things are carried with Tumult and Violence by Dioscorus of Alexandria Juvenal of Jerusalem Thalassius of Caesarea and Barsumas a debauch't Abbot who was particularly summoned by the Emperor and his Vote made equal with the Bishops contrary both to the Canons and the Custom of the Church as appears by the Subscriptions to the late Council of Constantinople under Flavianus against Eutyches Action the 7th where the Bishops subscribe in this Form IN Bishop subscribe as Judge and the Abbots in this only IN Presbyter and Abbot subscribe the Condemnation And beside all these Irregularities Count Elpidius who was sent by the Emperor to preside and keep good order favouring Eutyches out of Complyance with Chrysaphius took the Judgment of the Council to himself so as to hinder all Canonical Proceedings and that soon run the whole matter into Tumult and Confusion Barsumas and his Monks breaking into the Council beating some imprisoning others and forcing others to subscribe a Blank for Eutyches his Absolution and so Eutyches is absolved Flavianus and Eusebius of Dorilaeum Condemned and imprisoned too together with the Popes Legates only Hilarus escaping by Flight And to confirm all these unpriestly and unchristian Enormities Chrysaphius procures an Imperial Rescript which we shall find afterwards reverst by the Emperor Marcian But within three days after the Scuffle Flavianus dies in Goal of the Wounds given him by Barsumas and his Mirmidons and to him succeeds Anatolius though he cannot pass at Rome without absolute submission to Pope Leo his Epistles and the Catholick Church as if they were the same thing But Dioscorus having carried things with so high an hand and bold success returns home flusht and drunk with Victory and in one of his Fits excommunicates Pope Leo himself But the only effect of all these disorders and disturbances in the Church at that time was the advancement of the Papal Greatness for as this Pope never failed to exert his Power to the utmost so every success raised his Throne to a greater height and he so managed this advantage as to bring the design of the Papal Supremacy as it was laid by Innocent the First to its full perfection For though the Title of Head of the Universal Church was not gain'd till Boniface the Third yet Pope Leo went away with the Power and as will appear by the Event exercised a real Supremacy over the Catholick Church For being informed of these wild disorders he immediately calls a Council and writes to the Emperor to Conjure him by the Holy Trinity and as he will answer it at the Divine Tribunal to null all the Acts of that Prophane Council and by Vertue of an Appeal that Flavianus made to himself before his death demands a General Council to be held in Italy And this he seconds with another to his Sister Pulcheria begging her intercession with the Emperor And the Emperor Valentinian with his Mother Placidia and his Queen Eudoxia hapning to visit Rome at that time Leo so plyes them with ruful Stories of the late Ephesine Persecution that he dissolves the Women into Tears and engages all their Zeal to intercede with Theodosius for an Italian Council and this they all do out of that dutiful respect to the Supremacy of St. Peter to whom Leo tells them that our Saviour and all Antiquity had ever given the Sacerdotii Principatus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they express it in their several Epistles But the Emperor was so prepossest by his Eunuchs and his Zeal against Nestorius that no importunity could prevail upon him the thing being already Canonically determined as he replyes to the Empress in answer to her Letrer of Intercession and by an Imperial Rescript ratifies the deposition of Flavianus as guilty of the Nestorian Heresie and justifies all the Proceedings against him at Ephesus but if we may relye upon the Crude Reports of Nicephorus and some later Writers which I never do he repented before his death and sent Chrysaphius into Banishment however that was no publick satisfaction was made to the Church till after his death when Marcian reverst all the Acts of the Council together with the Rescript of Theodosius by which it was confirmed restored the banish'd Bishops and removed the Body of Flavianus to Constantinople and for the complete settlement of the Church summoned a Council of 630 Bishops in the Year 451 first at Nice and afterward at the request of the Fathers at Calcedon For these being sensible of the Abuses that had been put upon the Church by the Imperial Delegates in several Councils they were desirous that the Emperor himself might if there hap'ned any Contest about their Proceedings interpose by his own immediate Authority he being then detein'd by urgent Affairs of State at Constantinople and Calcedon being no more then a Miles distance on the other side the Thracian Bosphorus And by this putting themselves into his Imperial Majesties own Protection they in a great measure secured the Liberties of the Church and rescued it from the long continued Abuses of the Court-Debauchees insomuch that though the Emperor sent many of his Chief Officers of State to manage and moderate in Council yet they never presumed to conclude any thing till himself was present at the 6th Session But the Council being met at the Emperor's Summons Pope Leo sends his Legates and his Letters in which he is pleased to take notice of his Majesties particular Respect to the Apostolick See in that he did not Summon but only invite him to the Council when he was not obliged to appear in Person or as Hilarus one of his Delegates afterwards pleads in the Council it self that it was without Precedent and against all Prescription for a Pope of Rome to appear in Council But his Holiness not being obliged to execute the Office of Supremacy in Person he sends his Legates or Curates as his Representatives to preside over and manage the Council And the Council being opened Paschasinus that was the Fore-man of the Ambassy moves in his Masters name the Bishop of Rome the head of all Churches that Dioscorus of Alexandria may be call'd to the Bar and not suffer'd to sit as Judg in Council otherwise himself and his Brethren were commanded by their Commission to remonstrate Here the Judges require his Accusation To this Lucentius another Legate replys That his Crime was too evident in that he had presumed to assume to himself the Authority of a Judg and pass't sentence not only without but against the judgment of the Apostolick See which as it never ought to be done so it never had been done and for this reason he is not admitted to sit upon the Bench but is turn'd down to the Bar and his Indictment is exhibited by Eusebius of Dorilaeum But its Prosecution was at present superseded by Theodoret's appearing in Council that occasion'd a Tumult of the Egyptian Illyrican and Palestine Bishop against him and the Eastern Pontick
much complaisance being as yet but green in his Government replyed that being but a Lay-man it became not him to meddle in those Matters and so left it to themselves to meet as they judged convenient And that was the Maxime of his Reign to leave Church-Matters to the judgment of Church-men and therefore he fined Chronopius a Bishop a great sum of Mony to be distributed amongst the Poor for appealing from a Synodical sentence to the secular Court Upon this they immediately huddle up a Council at Lampsacus on the Helespont in the year 365. And here they condemn all the proceedings of Acacius and his Party at Constantinople after the Seleucian Council declare for the Doctrin of similitude against them decree that the Bishops that had been deposed by them should be restored to their Churches as having been unjustly deprived But yet are so tender-hearted as to grant the Usurpers the Communion of the Church upon their Repentance for which no doubt they were much concern'd after they had recovered their Purchases This being done they according to custom signifie their proceedings by an Encyclical Epistle to all Christian Churches and fearing lest the Enemy should prevent them at Court as they had hitherto done they make all speedy application there But alass Eudoxius an old crafty Courtier lay leiger there and had so possest the Emperor Valens to whom his Brother Valentinian left the Estern Empire that when they came the Emperor commanded them to reconcile themselves to Eudoxius at their peril and upon their persisting in their Complaints in a fury drives them all into banishment And now have we the same game turn'd up and plaid over again under these two Brothers that we have already seen under the Sons of Constantine For the Acacians or Eudoxians having seized the Emperor Valens the poor outed Eusebians or rather Macedonians for by this time they were distinguisht by that name had no other Remedy left but by application to forreign Churches and the power of the Western Emperor And so among others they in the first place send their Legates to Liberius Bishop of Rome but he knew the Men too well by his own sufferings having been twice driven into banishment by their means under Constantius for no other crime than his constant adherence to the Nicene Faith and therefore peremptorily refuses Communion with them But alass they confidently reply that they are not the Men they were and that they came to join with the Catholick Church against the Anomaeans declare for the Nicene Faith and for his full satisfaction herein produce the Letter of the Lampsacene Council with all their subscriptions to the Council of Nice and defiance to the cheats of Ariminum The old Man being transported with the joy of their Conversion and as he dreamt the Re-union of the Eastern and Western Churches embraces them with both his Arms little knowing good Man that the bottom of their Errand was to recover their Bishopricks and that for their sakes they had left their Faith behind them And that is the Centre of this Controversy between the Macedonians and the Eudoxians not the Faith but the preferments They had both been of the same Party under Constantius against the Nicene Faith yet under Jovian the Acacians had subscribed it to keep their Preferments and now under Valens the Macedonians finding themselves by that means left in the lurch make the same subscription to recover theirs And yet they have so much imposed upon the Historian Natalis Alexander by the boldness of their Hypocrisie that he reckons this Synod among the Orthodox Councils and falls out with Baronius and Binius for esteeming them Arians whereas in truth they were neither but a pack of ill Men that knew no other Religion than Interest But their jugling was now too late for the Adversaries had not only got possession of their Bishopricks which they say in all Governments is a great many Points of Law but of the Emperor himself which I am sure in that Government was all as will more appear by the sequel of this Story The Legates of the Council of Lampsacus having sped at Rome and being arm'd with communicatory Letters from Liberius they sail to Sicily and there in a Council of Bishops make the same Declaration and obtain the same favor and from thence to Illyricum where they gain synodical Letters to the Eastern Bishops to certify or rather congratulate the happy Union of the Eastern and Western Churches by their conversion And this they send by Elpidius a Presbyter of Rome whom Liberius had join'd with the Legates to give them the greater reputation in the Western Churches as Baronius thinks or rather as Valesius conjectures with more probability an Illyrican Bishop for in their Epistle they recommend him as their own Legate and chosen from among themselves And the Emperor was so far from being concern'd for the Arian cause that he grants his Letters to recommend the Decree of the Illyrican Council and to settle the Nicene Faith where he declares against the Equivocations of the Homoioufians and proves them no better than Arians This Letter Valesius will have to have been written not by Valens but Valentinian who though he then resided in the West intirely govern'd the Eastern Empire Valens being wholly obedient to his Orders and rather his Under-officer than his Sharer in the Empire This is but a conjecture and 't is not likely that the Council should send into Franâ—e for Imperial Letters when they had their own Emperor so near but if it be true Valens was concurring in it and that clears him of Arianism By these means the Legates and their Companions get themselves restored to their Preferments in a Council at Tyana in Cappadocia But they having gain'd their point could not forbear discovering their old pick against the Nicene Faith as St. Basil informs the Western Bishops who gave them their first reputation It is not the old and open Arian that does the harm because that Heresy being condemn'd by the sentence of the Church it 's wickedness is known to all but it is the sheep-skin Men that under shews of Love and Reconciliation and upon pretence of being taken into the bosom of the Church take advantage to worry the Flock and seduce the less understanding These are the Men of Mischief that cannot be so easily prevented And it is this sort of Deceivers that we request you to use all diligence to discover and lay open to the World that either frankly declaring for the truth they may own intire Communion with us but if they will not let them keep their Poison to themselves and not be suffer'd to infect others by too careless communicating with them And particularly cautions them against Eustathius Bishop of Sebasta in Armâ—nia the chief Agent in the Ambassy from the Council of Lampsacus to the Western Church that he was a rank Arian and Arius his own Disciple had been
of our times that there is no Faith in Man as he often does in his Epistles but especially in the 79 th to Eustathius himself And all this upon no other account Good man than because he could not compass a kind Office for an unworthy and ungrateful Man and this found him work to his Dying day especially as he expresses it with the Pride and Superciliousness of the Church of Rome But among these various Transactions the great Athanasius dies about the year 371 or 372 perhaps sooner or later for I am not concerned in Chronological Niceties my Business is to trace the Tradition of Christian Truth not to turn Hour-glasses or watch the Motions of Pendulums But his Fall was the occasion of great stirs in the Church both Parties being at such a time highly concern'd for a fit Successor to so great a Man and so great a See Peter a grave and ancient Presbyter of that Church was by the dying recommendation of Athanasius unanimously chosen but Euzoius the Arian Bishop of Antioch upon the first News of the Vacancy flies to Court to move for his Friend Lucius who had been join'd in Ambassy with him to Jovian against Athanasius and by the help of the Eunuchs succeeds and is sent to Alexandria with Magnus a great Court-Trader in the Cause but before they came the Praefect of the City a zealous Heathen had driven Peter into Banishment and when they came the People were so averse to the Intruder that they were forced to place him in the See by Military Power upon which what bloody Tumults and Disorders followed may be seen in all the Historians but most accurately in Theodoret. Somewhat before this time arose the Heresie of Apollinaris consisting of a great many Prophane or rather wanton Novelties the chief whereof was That our Saviour had no other Soul than the Divinity it self and the Conceit because it was a new one began to take very much among the People who naturally run after any thing that is strange and unusual But it is soon quasht by the diligence of the Pastors of the Church and that not only by Writing though all the Learned Men of that Age appear'd against it as Athanasius Gregory Nazianzen Gregory Nyssen St. Basil and Epiphanius but much more effectually by the Discipline of the Church A Council was call'd at Rome by Damasus the active and leading Bishop of his time though he was here more particularly concern'd because he had unwarily given reputation to the Hereticks by granting them recommendatory Letters And here every particular Article is condemn'd by an Express Anathema against it and an account of their Proceedings is given by Damasus in a Synodical Epistle to the Eastern Bishops the Epistle is of a very peculiar strein and shews that the Gentleman began to have some thoughts of advancing the state of the Apostolick See and it is the first that I have observed of that stiff strein But however the Heresie was soon quasht by that unanimous Agreement of all Churches to suppress it every where by executing the effectual Discipline of the Church upon all its Followers In so much that I can not call to Mind more than one Imperial Law against them at that time and that was enacted by Arcadius in the year 397. against their secret Conventicles at Constantinople they not presuming to appear in Publick And when a Sect is brought so low as that it dares not venture to make any publick Appearance it is vanquisht and scarce worth the Notice of the Government § IV. In the year following i. e. Anno 374. a Council was held at Valentia in France for reforming some Abuses and Corruptions that had crept into that Church and restoring the force of some ancient useful Canons In the same year hapned that strange Election of St. Ambrose to the Bishoprick of Milan after this manner Upon the Death of Auxentius the Emperor Valentinian hapning to be then at Mâ—lan calls the Bishops together and Exhorts them to take care to choose a Person of eminent Abilities for so great a See They in all humility refer it to his Majestie 's own choice No says he that is a Province not proper for me to undertake but to you that are inlightned by the Divine Spirit most properly belongs the Office of choosing Bishops Upon this the Bishops take time to debate among themselves but whilst they are consulting the People of each Faction flock together into the Market-place and there as it usually happens in popular Assemblies from Disputing proceed to Tumult St. Ambrose being Governor of the Place flies according to his Office to appease the Multitude Who no sooner appears than they all cry out An Ambrose an Ambrose for their Bishop at which he being astonish't ascends the Tribunal with an austere Countenance as if he were resolved to put some of them to Death but they still cry the louder Upon that he accuses himself of such scandalous Crimes as by the Canons of the Church render him uncapable of the Episcopal Office but that is all one to them neither will they believe him And therefore in the last place he betakes himself to flight by Night and designs for Ticinum but having wandred all Night and thinking himself near his Journeys end he found in the Morning that he had walkt in a Circle and was just entring into one of the Gates of Milan at which being surprized and fearing lest there should be something of the hand of God in it he returns home and submits they acquaint the Emperor with it for his consent because by the Constitution of Constantine the Great they were forbidden to take any Officers either Civil or Military into the Clergy without it lest the Common-wealth should be left destitute of able Men. But the Emperor is highly pleased with the Election and is proud of his own choosing such Magistrates as are fit to be made Bishops and through this odd concurrence of Circumstances is he made Bishop contrary to the Canons for he was then no more than a Catechumene which Learned Men think may be excused by the miraculousness of the thing as if it had been immediately brought about by the special Interposition and Authority of God himself and for such extraordinary cases the Canon it self has provided an Exception adding this Clause at the end of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unless it be done by the special favour of God And that this was so done all Parties concern'd in it thought they had good reason to conclude from so great a Conjunction of Wonders Soon after this Valentinian dies of an Apoplexy or some suddain Death upon which Ammianus Marcellinus reads a Lecture with as much Gravity as if he were President of the College of Physicians as he takes all Opportunity of shewing his Knowledge in all sorts of Learning a fondness very incident to all half-learned Men. But in the mean time Valens goes on in
there be in the Church than to take away the very Being of the Church by distinguishing between the sacred Function which they grant to be the proper office of the Church and the Power over sacred things which they annex intirely to the Civil Power by which distinction they leave the Governors of the Church no other Power than to administer the Offices of Religion without any Power of punishing Offenders against the Laws of Religion and then they have none at all for there can be no power without a Power of inflicting Penalties And there lyes the true distinguishing point between these two Jurisdictions not in the Matters about which their Power is imployed but in the Penalties by which it is inforced Thus to be short and give one example for all whereas Justinian leaves to the Church the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sins committed against the Ecclesiastical Order by the Clergy and to the State the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Sins against the Laws of the State This division is so far from being true that both Powers are equally concern'd in both Crimes for if any Clergy-man disturb the Government as the Donatists did by a Contest about a Canon of the Church then though it were an Ecclesiastical sin it concern'd the Civil Government to check the Mischief by the proper Penalties of Sedition as Honorius drove them into banishment and thereby restored the long interrupted Peace of the Empire And on the other hand if any Clergy-Man let him be never so regular to the Laws and Rules of the Church shall in a state-Faction ingage in a Rebellion against his Soveraign that is properly a Political sin the Church is bound to inflict such Penalties upon him as are denounced by the Laws of their Religion against all Traitors and Rebels i. e. to cast him out of their Society and the capacity of Salvation And that is the only difference in the case that when the King cuts a Traitor off for this life the Church cuts him off â—or the next and so it is in all other Crimes where the Prince punishes for breach of the Laws of the Land the Church punishes proportionably for breach of the Laws of Religion And as by the Laws of the Land the Penalty is proportionable to the Crime so is it by the Laws of the Church for as some Offences are Capital and some only Penal in the State so in the Church some are punisht by Penance some by utter excision or cutting off from the Kingdom of Heaven which is the same thing in its kind as cutting off life in this World So that the same Crimes are so far from belonging to different Judicatures that all belong to both the only difference is that one punishes here and the other hereafter And now this one observation of the difference of Penalties in the same cause being supposed which cannot be be avoided without destroying or intrenching upon the Rights of Church or State the bounds of Jurisdiction are evident enough without splitting of Causes and it is easy enough to understand how the same Causes belong to both Jurisdictions from their different ends without setting any restraint to either Power And thus having in this short digression as briefly as I could secured this point of the Controversy which is the main Hinge upon which depends the disingenuous Contention of both the extreme Parties both Papal and Erastian I now return to the course of the History which was broke off at the year 376. At which time the Huns breaking into the Eastern Empire and Valens being extremely distrest by them and the Goths at the same time St. Jerom and Crosius say that he repented of his former severity and upon it recall'd the Orthodox Bishops from banishment but Socrates only says and that much more probably that being otherwise imployed he desisted and so the banisht Bishops particularly Peter of Alexandria had opportunity of returning home And that I doubt was all notwithstanding St. Jerom's lavish story of his Repentance which good Father partly by his boldness partly by his eagerness has occasion'd the greatest Mistakes in the story of the Church and therefore when he is a single witness his Testimony is not to be regarded in any Matter of Fact unless when he speaks of his own knowledg for he was an honest Man and would not lye yet he was so very hot-headed that it often betrayed him into false-hoods and therefore his single Authority ought not to be trusted unless in Matters of his own knowledg And by relying upon it and that contrary to the testimony of calmer Authors great darkness has been brought upon the Records of the Church and has particularly blemisht Baronius his Annals who has very often followed his Authority not only without but against all other Authors and by it run himself into a great many Mistakes against the best Records of the Church And this I take to be one though no material one that Valens repented of his Persecution and callâ—d back the banisht Bishops for which there is no proof but only his saying so and they that followed his Authority otherwise we do not find that they were solemnly recall'd till Gratian came into the East after his death when indeed all the Historians agree that they were restored In the Year 377 a Council was held at Antioch for preventing or rather curing a Schism in that Church that was first created by Julian's spiteful and treacherous toleration to all Sects for by that means 3 Bishops had been set up in one Church Meletius who was first an Acacian but afterwards revolting to the Nicene Faith Euzoius was put in his place by the Acacian Faction and Paulinus set up by that hot Man Lucifer Calaritanus who would accept of none of Meletius his repentance in opposition to both With Meletius the Arian Converts communicated with Paulinus the old Orthodox because Paulinus himself had ever been so and as for Euzoius he presided over the Acacian Party But he dying about this time a Controversy arose who should be the true and proper Bishop of the Place in which not only the People of the City made Parties but the Bishops of other Churches St. Basil was zealous for Meletius Pope Damasus for Paulinus so that it became a Controversy between the East and West But at last this expedient was found out that both during their lives should keep their own shares but when ever one of them dyed the surviver should govern the whole Church and that the Schism might not be perpetuated an Oath was administred to six of the eldest Presbyters of that Church who were the only Candidates for the Election to submit to the Decree and this for the present ended the Quarrel And yet when after this Meletius dyed Flavianus one of the six Presbyters that had sworn never to invade the Bishoprick whilst either of the present Bishops survived violently thrusts himself into the See and
sets up a Schism against Paulinus to the great and long disturbance of the Church as we shall afterward see though Theodoret either out of a picque to Paulinus or partiality to Flavianus relates the whole Matter so awkerdly as not only to pervert but apparently to falsifie the whole Story § V. In the Year 379 is the great Theodosius taken into a partnership of the Government who by his Wisdom settled all the distractions of the Eastern-Empire and by his courage recovered the Western when it was lost At first he is left to the Government of the East as being at that time by the folly of Valens and the wickedness of the Eunuchs and Eudoxians much the most troublesom and therefore in the next year after his being settled in the Government he takes care for the settlement of Religion and for that end is himself baptised by Acholius Bishop of Thessalonica that at that time belong'd to the Eastern Empire and as the first fruits of his sacramental Vow he immediately set out and that probably at the good Bishop's motion that famous or as it is commonly stiled Golden Rescript de fide Catholicâ to the divided People of Constantinople commanding the universal Reception of the old Orthodox Faith ut secundum Apostolicam disciplinam evangelicamque doctrinam Patris et Filii et Spiritâ—s sancti unam Deitatem sub parili Majestate sub piâ Trinitate credamus that we believe one God-head of the Father Son and Holy Ghost all of equal Majesty in the holy Trinity according to the Doctrin of the Apostles and Evangelists And as for all that refused this Faith of what Faction and Denomination soever they were all adjudged Hereticks and the Laws against them put in force And soon after this the great Church of Constantinople is by his command taken from the Hereticks who had in one shape or other kept possession of it full forty years and deliver'd up to the Catholicks And this was seconded by another Rescript in the year following to the Proconsul of Asia that had been all along infested with the most numerous swarms of Hereticks in which he strictly commands all Churches to be taken away from all Bishops and Priests that refused to subscribe the Nicene Faith and for better security further Orders that no Man should be admitted to any Church but such as were approved by a certain Committee of Orthodox Bishops appointed by himself for that purpose Here I must confess that I once thought this Law an invasion upon the Rights of the Church by confounding the old bounds of Provinces and destroying the Prerogatives of Metropolitans because they were chosen without regard to either but having now traced its history more accurately by comparing the Imperial Laws with the Records of the Church and indeed it is impossible to gain a full knowledg of either without a competent knowledg of both and so considering the time and occasion of enacting it it plainly clears it self from any such ill suspicion For first if it were made before the Council of Constantinople as some will have it it was then but a temporary Provision till a better settlement could be made by the approaching Council and therefore if it had been an intrenchment upon the Church it was not design'd to be perpetual but was taken up as the best expedient that the necessity of the Times would admit and all necessity is its own dispensation But if it were enacted after the Council and if its Date be not mistaken and so it was for the Council sat in May June July and this bears date August then it is only a confirmation of the Decree of the Church that had settled the Nicene Faith But which soever it was this institution of the Communicatory Bishops was no alteration either of the bounds or the Rules of Discipline for the Ecclesiastical Government of Provinces under Metropolitans stood as before but it was only a Rule to his own Officers not to deliver up Churches to any that did not bring Certificates from some of these Bishops but when they brought them they were to be admitted after the usual manner if Presbyters by the Bishop and his Synod of Presbyters if Bishops by the Metropolitan and his Synod of Bishops Neither can any thing be inferr'd for equalling Diocesan Bishops or preferring them above Metropolitans by Nectarius his being made the first Man in the Instrument for it was no matter of power but of trust the Emperor chose them not with any regard to their Authority but from his knowledg of their Integrity in the Orthodox Faith and therefore being best acquainted with Nectarius the Bishop of his own City and his old Favourite he naturally named him in the first place and the rest probably by the information of others This is all that I can find intended by this Emperor 's erecting this Committee of Communicatory Bishops it was to guide himself and his Officers not to determine the Church And now are we come to the great Council of Constantinople whose main business it was to settle the Nicene Faith and anathematise the Arian Heresy and all the Sects that had been spawn'd out of it but because the Macedonians had as we have seen above so often own'd the Nicene Faith and particularly in the Council at Lampsacus the good Emperor in hopes to bring them over summon'd them to the Council 36 in number but it seems they were at that time in a sullen fit and would not be prevail'd upon to stand to their former subscriptions and so depart the Council But the Fathers proceed and in the first place vote the Nicene Faith unalterable condemn all the several dissenters from it by name make some Canons useful for the present settlement of the Church and give an account of their proceedings to his Imperial Majesty in these words That meeting at Constantinople in obedience to his Summons they had preserved Peace among themselves confirm'd the Nicene Faith anathematised all Heresies that had been raised against it enacted divers Canons for the due settlement of the discipline of the Church they now request his Majesty that he would be pleased to ratifie the Decrees of the Council that as they were call'd together by his Imperial Letters so he would be pleased to give an effectual conclusion to their Decrees That was the true state of the Church under his wise reign as it was under Constantines to summon them to Council by his own Authority and leave them to the liberty of their own determinations and then if he pleased to inforce them by his own Imperial Laws and Penalties And that he did to purpose for beside the former Law of Communicatory Bishops that was most probably publisht at this time he enacted another injoining the Nicene Faith forbidding publick Assemblies to all that would not subscribe it condemning the Photinians Arians Eunomians by name and commanding all Churches within the Empire to be
with the Recommendation of Damasus the great Bishop of Rome and is restor'd with universal joy of the People and Lucius forced to fly for help to the Emperor and his Court-Patrons then at Constantinople that was at that time little better than Besieged and before the Emperor had any leisure to mind his Complaints he by his own rashness came to his Unfortunate end of being Burnt by the Enemy in a Cottage where he had taken shelter in his Flight And so from this time Lucius continued in Exile at Constantinople till Demophilus the Arian Bishop that succeeded Eudoxius in that See and all his Party among whom Lucius is particularly named were turn'd out of the City by Theodosius the Great in the year 380. At which time Peter dies and Timotheus succeeds him for Lucius now having but small hopes left of recovering his Bishoprick under such an Orthodox Emperor made no attempt for it And now comes the great Council of Constantinople where the Nicene Faith is establisht for ever and in pursuance of it an Imperial Law made to take away all Churches through the Empire from the Hereticks of all Denominations For which the Council of Aquileia soon after sitting in the West send him the foremention'd Letter of thanks farther imploring his assistance for the Settlement of the Church and this of Alexandria in particular where the present Bishop was overwhelm'd with inveterate Schisms and Dissentions In order to which they move his Majesty that he would be pleased to call a Council at Alexandria particularly to determine who of the Hereticks should be received to the Communion of the Church and upon what terms which they thought in such a vast number of Offenders too invidious a work for the Bishop to undertake by his own Authority What followed upon it I know not For the Rescript of this Emperor to the Praefect Optatus to give Timotheus full Power of Judicature in Ecclesiastical Causes and to be assistant to him is apparently forged for there was no such Praefect as Optatus at that time as well as all the other Laws under the Subdititious Title De Episcopali Judicio the unanswerable proofs of it may be seen in Gothofred's Extravagans But probably without any farther care things settled of themselves under so wise a Reign for Timotheus sat peaceably in his See to his dying day without any disturbance that we read of from his Enemies When they saw the Church defended by such an Emperor they were content to sit still for Men are not wont to make their Attempts where they have no hope of Success But still we see by the whole progress of this Alexandrian Schism that the Disorders of the Church proceeded not from it self but the Dishonesty of the Court Eunuchs The last great Schism of that Age that the Council of Aquileia mentions in their Letter to the Emperor was that at Antioch which began sooner and lasted longer than either of the other How the matter was composed between Paulinus and Meletius we have seen above that upon the Death of one of them the Surviver should have the Government of the whole Church But upon the Death of Meletius Flavianus sets up against Paulinus and his own Oath too for he had abjured the Bishoprick as long as either of them should live And he makes so many Friends as to keep it till the great Council of Constantinople and have it confirm'd to him by the Authority of the Council where the Business was transacted by a Seditious Party with such disorderly Heats and Tumults as almost put the great Gregory Nazianzen out of love with Councils whose angry words upon a particular occasion against the abuse of some in his time are peevishly and absurdly applied by our Innovators against the use of Councils in general The Ecclesiastical Abridger almost runs mad for joy of his Satyrical Expressions and though as an Orator the good Father represented his Complaints and Invectives bigger than the life for that is the use of that sort of Eloquence R. B. has pretty well improved it with a scurvy Translation and made it look more like railing than handsom Satyr But what would you have of a meer Abridger of Binius poor Man he never looks into the secret of the Story and the connexion of things but he finds in Binius that such a Council was held such a year and out of him he gives a crude Epitome season'd with some malicious Reflections against the Bishops and so has done But alas if he had but had any insight into the Series of the Story and understood the Mystery of the Eusebian Faction by whom all these Disturbances were raised in the Church it would have spoil'd the Malice of all the Abridgment For whereas his whole design is to load the whole Body of Bishops with the Miscarriages of the Church in all Ages it is evident all along that the Body of the Bishops labour'd against all those Miscarriages that he has ignorantly and maliciously charged upon them and that all those Disorders committed in the Church from the time of Constantine to the time of this present Council were the Acts and Contrivances of some wicked men that crept into the Church by Simony and Court-favour and were enabled to do all that mischief that they did in it in spite of the Opposition of the Good Bishops by the Power of the Eunuchs So that all these Disorders were so far from being the Acts of the Ecclesiastical Power that they were the meer effects of its Oppression And such were these very Men that labour'd to raise this Tumult in the Council as is evident from Nazianzen's own account of them and that in short is this He at first earnestly endeavour'd to perswade them to acquiesce in the former Agreement and to have but a little-Patience in that Paulinus was a very old Man had one foot in the Grave and could not long stand in their way upon the other But he is hiss't down by the factious Party as a Betrayer of the Supreme Prerogative of the Eastern Church that they said ought to be preferr'd above the Western because our Saviour was Born in that part of the Empire For that was the pretence of their Zeal in this foul Matter that Paulinus had been ordain'd by Lucifer Calaritanus a Western Bishop which they will needs have to be a dishonourable Intrusion upon the Eastern Church and therefore in despite to that Usurpation they will set up Flavianus and by their noise and clamour tire the old Bishops into a complyance but Gregory Nazianzen quits the Council through meer indignation and seeing how things were like to go and what troubles he was like to encounter in that great See he soon after resigns his Bishoprick of Constantinople Of which the Faction make their advantage of playing over their old Game for creating a Division between the Eastern and Western Church An Artifice as we have seen first started by Eusebius of
silence in all Places and the burning of all their Books and both upon no less Penalty than Death it self This Law being of so severe a strein was no doubt made upon some special Provocation as generally capital and sanguinary Laws were particularly the 51 and 56 of Honorius against the Donatists and therefore being made in some suddain transport of Passion we do not find that they were ever put in execution for the Emperors never put Men to death for meer Heresie the Circumcellians were hang'd as high-way Robbers the Priscillianists and practical Manichees were put to death as Debauchers of Mankind but otherwise the Imperial Laws reacht not Mens lives in case of Heresie it being a standing rule of the Fathers that their punishments ought to be such as to leave the Offenders in a capacity of repentance Nay they were so far from touching Mens lives that they rarely or never that I remember inflicted any bodily punishments Their usual Penalties were proscription of Goods confiscation of Estates forfeiture of the Meeting Houses deprivation of the Priviledges of a Roman Citizen incapacity of bearing Office in Church or State intestability and last of all banishment of the Preachers and all that conceal'd them which last as it proved the most easy and effectual punishment for the extirpation of any Heresy so it was least odious and grievous to the People extending not to the generality but only to a small handful of Men. This Law with another at the tail of it inflicting severe Penalties upon all Officers that neglect its execution is strong enough to master the most head-strong Faction in the World And with this sort of Law does this young Emperor conclude all his Laws against the Eunomians In the year 399 he remits the usual punishment of Intestability and beside the infliction of the other common Punishments relys chiefly upon the deportation of the Preacher and so after that we hear no more of them in his reign and as by this means he rooted the Eunomians out of the East so did Honorius vanquish the Donatists in the West for all the following Rescripts of this reign under this Title de Haereticis are his Constitutions against that Sect of which we have had an account already § XII But beside these Penal Laws against Hereticks Honorius enacted divers Laws of Priviledg to the Catholicks No wonder then if as the Historians observe the Hereticks flockt so fast into the Church under the reign of these two Princes when they followed nothing but Sun-shine and Court-favor And therefore seeing that these Princes were resolved to tread in their great Fathers steps and to annex the Preferments of the Church to the Orthodox Faith they had no other hopes left than to tack about to it and when they could not after all their pains make the Church come to them it is not to be supposed that Gentlemen of their yielding and waxen temper would be so stout as not to bend to that And so at length this powerful Faction that had so long imbroil'd the Christian World with Wars and Tumults of Wars from the very time of Constantine the Great now began to forsake themselves And those very few that stuck to the Cause rather out of peevishness than Principle relyed only upon their remains of Court Interest for their support as we are informed by Synesius concerning some of them that came into his little Diocess of Ptolemais to debauch the Church there setting up Quintianus for their Bishop backt as they boasted by Court-power so that it seems though the Emperors had declared against them they were so far from wanting Friends there that they were proud of their strength At his first coming to the Crown he confirms all manner of Priviledges granted by any of his Predecessors to the Church and commands his Officers that they diligently perform the duty of Tuition i. e. that they defend and protect the Priviledges of the Church against all Invasions and if it were requisite from Violence And therefore this Office was both Civil and Military Civil Tuition was the standing Office of the Civil Magistrate to protect the Church in its Priviledges The Military was a lawful Guard allowed by the Civil Magistrate to defend any Publick Assembly from violence and therefore this kind of Tuition was not granted in the Contests of private Men and there is an express Law of Theodâ—siâ—s the Great to restrain it but only to Publick Societies as to the Jews to guard their Synagogues and to the Navicularii i. e. those Officers that carried away the Tribute Corn from other Places to Rome or Constantinople who were constrain'd to have Guards for their defence against the fury of the hungry Rabble and to the Christian Churches to protect them from the Assaults and Outrages of Hereticks though this was rarely put in Execution anywhere but in Africa where it was necessary to defend the Christian Assemblies against the Troops of the Circumcellians And this Emperor was at last forced to restrain their fanatick Violence by Capital punishments requiring withal of all his Officers to put it in execution by vertue of their Office without the Complaint or Information of the Bishop because his Function obliged him to acts of Mercy and if the Offenders made any resistance they were impowr'd to fall upon them with the Emperors Forces whose assistance they were by this Rescript authorised to demand in his Majesty's Name This was a brisk Law but nothing more gentle than this could make any impression upon Men of their temper and bloody Principles And here the clause commanding the Officers to proceed against them without staying for the Bishops complaint cui sanctitas ignoscendi solam gloriam reliquit is very remarkable because it becomes Bishops in such Cases to spare Mens lives and therefore St. Austin tells the Proconsul of Africa that if he put the Donatists to death they should cease their Information against them But this is quite different from the Case of the Priscillianists because these are particular Offences and Miscarriages against particular Men whereas their fault was a general Offence against Mankind in the one the Crime lay in the Action that may be forgiven because but transient in the other it lay in the principle that cannot because perpetual So that though it may be a decent Act of Mercy in a Bishop to interceed for pardon to a criminal Action yet to do it for a debaucht Principle were to make himself Patron of the Wickedness But to proceed in the year 397 he publishes a Law against the Mutilation of the Priviledges of the Church and this the Emperors were often forced to do because thir Officers and Governors were apt to oppress them Especially where the Church was wealthy and the Governors heathen as Theodorus was to whom this Rescript was directed they were very forward to hook them in towards bearing their share in those publick burthens from which
all the Acts of the Council to be read over as their Master Celestine had given them in command which being done they by the Sovereign Authority of St. Peter and his Successors in the Apostolick See give validity to the Sentence without which state of the Papal Veult Le Roy it could have had no effect But the Council were glad of their Concurrence to ballance it against the opposition of John of Antioch and upon it they write a second Letter to the Emperor informing him of the agreement both of the Eastern and Western Church in the Sentence against Nestorius and request him not to credit thâ— Letters that after the sentence of tâ—e Catholick Church so fully declared in Council were threatned to be sent abroad by some Men thaâ— preferr'd their friendship to Nestorius before the Peace of the Church After this Cyril and Memnon move the Council to call John of Antioch to account for the injury that he had done to them in their Deposition and to the whole Council in controuling its sentence Upon this they send some of their number to cite John to appear but by the favor of Candidianus he has his Guards as well as Nestorâ—us and by them the Bishops are affronted and repulst and finally refusing to appear he and his Associates are condemned and deposed and their deposition certified to the Emperor and Pope Celestine But the Schismaticks had the Courtiers to back them and therefore are so far from submitting to the Sentence of the Council that they both defie that and depose the Council it self and send their Complaints to the Emperor of the violent courses used against them as if they were in continual danger of their Lives and ply the Courtiers with dismal stories of barbarous usage beg them by all the motives of Humanity to rescue them from their dismal condition But their complaints to the Emperor being vouch't by Candidianus the Emperor sends Letters to the Council by Palladius to null all their Acts for which the Schismaticks you may be sure return their letter of humble thanks applauding the Wisdom and Goodness of his Imperial Majesty But the Council finding hereby that the Emperor had been abused with false tales write to him by Palladius to assure his Majesty of the truth of those Acts that they had sent him and whereas Candidianus had given him other Information out of his friendship to Nestorius they assure him that he was altogether ignorant of the Proceedings of the Council and had not so much as ever seen the Books in which their Acts were enter'd That the Bishops who join'd with Nestorius were either such as had been already deposed or such as knew themselves obnoxious to the Discipline of the Church and so must have been deposed though they had continued with the Council And as for their complaints of Violence they were so far from truth that all the Guards attended Nestorius and his Party that Irenaeus broke into the Council in a tumultuary way and with Military force to the great danger of their Lives and humbly petition his Majesty that five of the Council might attend him to give him farther Information in the presence of Candidianus Upon this Irenaeus who was a Courtier that accompanied Candidianus to the Council out of meer zeal for Nestorius is posted away to Constantinople by the schismatical Party with fresh Certificates of the wild and disorderly behavior of Cyril and Memnon Neither was he remiss in his Embassy and so improved their Tales by word of Mouth that though he had been prevented by Messengers from the Council who came three days before him and had pâ—epossest the greatest part of the People and stagger'd the Emperor himselâ— yet he so satisfied him with his Relation of the whole Matter that he confirm'd the deposition of Cyril and Memnon as well as Nestorius And sends John his Comes Sacrorum another favourer of Nestorius to see it put in execution who finding the City in a Tumult about those three Persons he commits them all to prison and then takes upon him to preâ—ch Peace and Reconciliation to the Bishops and censures them very severely for being so implacable in their Quarrels as he is pleased to call their resolution for the Orthodox Faith and the Discipline of the Church And setting aside the cause of truth in the case it was an unpardonable Affront to the Discipline of the Church that when the Controversie had been determin'd and the Hereticks deposed by the sentence of so great a Council this unlearned Courtier should presume to set aside their Authority and as if they stood upon equal ground after the sentence of the Church was pass't advise both Parties to shake hands and be friends and because the Bishops scorn'd to put such a childish slur upon their own Authority and the discipline of the Church as to admit Offenders to communion without Canonical satisfaction call them implacable Prelates But now the Council finding that both the Emperor and themselves had been abused in that the Letter of the Nestorians to the Emperor about the deposition of Cyril and Memnon was written in the name of the Council and the Emperors Letter to confirm their deposition as well as that of Nestorius was directed both to the Council and the Conventicle as if they had been but one body of Men they write two Letters to him to inform him of the Imposture but they are intercepted by the Courtiers who still persist to lay all the blame of all these heats and disorders upon the Council it self In which Office Count John was most busie at his return home thinking himself affronted by the Council when they would not prostitute the sacred Discipline of the Church to his illiterate device of Peace and Comprehension But the Council having no return from the Emperor to their Letters and suspecting their suppression they write to the Clergy of Constantinople to inform the Emperor by Address of all the Abuses that were put upon his Majesty and the Council But this falls short for the next Letter that we have is from the Clergy of Constantinople to the Council complaining of the want of Correspondence all Passages both by Sea and Land being blockt up and declaring that they were ready to do any service that the Council would be pleased to command them By which the Council perceive that the first came not to their lands and therefore send a second to the same effect that came safe and upon it they petition the Emperor and inform hâ—m of the true state of the whole Matter and the Emperor being puzled with al these cross Stories orders Commissioners from both Parties to repair to Constantinople that he might understand the real Truth of the Controversy Eight Commissioners are sent on each side and the Legates of the Council are commanded in their Instructions to insist upon the deposition of Nestorius and nothing else as the Article of Peace And the Legates from
Religion and Loyalty The Second Part. 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 By SAMUEL PARKER D.D. Arch-Deacon of Canterbury LONDON Printed for John Baker at the Three Pigeons in St. Paul's Church-yard MDCLXXXV TO THE READER THE Church of England having acknowledged and declared His Majestie 's Supremacy in Causes Ecclesiastical to be of the same Nature and Extent with that Authority that the Christian Emperors claim'd and exercised in the Primitive Church I deem'd it no unuseful piece of Service to my King and Country to inform my self and my Fellow-Subjects out of the Records of those times of our true Duty to the Royal Supremacy And to this end I have drawn up as exact a Chart as my little Skill could reach of the Primitive Practice of the Three first Centuries after the Empire became Christian. Neither have I only Surveyed and coasted the general History but have sounded every part of it and not only described the safe Passages and right Chanels through which the abler Pilots steer'd their Courses but the Shallows the Gulfs the Rocks and the Sands upon which the less Skilful or less Fortunate Shipwrackt their Governments Neither have I presumed to make any Political Remarks of my own but have only observed the Natural and Historical Events of Matters of Fact And by the Experience of 300 years in which all Experiments were tryed we are fully instructed in all the right and all the wrong Measures of Government in the Christian Church In the Reigns of the great Constantine Jovian Gratian Theodosius the Great Arcadius Honorius Theodosius the younger Marcian Leo Justin and Justinian are exemplified the Natural good Effects of abetting the Power of the Church by good Laws and their effectual Execution In the Reigns of Julian and Valentinian we may observe the inevitable Mischiefs of Toleration and Liberty of Conscience In the Reigns of Constantius and Valens but especially of Zeno and Anastasius are to be seen the fatal and bloody Consequences of pretended Moderation or as we phrase it comprehension that indeed unites all Parties but then it is like a Whirlpool into one common Gulf of Ruin and Confusion This is the short account of this Undertaking and the Historical Events of things being withal so very Natural they will of themselves amount to a fair Demonstration of the Necessity of Discipline in the Church and Penal Laws in the State All that I can ensure for the Performance is its Truth and Integrity I have faithfully and impartially perused all the most Material and Original Records both of Church and State and out of them and them alone have Collected the ensuing History and if that prove true and for that I stand bound the Conclusion that I aim at will make it self The CONTENTS SEct. I. The State of the Church under Jovian The Hypocrisie both of the Eusebians to recover their Bishopricks and of the Acacians to preserve theirs in owning the Nicene Faith page 1. § II. Of Valentinian his Edict for Liberty of Conscience The struglings of the Eusebians against the Acacians Their Councils at Lampsacus and Tyana to that end They are defeated by the juglings of the Acacians The dishonest craft of the two Leaders Eudoxius in the East and Auxentius in the West p. 7. § III. The Persecution of St. Basil by the Eudoxians his discourse with the Prefect Modestus Dear to the Emperor Valens Valens himself no Arian but abused by the Eudoxians the deplorable State of the Eastern Church at that time under their Oppressions St. Basil's misfortune in receiving Eustathius of Sebasta to communion The death of St. Athanasius The Heresie of Apollinaris how suppressed p. 27. § IV. The Election of St. Ambrose to the See of Milan The death of Valentinian the mischiefs he brought upon the Empire by his principle of Liberty of Conscience Themistius the Philosopher's Address to Valens in behalf of the Orthodox The Emperor Gratian's Rescripts and effectual Proceedings against Hereticks His restitution of the Discipline of the Church The bounds of the Imperial and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction briefly stated The great Schism at Antioch occasion'd by Julian's toleration p. 35. § V. The singular care of Theodosius the Great to settle the Church and Orthodox Faith Vindicated in his Institution of the Communicatory Bishops He summons the general Council at Constantinople and confirms all their Decrees by several Imperial Rescripts Wisely forbids all Disputes about Religion Assists the young Valentinian against the Tyrum Maximus and prevails with him to reverse his severe Rescript against the Catholicks p. 55. § VI. Valentinian made the first open breach upon the Power of the Church in taking to himself the Power of Judicature in Matters of Faith St. Ambrose his Sufferings upon that account His Embassy to Maximus his Wisdom and Courage Maximus his Conquest of Italy and overthrow by Theodosius The Stars raised by the Hereticks at Constantinople in the Emperor's absence The method of lying People into Tumults His effectual enacting and executing Laws against them settles the Church in Peace p. 66. § VII His Laws made without the concurrence of the Church for reforming the Abuses of Widows and Deaconesses the disorders of Monks and the Abuse of Church-Sanctuary p. 81. § VIII His Laws without the same concurrence against Manichees Apostates Pagans and in behalf of the Jews p. 89. § IX Of the Council of Aquileia Of the Schism at Rome between Damasus and Ursicinus Of the Schism at Alexandria between Peter and Lucius Of the Schism at Antioch between Paulinus and Flavianus p. 98. § X. The unparallell'd Immorality of the Priscillian Heresie The Prosecution of them by Ithacius justified against Mr. B. they were executed as Malefactors and Traitors not as Hereticks St. Martin's great indiscretion in interceding for them p. 124. § XI The praise of Theodosius against the Calumnies of Zosimns The Laws of his Son Arcadius against the Hereticks p. 152. § XII His Laws of Privilege to the Catholicks The several Laws of Tuition The Law of civil Decision in the Church by Arbitration The Laws against Appeals from the Church to the civil Power p. 167. § XIII His Laws of Reformation of Discipline Against the tumults of Monks the abuse of Sanctuary against the Johannites against Apostates In behalf of the Jews The Laws of Honorius against and for the Jews The Laws of both Emperors under the Title de Paganis p. 180. § XIV The history and design of the Theodosian Code Theodosius his own Novels Of the Parabolani of Alexandria The famous Law concerning the Churches of â—lâ—yricum explain'd together with his other Laws and the Laws of Valentinian the third p. 198. § XV. The History and Acts of the Council of Ephesus against Nestorius and Imperial ratification of the Decreeâ—â—f the Church by Marcian p. 225. § XVI The
Reign of the Emperor Leo his Method of preserving the Peace of the Church by way of Encyclical correspondence Pope Leo's concurrence p. 260. § XVII Of the Emperor Leo and the Tyrant Basiliscus The great mischiefs of Zeno's Henoticon or Act of Comprehension Of the Acephali and the Haesitantes i. e. the moderate Men. Of the numberless Schisms occasion'd in the Church by this healing Instrument p. 296. § XIX The reign of Anastasius his outragious zeal for the Henoticon his persecution in pursuance of Moderation till at last the design ended in Wars Tumults and Rebellions p. 335. § XX. Justin's restitution of the Council of Calcedon The re-union of the Eastern and Western Churches thereby The Tumults of the Scythian and Acaemetan Monks His Laws against the Hereticks p. 349. § XXI A general vindication of the Justinian Code A short history of both the Codes Theodosian and Justinian Tribonian's Integrity vindicated in his reciting the Laws of former Emperors against the accusations of Gothofred p. 366. § XXII All Justinian's own Novels vindicated from any Invasion upon the Power of the Church and proved to have been nothing else than Canons enacted into Laws p. 376. § XXIII All his Actions vindicated against Alemannus and the Anecdota The history of the Contest about the tria Capitula with an account of the extravagant behaviour of Pope Vigilius p. 391. § XXIV The Contest between Paul the 5th and the state of Venice the cause of all the displeasure of the Court of Rome against Justinian The Anecdota proved to be spurious and none of Procopius his writings p. 426. § XXV Justinian vindicated from the charge of Cruelty p. 443. § XXVI The unparallel'd gentleness of his reign the Empress Theodora Antonia and the great Belisarius vindicated from the Calumnies of the Anecdota p. 455. § XXVII An account of Justinian's Persian Vandalick and Gothick Wars p. 479. § XXVIII The reason of his siding with the Venetae against the Prasmi i. e. the Tories against the Whigs p. 497. § XXIX His vindication from Folly and Knavery p. 502. § XXX Item From Covetousness and Prodigality p. 510. § XXXI Item From Oppression in putting the Laws in execution p. 523. § XXXII Item From inconstancy and falsehood to his Friends From Vanity from Forgery from Lust from Vnkindness and Overâ—kindness to his Clergy p. 547. § XXXIII An Answer to the whole Rhapsody of smaller Cavils and Calumnies p. 573. ERRATA PAg. 2. l. 3. They kept it themselves Read They kept it to themselves P. 192. l. 2. Welly r. well P. 200. l. 6. Hair r. hare P. 224. l. 2. tyed r. lyed P. 267. l. 8. rehearse r. rehear P. 310. l. 8. Possessions r Possession P. 336. l. 12. Syntax r. Sin-tax P. 354. l. 27. upon r. up P. 378. l. 29. and r. an P. 394. l. 28. onâ—y r. on the contrary P. 404. l. penult Summary r. Summoning P. 406. l. 7. Bishops r. Bishop P. 429. l. 19. Eusebius r. Eichelius P. 432. l. ult Helâ—sted r. Helmsted P. 439. l. 29. Oversâ—en r. Over-keen P. 456. l. 18. Patriarchate r. Patriciate Ibid. l. 22. Patriarchate r. Patriciate P. 466. l. 24. Theodorus r. Theodora ' s. P. 479. l. 20. use r. vie P. 546. l. friends r. fâ—nds P. 550 l. penult Solomons r. Solomon PART I. SECT I. UPon the death of Julian there was another quick and suddain turn of Affairs by the Election of Jovian a Christian to the Empire though the change was rather made in the Emperor than the Religion For Christianity was so universally entertain'd that Julian with all his Arts of Undermining and Persecution could make but very little alteration in the Church and at last left it in the very same or a much better Condition than that in which he found it And for that reason Gregory Nazianzen derides his folly and madness in endeavouring to destroy Christianity when it had so universally prevail'd and himself was so sensible of it that he was forced for a time to conceal his own Religion and as he marched out of France towards Rome he was forced to keep Christmas at Vienna that he might seem to be of the same Religion with his Army And so during his reign they kept it themselves so as to keep it in reality for when Jovian was chosen Emperor upon his death he refused it as being a Christian and so unfit to command Julian's Army whom he could not but suppose to be of the same Religion with their Master At which a great shout was made O Sir take no care for that for you shall command Christian Men and such as are educated in the Discipline and Piety of the Christian Church for the eldest among us were train'd up under Constantine and the younger under Constantius and as for the time of Julian it was too short to make any alteration as to the Principles of our Religion Upon which declaration when he had made them repeat it several times as Socrates tells the Story he accepts the Empire and immediately restores all the Revenues Privileges and Immunities that had been given to the Church by Constantine and his Sons and taken away by Julian And withal restores all the banished Bishops and particularly St. Athanasius with especial regard to his Person to whom he writes for Instructions in order to the settlement of the true Faith who upon it immediately calls a Council and to prevent the Application of the Hereticks sends him out of hand the Nicene Confession not only as the true old Apostolical Faith which Arius and his followers had endeavour'd to corrupt by their prophane Novelties and others i. e. the Eusebians endeavour'd to supplant though they durst not disown it But as the sense of the Catholick Church ever since the Nicene Council in Spain in Britain in France in Italy Dalmatia Mysia Macedonia Greece Affrick Sardinia Cyprus Creet Pamphylia Lysia Isauria Egypt Lybia Pontus Cappadocia and all the Eastern Churches a very few only excepted all whose subscriptions he says and many others more remote we have in our own Possession and therefore though there are some few scatter'd Dissenters that ought to be no prejudice to the Faith of the whole World And this is another clear Confutation of that uncatholick surmise from the mistaken Sense of St. Jerom that all the World were at that time turn'd Arians But the most pleasant Scene of that time was the Council of Antioch when all the Arian World if any such there were would needs turn Orthodox for the Eusebians that had been supplanted by the Acacians under Constantius finding now that they had a Christian Emperor they petition him in his return from Persia that the Acacians who taught the Son to be unlike the Father might be displaced out of their Bishopricks and themselves restored but they receiving no kind answer from him who understood them too well and the Acacians who resolved to keep their hold finding
which was the occasion of the great Wealth of that Church that as Am. Marcellinus observes was made fat with the Offerings of Widows This Liberty the succeeding Emperors found such a consumptive profuseness from the Publick that they were forced to limit it in some cases and in some to stop it quite up Valentian the Elder directed a Rescript to Damasus Bishop of the City to be read in all Churches under his Jurisdiction to forâ—id the Clergies acceptance of any Legacies from Religious Women Which Law was variously censured by the Fathers themselves St. Ambrose complains of it as a particular Spite and Unkindness to the Church St. Jerom approves of it as being extorted by the Rapaciousness of the Clergy But it continued in force till it was by name abrogated by the Emperor Marcian as too rigid and severe a restraint of Pious Uses and an entire Liberty granted to all Widows and Religious Women to dispose of their own Estates according to the old Constantinian Law Justinian limited the sense of it so as that it should not extend to the wrongful disinheriting of Children because he says when Princes grant such Liberties they cannot be supposed to grant any thing contrary to the Law of Nature and the known Custom of the Empire and therefore the Right of Inheritance belonging by both to the Children or Kindred of the Family if the Alienation from them by such Gifts be apparent the Government ought to stop it and not suffer the Subjects civil Rights to be defrauded by their too religious bounty so that these Imperial Concessions are to be limited to such cases only in which no other Person is wrong'd but if any be so that anticipates the Grant And in truth this Imposture and so it is when it is imposed by the Artifice of the Priests upon the Folly of the People grew so exorbitant in the times of Superstition that almost all the States of Christendom were forced to make Statutes of Mortmain as well as we in England and it was such a Law that was the ground of that famous Quarrel between Paul the Fifth and the Venetians But though former Ages were so wise as to stay their hand when they supposed the Church had enough for it self and the Poor for in those days they were no Parish Charge but were the care of the Church yet they were never so Prophane and Sacrilegious as to Strip and Plunder her when they were pleased to imagine that she had too much That is the peculiar Glory of our last worthy Age of Reformation when some great Pretenders swept away its Abuses and Revenues together Reforming Rectories that were a competent maintenance for Men of Education into Vicaredges the meanness of whose Revenues cannot but expose the poor Incumbents to the contempt of the People for be the Men what they will or do they what they can not only the Common People but all men will trample upon their Poverty And when all is done that is the true ground of the contempt of the Clergy Though there are many more Reasons for it as the Prophaneness of the Age and contempt of the Function it self though that in a great measure first comes from the contempt of the Men and their Poverty The wicked licentiousness of the Schismaticks in venting perpetual Lies and Calumnies against all Men that are truly honest for the Church yet the bottom of all other Contempts and that which will make them everlasting is this Remediless Poverty And it is to be fear'd that the curse of God has and does hang very heavy over this Nation for this wrong done to himself and I doubt will never be removed till some Publick â—â—re be taken to make him some competent Restitution for if there be any one Sin punisht with signal and remarkable Judgments from Heaven 't is this daring Sin of National Sacriledge of which I shall give the peculiar Reason when I come to shew the high Obligation that is laid by God upon all Christian States to endow the Church with setled Revenues which is so great that without it they cease to be Christian States But to return to the Series of the History as this Prince reform'd by himself the abuse of Widows and Deaconesses so did he correct the disorders of Monks or the Professors of solitary life for the first Monks were properly Hermites and enlarge or contract their Priviledges according to his own Will or Pleasure or according to the Temper of the Times Thus whereas it had been an old Custom indulged them to intercede with the Emperors Judges for Mercy to Criminals and Malefactors they grew so bold and insolent as to besiege the Courts raise Tumults and obstruct the whole course of Justice of which Disorders complaint being made by the Judges he Publishes a Rescript to Command them from all Cities into their Solitudes And two years after either upon change of Mind or change of Affairs or change of Councils he cancels it A very frequent thing that with all Princes to alter their Laws of Privilege as the conveniences of things alter'd So the Emperor Valens when great numbers of Men left their civil Employments to herd among the Monks for ease and idleness ferrets them back to their business under pain of forfeiture of Goods and Chattels And so when Constantine the Great had granted great Immunities to the Clergy and Exemptions from Publick Burthens great Multitudes quitted their Stations in the Common-wealth to enjoy the Privileges of the Church this forced him to enact a Rescript forbidding the admission of Civil and Military Officers into Holy Orders lest under Pretence of Religion the Service of the State be starved and defrauded And there are no less than 16 Laws in the Theodosian Code against this abuse of Clericatus as they stile it they may be seen all together at one View in Gothofred's Paratitlon to the Title De Decurionibus But the most observable Act of Reformation is his Law to restrain the abuse of Ecclesiastical immunity or the Sanctuary of Christian Churches where all sorts of Persons that escaped to them were protected by the Clergy against the Execution of the Law and they were grown so bold in the abuse of that Privilege that they would not deliver them up till they had sued out their Pardon and therefore this Emperor strictly forbids them to receive or conceal any Debtors especially those of the Crown upon penalty of paying the Debt themselves This was the first Law that was made of this kind though the following Emperors were very quick-sighted in watching this abuse For as such Customs naturally spring up of themselves from that respect that all Men have to their Religion and therefore this right of Sanctuary was common to all Religions in the World so having Superstition to back it it as naturally runs into abuse to the subversion of Justice and Honesty when under pretence of Mercy and Humanity ill Men
a Rescript to Caesarius who was made Praefectus Praetorio by Eutropius the Eunuch after the murther of Rufinus changing his Councils with the change of Ministers of State And that was another unhappy miscarriage of several of the Emperors especially whil'st raw and unexperienced at their first coming to the Government that they were not constant to themselves and their own Measures for that brought contempt not only upon the Laws but upon their own Understandings and frequent change of Opinion argues both fickleness of Mind and want of Consideration And though when once a Law is made though it may not be so convenient as might have been expected it is better to bear with it than lightly to reverse it the reverence that Resolution brings to the Authority of the Government will be an ample compensation for the inconvenience of the Law His next Law is made to give force to all his Royal Fathers Laws against the Meetings of Hereticks and to put them in execution without reserves and limitations whether the Conventicles were held by Bishops or any other Ecclesiastical Order Which last clause was probably added as Gothofred very well observes against the Macedonians at Constantinople who as Sozoâ—en relates had no Bishop of Constantinople at that time but from the time of Eudoxius who deprived them of their Churches under Constantius were under all the succeeding Emperors govern'd only by Presbyters Upon this Aurelian Pro-consul of the lesser Asia where the Hereticks had always chiefly nested though their swarms were never numerous inquires of him in the case of Euresius what his Majesty intended by the name of Heretick To which he returns this short and smart Answer That it comprehended all that departed from the Catholick Church thô in never so small a Matter The meaning of this Law has very much puzled the Canonists or rather they have puzled themselves about it it being their Trade because it is their gain to create obscurity and raise variety of Opinions about all Laws Otherwise the true meaning of this Law is sufficiently evident from the Words themselves and the occasion of its enacting viz. that all departure from the Catholick Church as such is Heresie The Hereticks even of the Arian Faction were subdivided into divers Parties and distinguisht by such Niceties that it was hard to understand their different Metaphysicks and therefore the Emperor to make short work of it and without perplexing his Laws with Entities and Quiddities plainly defines that be they what they will if they are not Catholicks to him they are Hereticks The occasion both of the Inquiry and the Law was Euresius a Luciferian Bishop who coming about that time out of some other Part of the World into the Pro-consular Asia but not joining Communion with the Catholicks nor yet holding any different Opinion from them the Inquiry was Whether he ought to be comprehended in the Catalogue of Hereticks Yes says the Emperor if he be not a Catholick that is enough It concerns not us to inquire into his particular Fancy his meer dissenting be the difference never so small is to us and in the Eye of the Law Heresy This was truly Imperial and became the Greatness of a Sovereign Prince He knew not what Euresius was nor would he inquire as long as he dissented from the Catholick Church whatever was the ground of his Quarrel it was all one to his Government Now the singular conceit of the Luciferians was this that they were over-zealous in the Catholick Faith to the subversion of Catholick discipline and because the Catholick Bishops received the Heretical Clergy upon their repentance to communion in their Clerical Capacity they broke off Communion with them So that though they were in propriety of Speech only Schismaticks yet the Emperor will trouble himself with none of those Niceties and be they what they will they are in the sense of his Law Hereticks This is the plain meaning of this intricated Rescript and though it may seem somewhat severe to punish all Opinions alike and make no difference between the least and the greatest Heresies yet if we consider the design of the Imperial Laws they can make none for it is the Church that is the proper Judg of the Heresie it self so as to proportion the Punishment to the Crime But when that is done the Civil Power only comes in to abet its Sentence for the settlement of Peace in Church and State That is his proper care and province so that if the peace of either be any way broke that is the Crime that he is properly concerned to punish And indeed the less the difference the greater the fault for what it wants in pretence it exceeds in peevishness and that is of all others the rankest Affront to Government it carries open contempt in the Crime 't is disdain as well as disobedience and a plain spitting in the very face of Authority The same year this young Prince issues out an Order to Marcellus the Magister Officiorum to make inquiry after Hereticks in the Army or any Place of Trust particularly the Court and the Guards and if he discover'd any not only to disband or displace them but to banish their Officers by whose connivance they had crept in out of the Walls of Constantinople And in the year following he interdicts all Meetings of all Hereticks not only in Churches but in Vestrys Church-Prisons and all other Places by Night or by Day by which little shifts they thought to elude the Laws of Theodosius the Great that only prohibited their Meetings in Churches And the execution of this Law is injoin'd with a severe Pecuniary Mulct upon Clearchus Prefect of Constantinople to whom it was directed and upon his Under-Officers that had hitherto winked at such illegal Meetings if by his or their connivance such shufflings with the Law should for the time to come be made use of to evacuate its Obligation At this time the Eunomians raised new Tumults by new Divisions among themselves One Theophronius having got a little smattering in Aristotles Logick set up a new Metaphysicks of his own and was opposed by Eurychius an illiterate Trades-man And this made a new fewd not only among themselves but the old Eunomians and upon it the Emperor enacts two Rescripts in the years 396 and 397 to banish all their Leaders first from all Cities and then out of the whole Empire or as they express it câ—â—tibus humanis from the conversation of all Mankind So endless a folly is metaphysical nicenâ—ss in Divinity if once indulged the wantonness of its own curiosity And upon the same account the Macedonians subdivided into two new Factions Dorotheus heading one and Marianus the other there is no end of scabs and scratching when once Men are over-run with the itch of Disputation But upon what account unless the stubbornness of the Faction I know not his next and last Edict against them commands their perpetual
ancient Canons And that was the custom of all Popes at that time following the dance of Innocent the first to make the Canons speak what themselves pleased and when they pleased to speak Contradictions But in the time of Leo the great Hilarius Bishop of Arles and a mettlesom Man would not be content with his Metropolitical Authority but sets up for a Patriarchal Supremacy over all France and Independency upon Rome This transports that proud and jealous Pope beyond all bounds of revenge and outrage and upon it he writes in great fury to the Bishops of France to depose him from his Metropolitical Authority and cancels all Acts of his Government in that capacity And as for the Grant of his Predecessor Zosimus to that See he has the confidence to pretend that it was only temporary and personal though by it he imposed as grosly upon Zosimus as Zosimus himself did upon the ancient Canons and to ratifie all he procures this Imperial Rescript commanding absolute Obedience to all his Commands and in effect erecting an universal Supremacy for him But the matter the stile and the spirit of the Rescript too much betray the rough hand of Leo himself in it And it was no hard Matter for so bold a Man to extort what he pleased from such a softly Prince And yet this very same Man when Hilarius dyed got Ravennius a very weak Man to succeed him and then restored the Metropolitical Authority to him and his See and thus did these Men set up and pull down as served the ends of their own Ambition and all out of pure Reverence to the ancient Canons And to speak a plain truth plainly they meerly lyed themselves into their universal Supremacy as I shall shew more at large not only from this instance of Arles but from two other great transactions on foot at the very same time that is their Usurpation over the Churches of Africk and Illyricum And though in the first they were shamefully baffled by the Africans who exposed their gross and scandalous Forgeries to the World yet it shews that they trusted to nothing so much at the time of their usurpation as the Sovereign Power of lying But to keep to our present business His next Law is to confirm all the Rescripts of former Emperors Pagan as well as Christian to out-law the Manichees This Law was made upon the discovery and confession of some very foul matter by one of the Ring-leaders of that Sect what the Fact was it was not thought decent to express and it is only in general thus described Quorum incesta perversitas Religionis nomine Lupanaribus quoque ignota vel pudenda committit such a foul incest under pretext of Religion that it was not so much as named in the publick Stews His next Law is against the Robbers of Tombs and Sepulchres it is a very severe one and one of the most eloquent for the stile in the whole Collection Servants and poor People convicted of it are punisht with death Men of fortune with forfeiture of half their Estates and all their Honors Clergy-Men with deposition from their Orders and perpetual banishment And as for all Governors that shall neglect the execution of this Law they forfeit both Estate and Honor. His last Law is to regulate the Bishops Courts and to revive some Laws of former Emperors relating to the Clergy it gives the Bishops power of Judicature praeeunte vinculo compromissi by way of Arbitration but no otherwise It allows Bishops and Presbyters to appear in the Civil Courts by their Proxies for all Causes unless Personal Crimes and lastly it prescribes what Persons may or may not be received into Holy Orders according to several fore-mention'd Rescripts of former Emperors § XV. But the most material Law of this reign is still behind and that is the Law to confirm the Decrees of the great Council of Ephesus that was both call'd and ratified by Theodosius the Younger which I have reserved to this place to treat of it by it self because as it is the greatest transaction of this Reign so is it another eminent Instance of the right Concurrence of the Powers of Church and State in the determination of Ecclesiastical Controversies and enacting of Ecclesiastical Laws and Canons All the old Schisms and Heresies being vanquisht by the Methods already described such is the wantonness of Humane Wit that it fell upon contriving new Conceits for its own sport and entertainment There is such a natural Vanity in some Mens Tempers that they can scarce live without singularities and innovations from whence comes that necessity of Heresies that St Paul speaks of they are the certain effects of Pride and Pedantry and as long as there are and will be born in all Ages Men of that Complexion nothing can hinder them from venting their own novel and home-spun Metaphysicks And therefore it cannot be expected that the Church should be altogether free from Heresies for that cannot be done without an alteration of Humane Nature it is enough that it is furnisht with means to stop and cure the Disease whenever it breaks out in the body of the Church as we have seen great numbers of Botches dispersed and reduced to nothing by the right exercise and concurrence of the Civil and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction And after this time it is observable that Heresies were not so long-lived for now the Method of their cure being understood by experience which when all is done is the best Art of Physick it was so soon dispatch't that they rarely survived their Author and after one sentence effectually executed they scarce ever put the Government to a second trouble as will appear by the following History Nestorius being chosen to the swelling Throne of Constantinople by Theodosius the Younger out of the Church of Antioch to avoid or rather end a violent competition at home he brings along with him one Anastasius a Presbyter his inseparable Friend and Companion and Valesius is pleased to be so critical as to affirm that he was his Syncellus an Office in the Pallaces of Patriarchs who had power to choose what Presbyters they pleased to cohabit with them who were therefore stil'd Syncelli or Concellanei But I doubt this learned Man here derives this Office too high for we find no foot-steps of any such State in the Records of the Church till after the Institution of Patriarchates by the Council of Calcedon and then we have frequent mention of it in History though nothing but deep silence before But whatever he were whereas the Title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Mother of God had been so familiarly given to the Virgin Mary by the Ancients that it was by custom become her proper Title and always annext to her name against this Anastasius inveighs in a Sermon and affirms that she ought not to be stil'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Mother of God but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Mother of Man But
dear to him but the Truth of God and that as for Nestorius though he had received many injuries from him he was so far from bearing him any ill Will that what he did was out of kindness to him only to put him upon clearing himself from those errors in the Faith that were vulgarly and he hoped falsly charged upon him which if he would be pleased to do himself should be very glad of his Friendship But the Quarrel advances whil'st Anastasius pretending Peace undertakes to prove in a Discourse before the Clergy of Constantinople that Cyril in his Book against him was at last of the same Opinion with himself Upon this Cyril writes to them to convict him of manifest leasing and impudence and upon that the Clergy of Constantinople draw up a Schedule to parallel the Assertions of Nestorius with the Doctrines of Paulus Samâ—satenus as the Father of this Heresie from whence Suidas and from him Baronius rashly suppose him to have descended of his Off-spring and when they had so done they by common consent publish it in their Churches which could not but be an unpardonable Provocation to his Proud and Violent Spirit and indeed it was a just ground of displeasure against them it being a false and unjust Charge against their own Bishop But Cyril finding by his furious temper that he was not to be reclaimed endeavours to engage all the Bishops of the most eminent Churches against him and first he writes to Celestine the great Bishop of Rome to inform him of the whole matter and beg his Assistance and Advice Celestine immediately takes very high offence at Nestorius Condemns him in Council and by the Authority of the Apostolick See deposes him if he repent not within 10 days and writes to John of Antioch Rufus of Thessalonica Juvâ—nal of Jerusalem and Flavianus of Philippi to desire their Concurrence to his Sentence And no doubt he took the Complaint so much the more greedily as being glad of any opportunity to take down the Proud and Aspiring Prelates of that See of whom he had too much reason to be jealous at that time when they had made several Attempts to mount the Throne of the Imperial City above the Apostolical Chair it self But now Nestorius perceiving the Clouds to gather and that a Storm was like to overtake him by Cyril's Activity he follows him with his Letters to Celestine though pretended to be written upon another occasion viz. Concerning the Pelagian Bishops that had been cast out of the Western Church for their Heresie but were then at Constantinople filling all Peoples Ears with Complaints of their unjust Sentence and daily soliciting both the Emperor and himself for restitution and therefore desires to let him know their Crime that he may rid both his Royal Master and himself from their Importunity After this his own Controversie is brought in as it were by way of Postscript to prevent false Reports against him and soon after he sends him larger discourses in his own Justification Upon which he returns him a very stately and supercilious Answer as if he were particularly pleased in insulting over a Bishop of Constantinople cutting him off from the Communion of the Catholick Church allowing him only 10 days from the time of the Receipt of the Instrument to redeem himself from the Fatal Decree by a publick and open Repentance And as for the Cause of the Pelagians he rates him very smartly for giving them any Countenance or Entertainment and reflects suspicious of that Heresie upon him for his presuming to interpose in their behalf however it is not time for him to intercede for others but to take speedy care of himself This being done he certifies his Sentence to the Clergy and People of Constantinople letting them know that if Nestorius did not recant within 10 days they should no longer own him for their Bishop And the same thing is done by his several Epistles to the forementioned Bishops all which is seconded by Cyril who was glad to fortifie himself with the Authority of the Apostolick See and therefore he sends by the same Messenger that first brought Celestine's Letter to himself a particular account to them and to Acacius of Beraea of all the fair means that had been used for reclaiming Nestorius before they proceeded to this severity who all agree with him against Nestorius as it is evident by Acacius his Answer to it this he particularly assures him for himself and John of Antioch who upon it writes a very kind and prudent Letter to his old Friend Nestorius conjuring him by all the Tyes of Friendship not to disturb his own and the Churches Peace by contending about a word whilest himself professed to own the sense of it And withal tells him that if he would suffer himself to be perswaded to disclaim the Controversie it would be so far from the dishonour of a Recantation that it would be an eminent Act of Wisdom and Greatness of Mind to forego Contentions and his own Opinions that were not necessary to the Faith for the Peace of the Church and this he writes as the unanimous sence of divers Bishops that were his Friends This Letter might probably have made some impression upon his great Spirit had not Cyril spoyled all by his own over eagerness for now finding himself so well back't he would not be satisfied with the meer quitting his opinion but he must be obliged to anathematise it too and accordingly tenders him 12 Anathema's to subscribe which though they were Theological Verities were I think too nice to be imposed as Articles of Faith and necessary conditions of the Peace of the Church And I am withal very apt to think that if this new Imposition had not made the breach wider it might have been made up for both Nestorius and Anastasius seem'd by this time not to have been very fond of their Cause if they could any way have quitted it with honour But this new Imposition of Cyril so enflames his Cholerick Nature that he now forgets all Temper and encounters Anathema's with Anathema's and throws himself into an utter incapacity of Reconciliation upon the Terms of Pope Celestine and that which is worse it gave him the advantage and reputation of a Party for John of Antioch was so offended at their rigour that it made him side with Nestorius against Cyril and it was this that enflamed the Zeal of Theodoret who as appears by his Epistles to Sporadius and Irenaeus was before and after this time no Friend to the opinions of Nestorius but an irreconcileable Enemy to Cyril and his Anathema's and therefore though he were one of those Bishops that had subscribed John of Antioch's Epistle to Nestorius he could never after brook this Imposition of Cyril But now Nestorius having gained this advantage by this over Pursuit rallies with greater fierceness and rages with greater Cruelty then ever especially against his own
Autoritates quas Ecclesia Vniversalis amplexa est ad arbitrium haereticae petitionis infringere atque ita nullum colligendis ecclesiis modum ponere sed datâ licentiâ rebellandi dilatare magis quam sopire certamina For when the most proper means for securing the Faith is that we acquiesce in those things that are legally settled by the direction of the Holy Ghost otherwise we shall but destroy what is already well settled and affront that Authority that has been own'd by the Catholick Church for the humor of every petulant Heretick and so shall have no means left to preserve the Churches Peace but opening a gap to all rebellion we shall rather propagate than quel Contentions and so concludes ' that when a thing is once determin'd by the Authority of the Universal Church Quis est nisi aut Antichristus aut Diabolus qui pulsare audeat inexpugnabilem firmitatem qui in malitiâ suâ inconvertibilis perseverans per vasa irae et suae apta fallaciae falso diligentiae nomine dum veritatem se mentitur inquirere mendacia desiderat seminare Who but these great Enemies to Christianity the Devil and Antichrist would dare to shake the settled foundation who presevering stubborn in his Malice by his Vessels of Wrath that are apt Tools for his Craft under a false pretence of a greater diligence whilst he counterfeits to search after truth sows his Tares And therefore when the Hereticks only mâ—ved for a conference and the Emperor being inclined to a request as he thought so easie No says Pope Leo this is as great an Affront to the Calcedon Fathers as to grant them a new Council Evidenter agnoscitis quod magnis haereticorum audetur iâ—sidiis ut inter Eutychetis Dioscorique discipulos et eum quem Aposâ—olica sedes direxerit diligentior tanquam nâ—hil ante fuerit definitum tractatus habeatur et quod totius mundi Catholici Sacerdotes in sanctâ Calcedonensi Synodo probant gaudentque firmatum in injuriam etiam sacratissimi Concilii Nicaeni efficiatur infiâ—mum Your Majesty cannot but observe the crafty attempts of Hereticks that there should be a farther Debate between the Hereticks and us as if there had been nothing already determin'd and the settlement made by the Holy Council of Calcedon to the great joy of the Catholick Church all the World over should be slited to a dishonorable reflection upon the Council of Nice it self And whereas the Emperor desired him to send Commissioners he offers to send them not to dispute with the Hereticks that he scorns but to put the Sentence of the Church in effectual execution against them Which was accordingly done and Timotheus Aelurus was deposed banisht and imprison'd and when he petition'd for leave to come to Constantinople there to make a publick declaration against the Eutychian Heresie to this Pope Leo says No again for though that may set him right as to his Faith yet it can never wash away the guilt of his wicked and bloody Actions the Absolution whereof requires some other expiation than fair Confessions and therefore he enjoins Gennadius then Bishop of Constantinople not so much as to admit him into his presence at his peril as he had not long before school'd his Predecessor Anatolius for being too remiss against the Hereticks and suffering one Atticus a Presbyter publickly to dispute the Eutychian Controversie after the determination of the great Council The sum of all is that the matter was already decided by the Authority of the Church and after that there remains no liberty of Dispute And therefore instead of indulging that he advises the Emperor to exert his Imperial Power in defence of the Faith and that when the Church had done its part in declaring it it was now his duty to maintain it against the Assaults of restless Spirits Cùm enim Clementiam tuam Dominus tantâ Sacramenti Illuminatione ditaverit debes incunctanter advertere Regiam Potestatem tibi non solùm ad Mundi regimen sed maximè ad Ecclesiae praesidium esse collatam ut ausus nefarios comprimendo et quae bene sunt statuta defendas et veram pacem his quae sunt turbata restituas c. Seeing your Majesty is by the Grace of God endued with so good an Understanding you ought out of hand to consider that Your Royal Power was given you from above not only for the Government of the Empire but chiefly for the Protection of the Church that by suppressing seditious Attempts you may defend what is already establisht and restore Peace where things are in disorder That is the true state of the use of Regal Power in the Government of the Church to protect and assist it in the free exercise of its own legislative Authority not to assume and annex it to the Imperial Crown It would be an endless thing to transcribe all the Passages to the same purpose out of the several Returns made to the Emperor from the Eastern Bishops they all move upon this one hinge that what was determin'd by the Church was Sacred Law and therefore no review or farther dispute of the Resolution of the Calcedon Council And thus was this stubborn Controversie laid and the Church settled in Peace and Unity all this Emperor's Reign But beside these Laws of Discipline to enforce the Authority of the Church he made divers other Laws in behalf of the Church that were meer acts of his Royal Grace and Favor bestowing several Priviledges and Immunities upon Churches and Church-men Thus he granted the right of Sanctuary to all Religious houses so as to punish its violation with no less Penalty than Death Another Law he enacted to forbid all Plays and prophane Sports on Holy-days and to protect Men from Law-suits Arrests and Vexations at times dedicated to the Service of God upon pain of forfeiture of Estate And a third Law to forbid all but Christians to plead in Courts a fourth against the Sacriledg of Simony and a fifth to exempt the Clergy from being forced to appear before Secular Courts beside a great many other Priviledges granted to particular Churches § XVIII But he dying after he had Reigned 17 Years and 6 Months in the Year 474 his Son-in-Law Zeno unhappily succeeds to the great loss both of Church and State a man altogether unfit for Government being not only a weak a careless and a dissolute Prince but one that affected to expose himself to the contempt of the World by making his Follies and Debaucheries publick esteeming it a poor and sneaking thing to conceal his wickedness but brave and Prince-like to be wicked in sight of the Sun And consequent to this strange folly he was a shameless Oppressor of his Subjects robbing and defrauding them and wherever he could by any indirect shifts seizing any thing into his hands and no wonder when Millions of Worlds are not sufficient to defray the Charges of an unbounded Luxury These practices
by infallibility it self As for the behaviour of Hormisdas in this whole business it may seem too stiff and rigorous but setting aside his design to trample down his Rival at Constantinople and taking upon himself the single Authority of governing the Christian Church his severity was but seasonable and necessary at that time For ever since the unhappy Publication of the Henoticon and the Schism of Acacius the Discipline of the Church was wholy laid aside by the Acacian Party and that could not be restored to its effectual exercise without bringing the Offenders against it to a publick Confession of their fault Neither indeed without that was it lawful by the Canons of the Church to receive any man that had been Canonically judged a Schismatick to Communion And as for the Scythian Monks though their Proposition were true as in one sense it might be when they applyed the Crucifixion not immediately to the Divinity it self but to the flesh in which the Divinity resided Yet however it was in the first place as they express it in general terms capable of too harsh a sense Secondly it was without Authority when private Persons will take upon themselves the confidence to impose upon the Christian Church Thirdly it was an unmannerly reflection upon the Council of Calcedon as if that had not made sufficient provision against the late Heresie but stood in need to be patcht out by this new Addition And for these reasons I cannot see but that it was justly censured and rejected by this Pope though otherwise and in most other Cases he was a man of much too stiff and unyielding a Temper The rest of the Acts of his Reign are lost for tho he lived two years after yet after this time we have no remaining Records of his Transactions But the Emperor having cleared the Church of these wanton Schisms that owed their Birth meerely to the liberty granted by his Predecessors he now proceeds to root up all the ancient Heresies that it seems had peep 't above ground again by having been so long neglected And it is certain that there is no setting limits to liberty of opinion for if men are once allowed the wantonness of Philosophising as they please there is nothing so absurd that somebody will not assert And here from this particular Case we may observe the woful effects of a few years indulgence and licentiousness when all these wild Heresies that the several Emperors had from time to time rooted up by effectual Laws now take root and spring up again and probably had they not been timely prevented by this Emperor and his Successor they might have grown to as great an head as ever they did in former times But they are cut up all together at one blow by one Law viz. That the Manichees be every where destroyed and put to death and that the rest of the Hereticks and an Heretick is every man that is not Orthodox together with Heathens Jews and Samaritans bear no Office in the Common-wealth And if any shall presume to do it he is to be severely fined excepting only the Gothick Arians because they are our Confederates Where we may observe that the punishment of the Manichees is Capital but that of the other sort of Hereticks Pecuniary because Manicheism was not meer Heresie but down-right Debauchery and that of the blackest Dye teaching men the practice of all wickedness from the Principles of Religion And therefore this Heresie was as severely proceeded against by Heathen as by Christian Emperors as we may see by a Rescript of Dioclesian and Maximinian in the Gregorian Code against the Manichees those new and unheard of Monsters in the Roman Empire that were first spawn'd in Persia where they committed all manner of wickedness raised Tumults and Seditions among the People and caused great slaughters in every City And as for the exception of the Arian Goths it could not well be avoided at that time both because the Emperor was Confederate with their Powerful King Theodorick whose displeasure would then have been very dangerous to the State of the Empire and because he would not provoke him to use any Severity against the Catholicks in the West he being then King of Italy and had hitherto been so far from all thoughts of Persecution that he protected the Church in all its Rights and Liberties and abetted its power with as Religious care and respect as any Emperor had ever done It is reported by Baronius and those that follow him that Justin afterwards reverst this Indulgence to the Goths and put the Laws against the Arians so severely in Execution that Theodorick forced Pope John the First to go his Ambassador to Constantinople to take him off from his severity and because he did not or would not effect it cast him into Prison at his return home where he died This is the common Tale but I doubt it wants Authority For as for Anastasius the Librarian who is the chief Author upon whom the learned Annalist relyes he is a very late and fabulous Writer living in the 9th Century and that under Pope Nicolaus the first that great Father of Lyes whose whole business it was to corrupt the Records of the Church for the advancement of his own See and as he for that reason imposed upon the World the forged Decretals of the Popes from Clement down to Cyricius so his Librarian extracted the History of that Interval out of those Forgeries And though he had or might have had better Records of the following Popes yet I know not by what fate it comes to pass his Story is altogether as ill-told and is no better then rank Legend But so it was that he lived in a dark and barbarous Age when the Records of the Church were buried under heaps of Tales and Fables and men only studied to out-stretch one another in the strangeness of their Reports And therefore I cannot but wonder that a man of Labbés Learning and Judgment should follow him as the best Author of the Papal History when it is so inconsistent with all those Records that himself has examin'd and published of every Popes Actions As for the Letters of Pope John to the Italian Bishops about this business they are apparently spurious Gregory Turonensis indeed tells a Story somewhat like it but then he has it only upon Report at a great distance of place and that a very crude one and different from other Records for he says nothing of the Embassy to Constantinople which was the only considerable transaction of this Popes Reign but only says that he was told that the cause of his Imprisonment was that Theodorick putting all the Catholicks in Italy to the Sword it is strange that no Historian of that time should make any mention of it Pope John went to him to perswade him from so bloody a Persecution for which in a rage he threw him into Prison As for the Story of Gregory the Great it is
so childish and such meer Legend that out of respect to so great a man I will not recite it All that certainly appears is this that there was at that time some misunderstanding between Justin and Theodorick for that was the Accusation upon which the Great Boëtius was then put to death that he held correspondence with Justin. And that Pope John was sent by Theodorick to treat with the Emperor but what was his particular Errand is not recorded but whatever it was it seems he managed it so as to fall into the King's displeasure and this is all that we have of that Popes Actions and this Emperor's reign § XXI For he dying after he had reign'd nine years in his extreme old Age before his death saw his Nephew Justinian fixt in the actual possession of the Imperial Throne by the choice of the Senate one of the greatest Princes in the whole Succession whether we regard the Success of his Arms the Magnificence of his Buildings or the Wisdom of his Laws the three greatest Ornaments of any Princes Reign And yet Envy and one ill-natur'd Libel of a malecontent Courtier if it be his has been able such is the ill-nature of Mankind to slur all the Miracles of his reign But I find that the ground of all the late displeasure against this great Prince was as some Men suppose his too busie intermedling in Church-Matters this is the thing that is taken unkindly by the Church-Men at Rome as an invasion of their Province But others on the contrary top him up for a Pattern to all Princes to keep the Jurisdiction of the Church in their own hands against all the pretences of Ecclesiasticks But as it falls out and ought so to do they are both equally mistaken for Justinian never attempted any thing in the Church that was not warranted by continued Precedents of his best Predecessors He only protected the Power of the Church in the exercise of its Jurisdiction as they did but never claim'd it to himself howsoever he might err as sometimes he did in the execution of his Office And whereas they load him so severely for presuming to make so many Novels or Laws of his own about Religion the whole charge is founded meerly upon ignorance and mistake they being all known Canons of the Church before ever he enacted them into Laws And therefore he is no more to be blamed than the best of his Predecessors unless it be for his too pious and watchful care to preserve the Discipline of the Christian Church So that it is no less than high ingratitude in the Clergy of Rome to requite so great a Benefactor to the Cause of Religion with nothing but unkind Censures and foul Calumnies But the ground of all their present Quarrel is his taking down the pride of one of their most haughty Popes Vigilius though by their own confession one of the worst of Men and that too was done at a time when their Holinesses had been accustom'd to trample upon the state of the Imperial Majesty it self And if in these contentions the Emperor fell into any indecencies that cannot be justified yet he ought not only in good Manners but in justice to be excused because it is evident from the Design of his whole Reign that his only aim was to resettle the long-disturb'd Peace of the Church and if at any time he fail'd in his Measures his Integrity ought by all the rules of Candor to attone for the defect of his Politicks But whether all his Acts of Government in the Church are justifiable or not I dare insure for all his Laws and for that I shall here account to finish the parallel between the Ecclesiastical and Imperial Laws in this Matter because by this Prince the Imperial Law was brought to its full Perfection And after that it will be needless to inquire into the practice of succeeding Princes who received either the Theodosian or Justinian Body of Laws as the sixt and standing rule of the Imperial Government Though of the two the Theodosian Code met with much the better Fortune for that having had ninety Years possession both in the Eastern and Western Empire it was not easily removed especially when it had been received by the barbarous People that invaded and conquer'd some Parts of the Empire as the only establisht Law of the Romans And so it was by that great wise and prosperous Prince Theodorick King of the Goths who enacted its obligation upon his own People in a compendious Edict drawn out of it consisting of 154 heads extant in Cassiodorus But Alaric his Successor and Grand-child by his Daughter Amalesuntha that greatest of Women made a new body of Institutes out of it vulgarly known by the name of the Breviary of Anianus not that Anianus composed it but because he by his Office compared and examin'd the Original Copy that was laid up among the Crown-Records and subscribed his Approbation from thence in after-Ages it came to bear his Name But after the Goths the Lombards the Franks the Burgundians and other People of Germany over-run the Western Empire and these when they came to settle blended the Theodosian Laws with their own ancient Customs from whence came the Feudal Law that to this day carries the greatest sway in the Government of all the European Nations But as for the Justinian Law that was received only in the Eastern Empire and there it had scarce reign'd 300 years when it was thrust out of Authority by the Basilica of Leo the Philosopher who added to the Justinian Collection the Novels of all the succeeding Emperors down to his own time But in the West it was never so much as heard of for 600 years after the death of Justinian there are not so much as any footsteps of it in the Capitulars of Charles the Great or any other European Laws Neither were they ever made publick to the Western World till the time of that great Prince Lotharius the second Emperor and Duke of Saxony who reign'd not till the year 1125. And he first brought it to light at the perswasion and by the assistance of Irnerius the most learned Man in that Age from which time forward it has kept possession together with the Feudal Law not only in the Schools and Universities but in the Government of the Empire But as for the Law it self it consists of two parts the Code and the Novels that is Laws made by himself after the publication of the Code and these are again to be subdivided into Laws concerning Faith and Laws concerning Discipline in both which he has behaved himself with as much decency and respect to the Church as any of his most admired Predecessors As for the Code it is a Collection of former Laws with some additions of his own Of the former Laws we have treated in order under the several Reigns in which they were enacted and therefore need say nothing of them here but only to vindicate
thinking of something else at that time it was quite out of my mind Just such is the Memory of the Author in declaring Justinian's faults and offences amongst the Clergy he would have told what strange havock he made amongst them but that as often as he came to mention it it flipt out of his Memory Of all his faults this was the greatest it added Sacriledge to Oppression his hard usage of other Sects is capable of a defence but for a Prince to rob and trample down his own Clergy 't is the height of Barbarity and therefore to leave it out in the Description of his Vices is the exact Story of the blind Horse But he intended the ill usage of Pope Silverius Vigilius and the African Bishops in the Controversie of the tria Capitula This is pure conjecture especially the guess of the tria Capitula which it is evident from the â—ccount that Procopius has given of the disputes of those times that he did nor understand But however I have already discoursed both that and the Case of Silverius and Vigilius and that will be answer enough to Alemannus his foul surmise of their barbarous treatment Only I would advise him and the Roman Courtiers once more not to concern the Apostolick Chair in the Vindication of Vigilius but rather to thrust him out of the List into the Catalogue of the Anti Popes both because it is confest on all hands that he got into the Chair by Usurpation when it was full already and because his Actions were so foul that no Wit no Apology no Candour can wipe off the Scandal As for the Reverse of this Calumny the Emperors exorbitant kindness and indulgence to the Christian Clergy I must confess it was very great to a degree of fondness we have seen above in his Novels what Endowments and Priviledges he setled upon the Church what care he took to secure their setled Revenues and to protect them against the oppression of great men But that he ever run into any Act of Injustice out of Zeal and partiality to their Interest we have no one Instance upon Record the only thing that can be pretended is his Grant to the Church of Emesa of the Prescription of an hundred years which as this Author tells the Story was a very lewd act of Fraud and Oppression but then the cheat was put upon the Emperor as well as upon the Subjects that suffer'd by it It is this one Mammianus a Man of a noble Family and vast Wealth had long before made the Church of Emesa his Heir But it hapned that under Justinian one Priscus was imployed to take the census of the Families of that City who being dexterous at imitating other Mens hands and diligently observing the hands of some of the Ancestors of some of the most wealthy Families he draws upon them Bills and Bonds for great sums of Money to Mammianus these he communicates to the Procurators of the Church but because the Law of only 30 years prescription lay against them they repair to the Emperor to relieve them in so pious and charitable a Suit and he being satisfied with the piety of the Case is easily prevailed upon to grant to them and all other Churches a power of looking back to 100 years whereas before 30 years prescription was a legal Bar to any claim Upon this they put all their counterfeit Bonds in suit to the utter ruin of the best Families in the City But Longinus a wise and an honest Man that the Emperor sent thither with a particular Commission to be Judg in this particular Cause suspecting some cheat by the vast Sums of Money that were challenged he therefore takes Priscus to task commands him to bring in all his Bonds but he refusing it because that would put an end to the Plot he in a rage beats him who upon it fearing that he had discover'd his Cheat confesses all and the Emperor being inform'd of it and finding by this example the inconvenience of this Law that there would be no stopping of Frauds in behalf of the Church-Estates if they might be allowed to claim against so many years prescription he repeals it and because he would not utterly spoil his Courtesie he takes it down from an hundred to forty years and that was ten years more than any other Plaintiff was allowed Now which way can the Emperor be blamed in all this Transaction he had no ground to suspect the imposture and then it was evident that great sums due to the Church had been basely embezel'd and to prevent such Abuses for the time to come he takes off the usual limits of Prescription in Pleas of this Nature And yet this impudent Libeller is so foolishly malicious as contrary to the circumstances of his own story to insinuate as if the Emperor himself were privy to the design Which if he were how durst Longinus have so disgracefully exposed it who if his Master had any such Plot must have been privy to it because without him it could not be managed and therefore when he so rudely spoil'd it that shews both his own and his Masters ignorance of it and he was so far from incurring his displeasure that he was not long after advanced to the Prefecture of the City If we may trust our Author for otherwise I find no such Man as Longinus in all Justinian's Reign and therefore cannot but suspect the whole story to be meer fiction But granting its truth the Emperor is innocent and when our Author suggests that he was privy to it he ought to have told us how himself came to know the Secret and so indeed he ought to have done through his whole history but to tell us that such prodigious things were done in the dark and with great secresie and give us no account how he came to know them is but a very poor way of vouching for an history These are the grand Articles of this Libel against this great Prince for the following Chapters are little else than the same Rhapsody repeted and things are heaped together so confusedly so without art and decency as plainly proves that so elegant a Writer as Procopius could never have writ it but that the true Author was some unpolisht and unlearned Barbarian § XXXIII But though we have little else than meer repetition remaining yet there are some few scraps behind that discover the Author's malice and ignorance upon these I shall make some brief reflections and so conclude And first what can we think of his ascribing all the publick Calamities of the Age as Inundations of Rivers destructions of Cities by earthquakes and Plagues to the Emperor and his ill Genius This Malice is too childish even to be despised and it is hard to determine whether it have in it more of spite or folly though it has so much of both as forever to destroy that Man's credit that could prevail with himself to make and vent such an accusation against