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
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
St. Basil who being a very mortified Man and forced from a retired life into the Wealthy Bishoprick of Caesarea was thought a very easy Prey by Modestus at that time Prefect of the Province and the head Patron of the Eudoxian Faction and therefore the Emperor coming to Caesarea in his Passage to Antioch he is incited by his Courtiers against this old Man as an open Enemy to his favourite Eudoxius The description of the Incounter may be seen in Theodoret but more at large and with some difference in Gregory Nazianzens funeral Oration upon St. Basil which thô it is too lavish and panegyrical in many particulars yet the sum of the account of this business is contein'd in the discourse between the old Bishop and the Prefect Modestus who was sent to perswade him to be reconciled to Eudoxius Where after some conference the Prefect falls into rage and threatning and asks him if he stand not in awe of his Power He replys for what what can you do to me What can I do returns he I can proscribe you banish you torture you kill you Can you so replys the Bishop but if you have nothing else to threaten me with these things concern not me What do you mean says he I mean says the Bishop that he is not obnoxious to the proscription of Goods that has none unless you would rob me of this poor thred-bare Garment and a few old Books Banishment I know none for the Earth is the Lords and that is my Countrey as for Tortures I have not a Body strong enough to feel them the first stroke will put me out of pain and as for death it would be the greatest kindness you could do me to send me out of this feeble Carcass to my Lord and Master At this the Prefect stands astonisht and professes that in all his life he never heard any Man speak with such courage and assurance Perhaps says Basil you never met with a true Christian Bishop till now for if you had he must have discoursed after this manner if call'd into question about these Matters For you must know Sir that we are mild and gentle in all other things the most humble and submissive of all Men as our Law commands us insomuch that we dare not behave our selves with the least pride or stubbornness I will not say to the Emperor or you that are great Men but to the meanest and pooâ—est of the People But where the Cause and the Truth of God is at stake there we lay all other things aside and look at him alone Fire and Sword wild Beasts and Flesh-hooks are in his service rather pleasure than terrour to us and therefore revile us threaten us do what you plâ—ase and the worst you can with us and tell the Emperor what I say we shall never yield nor comply with his Will thâ— he threaten much more dreadful things than all these This is the true old primitive Spirit resolution adorn'd with Civility and by it the Bishop not only overcame the Prefect but became dear to the Emperor who resorted to his Church and received the holy Eucharist from his hands From whence it is evident that this Persecution came not from the zeal of the Emperor but was meerly set on foot by the Grandees of the Faction for the sale and purchase of Sequestrations And for these designs they make use of the Emperors soft nature and vehement desire of Peace and that was all that he here required of St. Basil only to be reconcilâ—d to the Eudoxians not to their Opinions And though he was so well satisfied with St. Basil at this first onset yet they would give him no rest till he condescended to their importunity for his Banishment which was sign'd but upon a suddain Sickness of his Son after it its execution was stopt And this is the true Interpretation of all the dismal Stories in the Historians concerning this Emperor's Arâ—an Persecution but into what a woful condition the Eastern Church was brought by this Court-merchandizing is described in the Letter of Meletius and his Brethren to the Western Bishops The gravity of the Clergy is lost the skilful Pastors have left their Flocks whil'st such as are set over them consume even the Goods of the Poor upon their own Pleasures There is no regard had to the Canons of the Church but an uncontroul'd liberty of Sinning for they who come to the Government of the Church by illegal ways will do any thing to please their Masters So that there is in reality no Government and every-man does what is good in his own Eyes wickedness is boundless and the People stubborn the Bishops trim and dare not speak out for having acquired their Power by Men they are Slaves to all by whose help and Patronage they were advanced With much more to the same purpose from whence we fully understand the true Face of the Church and the right State of the Controversie at that time to displace honest Men upon pretences of Religion only to get into their Preferments as farther appears from their wild way of proceeding as it is there described Whereas no man ought to be concluded Guilty without some shew of Evidence our Bishops are condemn'd only by being accused and punisht without any proof at all some never knew their Accusers others never saw their Judges some were never accused at all but conveyed away by dark Night hurried into Banishment and kept in perpetual Imprisonment This was the deplorable state of the Church at that time under Valens and his Eunuchs for the redress whereof not only Meletius but Athanasius and St. Basil wrote to the Western Bishops to implore the Assistance of the Western Church and Empire Athanasius his Letters are lost but that of St. Basil is very remarkable for its Eloquence and Ingenuity But at this time St. Basil labouring in the Settlement of the distracted Churches in the East by the advice of St. Athanasius visits the Churches in Armenia where he unadvisedly receives that old insinuating Prevaricator Eustathius of Sebasta to the Communion of the Catholick Church upon his reiterated Profession of the Orthodox Faith Upâ—n which Theodotus Bishop of Nicopolis where the Reconciliation was made who better understood the Man though Basil was not unacquainted with his former Shufflings falls out with him But Eustathius like himself finding that by reason of that great opposition that was maâ—e against him and knowing that his Enormities were so great that St. Basil was neither able nor willing to restore him falls foul upon him and loads him with so many base Calumnies which though St Basil at first despised for some years it was the great work of his life to wipe off one part of Mankind it seems being so credulous and another so ill-natured as easily and greedily to swallow any ill surmise and of this he often complains even in his own Friends till he was at last tempted to sing the burden
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
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
yet what he did was by the pretended Authority of Councils but this is the first time that any Prince challeng'd a Power to judg of Faith by his Imperial Authority And as it hapned it was as good a season as the Experiment could have been tryed in when the Tryal fell upon such a Man as St. Ambrose a Man of infinite Courage and Integrity and he has distill'd the very Spirit of both into his Reply the short of it is this Sir I hope I return you a sufficient Answer though I come not to Court upon the Errand that I am sent for neither let any Man judg me contumacious when I only maintain what your Father of blessed Memory was not only wont to say in discourse but to enact by Law That in Causes of Faith or Ecclesiastical Discipline he alone ought to be Judg who is qualified for it by Right and Office He would have Bishops judg of Bishops nay if a Bishop were guilty of Crimes of any other nature he was pleased to refer them also to the Ecclesiastical Judicature But when I beseech you Gracious Sir did you ever hear that Lay-men made themselves Judges of a Bishop in a Cause of Faith No Sir I cannot crouch to so mean a Flattery as to forget my Sacerdotal Trust that I should part with it to any other when God has committed it to my Charge If a Bishop is to be taught by a Laick let the Laick preach too Believe me Sir it is certain both from the Holy Scriptures and the practice of the whole Church that in matters of Faith Bishops are to guide Emperors and not Emperors Bishops Execute if you please your late bloudy Law upon me Ambrose is not so much worth that for the sake of his own poor self he should prostitute not only his own Priest-hood but the dignity of all the Bishops If there be any Controversy of Faith know that it is their business to decide it as was done under the great Constantine who prescribed nothing to the Bishops but left them to their own liberty of Judgment and the same was the practice under his Son Constantius thô what was well begun was afterward perverted For the Bishops agreed upon an Orthodox Faith whil'st some few would have the thing determin'd at Court whereby they at last imposed upon the Bishops who as soon as they understood the cheat recall'd their Sentence and ratified the Nicene Faith This has a peculiar reference to the Council of Ariminum In short Sir if Auxentius desire a Council though it is by no means fit that so many Bishops should be put to so much trouble by the petulancy of one Man who though he were an Angel from Heaven ought not to be regarded if he oppose the Peace of the Church whenever a Council is call'd I shall not absent my self This is the sum of his resolute Answer as far as it concerns my Argument where we see that the Power of Judicature in Matters of Faith was always own'd to be an unalienable Right in the Governors of the Church and was never challenged by any Emperor before this young Prince who was boisterously thrust upoâ— it by the importunity of a furious Woman and her Scythian Priest And they having now begun the Work resolve to go through with open force and for that end procure a Law for the ejectment of Catholick Bishops out of their Churches under Penalty of Death to all those that refuse to resign them and for the first execution of it send a Party to seize St. Ambrose and take possession of his Church But the People defend the Doors The Officers command him in the Emperor's Name to deliver up his Church and the Goods of it At this the People are afraid that he will comply No says he fear not that I cannot forsake my Flock and deliver it up to the Guardianship of a Woolf. If they will dispossess me by force they may carry away my Body but not my Mind I am ready to submit to any thing that the Imperial Power can inflict but as long as I can I must and will discharge the duty of my Priestly Office Why then are you troubled I will never willingly forsake you if I am forced I must not resist I can mourn and weep and pray my Tears are Arms against the Goths these are our Priestly Weapons any other way I neither ought nor can resist And as for delivering up the Goods of the Church he tells the Officers Gentlemen if the Emperor be pleased to command any thing that is my own I would freely present him wiâ—h it but I can take away nothing out of the House of God nor give that away which was only intrusted with me to keep And being often prest to a voluntary resignation this was his constant and peremptory Answer and withal boldly advising the Emperor to beware what he did in seizing the Goods of God and invading the Rights of the Church And thus things stood three whole days St. Ambrose would not deliver up his Church nor the Emperor durst not take it by force And when the Courtiers perswaded him to go in Person and turn him out he replyed I thank you for that for if Ambrose should command you to deliver me up bound into his hands you would obey him and therefore for fear of farther mischief he was forced to desist though by his proceeding so far he brought great disgrace upon himself in so much that the Tyrant Maximus wrote a smart Letter to him to upbraid him with the folly and dishonor of his Attempt it is very well written but sâ—mm'd up in this one short saying Periculosè mihi crede divina tentantur Believe me it is a dangerous thing but to touch the Ark. But this was done in order to his Invasion of Italy to ingage the Orthodox on his side as if he had taken up Arms to vindicate their Cause for the Rescript of Valentinian reacht not St. Ambrose alone but all Churches under the Emperor's Jurisdiction as appears not only by the Rescript it self but by the Tyrants Epistle Audivi enim novis Clementiae tuae Edictis Ecclesiis Catholicis vim illatam fuisse obsideri in Basilicis sacerdotes mulctam esse propositam paenam capitis adjectam et legem sanctissimam sub Nomine nescio cujus legis everti I am informed that by some new Edicts of your Grace force has been offer'd to the Catholick Churches that the Priests have been besieged in their Cathedrals that the punishment annext to the Law is no less than pain of Death and that the most religious Law of the Empire is destroyed under pretence of I know not what new Law of your own And so the next news we hear of the Tyrant is his declaration of open War by which the young unadvised Emperor being in a great distress supplicates St. Ambrose to undertake an Ambassy to disswade the Tyrant from his Design which he frankly and readily
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
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
so turned the hearts of his Subjects against him as to encourage Basiliscus his Uncle in Law to invade his Empire in which distress he was so deserted that without being able to make any defence or resistance he had no Remedy but to betake himself to flight and lie concealed in his own Country of Isauria And so the whole Empire was left as a naked prey to the Tyrant and being an apparent Usurper he was forced to take cross measures to his Predecessors and in pursuance of his design recalls Timotheus Aelurus from Banishment and by his advice and perswasion issues forth an Encyclical Epistle to the whole Christian World to Anathematise the Novelties as he stiles them of the Council of Calcedon and is not ashamed to warrant his illegal Proceedings by the example of Constantine the Great and Theodosius the younger Imperial Constitutions he might have found enough to ratifie the Sentence of the Church but for an Emperor to pass an Anathema by his own meer Authority upon any Opinion much more against a solemn Decree of the Church was a rudeness and presumption without Precedent as well as Law and no man that was not a Clown as well as a Tyrant would ever have attempted it But as prophane a piece of Buffoonry as it was it is own'd by the Eutychian Faction in a Council at Ephesus and that too under the prophane Title of a Divine and Apostolical Epistle But it is as vehemently opposed by Acacius and his Monks of Constantinople till the People tumultuate in defence of their Bishop against the Tyrant so as to force him to quit the City who in revenge takes away all the Priviledges of the Church and City But being informed of Zeno's marching from Isauria in the Head of an Army he begs pardon and to appease Acacius and the Clergy of the City he publishes his Antencyclical Epistles as they are call'd to reverse and cancel the former and restore the Authority of the Council of Calcedon And what will not Usurpers do to keep possession but all in vain for at Zeno's approach to the City he is utterly deserted and deposed with more ease then he had usurped is put to death at Acusus or Cucusus in Cappadocia and his Encyclical Epistle cancell'd and burnt Upon this the very same Bishops of the Eutychian or rather the then thriving Party that had subscribed it at the late Cabal or Conventicle at Ephesus and there declared it to be their own voluntary Act without any force or compulsion are now most forward to write to Acacius to condemn it and protest before God and the World that what they had done was forced upon them against their own Judgments And thus were things wheel'd about into the same posture in which Leo had left them but this poor dâ—ssolute Prince had not skill to make use of any advantage and instead of fixing upon the same Foundation of that settlement that was layed to his hands blows it up and for his own ease as he dream't and for the satisfaction of all Parties publishes by the contrivance of Petrus Moggus and his Eutychian Friends at Court and some say of Acacius himself an healing Instrument of Union or Comprehension commonly known by the name of Henoticon designed to please all Parties and couch't in such comprehensive and ambiguous terms that they might all challenge it to themselves against each other viz. Setting up the Nicene Faith as the only condition of Church-Communion and thereby tacitly but effectually condemning the Council of Calcedon without taking any notice of it So weak was this Prince as to flatter himself that this slender Artifice was a Cement strong enough to repair all the Breaches in the Christian Church when it really served no Bodies turn but Petrus Moggus and his Eutychians for he having a strong Inclination to the rich Bishoprick of Alexandria of which he could not be capable till the terms of Conformity that were settled by the Council of Calcedon were taken off which being done by this slite the Church Doors were again left open to the Eutychian Hereticks and all things reduced to the same disorder and confusion that they were in before they were setled by the Authority of the Church And so Facundus here argues upon it with his usual acuteness Who can endure the Arbitrary Proceedings of the Emperor Zeno to Enact in Contempt of the Divine Authority of the Church in which Action his precipitate Power did not consider what it ought to do but what it was able to do neither did he understand that confusion never makes Unity For if Unity be to be compast not by the Conversion of Hereticks but mixing their Contagion with the Communion of the Church why are the Acephali alone and not all the other Parties of Hereticks received into the Church without renouncing their errors and submitting to the Churches Sentence against them But the Emperor when he invites them to return to the Communion of the Church he gives them the Title of Orthodox But this becomes the wisdom and circumspection of that man that can be so insipid as to think of invading the Office of the Priests He calls them Orthodox when at the same time he confesses them to be separate from the Communion of the Church If they continue Orthodox after their separation to what purpose does he exhort them to return to their Mother the Church But he would have them unite Communions But he understands not that there can be but one Communion And if they are not of one Communion with the Church they are of none at all I pray for what advantage should they return to the Church when they are of the Orthodox Communion without it But what an abuse of Secular Power is this and worse then all the rest that the Holy Catholick Church and those that preside over it should every where be obliged to believe only as he believes as if the Faith of all Churches depended only upon his pleasure and it were not lawful for any man to believe any thing than as the Emperor commands It were much better that he would contain himself with in his own Limits then to transgress them to the ruine of many without the gain of any For we know that even Mechanicks have their Shops and Ware-houses proper to their own Trade We never hear the Anvil beating or the Fire glowing in the Weavers Work-house nor the Tailor taking measure of the height and proportion of Buildings because they very well know that those things belong to those that are instructed in those Trades What is the Divine Law only to be despised and prophaned so as not to need its proper Schools for instruction but that every man should pretend to understand it without any competent Education in it In short the only effect of all these disorderly Proceedings is that these Violators of the Churches Peace divide among themselves as well as from the Church as in this particular Case
adjourns its examination till the return of the Legates In the mean time there being then a famous Society of African Bishops in Sardinia that were banisht their own Country by Thrasamond King of the Vandalls a zealous Arian and at that time Master of Africa to these the Monks apply themselves and present them a Confession of their Faith wherein declaring to the height against the Pelagian Heresie they thereby ensnare their Affections who had been the greatest Champions against it in so much that Fulgentius himself writes an Apology in their behalf But upon the return of the Legates the Monks knowing that they were none of their friends they hang upâ—â— their Remonstrance in the most publick Places of the City to raise Sedition among the People and so betake themselves to flight Of their unruly behaviour at Rome Hormisdas has given an account in his Letter to Possessor an African Bishop that they were a sort of vain proud petulant Men that under shews of mortification kept up the height of Pride and Insolence and were swoln to that degree of Arrogance that they would have the whole Christian World to truckle to their imperious dictates and instead of obedience that ought to be the peculiar glory of Monasteries set up obstinacy and stubbornness c. this Letter is answer'd by Maxentius whose Works are extant in the Bibliotheca Patrum where his great Holiness is treated with rudeness enough At Thessalonica one of the Pope's own Legates was murther'd in a Tumult in defence of their intruding Bishop Dorotheus At Jerusalem John an Eutychian had by the help of Severus of Antioch thrust out Elyas and usurpt the Chair to himself but the Times being chang'd so is his Faith and he becomes a zealous defender of the Council against the Hereticks and upon it is very acceptable to the People who sue to the Emperor for the pardon of all his former Misdemeanors without any farther process or solemnity of Discipline And in the same manner are popular Addresses and Petitions brought from all parts in behalf of their Bishops that had been of the Acacian Faction who by the Terms of the Concordate between the Pope and the Emperor were all Condemned Men to keep those that were dead in the Dyptichs and those that were living in their Sees in short that Peace may be settled without too much triumph over the condescending Party This so perplexes the Emperor that he refers it wholy to Pope Hormisdas who was now grown to that Authority in the Christian Church that he alone transacted all things in it And therefore to him the Emperor dispatches his Ambassadors to soften him to the mâ—ldest terms of Peace for fear of Tumults if he should stand upon too much severity And to prepare him for it his Majesty Petitions his Holiness by Letter that he would be satisfied with the Execution of the Names of Acacius Petrus Moggus Timotheus Aelurus Dioscorus and Petrus Fullo but as for all others that dyed in the Schism to let them pass in silence And as for the Cause of the Scythian Monks that was by this time spread over all the Eastern Church he proposes that they may be indulged the Liberty of their Opinion because though it might be too curious yet it was harmless and agreeable to the Orthodox Faith This motion is seconded by several Letters from Justinian who indeed governed all and by others from a Council at Constantinople and by others from Epiphanius Bishop of the City But Hormisdas is inflexible will yield nothing to their importunity and let the Event be what it will and let the People rebel if they will nothing of the Discipline of the Church can be abated And to receive Schismaticks into its Communion instead of reconciling Parties it will only expose its Authority to contempt or as he expresses it in his Letter to Epiphanius Nosti frater Charissime quae ecclesiasticam servent vincula concordiam quae nos ab Haereticorum tueantur insidiis per quae etiam Canonum custodiatur Auctoritas His in robore suo omni circumspectione servatis remedia sperantibus conferantur And writing to the Emperor he begs that his Majesty would not think him more austere than his Predecessors for standing upon higher terms they insisting only upon the name of Acacius and assures him that it is not stubbornness but the sad experience of those grievous Scandals that had followed upon the unhappy rupture that made him the more severe At the beginning of the Schism there might have been room for some condescension but the mischiefs that have followed by so long and stubborn a continuance of it especially their affront to the great Council of Calcedon cannot be pardoned or expiated without some publick satisfaction But yet that he may not be too hard-hearted he leaves it to the Conscience and Discretion of Epiphanius to receive such as he believes true Penitents or seduced out of Ignorance and Simplicity but so as to oblige him to return all their Libels of Confession to himself at Rome And as for the Cause of the Scythian Monks he will by no means admit their Proposition because of its Novelty and when the same thing was less ambiguously expressed by the Scriptures and the Ancients as that the Son of God suffered in the Flesh he would allow of no new Phrases that would but give occasion to new disputes and farther divisions Haec si quemadmedum a Patribus constituta sunt servent credant non definita transcendant à quo tramite qui decliâ—ant ipsi sibi nebulam dubitationis offundunt And therefore he will have all men acquiesce in the definition of the Council and for the same reason though he will not directly condemn the Proposition of Heresie yet he damns it as a needless a peevish and an over curious Novelty And here the Modern Writers of the Church of Rome are at a great loss how to reconcile this Sentence of Horm sâ—â—as with that of Pope John the Second who expresly anathematised the Acaemetan Monks for denying it and voucht it for an Article of the Christian Faith and constant Tradition of the Christian Church But the present Historian Natalis Alexander thinks he clears the difficulty by proving against Baronius that Hormisdas did not condemn the Scythian Monks of Heresie and therefore though John the Second past that Sentence upon the contrary Opinion it was no contradiction The observation is good but the Evasion bad for Baronius as his manner is here stretches beyond his Records when he endeavours to draw them into the List of Hereticks and yet for all that the Contradiction is as palpable as if their Sentence had been for Heresie For when one Pope shall Condemn a Proposition as a needless and prophane Novelty and another shall abet it as a constant Tradition of the Christian Church and so much an Article of Faith as to anathematise all that oppose it is I think a contradiction too tough to be reconciled
often deposed for his Debaucheries and as often changed his Faith to recover his Bishoprick and therefore concludes that he wonders which way he could impose so far upon Liberius as to gain communicatory Letters from him but by what means so ever it was he was no sooner restored by the Council of Tyana but he fell to spitting his old poison and persecuting the very Faith that he had so lately professed But all this was too late for the effectual recovery of his Bishoprick for the Emperor Valens was now ingaged in other Matters being invaded by the Goths but before he would venture into the hazards of War he thought it convenient to be baptized into the Christian Faith which Office was performed by Eudoxius who always diligently followed his Trade at Court and the Historians say I doubt rashly that he administred an Oath to the Emperor at his Baptism to persecute the Catholicks whereas the Persecution that followed was not set on foot by the Emperor but by the Eudoxian Party who now presuming of their old Interest in the Court and their new one in the Prince and his distraction in the War fell to their old Trade of undermining and so in a Council assembled in Caria settle the last Antiochian or Aëtian Creed And about the same time Bishop Valens and his Mirmidons meet in Mysia much upon the same Errand to establish their own particular conceit similem dicimus filium patri secundùm scripturas non secundùm substantiam and indeavor to draw in Germinius an eminent Man of the old Eusebian Faction who had gon all along with them as far as the Tyrian Conference before Constantius in which as himself declares the Faith agreed upon was this filium similem patri per omnia ut sanctae dicunt et docent scripturae that the Son was like the Faâ—her in all things as the Scriptures affirm and therefore he cannot but wonder at the dissimulation of Valens and his Men that when they themselves had subscribed this Confession of Faith not only as the best declaration of truth but the best expedient of Peace and Unity they should now so zealously trouble themselves and the Christian Church with new assertions that the Son is partly like the Father partly not But Valens and his Party are immediately condemned by a Council at Rome under Damasus And divers other Councils there were in several Parts of the World upon the same occasion to repress the recovery of the Faction But Auxentius Bishop of Milan who had wrigled himself into that great Bishoprick upon the deposing of Dionysius by Constantius in his Conventicle at Milan according to the custom that I have all along observed of those times when Men of ill designs procured the deposition of good Bishops that themselves by bribery and the Eunuches might get into their Places This Man was by this time become the most eminent Head of the Party in the Western Church though he was so ill prepared for his Office by his Education that he was not so much as instructed in the Latin Tongue but being a crafty and insinuating knave he had not only poison'd several Bishops of Illyricum but had workt himself into the savour of Valentinian himself who after his Alemanick War setled his Court at Milan Upon this St. Hilary who had been long acquainted with the craft and false-hood of the Man in his extreme old age takes a Journey to Milan to inform the Emperor what he was and charge him with the Arian Heresy The Emperor refers the examination of the Matter to a mixt Committee of Bishops and secular Judges But the Fox seeing himself distrest and being resolved to save his skin denyes all professes mighty Zeal fâ—r the Nicene Faith subscribes it before the Court and as if that were not enough presents the Emperour himself with an orthodox Confession of Faith and so is too hard for the good old Man for upon it he is acquitted and applauded at Court and St. Hilary commanded out of the City as a mover of Sedition as he tells the Story at large in his Book against Auxentius And Auxentius flusht with Victory grows insolent to the Orthodox Bishops especially the great Eusebius of Verselles and is much more busy than formerly in Illyricum in so much that the fame of it reacht Egypt upon which Athanasius and the Egyptian Bishops write to Damasus to procure his deposition who thereupon in the year 369 summons a Council of 90 French and Italian Bishops in which Auxentius is deposed but for all that he kept his ground and liked his bargain so well that he would not easily part with it and by the help of his Masters the Eunuchs kept it to his dying day which was five years after and that not only in spite of the Authority of the Council but the power of St. Ambrose who was at that time Governor of that Province and two others with Consular dignity and then resided at Milan and thô he hated the Man yet he was not able to remove him But the Council having discharged their Duty and their Office in his deposition they write an admâ—nishing Letter to the Bishops of Illyricum to be more watchful against the Heresy for the time to come and write another to the Eastern Bishops to desire their concurrence with them which is accordingly done in a Synod of 146 Bishops both which Letters were first published by Holstenius in in the year 1662 and are now inserted into their proper Place of the year 369 in Labbe's Collection And whereas a great Coâ—ncil was appointed to meet at Tarsus in Câ—licia in the Spring following for perfecting the settlement that was begun at Tyana Eudâ—xius that had got possession of Valens in the East as Auxentiuâ— had of Valentinian in the West prevails with the Emperor to send his Letters with high threatnings to forbid the meeting and withal to write to his Governors of Provinces that the Bishops that had been outed in the time of Constantius and restored by the Apostate should be thrust out again and this he strictly requires of his Officers under high Penalties and so by this Rescript was Eudoxius revenged not only of the Orthodox Bishops but the Macedonians too who had been cheated out of their Bishopricks by himself and his Associates in the time of â—onstantius and now by vertue of the Decree of the Council of Tyana demand restitution but by this imperial Rescript are barr'd their claim for ever with disgrace as having been justly displaced by a Christian Emperor and restored by the Apostate for ill designs Here still we see where the controversy pincht in this Emperor's time A Party of Knaves had combin'd in the time of Constantius to cheat and supplant honest Men out of their Preferments which having done they as all other thieves do fall out among themselves and indeavor to cheat one another till at last the most crafty pack sweeps all After
the Church by a Rescript bearing date the year 376 that the same Custom should be observed in Ecclesiastical Affairs as was in Civil Causes that Controversies belonging to Religion should be judged by the Synod of the Diocess but all criminal Causes should be reserved to the Audience of the Secular Governors Not to inquire at present into the particular occasion of this Law which Gothofred conjectures was made in the controversy of punishing the Priscillianists with the Sword it is agreeable with the practice of the Empire and so this learned Civilian divides all Controversies into Causes ecclesiastical and political the Ecclesiastical into Controversies of Faith or Discipline these he says appertain to the Church The political are divided into Causes pecuniary or Causes criminal and these he says appertain to the Civil Power This I know is the common state of the bounds of Jurisdiction and has made great confusions in Christendom whilst both Powers contend to keep their own ground and especially since the power over the Catholick Church was swallowed up into the papal Omnipotency what troubles have the Popes given the Christian Emperors for daring to intermeddle with spiritual Matters But this Argument of the bounds of Jurisdiction I shall fully state when I have first set down the exercise of it in matter of Fact and therefore though I need at present only say that it is a dangerous Mistake to divide them by the different Matters about which they are conversant when they are both conversant about the same Matters and unless they are so both of them will be too weak to attain the ends of their Institution Yet because it is the fundamental Mistake on both sides and because I may never come to finish this wide undertaking and lastly because I find it to be the great stumbling block to the wiser and more judicious Men of the Church of Rome I shall here a little briefly consider its consequence The learned Petrus de Marca one of the wisest Writers of that Church affirms and believes the bounds of these two Jurisdictions to be so plainly determin'd by the Matters themselves about which they are imployed that no Man can possibly miss their true boundaries that does not industriously over-look them in that it is so evident that the regal Power extends only to things secular and the Ecclesiastical to things spiritual Whereas on the contrary nothing is more evident than that all Actions are both Secular and Spiritual the same Action as it relates to the peace of the World and the Civil Government of Mankind is of a secular Nature and as it is a moral Vertue and required by the Law of God as a duty of Religion so it is of a spiritual Nature And so on the other side those things that are esteem'd Spiritual yet as they have an influence upon the publick Peace and nothing has a greater they must come under the cognizance of the civil Government So that these Jurisdictions are so far from being distinguisht by the Objects about which they are conversant that they are always both equally extended to the same Objects so as that if we limit either to one sort of Actions we destroy both For to take Matters spiritual in their strictest acceptation and as they are vulgarly understood for the Offices of divine Worship and especially the publick Devotions that are performed by the Sacerdotal Order in the publick Assemblies yet if the Sacerdotal Power reach not beyond this to secular things it can never reach its end for that is to procure the future happiness of the Souls of Men and that very much depends upon their good or bad behavior in the Affairs of this life so that if their spiritual Guides and Governors are barr'd from intermedling in all such Matters they are cut off from the chief part of their Office and what remains will be too weak to attain its end for when Men have been never so careful in all the Offices of Religion yet if care be not taken to regulate the Actions of humane intercourse all their Devotion will avail them very little in the World to come So on the other side when the Civil Power has done all that it can to settle and secure the quiet of the Common-Wealth by the wisest Laws of Justice and Honesty yet if they may not take notice of what Doctrins are instill'd into their Subjects by their Teachers or what divisions or commotions are raised by them in the Church they may soon be involved into disturbance or confusion without any Power to relieve themselves I am not at present concern'd to prove that this is now actually done by any Party of Men it is enough to my present purpose that it is a possible thing to disturb the peace of Government under Pretences or by Mistakes of Religion or to pray and preach Men into Rebellion And if it be so then the consequence is unavoidable that it must be subject to the power of the Civil Magistrate if that be any of its Office to take any care of the peace and quiet of the World But in truth this distinction has been all along chiefly cherisht by the Bishops of Rome since the time of their Usurpation because when they had got all the spiritual Power of the Church into their own hands their next care was to hug and keep it intire to themselves and therefore they confin'd the Power of Princes wholly to Matters of State but as for all things that concern'd the Church they were bound with all submission to resign themselves to his Holinesses Orders and if they presumed to gain-say any of his Edicts though never so prejudicial to their own Affairs it was open defyance to Holy Church and though the Popes never proceeded any farther against him as none of them did till Hildebrand yet that alone was at that time a forfeiture of the Affections of his best Subjects i. e. all those plain and good People that have any real love or value for their Religion And this one thing alone gave the Popes of Rome though they had never proceeded to the scandalous boldness of deposing Princes an absolute Empire and Authority over all the Princes of Christendom And it is observable that they were the high flying Popes that were the chief sticklers for the advancement of this distinction as appears not only from the Collection of Gratian Distinct. 69. where it is largely exemplified but from Petrus de Marca himself warranting the truth of this Doctrin from the Authorities of Gelasius Symmachus Gregory the second Nicolaus the first Innocentius the third who in their several high Contests with the Emperors that indeavour'd to check and bridle their Ecclesiastical Insolence still bid them mind their own business and not presumâ— to meddle with the Church the Government whereof was intrusted to St. Peter and his Successors But their Adversaries have been even with them especially the Erastian Hereticks for what greater Heresy can
deliver'd up to the Orthodox Bishops or such as kept close to the Nicene Faith The Rescript is a plain Epitome both of the Creed and Canons of the Council and for the most part exprest in the very same words And because when the Churches were taken from the Hereticks they attempted to build new ones he seconds it with another to forbid that under pain of Confiscation Upon this the Hereticks meet in private Conventicles or assemble Multitudes together in the Streets and Fields which occasions two Laws in the year 383 to forbid all manner of Meetings in all Places whatsoever to restrain wandring Bishops from preaching or ordaining successors in the Heresy and the Execution of these Laws is injoin'd the Governors of Provinces upon pain of Deposition from their places But because the Hereticks were ferretted out of all other Places and took sanctuary in the great City of Constantinople he publishes another Rescript the year following requiring the Magistrates to make a diligent search to find out their lurking holes and so we hear no more of them till the year 388 when all these Laws against them were contracted into one Rescript the Emperor being provoked to renew the execution of his old Laws by their sawcy behaviour upon any cessation against them But now leaving the Eastern parts to go to the assistance of Valentinian the younger against the Tyrant Maximus who had driven him out of his Empire in the West he chooses Tatianus a Man eminent for Courage Wisdom and Conduct to be his Praefectus Praetorio in his absence and when he comes into Macedonia where he meets the distressed young Emperor and finding himself ingaged in a dangerous War on his behalf for the better security of the Peace sends him a new sort of Rescript strictly commanding him that he suffer no disputes about Religion and if any shall dare to do it that he punish their presumption with just severity A Law that has been found so useful and necessary to the publick Peace that it has been from time to time renewed by wise Princes in all Ages He himself was forced four years after to impose it upon the Egyptians and Alexandrians under pain of deportation and no wonder when they have been remarked in all Ages and by all Authors as the most contentious and quarrelsom People in the World and particularly at that time great Tumults were raised by the Anthropomorphite Monks It was afterward renewed by the great and wise Emperor Marcian inserted into the Laws of the Vice-Goths the Capitulars of Charles the Great and the Additions of his Son Lewis And this they did not only for the security of the publick Peace but for the honor and reverence of Religion For it cannot but bring that into great contempt to see it bandied up and down in popular Tumults and Seditions and therefore in the Primitive modest Times they indeavour'd to keep Matters of dispute and controversy from the notice of the People and distinguisht between the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 things fit to be preached and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 notions fit to be conceal'd And it was the familiar form of Expression in their Sermons when they came to any controversial point to break off suddainly with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but this the learned know Gregory Nazianzen has an excellent Sermon upon the Subject fit for our own conceited and capricious Times in which the good Father is so popishly affected as to recommend to his disputing Citezens of Constantinople ignorance above curiosity But this wise Emperor having settled things in as good a posture as he could in the East prevails at the same time with the young Valentinian who by the instigation of his Mother Justina had been a great Patron of the Hereticks to publish the same severe Rescript against them in the West that himself at his first coming to the Empire had enacted in the East and to cancel the former Law that he had two years before made in their behalf viz. that we grant liberty of publick Assemblies to all those that believe according to that Faith that in the time of Constantius was agreed upon at Ariminum by all the Bishops of the Roman World and let those Men know that presume that themselves alone ought to have liberty that if they shall attempt any disturbance against this our Command they shall stand guilty of High-Treason and pay for it with their blood This is a very high Act in behalf of all the Hereticks for by the Faith agreed upon at Ariminum is to be understood the cheat that Valens and his Party put upon the Council that comprehended all the different Parties whatsoever And yet that is the Faith that is here confirm'd to last forever and whoever shall publickly oppose any that publickly promote it shall forfeit his head This came from the furious zeal of Justina who prosecuted it with the same zeal and outrage wherewith she had procured it and it was so highly displeasing to Benevolus the Emperor 's Secretary that he chose rather to lose his Office and the Offer of much greater Preferments than so much as transcribe it And this was the Rescript that brought so much trouble to St. Ambrose when he refused to deliver up his Church to the Arians and indeed it was particularly aimed at him And the first Mover of all the Mischief was one Auxentius a Scythian that had a great mind to that wealthy Bishoprick but partly because the Name of Auxentius was hateful to the People of that City and partly because he was infamous for many Villanies in his own Country he took upon him the name of Mercurinâ—s But this whole business being a very remarkable transaction and of very great consequence to my Argument I shall set it down with the greater Nicety that we may not only see the outward Actions themselves but the inward Springs and Motives of the Court-Intrigues § VI. And first of all Auxentius challenges St. Ambrose to a dispute before the Emperor then only a Catechumen but the Bishop disdains the Motion that when the Faith had been so fairly determin'd by so many Councils he should prostitute the divine Authority of the Church by referring it to a secular Judicature but chiefly by making a Catechumen supreme Judg of the Faith But Dalmatius the Tribune is sent by the Emperor to command his appearance upon which advising with some Bishops that were then present with him he returns his Answer in writing in which with equal courage and modesty he reproves him for medling with things that did not originally belong to his Judicature and so proceeds to state the Power of the Emperors in Ecclesiastical Matters from the practice of his Predecessors And it was then but time to be hot in the Cause this being the first open breach that was made upon the Church for though Constantius had often done it underhand or rather unadvisedly
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
Idolatry by overthrowing some of their Altars yet he enacted no Laws against it whereas this great and pious Prince is resolutely bent upon its utter Extirpation and therefore forbids all Heathen Rites whatsoever under pain of Proscription But having taken away their Sacrifices he thought good to preserve their Temples and convert them to some other publick Use and to this end he writes the next year to Palladius injoyning them to let the Temple of Edessa lye open to the common use of the People in the Nature of an Exchange or a Guildhall but to be watchful that no Sacrifices be privately offer'd in it and withal to be careful of preserving the Images wherewith it was adorn'd for the sake of their Art and Beauty like the Gyants and Judges in Guildhall In the year 385 he renews his Law against Sacrifices upon pain of Death In the year 391 Valentinian by his Advice who was then with him at Milan Publishes a Rescript both against Sacrifices Temples and Images under a great pecuniary Mulct And himself at the same time Publishes the same Decree upon Pain of Death by which was occasion'd the utter Destruction of the Famous and Ancient Temple of Serapis And in the year 392 he seals up all with a peremptory Rescript against all the particular Rites of the Gentile Worship And lastly as for the Jews he by the same Imperial Authority without the concurrence of the Church made some Laws in their favour to protect and defend them in their Privileges For all the Emperors had all along indulged them the exercise of Discipline among themselves by the Power of Excommunication which was chiefly put in Execution by their Primates or Patriarchs that presided over all the Synagogues within a Province after the same manner as Metropolitans do over all the Churches These were the Supreme Judges of Scandals and Offences and beyond them there lay no appeal to any other Courts But it seems some of the Emperors Judges and Officers and it is much more easie to bank out the Sea than the covetous Encroachments of this sort of Men had broke in upon their Privileges and usurpt a Power to themselves of commanding the restitution of ejected Persons But to restrain this disingenuous Abuse and Subversion of their Discipline the Emperor Publishes a Rescript to all his Officers commanding them not to controul the Decrees of the Primates and Patriarchs who were by the Imperial Law permitted to be the sole Judges in Matters of their Religion And this was no more than a just and reasonable Civility after the grant of Discipline and Jurisdiction among themselves for that could be of no Effect if once Offenders might gain Liberty to appeal to foreign Judicatures And because the Jews had never been forbidden the exercise of their Religion by any Law and yet were at that time disturbed in some Parts in the East by some over-zealous Christians to the spoiling and destruction of their Synagogues he writes to the Governor to restrain these Disorders with all possible severity And this was the occasion of that hot Contest between the Emperor and St. Ambrose when he enjoyn'd the Bishop of the place to rebuild the Synagogue because he had encouraged the People to pull it down In which matter I cannot but think St. Ambrose was more busie and zealous than became him as Men of great Spirits are apt to over-do For what the Emperor enacted in the case was only as Vindex disciplinae Publicae When the Imperial Laws had given the Jews Liberty who had Power to take it away but the Power that granted it And therefore if any of the Christians in a violent and tumultuary way took to themselves the liberty of demolishing them contrary to the Imperial Charter they stood guilty of a Scandalous Riot both against the Laws of the Empire and the Sovereignty of the Emperor And whether the Government did well or ill in granting the Liberty the Subjects had no Authority to controul it They might have addrest to his Imperial Majesty humbly representing the inconveniences of that liberty in that place which had they done it is not to be doubted but this great and pious Prince would have given them both a wise and an obliging Answer But when in a popular Tumult and out of intemperate zeal they shall presume to take a liberty to themselves by force to controul the gracious Concessions of their Prince I think by the good Fathers leave that they deserved a more severe correction then their Prince in his great Clemency was pleased to inflict upon them § IX Having represented in one view the Laws of this great and wise Prince in Ecclesiastical Matters we may now proceed to the remainder of the History of the Church under his Reign in the several Parts of the Empire And the most remarkable transaction next after the great Council of Constantinople in which the Arian Heresy with all its Branches and Of-sets were for ever lopt off from the Body of the Christian Church was the Council of Aquileia summon'd the same year viz. Anno Dom. 381. consisting of Italian French African and Pannonian Bishops that acted in the capacity of Legates from their several respective Provinces This Council was convened by the Emperor Gratian in the West as the Council of Constantinople was by Theodosius in the East two Months after its breaking up which was at the end of July and the meeting of this at the beginning of September The occasion of it was this Some of the Hereticks of the Arian spawn presuming upon the favor and patronage of the Empress Justina complain to the Emperor of their unjust condemnation for the Arian Heresy and petition to purge themselves in a general Council This was vehemently opposed by St. Ambrose as an unreasonable thing that all the Bishops of Christendom should be perpâ—tually forced to leave their Churches only to satify the curiosity or as he calls it the scabbedness of two or three Men. But the Queens importunity overcomes the Emperor so far as to prevail with him for a Council which yet he summons with that moderation as to leave all the foreign Bishops at their own liberty to come or not Which civility all the Bishops of the Western Church use with that respect as to send their Legates and Representatives and as for the Eastern Bishops they inform his Majesty that they had but just before assembled about the same Matter and given in their peremptory determination The Council being met Palladius and Secundianus two Bishops that had been censured for the Heresy together with Attalus a Presbyter appear and for clearing their innocence they are required to condemn the Position of Arius that the Father alone is Eternal This they refuse but this alone will satisfy they must either subscribe his condemnation or submit to it But they refuse both and appeal to a General Council but they are answer'd That it is needless that
all the Bishops of the Christian World should be forced to such tedious Journeys to censure Men that had been already so often condemn'd in so many Councils And withal that this was a General Council all the Bishops being acquainted with it who might have come if they pleased that the Eastern Church had already given judgment against them in the Council of Constantinople and that all the Western Bishops were present in this Council either in Person or by their Legates Then after a thousand other Tergiversations they move for secular Judges and Moderators the constant sanctuary of the Faction and probably the Queen and the Eunuchs had packt an Ignoramus Jury for them But here St. Ambrose takes him up roundly and throws off all farther patience Et si in multis impietatibus deprehensus sit erubescimus tamen ut videatur qui sacerdotium sibi vendicat à Laicis esse damnatus Ac per hoc quoniam in hoc ipso damnandus est qui Laicorum expectat sententiam cum magis de Laicis Sacerdotes debeant judicare juxta ea quae hodie audivimus Palladium profitentem juxta ea quae condemnare nolvit pronuncio illum sacerdotio indignum carendum in loco ejus Catholicus ordinetur Although he be convicted of many Crimes yet it puts us to confusion that one who pretends to the Priestly Office should choose to submit himself to the judgment of Laicks For which alone he ought to be condemn'd when as in such Matters as these it is the peculiar Office of the Priest-hood to judg of Laymen but these have no Authority to judg of them and therefore according to this Profession of Palladius this day and his refusal to condemn the Heresy I pronounce him unworthy of the Priesthood to be deprived and a Catholick Bishop to be placed in his stead Which sentence against him and his Accomplices being ratified by the Council they broke up and acquaint the Emperor with the Result of their Proceedings First thanking him for the gentleness of his Summons Vt nemo de esset volens nemo cogeretur invitus Quâm grave autem si propter duos in side cariosos toto in orbe essent Ecclesiae sacerdotibus destitutae Qui etiamsi venire propter itineris prolixitatem nequiverunt tamen omnes prope ex omnibus provinciis occidentalibus missis adfuere legatis That no body might be absent but by his own Will no body might be forced against his Will What an hard thing is it that all the Churches in the World should be deprived of their Priests for two or thre worm-eaten Hereticks who though they could not come by reason of the tediousness of the Journey yet almost all the Bishops of the Western Provinces were present by their Legates And secondly they acquaint him with the reason of their beginning with the Epistle of Arius Eà videlicet gratiâ ut quoniam Arianos se negare consueverant Arii blasphemiam aut incusando damnarent aut astruendo defenderent aut certè non recusarent nomen ejus cujus impietatem perfidiamque sequerentur For this reason that seeing they denyed themselves to be Arians they should be forced either to condemn the Blasphemy or to own it and not refuse to be call'd after his Name whom they followed in his Impiety That was the state of things all along that though they were Arians they would not own it Thirdly they petition that he would be pleased to give Orders to his Officers to turn the Hereticks out of their Churches And lastly thank him for his late Law against the Meetings of the Photinians and inform him of one at Sirmium with a request that he would break it up Beside this they write two other Letters to the Emperors to petition their assistance towards quenching the Schisms on foot at that time at Rome Alexandria and Antioch that as Truth was so Peace might be restored to the Church Equidem per occidentales partes duobus in Angulis tantùm hoc est in latere Daciae Ripensis ac Maesiae fidei obstrepi videbatur In Orientalibus partibus cognovimus quidem summo gaudio atque laetitiâ ejectis Arianis qui ecclesias violenter invaserant sacra Dei Templa per solos Catholicos frequentari In the Western Church we found not above two obscure Bishops in the remote Corners of the Empire that opposed the Faith in the Eastern Church all the intruding Arians were ejected and the Churches fill'd with none but Catholicks And thus we see from reign to reign that the Heresy could never lift up its Head after the Nicene Council and it was so far from overspreading the World at this time that there were but two Bishops in all the Western Church that were tainted with it and though there were some more in the East yet they were Intruders such as came in by Violence and Court-Power as we have seen through the whole Series of the Story But as for the Schisms in the three great Sees that the Council Petitions the Emperors to remove they were at that time of a very fatal and pernicious influence over the whole Catholick Church and therefore that I may satisfie the Reader with a compleat History of all passages in this remarkable Reign I shall as briefly as I can give a full and comprehensive Relation of them As for the Schism at Rome it was kept up against Damasus by Vrsicinus whose restless Spirit for a long time employed all the Power both of Church and State to suppress it The Occasion of it was this At the Death of Liberius there were two Parties in the Church of Rome his own and the Party of Foelix that had been substituted in his room by Constantius in the time of his Banishment and that was the bottom of this Schism one Party choosing Damasus and the other Vrsicinus but Damasus having the Majority of Votes carried the Election though Vrsicinus and his Party will not yield it till the Emperor Valentinian the Elder writes to Praetextatus the Praefect of the City to give Damasus possession of the Cathedral and for Security of the Peace for the future to drive the Schismaticks out of the City with Liberty to reside any where but at Rome and with leave too to continue in it upon promise and security of peaceable Behaviour Upon this they unanimously leave the City and settle in the Suburbs and there keep their Meetings and Conventicles under Bishop Vrsicinus which makes great Tumults and Disturbances both in City and Suburbs Of which the Emperor being inform'd he directs a Rescript to the Praefect strictly charging and requiring of him that no such Assemblies be kept within Twenty miles of the City But the Schismaticks continuing turbulent they are banisht into France though in the year 371 the Emperor is graciously pleased to release their Confinement and give them Leave to reside in any Part of the Empire but the City of Rome and the Suburbicary
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
Nicomedia and ever after kept on foot by the Faction For the Western Church had been all along true and faithful to the Orthodox Faith and happy in a succession of Orthodox Emperors and therefore the Easterling Merchants that hitherto made a trade of their Religion and changed their Faith with their Interest greedily seized all Opportunities of breaking with the West where the Faith was fixt and settled because such a settlement would break the Court-Exchange for Preferments upon every Turn of Affairs And such Eceboliuses were the Bishops that raised and promoted this disorder They had ever changed their Faith with the Times and as they had bought their Bishopricks of the Courtiers under Constantius and Valens so were they resolved to keep them under Theodosius And therefore finding his Resolution to stand by the Nicene Faith they readily vote with the Council for its establishment but to prevent the establishment of the Church they start this new and unseasonable Controversie about the Ordination of Paulinus to keep up the division between the East and West Their wrigling and changing of Faith and their buying and selling of Preferments is admirably described by Gregory himself in the Poem of his own Life upon his resignation from whence I have chiefly collected this whole Story You are welcome Chap-Men how often soever you may have barter'd your Faith now 't is high Fair-time let no Man depart without a good penny-worth And now let R. B. here set his Presbyterian hand as his custom is to point out this Character of this prophane Faction against all the good Catholick Bishops with his cold Exclamation Are not these lamentable descriptions of the Bishops of those happy Times and excellent Councils But no multiplying-Glass like Malice unless perhaps Ignorance Upon this Hinge all along turn'd this Controversy it was not kept up by any zeal for the Arian Heresie but the Heresie it self was only pretended to keep up divisions in the Church and by that means a good Exchange was kept up at Court for the sale of Church-Preferments upon every turn of Times And so here upon Gregory's Resignation every Man hoped for a good penny-worth but the Courtiers were grown too cunning and it being so valuable a prize instead of sharing with the Church-men by Simony seize the Bishoprick for themselves Nectarius an unlearned Man but a great Courtier I know not by what art but I am sure by too much interposition of the Emperor being against all the Canons of the Church hoisted into it And it is the great blemish of that Princes reign though it may perhaps be some excuse that he stretcht a point to serve a Friend But the Western Church is startled at these irregular Proceedings and upon them Pope Damasus a resolute Man and one of the first that valued himself upon the great Authority of the Apostolick See moves the Emperors Gratian and Theodosius to grant a General Council at Rome for the better settlement of things But the Eastern Bishops baulk their appearance upon pretence that they cannot be so long absent from their Flocks having been assembled the year before at Constantinople and therefore send only their Legates with a Copy of the Acts of the Council With which the Council at Rome were so 〈◊〉 satisfied 〈◊〉 with very little 〈…〉 adjudged the See of Antioch to Paulinus alone and yet forbore to denounce the sentence of Deposition against Flavianus for fear the Faction should take the advantage that they watcht for to break off Communion with them In order to which it is probable that they raised the Bishop of Constantinople to so great an height of dignity as to take place and precedency next to the Bishop of Rome who upon the account of the Grandeur of the Imperial City had all along held the greatest esteem in the Christian Church And by vertue of this Decree of the Council at Rome Paulinus takes and keeps possession of his Bishoprick to his dying day and is succeeded in it by Evagrius Of the legality of his Succession against the claim of Flavianus see St. Ambrose his 78 th Epistle that runs parallel so luckily with Theodoret's partial story as to discover all its particular flaws and dawbings For says Theodoret after this they would never let Flavianus be at quiet but tired the Emperor with Complaints against him till he undertook his defence himself and by it so satisfied the Western Bishops that they promised reconciliation to him upon which he sent his Legates to treat the Peace which was at last agreed on in the time of Innocent the first But according to St. Ambrose his account who was an Actor in the business the Story runs thus The Emperor upon the Complaint of Siricius that succeeded Damasus against Flavianus refers the Cause to a Council at Capua but Flavianus refuses to appear and moves for an Eastern Synod But the Bishops at the Council being aware of this old device of dividing between East and West immediately vote Communion with all Bishops of the Eastern Church that own'd the Nicene Faith of whatsoever side in this Controversy to cut off that old pretence of Schism upon which Flavianus relyed Upon it he peremptorily refuses all appearance and upon that they refer it to Theophilus Bishop of Alexandria and the Egyptian Bishops but he shuns the reference and takes shelter at Court. Upon which the good Father thus expostulates Frustra ergo tantorum sacerdotum fusus labor Iterum ad hujus seculi Judicia revertendum Iterum ad Rescripta Iterum vexabuntur Sacerdotes senes transfretabunt maria Iterum invalidi corpore patriam peregrino mutabunt solo Iterum sacrosancta Altaria deserentur ut in longinquum proficiscamur Iterum pauperum turbae Episcoporum quibus ante onerosum paupertas non erat externae opis egentes compellentur inopiam gemere aut certè victum inopum itineris usurpare Interea solus exlex Flavianus ut illi videtur non venit quando omnes convenimus But soon after this Evagrius dyes and Flavianus bestirs himself that no Successor should be chosen but yet for all that the People would not be reconciled to him And St. Chrysostom coming at this time to the Throne of Constantinople he prevails with Theophilus of Alexandria to join with him in an Ambassy to Rome to reconcile Flavianus to the Western Church and by that means to remove those heart-burnings that were kept up between the Eastern and Western Bishops upon that account Which was done with some success for it abates the Schism though it does not end it And so things stood till the death of Flavianus in the year 404 who is succeeded by Porphyrius a Bishop of the Court-mould of as bad a Character and as true an Huckster as ever was bred up in the shop of the Nicomedian Eusebius He procured both the banishment of his Competitor and his own Ordination by money and when he had once got into his See
he govern'd by force of Arms and gets an Imperial Rescript from the young Emperor Arcadius commanding the Bishops to communicate with him upon pain of deposition And this became a profitable Fair at Court many of the Eastern Bishops rather choosing to be deposed than to defile their Consciences by allowing Communion with so vile a Man But at length the Wretch dyes in the 408. And Alexander is unanimously chosen who put an end to the Schism that had lasted 45 years And thus we see from whence almost all the Schisms and Disorders of the Church proceeded meerly from the Ambition of ill Church-men supported against the Churches Authority by the Power of the Court This was the great Plague of the Church after the Emperors became Christian and we shall find all along that the Church was either opprest or protected according as the Emperor himself watched against this abuse of his Courtiers And to defend the Church from it was in all Ages the highest Act of the Imperial Protection And this we have here seen at large by the example of this great Princes reign who was himself careful of the Churcâ—â—â— Liâ—erties and as far as he could 〈…〉 sâ—ffer'd no Court-merchandise in it And yet many Enormities were committed and that even in the great Council of Constantinople it self in the case of Flavianus but that was by reason of ill Men that were got into the Church by this ill practice under his Predecessors Valens and Constantius § X. The last remarkable transaction that I shall take notice of in this reign was the Heresy of the Priscillianists and the concurrence of the Powers both of Church and State for its suppression For though the Emperor Theodosius was not concern'd in it yet it being upon the Stage in the time of his Reign I shall take it into the Story of his time The matter of Fact is described with most accuracy by Sulpitius Severus who lived at the same time though he lived not long enough to see the end of the Heresie for he concludes his history with the four hundredth year of our Lord in the time of Honorius whereas this blasphemous Heresie was not utterly rooted out till some time after And setting aside his gross defect of judgment and his excess of partiality on the wrong side which yet is so enormous that it cannot impose upon any Readers understanding unless such an one as Mr. B 's is perverted by rank malice the Heresie is so described both by himself and divers others of the Ancients as shews the necessity of suppressing it not only by the Civil Magistrate but the Civil Sword For by all accounts of it it was no better than a meer Cento of all the Blasphemies of the Gnosticks and the Manichees together with some new secret and obscure Sacraments among themselves and the religious practice of all sorts of Villainy and Dishonesty That is the compendium of it as it is set down by St. Austin The Priscillianists that were founded by Priscillian in Spain held chiefly the Opinions of the Gnosticks and the Manichees though they drew together the dregs of all Heresies as into a common sink of uncleanness and for the concealing of their horrible brutishness among themselves have set up this among their Principles Swear or forswear but be sure not to betray the Secret Or as St. Jerom adds to the Character that as they devoted themselves wholly to Lust so in their unclean Embraces they were wont to sing this Stanza of the Prince of Poets Tum Pater omnipotens faecundis imbribus aether Conjugis in gremium latè descendit et omnes Magnus alit magno commixtus corpore foetus The very lake of Sodom and I might add of Geneva too they as well as their Masters the Gnosticks and Manichees being branded by all the Ancients for the Atheistical Principle of Fatality This Heresie was first brought out of Egypt into Spain by one Marcus and by him Priscillian a Man of a sharp Wit but infinite Vanity was poison'd who by his eloquence and neatness of address soon disperst the contagion over all Spain and especially among the Female sex who as Sulpitius expresses it being always greedy of Novelties of unsettled Principles and of wanton Fancies flockt after him in whole sholes of Proselytes And it took with that success that the Plague got among the Bishops themselves Instantius and Salvianus both Bishops being seduced into the Party and initiated into the Secret which being discover'd by Adigynus Bishop of Corduba to Ithacius Bishop of Emerita he with Idacius prosecuted them with all severity not only by ecclesiastical Process but before the Civil Magistrate as they supposed to nip the mischief in the bud but as the Historian thinks with too much fury or with more zeal than discretion by which he sayes they were rather exasperated than reclaimed But for my part I cannot understand how men of such lewd and despâ—rate principles that destroy the natural modesty and the common faith of mankind can ever be pursued with too much violence Such men as these are not proceeded against as Heretiques in the Faith but as Apostates from humane Nature as Thieves Robbers Cut-Throats and Banditi that declare open hostility to the Peace of the World But the Historian was led into his soft-natur'd Opinion by the Authority of St. Martin a weak and unlearned man of great devotion but very little understanding who interceded with great zeal to save the Lives of the Malefactors and if he had begg'd them of the Government as an Act of Mercy it might not have been altogether unbecoming the tenderness of a Religious man but when he required it as a duty of his Superiours to keep hands off from such vile Offenders he only shewed the pertness of his humour and the weakness of his Understanding But first of all they are proceeded against by the Censure of the Church in the Council of Caesar Augusta i. e. Caragosa the Metropolis of Aragon in Spain in the Year 380 in which the Bishops are deposed and the Lay-men excommunicated and the Sentence signified to all foreign Churches to prevent their receiving them into Communion And withal several Canons are enacted against the particular customs and practices of the Heretiques As first That Women be not permitted to preach in Publique as Agape one of the first of the Sect a wanton and immodest Woman had done and others after her Example and this priviledge no doubt was the great Lure that drew the talking Sex so thick into the Faction The next Canon is made against fasting on the Festivals of the Church and that cross-grain'd temper was common to all the Fanatique Heretiques in all Ages to do every thing in contradiction to the establisht Laws and known Customs of the Church as we have seen above by the Canons of the Council of Gangra against the Eutactans or Eustathians The next Canon is to anathematise
those who receive the holy Eucharist without eating it For that was the common Practice of those prophane Wretches that they might avoid discovery to seem to communicate with the Catholiques even in this great Sacrament but that they might not be guilty of joyning in true and real communion secretly to conveigh it away and so turn it into occasional Communion as we call it And to the like purposes are the other Canons The Heretiques being thus condemn'd in Council they make Priscillian the Bishop of their Sect upon which Ithacius and Idacius apply themselves to the secular Magistrate and at length gain a Rescript from the Emperour Gratian to banish them not only from all Citys but out of the Empire it self For the words in Sulpitius extra omnes terras can signifie no less though Gothofred surmises that their meaning reaches no farther than the Territories belonging to that particular City that they inhabited As when any man was banisht from Rome he was banisht an hundred miles from it because so far its Territory or Suburbicary Diocess extended As in the case of Vrsicinus who when he was driven out of Rome was confined to keep at that distance But I would fain know of the learned Civilian where he ever met with this sense and construction of extra omnes Terras when put absolutely though he knows it was a common phrase to express the whole Empire And so it must be taken here for the men were condemn'd to banishment for propagating wicked and debauch't Principles and if that were only out of the Province in which they lived that would be but a means to spread the Contagion over all the Countrey And therefore the Priscillianists upon the Publication of the Rescript were not only forced to quit their own particular Provinces but Spain it self and farther their Prosecutors were not concern'd to pursue them But having quitted Spain they betake themselves to Italy and there endeavour to clear their Innocence to Damasus Bishop of Rome and Ambrose Bishop of Milain but they are so wise as to refuse so much as to see or hear them Upon that they are forced to betake themselves to the standing shift of all Heretiques to buy off the Laws of the Church with the Courtiers And to this end they bribe Macedonius the Magister Officiorum who thereupon prevails with the Emperour to reverse his Rescript against them whereupon they return home with triumph and rebribe Volventius the Governour so powerfully that he forces Ithacius to fly his Countrey Who thereupon betakes himself to Gregorius the Emperour's Praefectus Praetorio in France to whom Volventius was subject as his Vicarius and acquaints him with the disorders in Spain and upon the information he immediately commands his Spanish Vicarius to send the Heretiques to him and in the mean time whilst they were upon their Journey informs the Emperour of all their wicked pranks But all in vain for by reason of the exorbitant power and wantonness of a few men at Court all things were there exposed to sale and therefore the Heretiques after their old custom with a great Sum of Money bribed their old Patron Macedonius to perswade the Emperour to take the cognisance of the matter from the Praefectus Praetorio and refer it back to his Viceâ—rius in Spain Which was accordingly done and a Messenger sent by Macedonius to seize Ithacius and carry him Prisoner into Spain though at that time he escaped his hands In the Year 385. the Tyrant Maximus rebels and overcomes Gratian in France and after his Victory coming to Treives where Ithacius then resided he immediately makes his address to him against the Heretiques who storms at them and immediately commands the Governours of France and Spain to conveigh them safe to a Synod at Burdeaux in which Instantius is deposed But Priscillian appeals from the Judgment of the Council to the Emperour and accordingly himself and all his Partisans are carried before him at Treives where St. Martin being at that time he advises Ithacius to desist from his Prosecution and Maximus to spare their blood because it was more than enough that they were condemn'd by the Episcopal Sentence and deprived of their Churches and that it was a new and unheard of Prophaneness that a Secular Judge should give Sentence in an Ecclesiastical cause In which Advice the good man has betrayed great Ignorance of affairs and great Weakness of understanding Ignorance in that it was so far from being a novelty or prophanness for Princes to enact penal Laws in Ecclesiastical causes after the Judgment of the Church that it was ever look't upon as a piece of their duty to abet it if they approved it with secular Laws and Penalties And weakness in that he thought deposition from their Bishopricks a sufficient punishment for such men as Sulpitius himself says were not worthy to live And if they were not so how could he find fault as he there does with the ill example of putting them to death For they were not proceeded against as meer Heretiques but as Villains and therefore it was a great meanness of Understanding in St. Martin to think an Ecclesiastical Censure a sufficient punishment for such men as had renounced not only the honesty but the modesty of humane Nature and that was their crime as appears by the condemnation of Priscillian For though St. Martyn whilst he continued at Treives kept off their Tryal yet he was no sooner gone than Maximus referr'd the Examination of the whole matter to Evodius of whom Sulpitius gives several Characters here he is vir acer et severus in the life of St. Martin Vir quo nihil unquam justius fuit But before him upon a double hearing Priscillian is convicted of all the Crimes laid to his charge and himself confesses that he taught Doctrines of uncleanness that he kept night-Conventicles with lewd Women and that he was wont to pray naked before them Upon which he is condemn'd And a Narrative of the Proceedings deliver'd to the Emperor Who was so satisfied with the Evidence of the Testimony and so disgusted with the foulness of the Confession that he immediately beheaded Priscillian with some of the Ring-leaders and banisht the rest and he thought the Matter so foul that he had not confidence to express it as he affirms in his Letter to Pope Siricius What discovery was lately made of the wickedness of the Manichees for so the Priscillianists were at first vulgarly call'd not from doubtful or uncertain Suspicions but from their own Confessions I had rather that your Holiness should be inform'd from the Acts themselves than my Mouth because I have not confidence to say such things as are too foul not only to be acted but spoken And I think the most merciful Prince could scarce have been less severe to such a Crew of debauch't Ranters They are the worst sort of Men that turn Religion
haec nefanda prorupit per totum mundum instanter egêre ut impius furor ab universà Ecclesià pelleretur quando etiam Mundi principes ita hanc sacrilegam amentiam detestati sunt ut auctorem ejus ac plerosque dicipulos legum publicarum ense prosternerent Videbanâ— enim omnem curam hâ—nestaâ—is auferri omnem conjugiâ—rum copulam solvi simulque divinum jus humanumque subverti si hujusmodi hominibus usquam vivere cum tali professione licuisset Our Ancestors in whose time this prophane Heresy sprung up took all possible care to root the madness out of the Christian World when at the same time the secular Princes so abhorred its outragious wickedness that they put to deâ—th with the Sword the Author of it together with his chiefest Proselytes for they were sensible that by it all the Obligations to honesty were destroyed all the sacred bands of Marriage dissolved all Laws both Divine and Humane subverted if these Men were allowed to live any where with the profession of their debaucht Principles This is the true state of the case and yet it is the only great instance of cruelty that R. B. is perpetually bellowing out against the bloudy the persecuting the turbulent the destroying the proud the contentious the ambitious the hereticating the merciless the furious the confounding and the God-damn-you Prelates and fire brands of the World For these are the most usual Titles of honor that this Man of meekness and healing is pleased to bestow upon the reverend Bishops of the ancient as well as the present Church But though he is pleased to throw them out at random among the whole Order yet when he comes to particulars his whole Catalogue of Bonners and bloody Bishops is nothing but this story of Ithacius and the Priscillianists continually repeated in his fourscore books and upwards and by repeating one tale so often has made it so many stories But poor Richard transcribes in so much hast that he has not leisure to examine and weigh his Records no nor for the most part which is much worse to construe them for though he is very abounding with his in specie he is very defective in his In speech and has of late bless't and obliged the World with such heaps of historical Ignorance as cannot but be a full satisfaction to the Age that Presbytery and skill in antiquity are inconsistent things But as for this particular out-cry about Ithacius if he had but in the least understood the true state of the case he could never have prevail'd with himself to triumph over its cruelty with so much transport and insolence as he has done in so much that he seems to be more pleased with their Execution then the bloody Prelates themselves only because it serves him for a Common Place of railing at them and that is the sweetest gratification to his healing Spirit But what were these poor silly harmless Hereticks that were so barbarously butcher'd by these inhumane Prelates Were they meer Hereticks in a point of Faith as the Arians were Were they meer Schismaticks from the Communion of the Church as the Donatists were No but they were a rout of Villains that under the pretence of a greater Purity taught all the leudness and wickedness that humane Nature could commit and daily reduced their Doctrin to practice among themselves So that their Crime was not any heresie against the Christian Faith as this crude Rhapsodist supposes but an Apostasie from humane Nature and subversion of humane Society and an utter debauching of humane Kind Now when such Monsters of Men that were implacable Enemies to the Peace of the World arose within the Neighbourhood of some Christian Bishops I cannot see how they could any way have excused themselves to God and their Country if they had not indeavour'd a speedy stop of the Contagion For this concern'd them not as Christian Bishops but as Men and Members of the Common-Wealth which it was apparent that these Mens Principles utterly subverted and therefore for that very reason were they bound to let the Government know its danger And though their Office as Christian Bishops obliged them to mercy yet not to such foolish mercy as would undo the World And that was their case they did not prosecute Hereticks but Rebels and Traitors And that Office I think as much becomes a Bishop if he loves his King and his Country as another Man But it seems there is no cruelty so terrible in the Eye of a Presbyter as to bring Rebels to their due punishment And it looks like strange confidence that Men who have confess 't themselves Men of Blood and cut honest Mens Throats for their Loyalty should complain of the cruelty of executing Villains for their Rebellion So that in the Result of all and granting the truth of the whole Story the conclusion will amount to no more than this That the difference between the Prelatical and Presbyterian Ithacians is That the one is for gleaning up a few Malefactors to preserve a Nation the other is for reaping the whole field and that is the true thorough Presbyterian Reformation § XI Theodosius dyes in the year 395. after an happy and glorious reign having clear'd the Eastern Empire of Goths Persians and Arians and twice recover'd the Western from the Usurpation of Tyrants Maximus and Eugenius and leâ—t both Church and State in a settled and prosperous Condition insomuch that it is but a due and just Character that is given of him by Barâ—nius Nullus unquam Romanorum Imperatorum qui non hereditario jure parenti Augusto successerit ita legitimè ita opporrune ita fructuosè atque fideliter ad regimen Romani est cooptatus Imperii That none of the Roman Emperors that came not to the Crown by inheritance and lineal Succession were ever taken into a share of that Power that managed it with more skill or honesty and to the greater benefit of the Empire And yet he can no more escape the Barkings of Zosimus as Photius calls them than all the other Christian Emperors but his Calumnies consist not in ill Stories but in ill Characters that are as well consuted by his whole History of this great Princes actions as by Paulinus his Apologetick and St. Ambrose his Funeral Oration to which I refer the Reader and shall only give this Character out of a more knowing Author because contemporary and an Eye witness of his Actions and though a more impartial yet no bribed Author because an heathen too as well as Zosinus and that is Aurelius Victor who concludes his History with this Character of him having compared him to Trajan he adds that He was a Prince courteous merciful and familiar thinking himself to be distinguisht from other Men only by the Imperial Robe bountiful to all Men but to a degree of prodigality to good Men he loved Men of Integrity and honor'd Learning if without craft he bestowed his great bounty with a greater
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
they were exempted by Law And in the year 399 the same Law is repeated with a pecuniary Mulct not only upon the Offender that commits the Crime but upon the Judg that connives at it And in the same year another Rescript is publisht to refer Ecclesiastical Causes to the Ecclesiastical judgment but contentious about Civil Rights to the Secular Courts And there are many more Laws of the same strein in the Imperial Code the meaning whereof is not wholly to limit the Judgment of all Ecclesiastical Causes to the Church and of all Civil Causes to the Secular Courts because most Causes as I have shewn above appertain to both But their plain intention is that Causes purely Ecclesiastical or Offences against the Canons Rubricks and Orders of the Church for the preservation of Peace and Decency or Offences against the Rule of Faith shall be judged by the Church alone and as for civil Controversies they are to receive their decision only from Civil Courts For the final power of Decision is all the Authority that can be used in that case but though the Church has none of that yet it has a Power to judg of the same Actions as far as they concern the Laws of their Religion or as Theodosius the younger expresses it Christianam sanctitatem And though when one Man stands convict of having defrauded another they have not Power to right the Person wronged or to inforce a Restitution yet they have a Power to pass sentence upon the injury as a breach of the Christian Law and that sentence will have its effect So that though they have not a Civil Authority in Civil Causes yet they have an Ecclesiastical that is distinguisht not by the Matter but the Penalty of the Law But the true and proper meaning of these Laws is best understood by the occasion upon which they were enacted and the occasion of this was that the Emperors had impowr'd Bishops to decide Controversies by arbitration and the consent of Parties which they in process of time challenge as their right and derive their Authority for it from Apostolical Law as was done by the African Fathers at this time petitioning the Emperor That if any Persons will choose to have their Controversies decided by the Church according to Apostolical Law and one Party shall appeal from the Award that the Priest who was the Judg shall not be cited to the temporal Courts by him to give in any account or testimony of the proceedings To which Petition the Emperor returns this Law as a just denyal though that neither does nor can take away their Power of Ecclesiastical Censures that they received from our Saviour but of civil Decision that was granted them by the favor and indulgence of Princes and when once they pretended to an higher Commission for it it was but time to clip their pretences But in the year 400 he publisht a very remarkable Rescript in defence of the true power and discipline of the Church against all Appeals from their Sentence even to the Imperial Throne it self Whoever shall be deposed from his Office in the Church by a Synod of Bishops if he shall presume against the modesty of the Church and the Peace of the Empire to resume that Office to himself from which he is deposed he shall according to the Law of Gratian of blessed Memory be banisht an hundred Miles from the City that he infested for it is but fit that he should be banisht their Assemblies who is cut off from their Society And be it farther enacted by the force of this Law That no such Persons apply themselves to our Secretaries to procure our Rescripts in their behalf and if they shall by stealth obtain any all Rescripts granted to such Persons as are deposed from their Priesthood are hereby declared null and void And lastly let such Persons upon whose favor they relie take notice that they shall not escape the punishment due to such as shall undertake the protection of such Men as are already cast by the judgment of God This Law of stopping all Appeals from the Church was of all others most necessary for the preservation of discipline in it and therefore it was always with greatest care establisht by the Canons against all Invasions and observed with the greatest tenderness by all the wisest Emperors And we have seen through the whole series of this History that from the very time that Princes took upon them the protection of the Church the only thing that debaucht and defeated the Efficacy of its Discipline was Church-mens taking sanctuary at Court against the Authority of their Superiors And the mischiefs of this abuse having been so often experienced it was but high time to take it quite away insomuch that the Emperor was pleased to tye up his own hands from untying any sentence of the Church As for the occasion of this Law there are many conjectures about it but I think the most probable is that of Gothofred that it was made at the Petition of the African Fathers who were actually sitting at that time to restore the ancient and effectual discipline of the Church and reform the Abuses and Corruptions that were crept or were creeping into it and so among others implore the Emperor that he would be pleased to stop all ways of appeal to Persons that stood legally condemn'd by the sentence of the Church and to injoin this to all his Officers as they word it interpositâ poenâ damni pecuniae atque honoris And this Petition the Emperor grants with that frankness as to take away this abused Power of Appeals not only from his Judges but himself and damn their Authority by this Rescript once for all and for ever In the year 401 he exempts those of the Clergy that were forced to trade to get a Lively-hood from the payment of all Customs the same Law that was made by Constantius in the year 343. So that it seems the Church was not as yet indowed with sufficient Revenues to maintain it self when some of the Clergy were forced to traffick for bread Thô they were afterward forbidden all manner of Trade by Valentinan the third when it seems the Church was grown rich enough to subsist upon its own stock In the year 407 he not only confirms all the ancient Priviledges and Immunities of the Clergy but he grants them a new sort of Tuition viz. Secular Advocates for the management of all their Secular Affairs but lest by this means the Church should be cheated by these Trustees the Bishops of the Province are required to survey their Accounts This Law was made at the Petition of the African Fathers in the fourth Council of Africa and is extant in their Code Canon 97. And it was done for this end that the Clergy might not be forced to appear in Law-Courts and leave their Functions to follow Law-Suits And this is the first time that Lay-men were taken
into the concerns of the Church and that not to intermeddle with any thing of its discipline and jurisdiction but only as their Stewards and Solicitors And this Emperor was so kind to them as to follow this Rescript with another commanding that the Advocates of the Church should be put to no delays in the Common-Law-Courts but admitted to Audience at their first appearance In the year 412 he recites the particular Priviledges granted to the Clergy and commands all his Officers to keep them inviolable upon pain of perpetual Banishment The Priviledges he enumerates are these six 1 Exemption from Offices 2 From repairing of High-ways 3 From extraordinary Taxes 4 From building of Bridges 5 From maintaining the publick Carriages 6 From the Gold-Contribution which was a particular Tax imposed at that time In short they were excused from all Payments but their Canonical Tribute the rate of which was known and customary For their Lands were never exempt from Taxes and the proportion that they paid was call'd the Canonical Contribution and whatever Officer demanded more than their standing rate he was by this Rescript banisht for ever as a sacrilegious Person In the same year he publishes another Rescript forbidding the accusation of Clergy-men before any Judg but the Bishops and if any Person of what degree and quality soever shall bring an Indictment against them and be not able to make it good he shall be branded with publick Infamy as the Person accused must have been if found guilty This Rescript notwithstanding its general words that the Clergy ought to be accused before the Bishops and not else where the Lawyers will have to be understood of Ecclesiastical and not Civil Crimes but this proceeds from their common Prejudice that I have noted above that only Ecclesiastical Offences fall under the Judicature of the Church but Civil and Political Crimes are restrain'd to the cognisance of the State whereas both are punishable by both with those different Penalties that are proper to the different Jurisdictions And as for this Law in particular it cannot be understood of any other but Civil Crimes and this is evidently proved by those very Arguments that are alledged by Gothofred himself to appropriate it to Ecclesiastical Miscarriages First that they are such Crimes as are punisht by the shame of Deposition and therefore most properly Civil Crimes for there were very few Ecclesiastical Offences so great as to deserve so high a Punishment and those few that did so as in the case of Schism and Heresy were always appropriated to the Ecclesiastical Judicature before this Rescript and therefore not by it And this appears more pregnantly from his second reason the cause of enacting this Law viz. that Lay-men and even Persons of the greatest Quality being apt upon slite provocations to bear spite to the Clergy would be apt enough to way-lay their Reputation with popular defamations and false reports So that the apparent design of the Law was to prevent these scandalous Informations before the Secular Judges and restrain them from so much as taking them till they had been first examin'd by the Ecclesiastical Judicature And in the last place this is still more evident from the particular occasion of this Law that Heros a worthy Man Bishop of Arles had been thrust out by Constantius a great Court-Officer there and afterwards Emperor for six Months upon a tumultuary Accusation and Patroclus an infamous Person placed in his stead and therefore to prevent the like Disorders for the time to come it was but seasonable to enact this Law to restrain Secular Governors from receiving accusations against the Clergy till they have been first heard by the Provincial Synod So that this Law does not exempt the criminal Actions of the Clergy from the Civil Courts as Gothofred imagines when he objects that it is against the Jus Commune but only limits the exercise of their Jurisdiction viz. that they neither receive nor proceed in such Causes till the Judgment of the Church had been pass't upon them and after that they were at liberty to punish them according to Law This is the fairest and most ingenuous sense that I can make of this Law These are the chief Laws of these Emperors in the Church the Penal Laws against the Hereticks and the Laws of Priviledg to the Catholicks § XIII But beside these there were divers others enacted either to abet the Discipline of the Church by removing Abuses that were crept in upon its ancient Constitutions or by backing its present Decrees with the Imperial Authority Or else to set in order such Matters of Religion that though they related to the Church were yet without its Jurisdiction i. e. those Laws that concern Jews Heathens and Apostates in all which they followed the example of their Royal Father Theodosius And first they take care of the due and regular Ordination of the Clergy Constantine the Great had been forced to forbid his Officers both Civil and Military to be admitted into Holy Orders and the same Decree was frequently renewed by his Successors with alterations and limitations as the Prince thought most convenient for the present time that the State might not be defrauded or indamaged by too much bounty to the Church and when Men flockt so fast into it it was but requisite to lock its doors upon such as were already useful to the Common-Wealth Which Constantine did with a peremptory and universal Law but Valentinian the first with this limitation That any Person who had an Office in the State might be admitted into the Church so that he provided an able Person to supply his former Office But before this time the Priviledg of Clergy had taken place and the Bishop was impowr'd to redeem any Criminal from Justice or Debtor from Goal if he judged him qualified for doing Service in the Church that was grown into such an abuse that the Monks took them away by force and tumult to the hindrance of Publick Justice and the subversion of private Mens rights For when they were once enter'd into a Monastery or into Orders their Crimes were cancel'd and their Debts paid to redress which abuse Arcadius enacts a severe Law in the year 398 as his Father Theodosius had done before him against these violent interpositions of the Monks and threatens the Bishops that if any such Riots were made by the Monks under their Jurisdictions and not punisht by them the fault should lye at their Doors and commands them for the time to come that whenever they wanted Clerks they should take them from the Colledges of Monks if they found them clear of all Debts both Publick and Private otherwise as they ought not to have been admitted into the Monasteries so he now commands that they shall not be admâ—tted into Orders And this Law was but agreeable to the Constitution of things in those Times when the Monasteries as now our Universities were the proper Seminaries
is I suppose that Trebonian has wholly left it out of the Justinian Collection Under the Title de Paganis there are three Laws of Arcadius viz. 13 14 16 and five of Honorius 15 17 18 19 20. The first Law of Arcadius was enacted at his first coming to the Empire in the year 395 and was only a Ratification of all his Royal Father's Laws both against Pagans and Hereticks with very severe comminations upon his Officers that neglected their speedy and vigorous Execution no less than death it self in supercapitali supplicio judicamus Officia i. e. Officiales coercenda quae statuta neglexerint By a second Rescript in the year following all Priviledges whatsoever heretofore granted to the Heathen Priests are utterly abolisht And by a Rescript in the year 399 all their Temples still remaining in Villages in the Province of Syria Phaenice are commanded to be pull'd down but not without Tumult many of the Monks who were usually most busie at that Work being wounded and slain by the Country People In the same year Honorius takes away their Sacrifices and Temples in France and Spain but so as to preserve their publick Ornaments after the example of his Father Theodosius in the eighth Law of this Title And in the same year also he being petition'd by the African Fathers in their fifth Council to remove all the Relicks of Idolatry that as he had already taken away their Sacrifices so he would be pleased to abolish their publick Festivals quae ab errore Gentili attracta sunt i. e. that were Customs at first derived from the old Heathenism to this he returns a peremptory denyal That though it was his Royal Pleasure that the prophane Rites should be taken away yet he would not have the People deprived of their Solemnities of mirth according to ancient and immemorial Custom And whereas the same Fathers moved that the Heathen Temples still remaining in Villages and more remote Parts of the Country might be destroyed the Emperor denies that too the Idols he will have removed but not the Buildings themselves demolisht But in the year 408 the Emperor is of another mind being inflamed to it by a particular Provocation For Stilicâ—o being slain that year both the Heathens and the Donatists as we have seen in their History grow insolent and give out that all the Laws that had been enacted against them were only Stilico's without the Emperor's Consent which being signifiâ—d to the Emperor by the African Fathers with a repetition of their former Requests he upon it grants all that they ask and more and nothing less will serve his turn than the utter extirpation of Paganism Upon it he takes away all their Revenues and settles them upon his Army destroys their Images and their Altars turns their publick Temples to other publick Uses commands the private Chappels to be demolisht by the Owners takes away the solemn Festivals and imposes the execution of this Law upon his Officers under the Penalty of a very severe Fine His last Rescript was enacted in the year 415 in which he permits the Heathen Games yearly exhibited by the Priests in their Metropoles or great Cities upon condition that the Priests return home to their own Habitations as soon as the Solemnity is ended Secondly he sequesters all Revenues belonging to the Temples to his own and to the Churches use Thirdly he removes all their Heathen Images from the Baths and all other publick Places And lastly he inflicts Capital Punishments upon the Ring-leaders in their Sacrifices and superstitious Processions And thus by these several Penal Laws under these several Titles and against these several Factions he so settled the Peace of the Church and Empire that though he lived ten years after for he died not till the year 425 he had no necessity of making any more news Laws about these old Matters for when things are once settled in their right Method the World jogs on in good order of its own accord So that it was really this reign that vanquisht all the inveterate disorders of the Church that utterly rooted out the Schism of the Donatists and broke the heart of the Heresie of the Arians for it was at this time that it received its fatal blow though afterward it made some weak Essays and fainting gaspings to recover life Neither do I remember that after this time he had occasion of making any other Laws about Ecclesiastical Matters but one Law of Discipline in the year 420 to recover the obsolete force of an Ecclesiastical Canon strictly forbidding all Clergy-men to cohabit with any Women unless their own Mothers Sisters or Daughters and commanding all that had been married before they entred into Orders to retain their Wives after it The first part of which Law was made in pursuance of the Nicene Canon that had been frequently renewed both by the Ecclesiastical and Civil Law by reason of a common Abuse that was crept into the Church that Men professing Caelibacy took Women into their Houses commonly call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 beloved Sisters to minister to their necessities and join with them in their Devotions by which odd kind of liberty they brought great and just Scandal upon the Church and for that reason we meet with continual Complaints in all the Ancients against them The other part of the Law against the Clergies divorce upon pretence of stricter Sanctity is taken from the sixth Apostolical Canon so that it is evident from this Law that the Caelibacy of the Clergy was not at this time injoin'd though afterward it crept into the Church by insensible degrees till it was at length imposed rather by the Authority of Custom than Law § XIV But the management of the Civil Policy of this Reign in Church-Matters as happy as it was it was not so happy as the Ecclesiastical Government that runs parallel with it was deplorable For in this very Period of time hap'ned such a fatal Revolution in the Church like those great Deluges and Conflagrations that Plato dreams of by which old Worlds are destroyed and new ones made as swept away the whole frame of the ancient Church and swallowed up all its power in the exorbitant Usurpation of one Bishop For now it was that the old Constitution of the Catholick Church as it had stood from the time of our Saviour and his Apostles divided into Provincial Jurisdictions and those again uniâ—ed into a Catholick Communion with an equality of Power among themselves was gulft up in the unlimited and universal Supremacy of one single Bishop over all This was first challenged by Innocent the first who began to reign in the year 402 and was ever after eagerly pursued by his Successors at which great change of things it might be convenient to make a stand and take a sad view of the dismal Ruins under which the Primitive Church with all its liberties lay buried for many Ages But as it
restrain their outrage and he for a remedy against the Mischief for the time to come makes a Law consisting of these seven heads First to forbid their intermedling with any Proceedings in the Emperor's Courts Secondly to reduce them to the number of 500. Thirdly to enact that none should be capable of admission into the Order but poor Men. Fourthly that they should be chosen by the Citizens And Fifthly approved and confirm'd by the Governor Sixthly that they refrain from all Publick Meetings and Courts of Justice unless as they are forced to appear as Parties And lastly that as vacant Places fell for the time to come they should be fill'd up by the Governor The occasion and history of this Law is described at large by Socrates There had been an old grudg between Orestes the Prefect and Cyril the Bishop of Alexandria because as the Prefect thought the Bishop's great Power in that City seem'd to abate of and check with the Authority of the Emperor 's Vice-Roys and because he knew that Cyril watcht his Government but it hapned once that whilst the Governor was present at a Publick Shew to prevent a Tumult of the Jews there were present several of Cyril's Friends and among the rest one Hierax a zealous School-Master who was seised and punisht for a Spy upon this St. Cyril threatens the Jews and upon his threatnings their Rabble enter into a Conspiracy to destroy the Christians and in the Night raise an out-cry that one of their Churches was on fire and as the Christians run from all Parts to quench it they with Protestant Flails murther them in the Tumult upon which Cyril the next day turn'd them all out of Town and the People plunder'd their Goods This fretted Orestes to the heart so that though Cyril used all means of reconciliation with him he vowed an eternal and implacable Enmity Upon this Animosity the Monks of Nitria as the Historian has it but whatever they were they must by the circumstances of Time and Place be the same Men that this Law calls Parabolani make Tumults in the Streets affront and assault the Prefect in his Chariot and one of them breaks his head with a stone who being taken is wrackt to death by him but honorably buried by Cyril Upon which complaint is made to the Emperor from both sides but he takes his Governors part and for that end makes this Law to put these Ecclesiastical Men under his Government who had hitherto been subject to no Authority but the Bishop's Though 16 or 17 Months after being again reconciled to Cyril he puts them wholly under his Jurisdiction restores the Power of Election and Substitution into his hands and increases their number to six hundred His next Law enacted in the year 421 relates only to the Churches of Illyricum We command that all Innovation ceasing the ancient Canons and Customs that have hitherto prevail'd be observed through all the Provinces of Illyricum and if any Doubt or any Controversie arise it shall be determin'd by the Synod of Bishops but not without consulting the most reverend Arch-Bishop of Constantinople that ought to enjoy the Prerogative of old Rome There is no one piece of Antiquity that has been more canvassed and controverted than this Law among learned Men and yet to this day it lyes undiscover'd in the dark and no wonder whilst the Records of it lay buried in Rubbish It were tedious to recite the several Conjectures of Photius Baronius Perron de Marca Blondell Gothofred and divers others because they are all but meer Guesses without any bottom to support them But since their time the Records have been brought to light by the learned Holstenius who first publisht them to the World out of a Vatican Manuscript in the year 1662. And they agree so punctually with all the Records of that time as by it setting aside the Authority of the Manuscript it self to justifie and in reality demonstrate their own Credit Now the short of the Story is this That the Bishops of Rome and Constantinople were at that time contending for Supremacy of Jurisdiction and Illyricum being situated in the Confines of both Empires was naturally the Seat of War For though all Illyricum had in former times belonged to the Western Empire yet it was divided by Theodosius the Great and one half of it laid to the Eastern and upon that the Bishop of Constantinople claims Jurisdiction over it Constantinople then pretending to the same Prerogative in the East that Rome enjoyed in the West This pretence was set up immediately after the Council of Constantinople that only gave it preheminence of honour next to old Rome and that they fairly construed Equality of Jurisdiction whereas on the other side the Romanists challenged Supremacy of Power over those Churches by prescription from the time of Innocent the first who had set up the Bishop of Theâ—saloniâ—â— as his Legate over all Illyricum and to justifie his Innovation pleads Prescription from Damasus but that is according to the constant Custom of the Man rank Forgery when Damasus never in the least pretended to any such Power but only kept up Correspondence with Acholius Bishop of Thessalonica as the chief Metropolitan in those parts without any Intimation of any such Relation between them But Rufus who was then Bishop of Thessalonica having received such a Supremacy of Power from his Master Innocent was faithful to his Masters Interest and so continued till the very time of this Rescript and fighting it out manfully against the Usurpation of the Constantinopilitans Now the point of War as it was managed by the Bishop of Constantinople was this that Illyricum ought to be wholy governed by its own Synod of Bishops But as by Rome that the Bishop of Thessalonica ought to have and exercise a Supremacy of Jurisdiction over them And so it stood at the time of this Rescript Boniface the first then Bishop of Rome in the year 419 which was but two years before the date of the Rescript commending his Courage and great Service to the Apostolick See and this Victory was so great that as Boniface himself attests the greatest part of the Illyrican Bishops came over to his side But Atticus then Bishop of Constantinople more a Lawyer then a Divine and therefore chiefly governed and over-ruled the Church by Imperial Authority who had bafled an Excommunication of Pope Innocent with the Emperors Rescript and by it seised a Jurisdiction over the Province of Hellespont as I have elsewhere shewn finding Illyricum in danger to be lost procures this crafty Rescript from the Emperor against Rufus and under pretence of asserting the Laws and Liberties of the Church by preserving the Supreme Power of Provincial Synods takes the Supremacy of all to himself in that nothing was to be done or concluded by them without his consent And here the confidence of these men is very remarkable in pleading Antiquity on both sides notwithstanding the
Innovation of both was so very notorious But this served the turn well enough against the Adversary as here by this Rescript to Abolish all Innovation the Power of the Bishop of Thessalonica was utterly destroyed and when that was done Atticus having gained the Bishops to his own side by it knew how to do his own work This fires Pope Boniface for as the Rescript was publish't in June so in the March following he sends a Letter to Rufus full of Thundering and Lightning Commanding him in St. Peters name to maintain his Ground and Power against the Attempts of sawcy and pragmatical Innovators exhorting him to defie the Storm and fear no danger after the example of his Master St. Peter who would stand by him and carry him through all difficulties against those Violators of the Canons and the Churches Rights and concludes with a Command to him to disperse the approaching Synod that it seems had been appointed upon the publication of the Rescript because the matter about which they were to consult had been already determined by the Apostolick See And beside this he writes a threatning Letter to the Bishops to submit to Rufus and St. Peter and so he has the confidence to tell them that he was Constituted Head of the Catholick Church by our Lord and so acknowledged by the Nicene Council and therefore whoever divides from him is thereby cut off from the Communion of the Church And yet for all that it grieves him to hear of some that have contrary to the Law of God and the Church forsaken the Apostolical See to joyn with a pittiful Somebody that has no Power at all as they will find by searching the Records of former times And so commands them to repent and return for fear of what may follow and submit themselves to Rufus whose Power was no new thing but as it had been granted by the Ancients so it was to remain for ever or in short as he concludes Cesset novella praesumptio And this is seconded with a longer Epistle to the same purpose And thus did these bold Usurpers with equal impudence lay claim to antiquity on either side when all the World knew the Innovation of both but that was all one to them because it would beat the Enemy from setling in the Possession and then themselves might gain an opportunity of leaping into it Neither did Pope Boniface think it enough to make use of his own Authority in the Case but he engages the Emperor Honorius on his side and prevails with him to write a smart Letter to Theodosius for reversing the late Innovations in Illyricum And that he promised to perform but of its own accord it came to nothing for when two Parties that are both in the wrong contend for a right it cannot be adjudged to either without injustice to a third Party whose real Right it is And thus when these Emperors went about to remove Innovation on either side it lay in both their ways which way soever they moved And how they went on to wrangle from Age to Age for the Usurpation on both sides with the confident Plea of Antiquity and the Precedents of their Ancestors may be seen more at large in Holstenius his Collection my present Business is to discover the true meaning of this hidden Law from the present Contest between Boniface and Atticus which as without it it is not to be understood so by it we understand not only the sense of the Law it self but the foul subreptions of both the Usurpers There remain but two other Laws under this Title Enacted by Valentinian the Third to confirm all Priviledges granted by any of his Predecessors to the Clergy and particularly to Abolish the Act of John the Tyrant who upon the death of Honorius invaded the Western Empire and took away all exemptions of the Clergy from the Secular Courts for which Gothofred suspects him to have been an Arian though without any other ground then this that it had been the constant Custom of the Arians to take Sanctuary at Court against the Church under bad Reigns but whatever he were his Law is here Cancelled by this Emperor then but a Child and upon a very childish reason that it was not lawful that the Ministers of God should be subject to the Judgment of Temporal Powers which is such a Contradiction to all the Doctrines of the Fathers and to all the Laws of the preceding Emperors who in all their Rescripts declared all such Grants of Priviledge to be meer Acts of Grace and Favour that this Rescript could be nothing else then the subreption of some Clergy-man who taking advantage of the times the Child-hood of the Prince then not above 7 years of Age the weakness of a Woman his Mother Placidia who then Governed all but chiefly from their fears under their late great distress to which they were reduced by the Tyrant took this opportunity of enhancing the Priviledges of his Order to the claim of a Divine Right I know Gothofred would soften this Law as if it referr'd only to Ecclesiastical not to Civil Causes first because in his 12th Novel afterwards he made that distinction That is to say as he grew older he grew wiser and so corrected this childish Over-sight but otherwise the reason given for this Law is general that it is not fit that the Ministers of God should be answerable to Secular Powers Secondly that the Tyrant had removed all Causes Ecclesiastical as well as Civil from the Church to the Secular Courts which he infers from the word Indiscretion But if we will stand to the Practice of the Empire this Law can relate only to Civil Causes notwithstanding that ambiguous word for Ecclesiastical Causes were all along left to the Church either in pretence or reality but Civil Causes reserved by some Emperors to their own Courts and by some granted to the Judgment of the Church it self as an Act of Favour and therefore it must be understood of the Cancelling of these Acts of Grace by the Tyrant when the same favour is restored especially when back't by that general reason that it is not fit that the Ministers of God should be accountable to the Secular Powers because by the Practice of the Empire they were not for the dâ—scharge of the Ministerial Offâ—ce and therefore this Law cannot relate to their duty as Priests but as Citizens to refer them in all such Causes as some former Emperors had out of kindness done to the Ecclesiastical Judicature All the Laws of these Emperors under the following Titles are scarce any thing else then the Ratifications of the Rescripts of former Emperors especially of Theodosius the Great and his Son Honorius against the small Remainders that were left of Hereticks Jews and Heathens And as for the Hereticks in particular they were reduced to an inconsiderable handful of Men never able to make any Head against the Catholick Church that was never after this time
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
the People having been accustom'd to the Word put themselves into Tumults in its defence whereas Nestorius in stead of correcting his Presbyter justifies his Doctrin and to mollifie the roughness of the expression and appease the Dissention whilst some cryed up the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and others the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 invents the middle word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as himself gives an account of his own Opinion in his Apology to the Prefect of Egypt in the time of his Banishment And to justifie his Conceit he starts a new Notion that our Saviour was compounded of two Persons one Divine and one Humane that only the humane was born of the Virgin Mary to which the Divine was united after his Nativity These Novelties put the whole City into an Uproar and he being a Man of a furious and a fiery Temper instead of appeasing the Tumult as any Man of discretion would have done like a mad Man he resolves to encounter and over-come it by the meer strength of Fury and Violence and this raises the Contest into perfect Out-rage so that as Socrates truly enough describes it it was turn'd into a Mid-night scuffle in which both Parties fought in the dark not knowing where they aim'd their Blows or what they affirm'd or what they denyed the People on one side unjustly charging Nestorius with the Heresie of Paulus Samosatenus and Nestorius on the other side being an ignorant unlearned Man a meer popular Preacher and altogether unacquainted with the Writings of the Ancients and for that reason rashly rejecting this old Word as an upstart Novelty and being withal a very proud and supercilious Man he would rather run himself into any wild Assertions than confess any the least Mistake This seems to have been the true and impartial account of the rise of this Heresie though Baronius according to his great Faculty of straining all things into far-fetcht Guesses is zealous to derive it from Paulus Samosatenus But where or whensoever it first began the noise of it at this time flies from Constantinople into forreign Parts And first Cyril of Alexandria endeavors to antidote his own Province against the Poison that some of his Monks had already suckt in from Nestorius his Agents which he sent into other Parts to propagate his Heresie After this to check it before it spread too far he writes to the Emperor Theodosius and to the Empresses Pulcheria and Eudocia distinct and large confutations of it But Nestorius was a Courtier and no doubt so much the dearer to the Emperor as his Creature for he rather created then made him Bishop of that great Throne And having the Emperour's Ear he exasperates him against Cyril though he named him not as appears from the sowr Answer that he return'd him in which he charges him as a disturber of the peace of the Church loads him with envy at the Honour that Nestorius had by his savour and interprets it as a reflection upon himself to prefer a man so high that Cyril represents so ill and looks upon his writing three several Letters to himself his Queen and his Sister as a design to make division among them and lastly tells him That it is sawcy and pragmatical for a man at so great a distance to inform him of his own affairs and what was done at his own doors But after all he gratiously forgives all these Misdemeanours and refers the examination of the cause to a Council of Bishops who he says were the only fit Judges of it and to their determination he promised to stand and he was as good as his word After these Attempts upon their Majesties Cyril tryes in the next place to reclaim the Man himself by a Civil Letter in which he desires him for the love of God to stop such wild Propositions that were vented abroad under pretence of his Authority as that Christ was not God but only the Organ and Vehicle of the Divinity and tells him that the Church was put into disturbance by such loose prophane and licentious Expressions and not by any thing as Nestorius had been pleased to suggest that himself had done to oppose them and so passionately expostulates with him that he should be so unkind and so unjust as to load him to their Imperial Majesties with the odious Character of the Master of Disturbance To all which he returns him a very short and surly Answer and that he might not interpret any Answer at all for too great a Civility he tells him over and over that it was extorted from him by the importunity of his Messenger Lampo At this time some of Cyril's Clergy that he had deposed for their Scandalous Misdemeanours and Debaucheries endeavour to make this Breach wider by carrying false Stories and Calumnies against him to Constantinople but that for the present Cyril sets aside and entreats him with all manner of Friendship and Civility as he loved the Truth of God and the Peace of his Church to consider the strange Consequences of his Opinion To this he prevails with himself at length to return him an haughty Answer and scorning as he expresses it to take notice of the contumelious and scurrillous Language of his wonderful Letters proceeds to dispute the Point with great Contempt of his Ignorance but much greater exposing of his own And at last assures him that all the ill Stories that had been brought to Alexandria from Constantinople were carried by some Clergy-men that had been deposed for no less Crime then the Manichaean Heresie And that was not improbable for it is evident through the whole Story of the Christian Church that all Schisms and Animosities were ever promoted by the obnoxious Clergy that so in the Tumult themselves might escape Scot-free from the severity of its Discipline But these heats not being so well understood at their first Eruption some of St. Cyril's friends write to him to forbear his warm and vehement Contests with Nestorius in Answer to which he removes the blame of all from himself upon Nestorius who had justified Dorotheus that had denounced before him a publick Anathema against all that affirm'd the Virgin-Mary to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which he says was no less then Anathematising both the Present and the Antient Church whereas on the other side himself had Acted with so much temper that he had hitherto forborn to Anathematise their Assertion and had only advised them to forbear damning all the Fathers But because he continued Vigorous and Resolute in his Prosecution of this Prophane Novelty they spread abroad Reports that it was done out of meer Envy to the Greatness of Nestorius and his own love of Contention of which he being informed by a moderate friend he protests that by his natural humour of all things in the World he abhors nothing more then wrangling and that for the sake of Peace he would freely sacrifice all that is
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
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
the Conventicle on the other side are commanded to insist upon the abolition of Cyril's Anathema's as Heretical Schismatical and unwarrantable Additions to the Nicene Faith But when they came they were not admitted into the City for fear of Tumults by the Monks the Schismaticks were dismiss't to Calcedon and indeed the business was over eight days before their arrival when the Emperor understanding the Cheat that had been hitherto put upon him condemn'd Nestorius to perpetual Banishment and set Cyril and Memnon at liberty And though the Legates of the Conventicle press't him with three Petitions one upon the neck of another for a Conference he would not for a long time grant it But at last their importunity prevails and as themselves boast they shock the Emperor for thô he would hear nothing in behalf of Nestorius yet he was offended at Cyril's Anathema's that were represented with too much advantage by the adverse Party as unwarrantable additions to the Nicene Faith of which the Emperor was very jealous and that was the point that put him upon some Demur Nestorius stood condemn'd by him from the first sentence of the Council but on the other side Cyril's Anathema's were offensive as his own private additions to the settled Faith And therefore Nestorius his Friends let fall his Cause and only pursue the condemnation of the Anathema's and that Plea was too plausible with the Emperor for though they might be Theological Verities they were no Articles of Faith not being express't in the Nicene Creed and yet so they were made by being imposed upon the Church under the Penalty of an Anathema And here stuck the pinch of the Controversie all the time that it depended at Court that the Nestorians press't for the examination of the Anathema's which the Cyrillians at last endeavor'd to baulk and insist only upon the Heresie and Condemnation of Nestorius and having the Emperor sure on their side in that point they were sure to carry the Cause at last for he being tired with the Disputes about the Anathema's le ts that Controversie fall and only abets the Sentence of the Council against Nestorius with his own sentence of banishment and commands the Bishops to choose a Successor into the See who electing Maximianus are dismist without any determination of the other Controversie And as if the sentence of the Council and the Confirmation of the Emperor had been invalid without it Pope Celestine sends his Pontifical Rescript to confirm all by the Authority of St. Peter Longius quidem sumus positi sed per sâ—licitudinem totum propius intuemur Omnes habet beati Petri Apostoli cura presentes non nos ante Deum nostrum de hoc possumus excusare quod scimus In all this Contest the greatest Looser next to Nestorius who lost all was John of Antioch who being run down in Council his confining Adversaries take that advantage to beat him out of his late Usurpations The Bishops of Cyprus over whom he had extended his Jurisdiction make their Complaints to the Council by whose Decree he is expell'd the Island And whereas he had usurpt over the Provinces of Arabia and Phaenice upon which Juvenal the new Bishop of Jerusalem a brisk and ambitious Man had cast his Eye and made some inroads of Usurpation he now thinks by the advantage of the animosity between Cyril and John of Antioch to have it confirm'd to him in Council and this was the thing that made him so active there for which reasons he was nominated one of the eight Commissioners to the Emperor Which Design is plainly suggested to the Emperor by John and his Party in their first Petition from Calcedon It is evident Sir say they that some among them have contrived and carried on this wicked design for their own ends and your Majesty will see them when they have carried through their Treachery to divide the Spoils of the Church among themselves And though Juvenal of Jerusalem took upon him to ordain some of of us we held our peace notwithstanding that we ought to have contended for the Canons lest we should have seem'd to contend for our own Ambition Neither are we ignorant of his Designs and Devices at this very time upon the second Phaenice and Arabia So that it seems he had made some overt-acts of his design in Council but Cyril detested and damn'd the Motion as Pope Leo in his 16 th Epistle tells us That Cyril himself inform'd him by Letter But though he could not carry it in Council he got at last both those Provinces and the three Palestines beside and kept them till the Council of Calcedon when both Parties being conscious to themselves of their having no right to the whole Child consent to its division the three Palestines falling to Juvenal Phaenice and Arabia to Maximus of Antioch But though the Nestorian Controversie was ended the quarrel was not that run very high between those two great Prelates Cyril of Alexandria and John of Antioch and their greatness drew great numbers of Bishops after them to the great disorder and disturbance of the Church and great grief of the Emperor who therefore advises with Maximian and other Bishops how to redress the mischief they answer that there is no remedy but John of Antioch's subscribing the condemnation of Nestorius and his Heresie Upon this the Emperor writes to John by Aristolaus commanding him to meet Cyril at Nicomedia and be reconcil'd to him upon pain of his displeasure And this Letter he seconds with another to the famous Monk Simeon Stylites Acacius Bishop of Beraea and the Bishops of all the Eastern Provinces to perswade John to return to the Peace and Unity of the Church Upon this a Council meets at Beraea and agree upon this Proposal that they would condemn Nestorius upon condition that Cyril would call in all his own Writings about the Controversie But this being refused and John being wrought upon either by the Emperor's threatnings or the importunity of his friends declares his assent to the Decree of the Ephesine Council Anathematises the Heresie of Nestorius subscribes his deposition and approves the ordination of Maximinian But for the greater solemnity of the business and to salve the dishonor of an absolute submission he sends Paul Bishop of Emesa as his Legate to Alexandria to treat with Cyril about terms of Peace and sends by him a Confession of Faith which if Cyril would accept he was his humble Servant Now the Confession being Orthodox and having nothing in it of his own but only the form of Words it was as easily accepted as offer'd and so after all this contention about nothing but mutual misunderstanding are they at last reconcil'd as both Cyril objects to the Antiochians in his Letter of Reconciliation and Theodoret to the Cyrillians in his Letter to Andrew the Monk But though they were agreed the Contest is still kept up by some Mens zeal and other Mens malice The
Nestorians finding themselves every where excluded the Church by this Union spread abroad reports that Cyril had imbraced the Nestorian Faith and Letters are forged in his name condemning the Council of Ephesus and some new fanatick Hereticks plead his Authority for their own foolish Novelties And some over zealous Men of his own Party accuse him of too much complyance with the Hereticks and this cost Cyril some trouble and time to clear himself as well from the jealousie of his Friends as from the spite of his Enemies And so was the Catholick Church at length restored to Peace and Unity and as Cyril relates most of the Nestorians repenting of their Heresie were upon their submission restored to the Catholick Communion And to perfect the work Pope Sixtus writes to both the Bishops to commend them both for his white Boys quia ad beatum Apostolum Petrum fraternitas universa convenit And thus the Emperor having at last compast the Restitution of the Churches Peace for its lasting security he enacts a Rescript in the year 435 to root the Nestorian Heresie out of all his Dominions But why no sooner says Gothofred Because says he the Emperor might suppose that the Hereticks had been reclaimed by the sentence of the Council but now finding that they continued to spread abroad their Books and Opinions he thought it high time to stop the mischief by this severe Rescript This may be true though it is meer guess but if this learned Man had observed the contest between Cyril and John of Antioch and that it was 2 or 3 years after the Council before the Emperor could gain John and his Eastern Bishops intirely from the Party of Nestorius he would have found a very good reason why this Rescript was not sooner publisht viz. because till then Affairs were not ripe for it and if it had been publisht before this strong Party had been taken off it might have tempted them to join with the Heresie in good earnest But now when they had declared against it and Nestorius his own small Party was left alone it was seasonable to prevent its growth by the Execution of this smart Law and it did the work effectually for though for a time the Ghost of the Heresie skulkt up and down in other shapes and other languages yet it could never after get so much courage or confidence as to appear in its own form in publick The Rescript consists of three Parts First it commands That the followers of Nestorius should be call'd by no other name than the nick-name of Simonians from Simon Magus as if he were the Author of their Sect as Constantine the Great named the Arians Porphyrians Secondly that all his Books and all other Books whatsoever contrary to the Decrees of the Ephesine Council should be brought in and publickly burnt Thirdly that they should be debarr'd of all Meeting Places either in Publick or Private with the Penalty of Proscription of Goods upon all Offenders against any branch of this Law And because after this some Men publisht the same Opinions in new obscure and ambiguous Terms and indeavor'd to revive them under the Authority of some of the Ancients particularly Theodorus Mopsuestenus and Diodorus Tarsensis in their Writings against Eunomius and Apollinaris he publishes another Rescript in the year 448 against all such Attempts under the same Penalties The execution of both which Rescripts being injoined in good earnest by the Praetorian Praefects upon their Judges and Under-Officers soon did their own work And thus ended the Council and the Heresie together And things might have been much sooner and much more easily setled had they not been perplexed partly by the over-eagerness of Cyril in imposing his Anathema's as Articles of Faith which made John of Antioch and his Party fly off so that he was forced to quit that imposition before they could be reconciled But chiefly by the dishonesty of the Courtiers who took part with the Hereticks against the Authority of the Church and abused the Emperor with false tales and reports but otherwise all the proceedings in this Matter were fair and regular the Controversie was determin'd by the judgment of the Church and the judgment of the Church abetted by the Power of the Empire and that is the true and proper concurrence of both Jurisdictions in framing Ecclesiastical Laws § XVI The Nestorian Heresie being broke and vanquisht by the Authority of the Ephesine Council and the assistance of the Imperial Power the Church injoyed Peace for the space of eighteen years and govern'd it self by its own Provincial Synods without the need of any concurrence from the Civil State till the fiery Zeal of Abbot Eutyches an over-driving stickler against Nestorius broke out in new Combustions who out of too fierce and eager opposition to the exploded Heresie as it usually happens to Men of furious Tempers runs headlong into the contrary extreme So that whereas Nestorius held that the Divinity and Humanity in our Saviour were two distinct Persons as well as Natures he teaches that though they were two distinct Natures before the Incarnation yet after it they were blended into one And for this dull and absurd Metaphysicks of a thick-skull'd Monk or as Pope Leo calls it Error qui de imperitià magis quà m de versutiâ natus est not a whimsey of subtilty but dullness must the Christian World be set in Flames and Ashes rather then part with the honour of the deep Invention so that it brought much more perplexing trouble and disturbance to the Christian Church then the Nestorian Dream For though that was not overcome without great difficulty through the Treachery of the Eunuchs and the Courtiers yet Theodosius being now grown old and desirous of ease he submitted to their Power especially the Eunuch Chrysaphius who as he was his particular Favourite so was he Eutyches his particular Friend and he so managed the Emperor as Eusebius did Constantius and Eudoxius Valens that instead of assisting the Church with his Imperial Power he opprest and opposed it From whence it was that during all his Reign it could never cope with this Heresie though by the good providence of God it was effectually vanquish't under his Successor Marcian who came to the Crown both by the Marriage of Pulcheria Sister of Theodosius and the Choice of the Senate and the Army one of the greatest Princes in the Imperial Succession and the man that next to Constantine and Theodosius might have deserved the Sir-name of Great A Prince of great Conduct Courage Prudence and Piety a Lover of Justice and Honesty a strict observer of the Laws of the Church and the Empire and who by his wise management left all things in such a quiet posture as perhaps no other Reign can equal when the Successor came in not by Inheritance but Election And therefore I shall give the most exact account that I can of the Ecclesiastical Transactions of his Reign
Asiatick and Thracian Bishops for him upon the account of the Animosity between him and Cyril about the Anathema's From hence they fall to the Examination of the Acts of the Ephesine Council where the forgeries the frauds the violent and illegal Proceedings of Dioscorus Juvenal and their Associates against Flavianus and Eusebius are at large most shamefully exposed to the World but their punishment is referred to the Emperor and so ends the first Action In the second they proceed to treat of the settlement of the Faith where they establish the Nicene Faith against Arius the Ephesine against Nestorius and the Epistle of Pope Leo to Flavianus against Eutyches as necessary Expositions of the Faith In the third Session which Valesius says ought to have been the second comes on the Tryal of Dioscorus who upon divers Accusations brought into the Council against him and after three Citations refusing to appear is deposed It is pretty to observe in this sentence how under this swelling Pope the Acts and Forms of Court were innovated for the advantage of the Papal Power The Libels or Petitions against the Offender are addrest in the first place to the Oecumenical Arch-bishop and Patriarch of Rome and then to the Council it self And then none must denounce the Sentence but his own Legates and that too must be done not in the name of the Council but in the Name and by the Authority of Pope Leo and St. Peter and this being done the Council signifie their sentence to the Emperor and Empress where again they give all the glory of the Action to Pope Leo. In the fourth Action beside repeting the former Decrees a Committee is appointed to debate farther concerning the Faith and Leo's Epistle which they represent to the Council as agreeable in all particulars to the Nicene Faith After that the Judges acquaint the Fathers that the Emperor is pleased to refer back the sentence against the Accomplices of Dioscorus to themselves but they tacking about and following the dance of that shameless Ecebolian Juvenal of Jerusalem and subscribing the Epistle of Pope Leo are reconciled and admitted to sit In the next place the Egyptian Bishops refuse to subscribe either the Condemnation of Eutyches and Dioscorus or the confirmation of Leo's Epistle during the Vacancy of the Arch bishoprick of Alexandria upon the deposition of Dioscorus it being both against the Canons and the Custom of their Church to act any thing without the consent of their Arch-bishop But this the Council interpret a meer shift and tergiversation to escape the subscription to their Decrees and therefore insist upon it before their dismission And tell them withal that the Canon was valid as to the ordinary Affairs of their own Province but ought to be anticipated and superseded by the determinations of general Councils that include and over-rule all Provincial Jurisdictions In answer to this they declare their own readiness to subscribe but dare not for fear of the People when they return home who they knew would lay violent hands upon them for betraying the Rights of the great Alexandrian Metropolitan And after long drawing on either side the matter is adjusted by the mediation of the Secular Judges that their subscription should be respited till the election of a new Arch-bishop which was accepted by Paschasinus the Popes Legate upon this condition that they would give Security by Oath or Sureties not to depart the City till that was done which being readily perform'd it ended the Controversie After this follows the Petition of the Eutychian Monks of Constantinople to the Emperor which he referr'd to the Council as he did all other Addresses but it being in behalf of Dioscorus against the Council and particularly their own Bishop Anatolius from whom they threaten to divide Communion if they persist in their Sentence against Dioscorus they are taught by Aëtius the Arch-deacon of Constantinople in a Premunire against the 4 th and 5 th Canons of the Council of Antioch whereby all Presbyters are actually excommunicated that presume to separate from their own Bishop But before they can be farther heard in Council they are required to subscribe the Epistle of Pope Leo against Eutyches and his prophane Novelties which refusing they are deposed from their Orders and expell'd their Monasteries The Imperial or as the Council phrases it the external Power according to the holy Laws of their Ancestors backing their Decree against the Contumacious This Action is shut up with a very fair decision of a Controversie between Photius Bishop of Tyre and Eustathius Bishop of Beryte who being a subject Bishop to Photius had 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by subreption procured a Rescript in the time of Theodosius the Younger to bring part of the Province into subjection to himself and by force and threatning extorts Photius his consent to it But this great Council now sitting Photius Petitions the Emperor to write to the Council to redress his wrong which is easily granted where the cause being debated Eustathius confesses the Canon against him but pleads the Imperial Rescript against that But this Plea is utterly rejected both by the Judges and the Bishops to whom the Judges referred its final judgment who determin'd it upon this rule 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Imperial Pragmaticks are of no force against the Canons Upon this Eustathius pleads the Authority of Anatolius and a Synod of his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Bishops sojourning at Constantinople who had proceeded so far in this contest as to excommunicate Photius though uncited and unheard upon this the Judges refer it to the Council Whether that were a legal Synod to which Anatolius pleads That it was so by Custom though not by Law But against this the 4 th Canon of Nice is urged that no Bishop can be ordain'd without the consent of his Metropolitan which Eustathius having done by whatsoever other Authority it was an open breach of that Canon and so adjudged by the Council to whom the Secular Judges intirely lest the Judicature as proper to their Jurisdiction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they declare to give the final Sentence about these Matters which being done by the Council in behalf of Photius it is thus confirm'd by the Judges 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let the Decrees of the Council stand establisht forever And upon it Cecropius Bishop of Sebastopolis is incouraged to move That all Imperial Pragmaticks for the Alteration of the settled bounds of Provinces may be taken away forever as bringing certain disturbance and confusion upon the Government of the Church which being seconded by the Synod is confirm'd by the Consent of the Judges In the 5 th Action after many Debates the Judges having no mind to the Imposition of Leo's Epistle the Fathers proceed to the settlement of the Faith and having first approved the Creeds of the three other general Councils they add a 4 th of their own framing against Eutyches not that
Practice For whereas Nicomedia had ever been the Metropolis of Bythinia the Emperors Valentinian and Valens had conferred the Title and Honour of a Metropolis upon the City of Nice reserving the Metropolitan Power to Nicomedia Upon occasion and pretence of this Grant Anastasius Bishop of Nice usurps to himself the Power of Jurisdiction over some part of the Province and particularly Basilonopolis of this Eunomius Bishop of Nicomedia and Metropolitan of Bithynia makes his Complaint to the Council and they to adjust the Ecclesiastical Canons and the Imperial Rescript grant the Honour of a Metropolis to Nice but so as to reserve the Power entire to Nicomedia Hereupon Aëtius the Arch-Deacon of Constantinople who lay at catch for all opportunities to advance the Grandeur of that See interposes a provision that this Decree may not be interpreted to the disadvantage of the Bishop of Constantinople of whose Power to ordain the Bishops of Basilonopolis he was ready to produce divers Precedents But this was rejected by the Fathers as being whether true or false as to matter of Fact contrary to the Canons so that hitherto they were not able to fasten any of the Constantinopolitan Usurpations upon the Authority of the Council The next Transaction is to correct and rectifie another Irregularity of that pilfering See in the Controversie between Athanasius and Sabinianus for the Bishoprick of Perrha For whereas Athanasius had been Canonically deposed by his own Metropolitan he repairs to Constantinople and makes his Complaints to Proclus who according to his Custom greedily embraces his Appeal and writes to Domnus Arch-Bishop of Antioch in his behalf who upon it calls a Council to review the former Judgment which he had in great kindness committed to Panolbius that was an intimate friend to Athanasius and upon enquiry finds that Athanasius was so conscious to himself of the Crimes laid to his Charge that he never durst stand his Tryal and to avoid it had resign'd his Bishoprick and withal was so diffident of his Cause at the second hearing that he durst not so much as appear under pretence that Domnus his Metropolitan was his Enemy and so is again deposed And yet for all this he is so restless as to bring his old Complaints even to this Great Council and they taking a full Examination of all the former Proceedings find that they can afford him no Relief and yet because he had an excuse for his Non-appearance at his last Tryal viz. The enmity between him and Domnus they were so tender as not to give final Sentence against him but refer the effectual Judgment of the Cause to Maximus the present Bishop of Antioch against whom he could make no Exception Hitherto the Proceedings of the Council were fair and regular enough but in the next Session in which they draw up their Canons the Clergy of Constantinople with some others that they had pack't together being not above a third part of the Council put a slur upon the whole Council for whereas 27 Canons were Voted and Subscribed by all the Fathers after the rising of the Council the Judges and the Legates they Vote another Canon granting an exorbitant and illegal Power to the Bishop of Constantinople over the Metropolitans of three whole Diocesses and clap that to the Canons of the Council but with what ingenuity it was done and how worthily defended when the Abuse was complained of in the next meeting and how slitely the Business was carried by the Judges and what fierce and bloody Wars it occasioned in the Church between the two Great Prelates of Rome and Constantinople I have already elsewhere represented and therefore shall forbear any farther Account of it here where my main design is to give an account of the Hâ—story of the right Concurrence of the distinct Powers of Church and State in its Government And setting aside this last Action that was carried by fraud and stealth this Council seems to have been more decent and regular in its Proceedings then any other whatsoever since the Council of Nice and had this advantage above the rest that it was not left to the superintendency of one or two Courtiers but was committed to the Care and Conduct of a great number of Persons of Honour and Quality who behaved themselves with all the decency of temper prudence and civility For as they managed the order of proceedings and interlocutions with great Art cutting off all impertinency and unnecessary talk so they never interposed the Authority of their own Judgment in any matter but entirely referred every thing little or great to the determination of the Bishops and were so complemental in their respect to the Church that they would not presume to be so much as present at those Sessions in which the Confession of Faith was drawn up that being only a work proper to those who were Commissionated to it by our Saviour himself And when it was finisht the Emperor declares That it was not establisht by his own but by the Councils Authority that he came to own and confirm what they had Enacted and so requires all his Subjects to acquiesce in what was settled by their Authority under severe Penalties to be inflicted by his own In all which all Partieâ— seem'd to have observed all the Rules not only of Justice but of decency and to have shewn that Civility to the Churchâ— that all men though there were no other Obligation then meer good manners owe to the Religion that themselves profess And though the Clergy of Constantinople and their Confedeâ—ates were guilty of great and shameless disingenuity in the last Session not only breaking but perverting and falsifying the Canons of the Church yet the Emperor and Judges cannot be very much blamed who were Strangers to these matters and took the motion to be nothing else then a Complement of particular respect and honour to the Imperial City and as such they pass it that as the Ancient Canons had given pre-eminence to the Bishop of old Rome out of respect to the dignity of the head City so new Rome being now advanced to an Equality with it in the Empire it was but fit to raise it to the same degree of honour in the Church And that had been no great harm had it been done without robbing other Churches of their just Rights and Priviledges which though the Clergy understood the Laicks did not because what was here settled by Law they had always seen practised by Custom and therefore had no reason to look upon it as an Innovation But as for the Eutychian Heresie that was the proper business of this Council it being so fairly Condemned by the Ecclesiastical Judgment they according to Form and Custom send the Relation to the Emperor for his Royal Confirmation wherein they do not so much acquaint him with their Decree with which he had been before acquainted having confirm'd it in the 6th Session as justifie their Authority to make it and it is a very
with Petitions on one side for abrogating and on the other for confirming the Council of Calcedon The Emperor considering of the Matter refers it to the Judgment of the Church and being unwilling to put the poor aged Bishops to the tedium of long Journeys for assembling in Council he takes a more compendious but no less effectual course directing his Letters to all the Metropolitans of the Christian Church within the Empire requiring their impartial Judgment of both Controversies without fear or favor or ill-will having only the fear of God before their Eyes and as they would one day answer it to the divine Majesty viz. the Ordination of Timotheus Aelâ—rus and the ratification of the Council of Calcedon And this brought forth that famous volume of Encyclical Epistles that make up the third part of the Council of Calcedon and that are so often and so much commended by the Ancients Liberatus Facundus Hermianensis Evagrius Victor Tunonensis and Cassiodorus at whose perswasion as himself informs us Epiphanius a learned Man translated them into the Latin Tongue and that is the only Copy of them that is now extant An excellent Collection it is of Ecclesiastical Antiquity and a true representation of the ancient Unity and Communion of the Catholick Church without the formality of a general Council The Authority of the determination is the same consisting in the Concord of Bishops and the Resolution it self much more easie and expedient For it required much time and expence to assemble Councils it put infirm old Men to long and tedious Journeys it rob'd most Churches for a time of their Guides by the absence of their leading Prelates whereas by this way of Encyclical Correspondence the dispatch was equally speedy and effectual For the Result of all their Answers was the approbation of the Synod of Calcedon and the deposition of Timotheus there being but one Dissenter and he but half an one and that was Amphilochius Bishop of Sida who at first disallowed the Council of Calcedon but earnestly pâ—â—ss't the deposition of Timotheus thô witâ—â—n a little time he was brought to subscribe the Council as Eulogius Bishop of Alexandria reports who withal says that there were no less than one thousand six hundred subscriptions return'd to the Emperor which if true it is a much greater number than all the four General Councils put together amount to Upon this transaction the Remarque of Facundus is very smart and acute Behold here the true Liberty of the Church in those days when the most Christian King did not overâ—aw the Priests of God with his temporal Power but on the contrary arm'd and warn'd them against all such fear by the over-ruling fear of God Neither did he suggest any thing of his own thoughts lest it should be suspected that their Answer was suited to his Royal Will and this he did not only out of respect to the Discipline of the Christian Church but because he very well knew that no forced Decrees were of any Authority in themselves for when a Sentence is forced it is not his Sentence by whom it is pronounced And the cause that carries it gains nothing by it but the advantage lies on the side of the Party condemn'd for it is evident that he was not at liberty to judg aright whose Judgment is forced for a forced Judgment is none at all And therefore this Emperor of blessed Memory preserved the Peace of the Church because he would not presume to establish any Doctrins by his own Authority and usurp that Power that is proper to the Priesthood alone Whereas had he prescribed to the Council and they meerly lacquied to his instructions it is evident that one Lay-man that was no competent Judg of those Matters really pass't the judgment and not those who were the only proper Judges of the Cause And withal he very well understood that forced Councils never came to any good effect as the Council of Ariminum under Constantius and the false Council of Ephesus under Dioscorus And therefore though himself could have pass't a right sentence yet he would not because he would not render the Sentence of the Church suspected and by that means evacuate its Authority But as the whole Eastern Church agreed in this business so no Man was more active not to say more imperious in it than Pope Leo who was ever for carrying all things through with an high hand and having raised himself to the height of Authority resolved to keep it up For it was no small point of Grandeur that he gain'd when he procured that his own private Epistle should be imposed upon the Catholick Church and made equal with the Decrees of General Councils But that which advanced him to the top-round of Power was his signal Victory over Constantinople and the Eastern Bishops when he forced them to eat and reverse their 28 th Canon made Anatolius submit and beg his pardon brought the Emperor Marcian himself almost upon his Knees and forced him to renounce his own Imperial Rescript thô made in favor of his own Imperial City This great success could not but swell his mind that was already but too great of it self and thereupon he takes the supreme and indeed single management of all things into his own hands And when no Man no not the Emperor himself dares withstand his Commands so severe and peremptory were they that for a good time he kept the Eutychian Cause sufficiently low and humble And to say the truth setting aside his by-design of advancing the Grandeur of his own See he acted nothing that was not only warrantable but justly praise-worthy For when once a Controversie is decided by the Authority of the Church no Christian Bishop can be too vigorous in his proceedings against all thâ—t refuse submission to the Decree Here Peace and Government lye at stake as well as Truth and unless they are preserved the Church is lost and the Society dissolved into meer Tumult and Confusion Whilst Controversies are on foot and have not received the Judgment of the Church we may allow Men to be moderate or eager in their Disputes about them according to the variety of their apprehensions or natural Tempers But after the Church has interposed its Authority there all moderation is at best but Treachery and the Reverence due to its commands will call forth every honest Mans utmost zeal in its defence And that was the case here that the Eutychians moved for a review by a new Council No says Pope Leo that were to offer an Affront to the Authority of the Church in the great Council of Calcedon and instead of putting an end to Schisms and Contentions to make them perpetual for the humor and pleasure of every peevish talker Nam cum nihil sit convenientius fidei defendendae quà m his quae per omnia instruente spiritu sancto irreprehensibiliter definita sunt inhaerere ipsi videbimur bene statuta convellere et
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
we have by sad experience found a long and fatal Schism till the Divine Providence cured the wound by your Majesties Care and Power speaking to Justinian and therefore great Sir in the name of God persevere in so good a work that has been accepted with the joy of the whole Christian World and blot not out its glory by deserting it c. And that is the natural and inevitable Event of all trimming tricks that instead of reconciling Parties as 't is pretended it only lets them loose to worry one another And withal first adds to the insolence of that Party that had been tyed up the contempt of that Authority that restrain'd it and then kindles the rage and indignation of the other Party that had gained the upper-hand and lastly that which is worst of all it makes breaches for new Divisions And so it hap'ned here Peter Mongus having by this device got possession of his Bishoprick he endeavours to trim and comply with both Parties and by it incurs the hatred of both loosing his own without winning the other And they communicating neither with the Catholicks nor with their own Bishop became a new Sect called Acephali i. e. Men without an Head so natural is it for all shufflings in Government to end in Anarchy and Confusion It was this wise way of quacking to cure the wounds of the Church by Irenicum Plaisters and comprehensive Weapon-salves that brought the breach between the Eastern and Western Churches to an incurable Eresipulus or Fire of Contention over the Face of the Christian Church For Petrus Moggus being by that means received by Acacius not only to Catholick Communion but advanced to a Top-Bishoprick contrary not only to the ancient Canons but to the late Decree of the Council of Calcedon Acacius is upon it call'd to account by Pope Simplicius and persisting in his Treachery is excommunicated in a Council at Rome and that laid the ground of all those Contests that followed after upon the Acacian Schism as the Romanists stile it to the final Separation of both Churches And what else can be expected from such a daubing Cement of Peace to unite men in the same Communion as leaves them under all their differences and contrarieties of Opinion a contradiction in the nature of the thing for if they are in good earnest they will pursue their differences if they are not indulgence is needless and they are to be reclaim'd another way but whether they are or are not if they are allowed their liberty every man will be of his own mind and an enemy to every man that is not and the result of all is that how much soever they dissent among themselves they shall be forced to counterfeit an agreement but dissembling is no Tye. And therefore after such devices the next thing that we always hear of is that the breach is made much wider And thus here beside the Contest between Acacius and Simplicius Petrus Moggus falls out with both and instead of taking the Catholicks into his comprehensive Embrace in a short time finding they would not quit their Principles and the Council of Calcedon raises a severe Persecution against them and peremptorily refuses all Communion to all that adhere to the Council and upon it the Church of Alexandria continued in a State of Schism through a long Succession of Bishops into the next Century till the Pacisicators again fell out among themselves and subdivided into new and fiercer Factions and Animosities And not only that Church to which the healing Henoticon was particularly directed but the whole Catholick Church was every where dissolved into irreconcileable Wars and Confusions But as sad as the event of the Henoticon proved there is one pleasant Passage to be observed about it that whereas before there were but two Factions in the Church i. e. for and against the Council of Calcedon this created a third call'd the Haesitantes or Neuters that were neither for nor against the Council and as both Parties hated these more than they did one another as Traitors to both so they again under pretence of indifferency and moderation requited them with all the violence of Persecution and when they had got the Emperor Anastasius a serious Prince into their hands they stir'd him up to prosecute both the extreme Parties with a more than ordinary severity as we shall see more at large when we come to his Reign But first let us take a view of the particular Mischiefs that it soon produced under Zeno himself who too after all his trimming was forced at last to turn Persecutor By whom the Henoticon was contrived it is not easie to determine with any certainty I know it is generally laid upon Acacius but I suspect that Report to have been raised by his Enemies at Rome only to blast his Reputation But though there is no clear Evidence that it was his contrivance yet it is undeniable that he gave it too great acceptance and by that means gave too just advantage to the Bishops of Rome to insult over him For though their private Design was to beat down the growing greatness of the See of Constantinople yet he deserved the utmost severity that they could use against him by betraying the Discipline and Authority of the Christian Church so dishonorably as to receive such Persons into its Communion that had been cast out of it by no less Judgment than the Sentence of a General Council and that upon no better Warrant than a Mandate from Court And that I take to be the Shop in which the wise Contrivance was forged between the Courtiers out of an Itch to be tampering with Church-work and the outed Eutychians either to recover their Preferments or usurp other Mens and through the whole sequel of the Story we shall find the old Eusebian Game playing over again But whoever was the Author of it it was cunningly enough contrived to impose upon the World and serve the Eutychian Cause without owning it The best copy of it is the Greek in Evagrius The Latin Version in Liberatus is false and barbarous perverting the sense for want of sufficient skill in both Languages It establisht the Nicene Faith as own'd by the following Councils it condemn'd both Nestorius and Eutyches by name and though it says nothing of the Council of Calcedon it self it establisht the Faith of the Council but without regard to its Authority and the Emperor himself declares That as for his own part he imbraced the Council of Calcedon though he would not have it imposed upon the Catholick Church So that at the bottom the whole design of the Project was only to take off the Authority of that Council and then the Eutychians were at liberty to play their Game and drive their own Bargains and so the Markets were soon set up in the greatest Sees and the chief Chapmen were Peter Moggus at Alexandria and Peter â—ullo at Antioch Upon the death of Timotheus Aelurus who
poison'd himself upon Zeno's recovering the Empire Peter Moggus was chosen his Successor by the Eutychian Faction but is deposed by the Emperor 's own Command and Timotheus Salophasiolus their Lawful Bishop is restored This Timotheus was chosen to the See of Alexandria upon the deposition of Timotheus Aelurus by the Emperor Leo was ejected by Basiliscus restored by Zeno and after 23 years from the date of his Election dyes And his keeping that See so long did not a little contribute to the Disorders of that Church he being a softly and unactive Man that would never put the Discipline of the Church nor the Imperial Laws in execution against the Hereticks and though Complaints of his remisness were carried to the Emperor and though the Emperor sent him particular Orders to break up their Conventicles he could not be prevail'd upon to act but instead of that suffer'd himself to be prevail'd with upon pretence of Peace and reconciling to put Dioscorus himself into the Dyptichs and by this gentleness he became very popular among the factious Alexandrians insomuch that as he at any time passed through the Streets the Rabble were wont to salute him with this out-cry viz. That though we cannot communicate with thee yet we cannot but love thee And the silly Man was so charmed with this childish Rattle that he parted with his Episcopal Authority to purchase it and by this means it was that the Faction grew so great in that City And certain it is that the Courtiers of Popularity are of all Men most unfit for Government in the Church they will certainly betray their Trust and their Duty to the applause of the People But upon his death in the year 482 the Clergy of Alexandria elect Joannes Talaia who is rejected by the Emperor's Command and who but Petrus Moggus put in his stead This the Historians say was done by the instigation of Acacius out of a private picque against Talaia for neglecting to send Synodical Epistles according to custom to signifie his election to him as he had done to the other great Sees But however outed he was upon pretence of enormous Crimes Perjury and Simony in that he had obliged himself under Oath never to accept of that Bishoprick and yet for all that had purchased it with Money as Evagrius reports from Zacharias Rhetor the Eutychian Historian And Liberatus says that he was Treasurer of the Church of Alexandria and out of the Churches Treasure purchased the Bishoprick of Count Illus at that time a powerful Man at Court It is certain that that was the occasion of the miscarriage of his Synodical Letters to Acacius they being inclosed in others directed to his Patron Illus who hapning to be absent at that time as far as Antioch the Messenger thought himself obliged to continue his Journey forward for the safe delivery of his Letters in which Interval of time Acacius being a very proud man was pleased to conceive his Jealousy against Joannes Talaia and procure his deposition upon the fore-mention'd Articles and then treats with Petrus Moggus and his Court-Patrons and receives him to communion upon his acceptance of the Emperor's instrument of Union but that was to please the Emperour for in private he obliged him to receive the faith and authority of the Council of Calcedon as himself like a time-rigling Knave as the Historian calls him declares over and over in his Apologetical Epistle to Acacius to vindicate himself from the calumny of his having contrary to his Faith renounced the Council And the same shuffling Arts are observed of him by Liberatus that he prevaricated with both Parties pretending to Acacius to communicate with the Synod and to the Alexandrians to defy it And the Emperour Zeno himself assures Pope Foelix that he was not admitted to his Bishoprick but upon his owning the Council of Calcedon in an Epistle extant in Liberatus But when the wicked man had gain'd his point he forswears all his subscriptions anathematises the Council and Leo's Epistle blots Proterius and Salophasiolus out of the Dypticks and puts in Dioscorus and Timotheus Aelurus And now here do we find by vertue of this Imperial Instrument of Union the whole Christian World involved in a Civil Warr one Party asserting the Council of Calcedon another anathematising it a third despising both and trampling upon all the Discipline of the Church in defence of a Court-irregularity But the quarrel run highest between the two powerful Bishops of Rome and Constantinople for Acacius Bishop of Constantinople having the Court and the Emperour to back him bids defyance not only to the Pope but to the Catholique Church and all its Laws For though himself was the first man that had appear'd against Petrus Moggus and convicted him of manifest Heresy and certified his conviction to Pope Simplicius yet now without any due satisfaction receives him not only to Communion but prefers him to one of the highest dignities in the Christian Church And thô after all these obliging streins of Courtesie Moggus discover'd his obstinacy by anathematising the Council and changing the Dypticks Acacius winks hard and will not see it but stands by him to the last drop of blood calls all the Power of the Court into his assistance to support him against the Discipline and Authority of the Church slites he admonitions of the greatest Bishops in it Imprisons their Legates defies their Sentence lives and dyes excommunicate and all this for a Man that himself could not but know to be a sâ—ubborn Heretick The full account of all these transactions beside the Relations of the Historians Liberatus and Evagrius is to be seen in the Letters of Pope Simplicius and Foelix the Breviculus Histâ—riae Eutychianistarum and the Acts produced in the Cause of Acacius at the Council at Rome all which are printed together in their proper place and order of time in Labbe's Councils The first correspondence about this matter against Petrus Moggus was as I have already intimated opened by Acacius himself in his Epistle to Simplicius informing him that upon the death of Timotheus Aelurus one Petrus Moggus an excommunicate Person being a Thief and a Son of Darkness had at midnight stoln into the Throne of Alexandria having only one Companion to attend him by which Act of madness he made himself obnoxious to greater Punishments than had been hitherto pronounced against him but however he was defeated of his Design for Timotheus Salophasiolus being restored to his Throne this foolish thief durst never shew his head more In answer to this Simplicius returns divers congratulatory Letters not only to Acacius but the Emperor Zeno exhorting him to banish Moggus out of the City But in the next Letters he complains of the neglect of his Advice and suspects warping and luke warmness in Acacius and the next news we hear is that upon the death of Timotheus Petrus Moggus is by the power of Acacius advanced
Emperor Leo he is restored and an Edict publisht against the tumults of Monks But the Monks so little regard the Emperor's Authority that upon it they increase their fury against the good Bishop till at length he being quite tired out quits his Bishoprick into which Petrus Fullo immediately leaps and is as soon thrust out by the Emperor but is restored by Basiliscus and again displaced by Zeno excommunicated by Acacius and Stephanus chosen to the See who being barbarously murther'd another Stephanus is chosen and contrary to the Canons consecrated by Acacius at Constantinople and Petrus Fullo the Author of all these Dis-orders is banisht into Pontus and Stephanus dying Calendio succeeds with the same illegal Consecration but falling into dis-favor with Acacius partly for siding with Pope Foelix against himself and Petrus Moggus and partly for being too stiff for the Council of Calcedon he procures his ejectment by Imperial Power upon an Accusation of Treason and Petrus Fullo after all these turns is placed by Acacius his own Interest in that great See And thus we see both the old Trade of Ejectments and Sequestrations return'd by prostituting the Discipline and Authority of the Christian Church to the Power of Court-Favourites and the whole World shatter'd into numberless Schisms and Heresies For when once the Authority of the Church and the Law is trodden down there is no other effectual stop aganst the rovings of fancy and wantonness and it is certain that men who differ in Opinion will never agree as long as they have liberty to differ And thus was it here when this unskilful Prince had once broken up the Pale of the Church as it was fixt by the Council of Calcedon and fenced by his Predecessors he could never after restrain the People from running into all the wild Conceits that Frenzy and Madness could blow into their Heads And whereas he only design'd to unite the Eutychians to the Communion of the Church he divided the Communion of the Church into a thousand new Factions The Acephali Severiani Theopaschitae Currupticolae Phantasiastae Agnóetae Tritheitae beside the horrible fewds between the Scythian and Acaemetan Monks The Acephali began at Alexandria being Eutychians that separated from Moggus uyon his owning the Council of Calcedon out of these were spawn'd the Severiani at Antioch so call'd from Severus who had ravish't that See and made himself Captain of the Acephali by Anathematising the Council but of him we shall give an Account under the next Reign as under the Reign of Justinian they sub-divided into the Factions of the Gaianitae and Theodosiani and the Heresie being transplanted by Jacobus Syrus into Armenia thence came the Jacobitae The Theopaschitae were the Disciples of Petrus Fullo who to the Eutychian Heresie added that the Divinity in our blessed Saviour was Crucified and Buried The Corrupticolae were the followers of Severus at Alexandria after his Banishment from Antioch affirming our Saviours Body liable to decay and therefore to have been really repair'd by nourishment but this was opposed by Julianus of Halicarnassus a Bishop of the same Party and flying to Alexandria for the same Cause who affirm'd that our Saviour never took any sustenance but only seemed so to do and therefore were called Phantasiastae and between these two the Rabble of the City were disputed into Tumults and Out-rages And out of the Corrupticolae sprang the Agnoitae that from the Corruptibility of our Saviours Body were pleased to infer some ignorance in his Soul The Tritheitae were the followers of Philoponus who was so far transported in the heat of disputation as to assert three distinct Natures peculiar to each Person in the Holy Trinity and one common to them all to which he was betrayed by his Aristotelian Philosophy of which he was an extravagant Admirer that teaches that there is one and the same general humane nature really common to all men and another particular nature appropriated to each individual And thus when all the Lords People were permitted the liberty of Prophesying every man took up his own Parable and believed his own Dream the Ass as well as the Prophet till the Church was shatter'd into so many chips and fragments that it was never after reunited as we shall see by the Progress of these Mischiefs that I have here only briefly represented And thus this luxurious Prince having ruined the Church by so many years licentiousness only because his laziness would not be at the pains to see it governed after he had Reign'd 18 years dies of a Debauch § XIX Zeno being dead Ariadne bestows both her self and the Crown upon Anastasius a small Officer about the Court and at his first coming to the Crown he was forced by Euphenius Bishop of Constantinople to declare for the Council of Calcedon For the Bishop suspecting his Religion refused to Crown him till he had made a publick profession of his Christian Faith which he registred and laid up in the Archives of his Church as a Testimony against him if he should ever relapse to the Haesitantes as he afterward did and turn'd a vehement Persecutor in pursuance of moderation banishing any man either for owning or disowning the Council of Calcedon But of that afterwards for at first having got the Crown Imperial upon his Head he endeavours to make himself popular and for that end in the first place he takes off that heavy and scandalous Tax called the Chrysargyrum It was a Tax by Poll not only upon Men Women and Children but upon all Beasts and Cattle both of profit and pleasure even to Dogs and Cats This was by immemorial Custom though Zosimus is pleased to impute its Contrivance to Constantine the Great collected every fourth year and being a Customary Impost without any Formality of Law to warrant it it was no doubt with severity enough exacted by the Officers not so much for the profit of the Crown as their own And this made it extreme heavy to the Subject but that which made it Scandalous was its being a Rent-Charge upon the Stews and publick Houses of Debauchery granting as Evagrius describes it a Licence to all their wickedness upon a certain Rate of Excise And for that reason it was commonly called Aurum paenosum the Syntax or Commutation Money which being so offensive to the People and so foul in it self as seeming to grant a Liberty to all manner of wickedness upon the reserve of a Pension to the Government upon that account as it was a just so was it a plausible Action in this Emperor to contrive its Abrogation And he did it with that Art and Diligence as to destroy not only the Exchequer-Records but the Collectors Books For counterfeiting a Repentance of his Folly in parting with so fair a Revenue he Summons in all the Collectors to bring in their Court-Rolls for retrieving a new Register out of them this they greedily comply with in hopes to recover their several Offices in the
Collection which being done he consumes all their Books in a publick Bone-fire to prevent his Successors from ever recovering any of its Memoires and so ended this barbarous Imposition unbecoming as the Historian observes not only any Christian but any Heathen Common-wealth But soon finding this too great a retrenchment of his Revenue in Money he is forced to supply it another way as heavy upon the Subject That whereas the Provinces had hitherto paid their Tribute in kind he exacts it by way of Composition in Money and whereas hitherto it had been managed by the Magistrates of Cities who used their Neighbours kindly he farm'd it out to his Collectors and they to be sure would loose nothing that was to be got but setting aside their oppression it proved a very great oppression in it self to the poor Farmers for though they might have plenty enough of Corn and Cattel to spare yet they had scarcity enough of Money and for that very reason out of meer humanity and compassion this way of Taxing had been often forbidden by divers of the preceding Emperors As for the State of the Church under his Reign it gives us a true Character of the Conequences of Comprehension as it is described by Evagrius That being excessively desirous of Peace he would permit no Innovation and labour'd all manner of ways that the Church should every where remain without disturbance and that all his Subjects should enjoy perfect Peace without brawling and contention And for that end the Council of Calcedon was in those days neither openly abetted nor rejected But every Bishop followed his own conceit some stickling with all their might for all the determinations of the Council not allowing the alteration of the least Syllable in its Decrees and refusing with the greatest disdain to communicate with any that rejected any part of it others on the contrary did not only reject but anathematised the Council and all that adhered to it others again cryed up Zeno's Henoticon and though these two Parties differed among themselves about the Eutychian Controversie yet both Parties agreed against the Council some being seduced by the Imperial Letters others by the pretence of Peace So that all the Churches in the Christian World were rent into numberless Schisms and Factions and the Communion of the Bishops shattered all in pieces Hence arose infinite Quarrels between the Eastern Western and African Churches the Eastern refusing Communion with the Western and African and they on the other side denying them the same Civility And not only so but the business was carried on to an higher degree of folly for none of them agreed among themselves the Eastern Bishops breaking Communion at home neither did the Western and African Bishops though they both joyn'd against the Eastern communicate themselves or with any other Forraign Churches whatsoever All which the Emperor perceiving he deposed all Innovating Bishops all that stuck to the Council and all that Anathematised it and so cast Euphenius and after him Macedonius out of the See of Constantinople and Flavianus out of the See of Antioch A goodly Account this of the natural effects of this wise Project of Peace and Moderation to set all the World in a flame without redress till at last the Peace-maker himself is forced to quit his own pretence grows angry and violent in proceeding against all that refuse to comply with his own Will and it is a very obvious observation of this sort of men that when they are disappointed in their Project they grow moody and sullen and are of all others the most revengeful and implacable to all that differ from them And as for these dire effects of love and meekness no Man need to wonder at them because the design it self is no better than casting away all manner of Discipline and Government without which all Societies soon fall into War and Anarchy Neither do these Mischiefs end in the Church but they break out into Tumults and Rebellions in the Common-Wealth as we shall see anon in the Rebellion of Vitalian But though all Christendom were actually in Arms the Fight was hottest and the Contest run highest at Rome and Constantinople between Euphemianus and Gelasius who though they agreed in the Orthodox Faith could never be reconcil'd in the point of Discipline concerning Acacius and those Bishops that communicated with the Eutychian Hereticks after they were condemn'd by the Council Gelasius will listen to no terms of Reconciliation till the Acacian Schismaticks are thrown out of the Dyptichs and Euphemianus on the contrary importunes him to condescend from the strictness of Discipline for the sake of Peace and Unity and assures him that his Severity could have no other effect in the Eastern Church but to make the breach wider But for all that Gelasius stops his Ears at all motions of condescension and by vertue of the Authority of St. Peter will abate nothing of the settled Discipline of the Church upon any account or pretence whatsoever And therefore advises him as he hoped ever to recover the favor of the Apostolick See to anathematise Acacius as well as Eutyches And to the same purpose he writes to Faustus Ambassador to Theodorick King of the Goths and at that time Master of Rome and Italy then residing at Constantinople upon a treaty of Peace between his Master and the Emperor Though in it he all along betrays his great concern to be more for the Grandeur of his own See than the Discipline of the Catholick Church However Faustus labors to the utmost of his Power to gratifie his Holiness but all in vain for they are resolved at Constantinople never to deliver up a Bishop of their own much less so stout a Champion as Acacius to the ambition of Rome And even the Emperor himself storms at him for his unyielding obstinacy upon which his Majesty is accosted with a Letter in a very high stile demanding his Obedience to the Apostolick See discoursing at large the pre-eminence of the Pontifical Power above the Regal And this he follows with a Circular Epistle directed to the Bishops of Dardania wherein he magnifies the Sovereign Authority of his own See above the whole Catholick Church in such high streins as were indeed nothing less than an open challenge of an absolute Monarchy over it And therefore Acacius dying in Rebellion against his Highnesses Predecessors neither himself nor any that communicate with him ought to be received into Grace and Favor And in the same lofty language he directs his Mandate to the Eastern Bishops upon the same Argument And not content with this he issues out his Proclamation to the whole Christian World to declare the validity of the Sentence against Acacius and his Accomplices To him succeeds Anastasius in the Papacy who though stiff enough sinks much below the height and rigor of his Predecessor and condescends to send his Legates and tender an humble Address to the Emperor for Peace
and Reconciliation and insists upon no other terms than only the suppression of the name of Acacius But now the Emperor instead of yielding to any Rules of Discipline finding he had a coming Pope endeavors to draw him to the Henoticon and obliges one Festus a Senator of Rome then at Constantinople to undertake it but before his return home the Pope dyed in the year 498. And he is with great difficulty succeeded by Symmachus for Festus to carry on his Design of Comprehension set up against him one Laurentius a Man that he very well knew would do any thing to comply with the Emperor's Will for the advancement of his own Ends. And that gave Being to one of the most furious Schisms that ever hapned in that Church not only the People and the Clergy but the Senators themselves being ingaged in each Party even to Blood and Slaughter And the Quarrel grew so high that King Theodorick was at last forced to repair to the City with his Army to prevent a Civil War and at length after great pains by the Assistance of a Council at Rome commonly call'd the Synodus Palmaris gave Symmachus Possession And at Constantinople Tumults became so furious that above 3000 of the Orthodox Christians were murther'd at one time at Divine Service by the Soldiers as was affirm'd by the Emperor's Instigation And upon it Symmachus writes to him to reprove him for the cruelty of the Action and require him to forbear all farther Communion with Hereticks but he grows more violent and so is excommunicated but that transports him to that indecency of Passion that he condescends to write Libels against the Pope that are answer'd again with sufficient rudeness the Pope telling him in plain terms that he is as good a Man as himself Upon this the Emperor looses all patience and so with as great an Extravagance on the other side publishes a fraudulent Rescript that no Man shall be capable of any Preferment in Church or State unless he take the Sacrament upon it that he will be true to the Orthodox Faith and what he meant by that is too too evident from his present wild behavior about the Henoticon and so the Rescript is interpreted by Theodorus Lector And sometime after i. e. in the year 510 he publishes another Rescript to incapacitate all that were not Orthodox in his own sense for all Ecclesiastical Preferment And at the same time indeavors with all his might to remove Macedonius from the See of Constantinople though he had been placed there by himself upon the banishment of Euphemius till at length the barbarous Rabble and Soldiers again broke in with Clubs and Staffs upon the Catholicks as they were at Divine Service in the Church of Arch-Angel adding after the Trisagion this form of Words who was Crucified for us This came to blows and tumults that were chiefly managed by Severus the Monk of whose goodly Vertues more anon and Julian Bishop of Halicarnassus a Man much of the same Kidney till a vast Rabble of the Orthodox join'd in a Body together and as is the manner of Tumults cryed one and all so that the Emperor was forced to engarrison himself within his own Palace and was taking Ship to secure himself by flight but that bethinking himself to send for Macedonius and sweeten him with some good Words by his means who good Man was much more troubled at the Disorders than the Emperor himself appeased the Tumult and for his reward of so good a piece of Service he was immediately conveyed away by night kept in close Prison and one Timotheus placed in his See And the same Method of Moderation was put in practice every where in the Eastern Church and among the rest the great Flavianus of Antioch was banisht and Severus the Monk that mortified Man who had long watcht for the See of Constantinople placed in his stead He was first bred to the Law where he might if he would but give his Mind to it learn all the shifts of fraud and oppression from thence he betook himself to a Monastery to accomplish himself with all the slites of Hypocrisie being expell'd thence he at last betakes himself to Court to make all his other good Qualities useful and practicable by a sufficient stock of Impudence and what cannot that Man do that is made up of so good a warp of knavery so well wooft with Hypocrisie lin'd through with immodesty Thus accoutred to Court the demure Man comes and finding which way the Weather-cock of Preferment stood soon insinuates himself into the favor of the Religious Empress and that was an easie passage to the Emperor whom he soon got into his possession and put him upon his severe Courses in pursuance of moderation only to make some good vacancy for himself He had heav'd twice at the Bishoprick of Constantinople in the Expulsion of Euphemius and Macedonius but finding it would not take there he is content with Antioch and so procures the expulsion of Flavianus for his not quitting the Council And though the Emperor according to the Tenor of his Henoticon obliged him by Oath never to anathematise it yet he could not forbear doing it publickly in the Church at the very time of his Consecration Neither does his zeal and fury confine it self to his own Church but he vents it in other Diocesses and particularly procures the banishment of Elyas Bishop of Jerusalem who had with many Conflicts and for many Years weather'd it against the Emperor's own folly But at last his Enormities grew so intolerable and his contempt of the Canons so scandalous that notwithstanding all his power at Court he is solemnly excommunicated by a Council at Constantinople at the Emperor 's own doors and such was the rudeness of his Tongue as well as his Actions that after the death of Anastasius it was condemn'd by the Emperor Justin at the instigation of the Courtiers to be cut out for a Penance for its foul language had he not saved both that and himself by â—light 'T is still we see this sort of precious Saints that are for promoting the dissettlement and oppression of the Church for their own ambitious Ends. But things being every where in such confusion and the People under such discontents this gives both a pretence and an opportunity to Vitalian General of the Army to revolt and he God knows his heart takes up Arms only to right and restore the banisht Bishops and at last yields to a Peace upon condition that the Emperor would call a free Council at Heraclea for the settlement of the Church and the restitution of the Bishops and the Emperor to make good the Article summons about 200 to the place appointed but dismisses them without any Debate Upon this Vitalian threatens and arms again but is at present bought off with a round sum of Money And now the Emperor finding at last into what streights he had brought himself and his Government by
his violent moderation he grows weary of it and writes to Pope Hormisdas who succeeded Symmachus to request his assistance for the resettlement of the Church But this Pope was both a stout and a crafty Man and would hear of no other terms of Peace but entire submission to the Council of Calcedon Pope Leo's Letter and the condemnation of Acacius And the poor tired Emperor is ready to yield all except the last and by his Resolution in defence of Acacius luckily recover'd the love of his Citizens among whom there was none of their Bishops whose Memory was more valuable than that of Acacius And therefore in that point he begs his Pardon and having by that Artifice secured the People to himself he now ventures to disband Vitalian and puts Ruffinus in the head of his Army And the Pope sending a second Embassy to him the year following against Acacius the Emperor now defies him charges him with rudeness and incivility and tells him that for the time to come he will have no intercourse with a Man so utterly void of good Manners as to yield nothing to his Royal Will And so ended his reign for thô the Romish Writers tell strange Tragedies of I know not what bloody Persecution that insued upon it they relye meerly upon the monkish and fabulous Historians of later Times without any Authority from the Ancients and more timely Records and therefore are of no Credit § XX. Anastasius after 27 years reign dying Justinus who at first had been but a common Soldier succeeds by the choice of the People and the Guards whose Votes he had bought with the Money that Amantius the Eunuch the great Patron of the Hereticks under Anastasius and the main instrument of all the Mischiefs against the Church in his reign had entrusted with him to bribe their Voices for Theocritus to whom he design'd the Empire as Evagrius reports from Zacharias Rhetor the partial Eutychian Historian whereas Justin himself protests in his first Letter to Pope Hormisdas That the Empire was forced upon him by the Senate and the Army without his own seeking and against his own Will And he seems to have been a Man of that plainness and simplicity through the whole course of his life that his Protestation may if in that case any Mans may be trusted and it is no great wonder if he were not very forward to accept the Government when he could not but be conscious to himself of his unfitness for it being a Person of no Education only having the good fortune by his Courage to raise himself from a common Soldier to the chief Command in the Army This Emperor at his first coming to the Crown finding all things in confusion by the irregular actings of Zeno and Anastasius against the Council of Calcedon publishes an Edict commanding subscription to it by all the Clergy the restitution of the banisht Bishops and expulsion of the Intruders Among whom Severus of Antioch bearing the blackest Character and being the most busie Promoter of the Faction suffer'd in the first place But though he were very carefully watcht and way-layed by Irenaeus the Prefect of the East he made his escape to Alexandria where the Hereticks had kept possession to that very time Athanasius succeeding to Petrus Moggus to him Joannes Mela to him Joannes Machiota to him Dioscorus the younger to him Timotheus in the year 519 all Henotical Men. In this time it was that Severus came to Alexandria and was very welcome to him as Julianus Bishop of Halicarnassus had been before him but these two disputing Gentlemen meeting together could not long agree Severus setting up the Sect of the Corrupticolae and Julianus of the Phantasiastae but Themistius a Deacon of that Church divides from both and founds a new Schism of the Agnoetae But now the Emperor having in some measure settled the Eastern Church he labors for its re-union with the Western and for that end writes to the stiff Pope Hormisdas to offer Proposals of Peace and Reconciliation after a rupture of 34 years that began in the year 484 when Acacius and Foelix excommunicated each other and after many Treaties Embassies and Inter-messages the Peace is concluded in the year following viz. anno 519. And Acacius is now at last given up and sacrificed to his revenge without which the Pope let them know at first that it was in vain to treat of Peace upon any other conditions Neither will he be satisfied with the sentence against Acacius alone but all his Successors must be expunged out of the Dyptichs only for keeping him in and so must his two Patrons the Emperors Zeno and Anastasius and this being done the Peace is concluded with great joy on all sides and Hormisdas writes to the Emperor to exhort him to proceed in the same good work in other Places especially at Alexandria and Antioch But things were so much out of order and Men were grown so unruly by the latitude and licentiousness of the late Times that they would rather raise Tumults then lay down their Disputes though the greatest Disorders were raised at Constantinople it self by the Scythian Monks a spawn of the Henotical Liberty and this run to that height of Sedition that it awed the Emperor himself engaged the greatest Men in the Empire into Parties enflamed the Church of Africa and set Rome it self on fire In the year 518 they first broke out under the Patronage of Vitalian and the Conduct of Maxentius a witty and learned Man and they must have this Proposition that one of the Holy Trinity was crucified in the flesh imposed upon the Catholick Church as a necessary Article of Faith But the Novelty and Ambiguity of the expression was offensive to all Men that were for acquiescing in the Council of Calcedon and so they fell to disputing pell-mell Victor a Deacon of that Church being head of the opposite Party and followed by the Acaemetan Monks as indeed all the fewds of the Christian Church were every where carried on by that idle sort of Men that had little else to do than to wrangle But the Popes Legates coming to Constantinople this present year 519 the Scythian Monks present them an Address in their own defence in which they imbrace all the 4 Councils anathematise all the Hereticks only they must have their own new Proposition added to the determinations of the Church But the Legates wholly shift the business as being limited by their Commission from intermedling with any Matter that was not express't in it Upon this the zealous Monks repair to Rome to besiege the Pope himself with their importunity and as Vitalian had espoâ—sed their Cause so Justinian appear'd against it and writes a sharp Letter to Hormisdas against the petulancy of the Monks tho afterward he became not only their Patron but their Advocate earnestly soliciting the Pope in their behalf but he not well knowing at that distance what to make of all this Contest
Canons and immemorial Custom transferred the Metropolitical Power from Vienna to Arles and that without any other reason then to make a Precedent and give a cast of their absolute Supremacy disposing of the Affairs of Christendom not by the Laws of the Church but according to their own Arbitrary Will and Pleasure Whereas the Law of Justinian was sounded upon the universal Practice of the Church as it was settled by the Apostles themselves by whom its Jurisdiction was every where accommodated to the convenience of Civil Governmenâ— And therefore this City being made both a Civil Metropolis and the Seat of a Praefectus Praetorio it was but natural both according to the Canons and the Customs of those times to make it an Ecclesiastical Patriarchate which then answered to the Diocesan Jurisdiction of the Civil Prefects over several Provinces The 16th Novel is a Repetition of the Third to limit the number of the Clergy in Cathedral Churches particularly applied to the Church of Constantinople The 36th and 37th are enacted upon his Recovery of Africa from the Vandals to restore the Discipline the Revenues and the Priviledges of the African Church to suppress all kind of Hereticks with all manner of severity and the execution of all former Laws upon them and to bestow all their Churches upon the Catholicks and to grant them the right of Sanctuary in all Cases excepting the Crimes of Rape and Murther The 40th 〈…〉 particular Grant or Dispensation to the Church of Jerusalem called the Resurrection-Church for the sale of certain Lands The Forty second is a Confirmation of the Sentence against Anthimus as guilty of the Eutychian Heresie according to known Custom as he declares in his Preface that as often as any of the Clergy were judged unworthy of the Priest-hood by the Sacerdotal Sentence the Royal Power should joyn with the Authority of their Decree that so both Powers Divine and Humane agreeing a good correspondence might be kept between both and so the World be well govern'd The Forty Third is a revival of a Rescript of the Emperor Anastasius to limit the Exemption of Taxes upon the Revenues of the Church which grew so very great as to defraud its contribution to the Civil Government and to that purpose he excuses only one thousand Tenements in the City of Constantinople belonging to that Church but requires all other Estates that were purchased since the Edict of Anastasius to contribute in their just proportion to the publick Burthens of the Common-wealth The 45 th subjects all Jews and Hereticks to the publick Burthens but interdicts them all Priviledges The 46 th â—â—ctifies the 7 th that forbid all Clergy-mâ—â— he alienation of their Lands which Law some of them so scandalously abused as to run in debt without any obligation to pay their Creditors In which cases especially of Debts to the Crown he permits the sale of Church-Lands to defray Church-debts and that I take it is no Law of Religion otherwise than as it is an act of Civil Justice The 55 th is only an interpretation of the several Laws against the alienation of Church-Revenues viz. to allow their sale by way of Exchange so it be done without fraud or fiction The 56 th is a revival of the Laws and Canons against Simony of which it seems there were great Complaints at that time The 57 th is a revival of a Law of the Emperor Leo enacting that if a Clerk forsake his Cure the Bishop take care to have it supplyed and that no Patron or Founder of a Church present his Clerk to it without the Bishops approbation The 58 th forbids the erecting of Chappels in private Families to the defrauding of the publick Churches and though it allows them for Prayers yet by no means for administration of the holy Sacraments The 59 th is a confirmation of the gifts of Constantine and Anastasius to the Church of Constantinople for Burials without Fees and Charges which it seems notwithstanding the Revenue that was settled by those Emperors for that purpose were at that time demanded by the Clergy of that Church The 65 th is a dispensation to the Church of Mysia to sell certain Lands for the redemption of Captives The 67 th provides that no Churches be built without the Bishops consent and that Bishops reside within their own Diocesses The 76 th only reforms Abuses among the Monks The 77 th restrains Sodomy and Blasphemy The 79 th refers all the Law-suits of Monks and Nuns to the determination of the Bishop The 83 d enacts the same priviledg for the whole body of the Clergy The 86 th impowers any Subject to appeal from the Secular Judge of the Province to the Bishop who is required to examine the Proceedings and authorised if the Appellant desire it to sit in Commission with him and if upon his Complaint the Judg refuse to do Justice he is commanded to inform the Emperor against him This is a Law that the Ecclesiasticks had no reason to complain of as a diminution of their Authority when in effect it put the whole Government of the Empire into their hands Though the Judges had but too much reason to take offence at it in having spies set over all their Actions and all spies are apt to be too busie and officious The 109 th revives the Laws of his Predecessors Leo and Justin against all sorts of Hereticks of what Sect soever and whereas by Law Daughters Portions were to be payed before any other Debts he debars all Female Hereticks of that Priviledg The 111 th is an amendment of the 9 th Novel that gave the Church the priviledg of pleading against all Prescription less than 100 years whereas other Subjects were allowed that Plea no higher than 30 years but the Inconveniences were found so great by reason of the great distance of time exceeding the term of Man's life that in this Novel he brings it down to the compass of 40 years The 120 th is a revival of his former Laws against the alienation of Church-Goods The 123 d. is a compendium of the Canons of the Church for the regulation of the Clergy but chiefly Bishops But it consists of so many particulars and is of that great length containing no less than 44 Chapters that it would be too tedious to repete it here though it is highly worth the Readers perusal being a very judicious Collection of the best Laws of the Church in that matter The 129 th grants the Samaritans because they now behaved themselves modestly and peaceably the power of making Wills which he had taken from them by a former Law upon occasion of their Tumults in Palestine as may be seen in the life of St. Saba who was sent Ambassador from those parts to the Emperor Justinian at the beginning of his Reign to complain of their Violences The 131 st is a very famous Law and a kind of recapitulation of all his former Laws concerning Church-Matters and therefore
contains nothing new in it The 132 d is against the Conventicles of Hereticks of all Herds The 133 d reduces Monks to the observation of the Laws of the Church and the Rules of their Order The 137 th reâ—ulates Ordinations of the Clergy by the â—anons The 146 th is an indulgence of Liberty to the Jews and these are all the Laws enacted by this Emperor about Religion for those few that follow were made by his Successor Justin though they are placed under this Princes name by mistake Now I pray what is there in all this that is not warrantable in a Prince What is there that is not highly praise-worthy What is there that is not warranted by Precedents of his Predecessors unless it be this That he exceeded them all in his care and kindness to the Church What then can be the meaning of those ungrateful Men who requite him with nothing but Calumnies and unkind reflections for being too busie in Church-Matters unless it be this That they care not that Princes should inspect and observe the Neglects and Disorders of the Clergy I am sure Baronius betrays great dis-ingenuity in loading him so heavily as he has done when yet at the same time he is forced to excuse him first from the necessity of the times for recovering the Discipline of the Church for the Canons having lain neglected all the time of Zeno Basiliscus and Anastasius that obliged him to be the more active to recover their Authority and if he were so why does the Cardinal charge him with pragmaticalness against the Power of the Church Secondly from Justinian's own declaration that runs through all his Laws that he does not take upon himself the Authority of enacting Ecclesiastical Laws but of abetting them and putting them in executioâ— by secular Penalties a fault that would be very commendable in all Princes But some distance after the great Cardinal so far forgets his displeasure against this great Emperor that upon his sending an Ambassy to Pope John the second against the Acaemetan Monks he writes a Panegyrick upon his decent and regular Proceedings in the Church in that he always acted by the Authority of his Bishops with the consent of the Pope Adeo ut nihil his sanctius rectiusque perfici potuerit ab Orthodoxo Imperatore qui Catholicae fidei patrocinium studio indefesso susceperit And beside this he might have remembred what himself says in the year following ought never to be forgot Pope Agapetus his high Commendation of the Emperor's acting in Church-Matters in his Epistle to the Emperor Firmamus laudamus amplectimur non quia Laicis Auctoritatem praedicationis admittimus sed quia studium fidei vestrae Patrum nostrorum regulis conveniens confirmamus atque roboramus Another excuse he has made that with him out-weighs all the rest that he was under the Government of a wicked Woman kneadâ—d up of no less than six she-Devils Eve Dalilah and Herodias Alecto Megaera and Tisiphone and there is not one Lady in all his story if she be out of his favor that he does not compound of some or all of these Ingredients And concludes that he might have been the greatest Prince that ever swayed Scepter had it not been for this Penelope or six-fold Devil who made it her business to cross and controul him in all his Designs and unravel as fast as he could wind up in all his great Under-takings So true is that of the Preacher It is better to dwell with a Lyon or a Dragon than with a wicked Woman § XXIII And thus having vindicated his Laws from the Cavils of these ungratful Men I come now to vindicate his Person and his Actions from their more disingenuous Aspersions And here lies the main ground of the Quarrel against him not his medling too much with Church-Matters but with Church-Men He would not suffer himself as some of his Predecessors did to be outhufft by the Papal Insolence but brought Vigilius one of the proudest of them all to complyance and submission and that is a Crime never to be forgiven And for want of better or rather worse Information against him they are content to take up with a scandalous Libel i. e. Procopius's Anecdota Baronius was grieved to the heart that he could not find it because from thence he says it would appear what the Humor what the Wisdom what the Piety of Justinian was when his sauciness against Ecclesiasticks was such as no good or pious Prince could be guilty of But Alemannus a Convert from the poor Greek Church and one of the Cardinals Successors as he proudly intitles himself in the Office of Apostolical Librarian chancing it seems to light upon it as he was brushing the old Manuscripts in the Vatican is transported with joy and is all on fire to oblige holy Church with the publication of so useful a Work that the World might now see what manner of Man this same Justinian was who treated a Bishop so rudely as he did the good Pope Vigilius and not only so but he has helpt out the original Copy in his Latin Translation and what Procopius relates only as a flying Report he makes bold to set down as a known and certain truth And among many other strong strains of disingenuity he has been so injudicious as to undertake to make out the truth of this Libel by Procopius his own History that was publisht to the World in Justinian's own time approved of by himself and the Author advanced for it to the highest Preferments in the Empire Now that Man that will seriously go about to prove a Panegyrick to be a Satyr only shews that he is a little too much in good earnest But before I prove the false-hood of these Slanders it will be convenient to shew the occasion of raising them and that was the great heats in the Controversie about the tria capitula in which the Emperor created to himself a great number of Enemies by his zeal and resolution on that side that he unhappily took to I shall therefore first set down the progress of that Story that was the only false step of his Reign but so unluckily made that he could never wholly recover himself again before I ingage the Librarian and his supposed Author This Emperor then having appear'd so zealously in behalf of the Orthodox Faith having declared so severely against all Hereticks by several Edicts and particularly publisht a Rescript against the singularities of Origen upon complaint of the Palestine Monks set on by Pelagius the Popes Legate at the Court of Constantinople in spite to Theodorus Bishop of Caesarea his Rival in Court-favor but a great Admirer of Origen having appointed a Conference at Constantinople in the year 533 to reconcile the Acephali to the Church and the Council of Calcedon in which he expresses a very high Passion for the resettlement of Peace and Unity Having been so bold as to consent to the deposition of Anthimus Bishop
suspends all disputes and determinations to the Summary of a General Council which they were certain by their united Interest to obtain of the Emperor But this continual shufling and prevarication provokes the adverse Party beyond all bounds and patience and they now unanimously discard him for a man of no faith and honesty that chopt all points of the Compass as the Weather-cock stood for his own convenience now standing point blank for the Council then veering to the quite contrary point for the Acephali and now again standing neuter and wavering between both But all this trimming and counter-trimming and shifting backward and forward St. Gregory and Baronius plead was then necessary for the Peace of the Church at a time when the heats were run so high to both extremes I will grant that both Parties might be too blame But what can we think of him that is first furious on one side and then turns Traitor to his own Party and then when he sees that will not pass quits both If this be Ecclesiastical Prudence I would fain know what is Ecclesiastical Honesty And therefore it is no wonder that his own Clergy and particularly his own Favourites that he chose for his Companions to Constantinople Rusticus and Sebastianus were so offended at the gross dishonesty of his Proceedings as to renounce him and his Communion and to certifie his Apostasy and Prevarication to all the Bishops of the Western Church as Vigilius himself has left it upon Record in his Sentence of Excommunication against them for their Rebellion against their Bishops But it is much less to be admired that it should provoke the Choler of the honest Africans that were not used to the Italian Craft and that is a clear justification of the tartness of Liberatus Victor Tunonensis but especially Facundus Hermianensis the wisest man of the Party in their Writings both against him and the Cause when the whole Business was transacted with nothing but open fraud and prevaâ—ication And that is the reason often assigned by Facundus to justifie the brâ—ach of Communion with Vigilius and his Party Quod Praevaricatorum communio vitanda sit But now it is observable that at this time the Empress Theodâ—ra dies that had managed all the motions of this Puppet-Pope ever since his coming to Court I am not ignorant that Gregory the Great says that they were fallen out and that she died under his Sentence of Excommunication but he writes so lavishly in this Cause and so without all manner of proof and so different from all other Records that his Testimony ought scarce to be taken upon Oath and to speak a blunt but an honest truth no man that has read his Legend-Dialogues can with the utmost stretch of Candour or Charity salve the Honour or Reputation of his Integrity But now the Empress being gone and Vigilius finding himself deserted by his own Clergy and the Bishops dissatisfied in all parts revives his old Expedient of a General Council But Theodorus being now throughly acquainted with the Genius of the Man and so suspecting some new shuffle perswades the Emperor to stand by his own Rescript against the tria Capitula And here the Contest runs so high between these two honest Gentlemen that at last it came to an open breach And Vigilius finding his Adversary too strong for him at Court-Interest betakes himself to Church-weapons and in a rage stabs him with the Sentence of Excommunication and that for this real reason among some other formal pretences Nam usque ad hoc animum Christianissimum Principis falsis suggestionibus perduxisti ut Clementia ejus quae in suis hostibus pia semper apparuit contra nos graviter moveretur And because Mennas Bishop of Constantinople joyn'd with Theodorus in his Crime he is joyn'd with him in his Sentence together with all the Metropolitans and Micropolitans of his Diocess And that Quibble is intended for a smart Gird to all those Metropolitans that were so poor-spirited as to submit themselves to the private Bishop of Constantinople But finding himself over-topt at Court he takes Oars for Calcedon and there pretends that he was forced to secure his life by taking Sanctuary in the Church of St. Euphemiâ— as he had done before in the Church of St. Peter at Constantinople But here Baronius works another Miracle and all his Gospel concerning this dâ—baucht Pope is meer Legend of his own Contrivance in that the Emperor should not send his Guards to seize his Holiness but some of his Privy-Council to invite him back and give Oath for his Security But though I must confess it was no Miracle yet considering the peevishness of the man it was a kind of wonder and a very high proof that the Emperor was a very civil Gentlemen that could command his passion so as to dâ—gest the most provoking folly and out of meer respect to his place and office treat him with that civility that by that time Custom had made due to so great a Bishop And that is all the wonder that I can discern in this Affair that the Emperor had manners though the Pope had none But behold a wonder indeed his Holinesses Return to the Imperial Civility upon the approach of the Lords only to court him home he clings about the Altar as if they had come to cut his Throat there declares that he will trust neither their own nor their Master's Oath and that he will never condescend to enter into any Treaty till his Majesty has revok't his Rescript and all other Acts about the tria Capitula and sends an Encyclical Epistle into all Parts of Christendom to inform them what violence had been offer'd to his Person by the Imperial Power and by it raises such Tumults and Commotions every where that the Emperor is forced to submit suppress his Edict and leave the whole business to the determination of a General Council And so Theodorus and Mennas finding themselves deserted by the Emperor they are forced to tack about and with all humility tender their Submissions and Protestations to his Holiness to sue out his pardon and upon it this goodly Trium-virate are once more pieced together And at this the good Cardinal cryes out the Finger of the Lord in defence of the Apostolick Rock It is true indeed that the divine Providence co-operates with us in all our Actions in order to its own ends but the whole mystery of this great business is no more than this that some Knaves that had crept into the Church by Court-favor fall out among themselves for Court-factions till at last one side finding it self to be forsaken sues to be reconciled to the prevailing Party and that is all the Miracle that the Cardinal has magnified at so high a rate as to apply to it all the Prophesies of the Old Testament concerning our Savior's being a Rock and a Corner-stone But here Mennas dyes and one Eutychius a Monk that had insinuated himself into
the Court by great shews of Mortification succeeds He was a Man that of all things defyed all ambitious thoughts and designs of Preferment and yet was perpetually dreaming that he should one day be the great Bishop of Constantinople and by vertue of his own real dreams and one pretended by the Emperor who knew him to be zealous in his Cause and withal very manageable he is advanced to that high dignity And so it is that none gallop so fast to Preferment in the Church as those that creep to it And after his Instalment the first thing he does is to submit himself to Vigilius and so does Apollinaris of Alexandria upon the death of Zoilus whose Bishoprick he had usurpt and thus are Hypocrites and ill-Men always on the right side But Vigilius finding himself Master of the field and having forced all his Enemies even the Emperor himself to submit is resolved to shew his Authoâ—ity And in the first place he contends with the Emperor about the place of the Council one will have it in the East and the other in the West but at last they agree upon Constantinople upon condition that an equal number of Eastern and Western Bishops be summon'd But before the Council meets the Emperor desires the Pope to give his own Opinion and that was an hard task to put him upon declaring himself and therefore he desires to be excused but the Emperor presses so importunately upon him as to provoke his Choler and to be revenged he turns cross-grain'd and so affronts his tria capitula and when the Council meets is sick and sullen refuses to join with them and no Courtship either of the Council or the Emperor himself can draw him to any compliance but on the contrary he commands the Council not to presume to determine any thing till he had declared his own Judgment And that he does at large in an Instrument sent to the Emperor that he calls his Constitutum in which though he condemns and confutes the Writings themselves yet he will allow no sentence against the Persons because they dyed in the Communion of the Catholick Church and had been absolved by the Council of Calcedon and at last concludes with this peremptory threatning His igitur à nobis cum omni undique cautelà atque diligentiâ propter servandam inviolabilem reverentiam praedictarum Synodorum et earundem venerabilia constituta dispositis statuimus et decernimus nulli ad ordines et dignitates ecclesiasticas pertinenti licere quicquam contrarium his quae praesenti asseruimus vel statuimus constituto de saepe dictis tribus capitulis aut conscribere vel proferr aut componere vel docere aut aliquam post praesentem definitionem movere ulteriùs quaestionem c. But the Council regard neither him nor his threatnings and so condemn the tria Capitula and to expose him for an egregious Prevaricator publish to the World his own several Declarations against them Upon which Baronius has a very pleasant observation that this they were forced to because they knew their Decree would be of no force without the Authority of the Pope What Inferences will not Zeal and Partiality make when they produced his own testimony against himself to convict him of manifest prevarication to conclude that this was done out of dutiful respect to his Authority by which if they had regarded it they stood all at this very time deposed from their Holy Orders But things being carried so disorderly on all sides the Council came to nothing and the Emperor after he had once made a breach upon the Authority of the Church could never heal it again for the Hereticks instead of being reconciled made advantage of it against the Authority of the Church it self as Leontius a Writer of that Age informs us who argued thus upon it aut boni scilicet erant aut mali si boni curâ—anathematizatis Si mali cur à Synodo recepti sunt And as for the Catholicks some were for an expedient of Peace against the Authority of the Council and others for the Authority of the Council against trimming for Peace But the Emperor having proceeded so far in the business is now resolved to carry it through his own way and all that will not comply are deposed and banisht and this lights chiefly upon the Illyrican and African Bishops but they were soon reduced by the Emperor's severity whereas the Bishops in the Western Empire that was then under the Franks set up a form'd Schism especially in the Parts about Venice and Istria that lasted for many years and cost both the Church and the Empire a long train of trouble and vexation But as for Pope Vigilius when he saw there was no way of escape but by compliance though he loved his Will too much yet he loved his Bishoprick much more therefore after all his stubbornness he comes in and fairly subscribes and approves the Decree of the Council But here the Roman Writers are again at a great loss to salve his Reputation but I think it would be more for their own to let him alone For before he was in lawful possession of St. Peter's Chair they own him to have been a Villain and withal confess that he got into it by Simony Sacriledg and Murther But that being done out of duty and gratitude to his Patroness Theodora he beats down the Council of Calcedon but seeing the Emperor resolute in his Design he turns a fury on that side and publishes his Judicatum to damn the tria Capitula and then in a little time suspends his own Sentence till the meeting of the Council when the Council meets he contradicts them in his Constitutum But because he saw the Emperor in good earnest against him and the African Bishops beginning to scowr out of their Bishopricks he fairly comes in and renounces the Constitutum yet after all these turns of prevarication since the time of his sitting in St. Peter's Chair we must have him to be a very honest Man notwithstanding that he all the while stands guilty of the same Impieties that he did before In my Opinion they would much better consult the honor of St. Peter's Chair by confessing him so ill a Man that even his sitting in that could not mend him or rather that he never had legal Possession of it but was all his life-time a meer Usurper for by the Canons a Man that comes into a Bishoprick by Simony renders himself uncapable of it forever So that if they would leave him under his own disgrace it would be no dishonor to St. Peter's Chair but when they are at such mighty pains to prove that it was not defilâ—d by his sitting in it it leaves wise Men under a suspition that some indecent uncleanness was left behind But however the discovery of his last Conversion which was first brought to light by Petrus de Marca and was dated within six Months after the rising of the Council clears
thought it sufficient to condemn the Heresie it self without imposing his private Anathema's as necessary Conditions of Peace and Articles of Christian Faith upon the Catholick Church And this was if we pursue it to its head the true Case of the tria Capitula and St. Cyril was so well convinced of it at last that he let fall his Anathema's and allowed the Epistle of Ibas that condemn'd them of rashness Natalis Alexander has written a long dissertation to prove that the tria capitula were justly condemn'd but I find very light weight in the Arguments For as for Theodorus and the several Fragments alledged out of him by Marius Mercator and the Council it self I can discern no designed Nestorianism in them and at worst they seem no worse than unwary Expressions before the starting of the Controversie in his zeal against the Heresie of Apollinaris and so he is excused by St. Cyril himself in his Epistle to John of Antioch And as for the sixty Capitula collected by Vigilius out of his Writings and charged with blasphemy in his Constitutum it is plain that he draws blood of his Premises to wring out his Conclusion And in real truth Church-men were by this time as Baronius himself complains in this very case grown too nice and speculative in Matters of Faith and were not content with the simplicity of the old Tradition but were every day starting new Points of subtilty in so much that it was a very difficult thing for a Man to express himself so warily as to avoid the exceptions of one or other Party And this Facundus Hermianensis insists upon beside his vindication of particular Passages from their perverse Glosses through his whole third Book which this late learned Author either ought to have answer'd or to have let the Argument alone and withal shews that there are none of the Ancients who lived before the birth of the Heresie out of whom he is not able to alledg as offensive Passages as any that they have cull'd out of the Writings of Theodorus And therefore it is not fairly done of our Historian to conclude against the tria Capitula so severely as he has done without examining the Arguments of Facundus in their defence when he has so long since prevented all his Objections But more particularly when he has written so many learned and accurate Books in defence of Theodorus and his Writings and the several Passages objected against him by his Adversaries I must confess it looks somewhat odd that this Writer should over-look all these large Discourses and only cast his Eye upon one stragling Passage that was casually cast in upon another Man's Cause as he has done out of the 7 th Book and 6 th Chapter for that is all that he cites out of Facundus in the Cause of Theodorus But it was wisely done to take so little notice of that acute Writer that has for ever bafled the Cause of the tria Capitula and as he was never answer'd then so I am sure he never can be now I mean as to the main design of his Discourse abstracted from his African heat that for a time run him beyond his Argument into a needless Schism As for that part o◠the Argument against Theodorus that he was put out of the Dypticks of his own Church I answer that it is certain that he was kept in all Theodoret's time i. e. to the year 457. but when he was put out and by whom is uncertain and it is very probably conjectur'd by the learned Jesuite Garnerius that it was done by Petrus Fullo and the Eutychians in the Reigns of Basiliscus or Zeno when all things were in confusion and the Eutychians under the Conduct of Fullo committed whatever Disorders they pleased and then it was that they might with ease suppress the old Dypticks and in their room coin new ones and so put out Theodorus that they accused of Nestorianism and put in Cyril whom the Eutychians boasted to be Head and Father of their Party The only proof against Theodoret is taken from his Writings and Actings against St. Cyril in opposing his 12 Anathema's But this as I have shewen above is founded upon meer mistake as if his Zeal in the case had been ingaged in behalf of the Nestorian Heresie whereas it was only levell'd against the Bigotry of Cyril in imposing his own nice Propositions upon the Catholick Church And when Cyril recall'd them or rather let them fall they were friends and Theodoret was as ready to anathematise the Nestorian Heresie as himself ever was in the greatest heat or huff of the Controversie And the case of Ibas was the same nothing but his zeal against the rigor of Cyril's Anathema's as is evident from the whole Tenor of the Epistle it self And therefore in the Result of all I cannot but think that this packt Council and so it was would have done better to have let these Men lie quiet in their Graves when they had been Canonically discharged upon fair Trial by the great Council of Calcedon though they had been guilty of those mis-prisions of Heresie for which their Ashes were now arraign'd and condemn'd But yet when a needless Decree was made against them I cannot but think too that the dissenting Bishops would have been much better advised to let it pass rather than to have raised a Schism in the Church about it And so as far as we can find by the Records of the Church the Illyricans and Africans did in a short time though the Schismaticks in the Western Church kept up the separation with great zeal and fury into after-ages And thus having given a true and impartial account of this Transaction of Justinian that created him so many enemies both in his own time and afterward as long as the unhappy Schism lasted I now come to a particular Examination of the several Accusations against him by the supposed Procopius but real Alemannus And when I have vindicated this greatest of Princes from their unmannerly slanders it will be time to put a Conclusion to this work and to end it with his life because with it ends the Body of the Imperial Law § XXIV And though this may at first sight seem to be no more then a private Controversie concerning the reputation of one man that has been dead above this 1200 years and so at best but an entertainment of curiosity rather then any useful enquiry for the benefit of our own Age Yet granting it were so it is a duty that all men owe to those great Persons that in their times were Benefactors to the World Fathers and Patrons to all Posterity leaving them a better World then themselves found to preserve their Monuments from dust but much more from dirt not only to honour their names but vindicate their honours from all unworthy aspersions And if any man may challenge this respect it is Justinians right who as will appear by his Story was as great
either have dared to record it or expect to gain belief to it when it is so apparently contradicted not only by the whole History of the Justinian Reign but by the very Libel it self For when he makes mention of the Wars with the Persians the Goths and the Vandals I would know whether nothing were expended in defraying the Charges of those great Expeditions And if they cost any thing then all the publick Treasury was not exhausted in Gifts to the Barbarians and unprofitable Sea-walls But for our better satisfaction let us briefly audit his Accounts and then we shall find that no Prince ever did so great things for the Common-wealth with so little Charge to the Subject so hard a thing is it to defend him from the Malice of his Enemies without writing â—anegyricks upon all his Actions so Heroick and Glorious was the whole Course of his Reign At present to say nothing of his many great and successful Wars that could not but require an immense Treasury to maintain them though as they were managed they more then paid their own Charges as I shall shew anon The vast number of his Allyes put him to prodigious expenses especially in the Circumstances of his Reign For he being a great Lover of his Religion spared neither Cost nor Pains for its Propagation and he gave himself one great advantage in it by his Bounty and Courtesie to Ambassadors and Gentlemen of Forreign Nations who repairing from all parts to Constantinople to see the grandeur of that Court then famous through all the World and being overcome by the great kindness and urbanity of the Prince they return'd home with a kind of transported opinion of the Christian civility And the good Emperor the better to compass his pious designs sent some of his best-bred Clergy to wait upon them home who by the Modesty and Neatness of their Address rivetted such an Interest at Court as easily made way for the entertainment of the Christian Faith And by this means he reformed the barbarous People with much more fineness then Constantine did the Empire For when that great Prince had once declared for the Christian Faith all Orders and Professions of men naturally flock't into it for Interest and Preferment whereas this great Prince won and vanquish't several Nations not at all subject to his Empire by nothing but the Power of Courtesie and Civility The first that were reduced were the Blemmyes and Nobatae two barbarous African Nations situated on the other side the Nile that to that timâ— worship't the old Egyptian Idols Isis Osyris and Priapus and kept up that inhumane Custom of humane Sacrifices all whose Temples were demolish't by Justinian their Priests Cashier'd and imprisoned and their obscene Images sent to Constantinople and there destroyed and that put an end to that old Superstition The next were the Eruli seated on the North side the Ister these exceeded the former in the barbarity of their manners for beside the Humane Sacrifices to their Gods it was a Religious Custom among them to cut the Throats of all old and sick People and the duty of Wives to hang themselves at their Husbands Graves These People in the time of Anastasius being vanquish't by the Long-beards seated themselves on this side the Ister and submitted to the Jurisdiction of the Empire without any Change of their Religion but Justinian so wrought upon them as to bring them over to the profession of the Christian Faith though such was the innate petulancy of the Nation that it was little to its Credit because though they took up a new Religion they for the most part kept up their old manners The third were the Abasgi inhabiting at the Foot of the Mountain Caucasus a barbarous sort of People that worshipt Trees for Gods though the worst barbarity practiced among them was the Custom of their Princes to make all their handsome Youths Eunuchs and sell them to the Romans But Justinian finding the Court full of Boys of this Nation sends Euphrates a grave Eunuch to prevail with the Prince for the time to come to lay aside this barbarous Custom and imbrace the civility of the Christian Faith and succeeding in it he sent a Christian Bishop to instruct and govern them and built for their use a Cathedral Church dedicated to the Virgin Mary These were followed by the Tetraxitae inhabiting upon the River Tanais where it discharges it self into the Lake Maeotis who being a wild and barbarous sort of Christians and hearing that the great Christian Emperor had sent a Bishop to the Abasgi they request the same favor of him for themselves a Request that was no doubt with more ease granted than it was asked The next are the Inhabitants about Pentapolis in Lybia that worshipt Jupiter Ammon and Alexander the Great these the Emperor with great pains reclaimed from their Superstition to the Christian Faith and built for them a Temple consecrated to the Virgin Mary And what is the hardest of all he over-came the stubbornness of the Jews who thô they had an ancient Temple in the Citâ— of Borium founded as Tradition weâ—â— by King Solomon they were prevail'd upon to quit their old Religion and transform their Temple into a Christian Church The next are the Maurusians and Gadabitans in Africk who retain'd the old barbarous Superstition of Greece whom he brought off to Christianity and encompassed their City of Sabaratha with Walls and founded a Church in it for the Service of God To these may be added the Iberians who are commended by Procopius as the best of the Christian Converts and them the Emperor protected from the fury of the barbarous Persians and with great sums of Money hired the Huns to come to their assistance And to mention no more the conversion of the Zani seems more remarkable then all the rest they inhabited a barren Country on the North of Armenia were subject to no settled Government but lived like herds of beasts worshipt Trees and Birds for their Gods and subsisted upon nothing but plunder and robbery but being vanquisht by Justinian who was the first that ever master'd them they imbraced the Christian Faith and at the same time cast off their barbarous Manners and the Empeeror to secure their perseverance built them a stately Church These correspondencies I hope are no Childrens Rattles for beside their great piety in bringing over so many barbarous People to the Christian Faith it was a mighty Point of State to unite Religion as well as Interest that being the strongest Cement of all Allyances So that laying all this together the Emperor 's generous bounty to all Strangers his religious care of all his Allies his bestowing magnificent Churches upon all coâ—verted Nations it is at once an undenyable proof of his Prudence and Piety and as great a reproof to all charges of profuseness and prodigality This is the first sum of his Accounts which I am sure the
which he has no better defence than that Theophanes thought they were too severe so that himself could not but detest them And yet Theophanes says no such thing but only that they were severely punisht without any intimation of dislike much lesss of abhorrence But it was executed upon two Thracian Bishops to the great scandal of the Church whereas Constantine the Great would rather have cover'd them in the Fact with his Imperial Robe That was a great Complement of that great Emperor and 't is likely enough that if the Crime had been known to himself alone such was his generous Nature that he would never have divulged it But that was not Justinian's case for the Crime was become publick before it came to his knowledg and after that it had been a Scandal with a witness to let it pass unpunisht But that after all is the thing that gauls at the Court of Rome that a Secular Prince should challenge any Power to correct Ecclesiastical Persons which though it has long obtain'd as an unquestionable Rule in that Court yet I have proved through the whole series of this History that it was both claim'd by all the Emperors and acknowledg'd by all the Popes and Councils But beside as for this story of Theophanes concerning the two Bishops by my Rules of critick Law I must pass it for meer fable because destitute of timely and sufficient Testimony For so I cannot but esteem the Reports of all Writers that live at too great a distance of time from the matter of Fact And that is the case of this little Story there are no foot-steps of any Record of it either in that or the next Ages whereas Theophanes that was its first Founder reports it not till above 250 years after it was done and then what reason have we to believe him in a matter of Fact that had been so many years beyond the memory of Mankind any more than if he had lived at twice the distance of time For when a thing is once got out of the reach of the memory of Man an hundred and a thousand years are the same thing And then it is never to be admitted to any capacity of belief without some more credible and timely Records And for that reason I have industriously neglected all the latter Greek Historians as to any matter of Fact done at any considerable distance from their own Age. For if they are voucht by any more ancient Authority that is proof enough without them if they are not their own is none at all And the truth is they are so much addicted to the humor of patching Fables to the ancient Records of the Church that whatever we find in them not reported before them we ought for that reason to conclude it meer Fable and Fiction But in the last place which way will he bring off his Author in finding fault with the severity of this Law for reaching such as were Offenders before its publication when the Law declares it self to have been only enacted in pursuance of the known establisht Laws of the Empire especially the famous Law of Constantiâ—s and Constans that was ever after in force What a childish piece of malice then is it in this Author to insinuate as if this Law had taken hold upon Offenders at a time when there was no known Law against them As for the Law against Astrologers our Librarian has so much wit as not to touch it and to leave his Author in the lurch to answer for himself For these Men commonly call'd Astrologers that is such as profess to read all Mens Fates in the Stars were ever lookt upon as the most mischievous and most dangerous Traitors to the Government and any Man that has but cast an eye upon the Imperial Story cannot but know that there never was any one Act of Treason contrived against the Prince's Life or Govâ—rnment without their encouragement or direction as in the present case Joannes Cappadox was put upon his Treason against Justinian by their instigation And for this reason it was ever punisht with the greatest severity by all Princes as well Heathen as Christian. Under the heathen Emperors down from Caesar himself by banishment under the Christian from Constantine by death And yet this wretched Satyrist is so infatuated as to inveigh against it as a new piece of Cruelty in Justinian only for setting them in a disgraceful posture upon Camels and so whipping them through the City when by the Law they ought to have been executed But upon occasion of this fierce censure of the counterfeit Procopius upon the Emperor's prosecuting of Heathens and Hereticks it is become a dispute what Religion the true Procopius adhered to or whether to any at all Alemannus will have him an Atheist Rivius and Eichelius a bigotted Pagan but they are both apparently too severe and equally in the wrong when through all his Writings he expresses so high a sense of honor and kindness for the Christian Religion especially in his last Books de Aedificiis that are for the most part a Panegyrick upon Justinian's great zeal to advance and propagate the Christian Faith And let the Reader only peruse the first Book of that History and he will soon be satisfied of the Author 's own sense of Religion But they say that he was only a counterfeit Christian for Interest and Preferment But this they may say if they please of any Man as well as Procopius But he has dropt some loose and slite Expressions of the Christian Religion and both Parties instance in the passage out of his Books de Bello Gothico wherein he expresses a great dislike of the Controversies on foot at that time that is the violent heats about the tria Capitula Which it is evident from his own description of them that he did not in the least understand but supposed them to have been too curious and philosophical Inquiries into the Secrets of the divine Nature whereas he says it is satisfaction enough to him that God Almighty govern'd the World with a wise and good Providence and as for other more nice Speculations every Man might for him quietly enjoy his own Opinion This though it be very false Politicks as we have seen by the Henoticon and our own late too dear bought Experience yet it is neither Atheism nor Paganism For a good and wise Providence that governs the World is the only Principle opposed to Atheism and though it may thô very hardly be consistent with philosophick Paganism yet it is the fundamental Article of Christianity Now the dispute as he states it was not between the two Religions but about an Argument common to both viz. as he supposed the Nature of God and like a Gentleman he frankly declares his Opinion against all bigottry in these nice and obscure Controversies and thinks that Men ought not to inquire farther into the divine Nature than the Wisdom and Goodness of his Providence This is