 1. Theod. l. 5. c. 2. (l) lib. 3. c. 3. et c. 23. (m) l. 2. (n) Soc. l. 5. c. 4. (†) Account of the Government of the Church § 20. (c) Soc. l. 5. c. 8. Soz. l. 7. c. 7. (p) de Haeret l. 6. (q) de Haeret l. 8. (r) de Haeret l. 11.12 (s) ibid. l. 13. (t) ibid. 14. (u) de his qui super Religione contendunt l. 2. (w) V. Gothofredi Notas in legem (x) Orat. 26. (y) de fide Cathol l. 4. (a) Ruffin l. 2. c. 16. (b) Lib. 4. Epist. 32. (c) Ambros. l. 5. Epist. 27. in which Letter he gives an account of his Embassy to the Emperor (*) Zosimus lib. 4. (d) Ambrose Ep. 26. (e) See his Epistles in their proper place in Labbé (f) De Haeret l. 15. (g) Sozom. l. 7. c. 14. (h) Ambros. Ep. 29. (i) Soc. l. 5. c. 13. (k) De Haeret l. 16. (l) l. 17. (m) De Haeret l. 19. (n) Lib. 7. c. 17. (o) Soc. l. 5. c. 20 22 23. Sozom. l. 7. c. 17. (p) De Episc l. 2â— (q) An. 390. N. 70 71. (r) Lib. 2â— c. 3. (s) Dé Episc l. 20 (t) Epist 31. (u) Marciani Novella 5. (w) De Testam l. 48. (x) De Mâ—nachis l. 1. (y) De D curionibus l. 63. (z) De Episc l. 3.6 9 Cod. Tit. 45. De bis qui ad Eccles confâ—g l. 1. Tacit. Annal lib. 3. (a) De Haeret l. 3. (†) De Haeret l. 65. (b) De Haeret l. 7.9.11.18.20 (c) De Apoatis l. 3. (d) De Apostatis l. 1. (e) De Haeret l. 2. (f) De Haeret l. 3 4 5. (g) Qui sanctum baptisma prophan (h) De Paganis l. 7. (i) De Maleficis l. 7. (k) De pag. l. 8. (l) De Pag. l. 9. (m) Ibid. l. 10. (n) Ibid. l. 11. (o) Ibid. l. 12. (p) De Judais l. 8. (q) Lib. 5. Epist. 29. (r) De Haeret l. 6. Anno 368. Anno 369. Anno 371. N. 1 2 3 4. V. Labbé Vol. 2. Anno 381. p. 1001. Lib. 9. Tit. 29. c. 1. †Ne inter bellicas necessitâ—tes obreptio importuna teâ—tâ—tur (a) Ad annum 385. M. 6. (b) Soc. l. 3. c. 4. (c) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theod. l. 4. c. 22. (d) Lib. 4. c. 21 22. (e) Sozom. l. 7. c. 5. (f) De Haeret l. 6. (g) Extrav de Episcopali Judicio l. 3. * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. (l) l. 5. c. 23 (i) Soz. l. 7. c. 15. (l) Soz. l. 8. c. 3. (l) Pallad dial (m) de his qui super Religione contendunt l. 6. (n) De Haereâ—â—bus Priscillianus instituit maximè Gnosticorum Manichaeorum dogmata permixta sectantur Quamvis et ex aliis Haeresibus in eas sordes tanquam in sentinam quandam horribili confusione confluxerint Propter occultandas autem contaminationes et