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
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
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
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
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
is too great a Work for this place so being a Matter purely Ecclesiastical and wholly transacted within the Church it self it would not be very proper For the design of this Work is to give an account of those Transactions of the Church in which the State was concern'd and thereby to exemplifie the exercise of the Civil Jurisdiction within it without invading the Churches own original Authority And therefore this Matter being wholly transacted within the Church without any interposition of the State it belongs not to this Argument and for that reason I shall at present wave it not forgetting that I am under an Obligation to Baronius of an hunting match for the painted Haâ—râ— In the mean time I proceed And as for the Laws of Theodosius they are to be divided into two Parts those that were enacted before the compiling of the Theodosian Code that are taken into the body of the Code it self under their several Titles and those that were made after it that are annext as an Appendix under the name of Novells The Code was composed in the year 438 and the 30 th year of his Reign out of the Rescripts of Christian Princes of both Empires from Constantine the Great to that time containing the Records of 127 years from the year of our Lord 312 to the year 438 taking in the Laws of 16 Princes Constantine and his three Sons Julian Jovian Valentinian Valens Gratian Valentinian the younger Theodosius the Great Arcadius Honorius Theodosius the Younger and his contemporary Emperors Constantius and Valentinian the third It was drawn up by eight Commissioners chosen out of his chief Officers and Ministers of State whose Names are recorded in the Emperor 's Novel for ratifying the whole Code His design was to make the Law more easie certain and intelligible for the time to come That Men may not wait for formidable Answers as it were of a profound Oracle from the formal superciliousness and falsly pretended Learning of the Lawyers when it is made so easie to understand how a Deed of Gift is to be drawn up what way an Inheritance ought to be sued for how a conveyance is to be made what Debts are certain or uncertain all which are drawn out of obscurity and placed in the light by this work of our Sacred Majesty And indeed this Reformation of Laws when they grow numerous intricate and perplexing is one of the noblest acts of Government for all Laws in process of time naturally degenerate into so much niceness and curiosity as to be of no use at last than only to defeat the very end for which they were instituted at first viz. the security of Mens Rights and Properties And when they are come to that pass as to perplex and involve rather than fix and clear their Titles they are then nothing but snare cheat and vexation which of all Governments is incomparably the most intollerable The most heavy Arbitrary Government is much more easie to the Subject than legal Oppression for when Men oppress without Law they are usually restrain'd within some bounds by Modesty because then the whole blame of it must light upon themselves but when they have Law or pretence of Law to abet their Oppressions then is the Abuse both boundless and shameless and how barbarously soever the poor People may be opprest the Law must bear the blame of all whilst the Oppressor runs away with all the profit And therefore it is but a weak distinction that is vulgarly made between Arbitrary Government and Government by Law for either may or may not be arbitrary as they are executed A Government without Law may tye it self to the Rules of Justice and a Government by Law may turn all the Laws into fraud and oppression and when they do so they are guarded and fortified in their Tyranny by the Law So that whereas there are two sorts of Arbitrary Government one without Law another with it the case of the first is very hard and deplorable when Men have no security from the Government for their Rights beside its own good Will But the case of the second is intollerable both because it takes off the grand restraints of modesty and discretion which all Men are under that have no other rule to justify their Actions beside the Justice and Equity of the Actions themselves and withal because it leaves Men at liberty under the shelter and formality of Law to do all the dishonest things in the World with confidence and a good grace And therefore the wisest Princes in all Ages have not been more careful to make good Laws for the security of the Subjects Rights than to see to their fair and easie execution For when Suits are made tedious difficult and chargeable and Men are generally forced to pay more for Justice than Justice is worth the Law serves no other end than to rob them of their Rights and when my neighbor has taken away one half of my Estate if I will seek to right my self by Law I must spend the other so that if I get the Victory and that is uncertain I get nothing if I lose it I am utterly undone The removing of this great Abuse which length of time had brought upon the Imperial Law was the Emperor's great design in this magnificent Work which though it have its defects is yet an excellent and useful body of Laws and has met with great acceptance in all Ages and civilized Nations And even the barbarous People themselves when they vanquisht the Empire submitted to its Laws as we shall particularly see in the Laws of the Goths and Franks I have here dropt in this short account of the Theodosian Code both because it came in my way under this Emperor's reign and because every Reader might understand the great Authority of this Book upon which we relye so much through this whole discourse But now I proceed to his own particular Laws His first in the Title de Episcopis in the year 416 was made for the regulation of the Parabolani of Alexandria a sort of Monks that practised Physick especially in times of the Plague or other contagious Diseases therein laying aside all regard to their own safety whence they had the name of Parabolani i. e. desperate or fearless Men hence in St. Paul's description of Epaphroditus his great Zeal for the Gospel he tells the Philippians among other Praises that for the sake of Christ he had been near unto death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 neglecting his own life or as an old Latin Interpreter renders it parabolatus est animam suam he parabolated his own life Now these Men taking upon themselves such a popular piece of Charity they as it naturally falls out in such Cases grew insolent and became very troublesom to the Government raised Tumults thrust themselves into Publick Affairs and will have all things govern'd by their own Will and Pleasure Upon this the Alexandrians Petition the Emperor to
Nestorians finding themselves every where excluded the Church by this Union spread abroad reports that Cyril had imbraced the Nestorian Faith and Letters are forged in his name condemning the Council of Ephesus and some new fanatick Hereticks plead his Authority for their own foolish Novelties And some over zealous Men of his own Party accuse him of too much complyance with the Hereticks and this cost Cyril some trouble and time to clear himself as well from the jealousie of his Friends as from the spite of his Enemies And so was the Catholick Church at length restored to Peace and Unity and as Cyril relates most of the Nestorians repenting of their Heresie were upon their submission restored to the Catholick Communion And to perfect the work Pope Sixtus writes to both the Bishops to commend them both for his white Boys quia ad beatum Apostolum Petrum fraternitas universa convenit And thus the Emperor having at last compast the Restitution of the Churches Peace for its lasting security he enacts a Rescript in the year 435 to root the Nestorian Heresie out of all his Dominions But why no sooner says Gothofred Because says he the Emperor might suppose that the Hereticks had been reclaimed by the sentence of the Council but now finding that they continued to spread abroad their Books and Opinions he thought it high time to stop the mischief by this severe Rescript This may be true though it is meer guess but if this learned Man had observed the contest between Cyril and John of Antioch and that it was 2 or 3 years after the Council before the Emperor could gain John and his Eastern Bishops intirely from the Party of Nestorius he would have found a very good reason why this Rescript was not sooner publisht viz. because till then Affairs were not ripe for it and if it had been publisht before this strong Party had been taken off it might have tempted them to join with the Heresie in good earnest But now when they had declared against it and Nestorius his own small Party was left alone it was seasonable to prevent its growth by the Execution of this smart Law and it did the work effectually for though for a time the Ghost of the Heresie skulkt up and down in other shapes and other languages yet it could never after get so much courage or confidence as to appear in its own form in publick The Rescript consists of three Parts First it commands That the followers of Nestorius should be call'd by no other name than the nick-name of Simonians from Simon Magus as if he were the Author of their Sect as Constantine the Great named the Arians Porphyrians Secondly that all his Books and all other Books whatsoever contrary to the Decrees of the Ephesine Council should be brought in and publickly burnt Thirdly that they should be debarr'd of all Meeting Places either in Publick or Private with the Penalty of Proscription of Goods upon all Offenders against any branch of this Law And because after this some Men publisht the same Opinions in new obscure and ambiguous Terms and indeavor'd to revive them under the Authority of some of the Ancients particularly Theodorus Mopsuestenus and Diodorus Tarsensis in their Writings against Eunomius and Apollinaris he publishes another Rescript in the year 448 against all such Attempts under the same Penalties The execution of both which Rescripts being injoined in good earnest by the Praetorian Praefects upon their Judges and Under-Officers soon did their own work And thus ended the Council and the Heresie together And things might have been much sooner and much more easily setled had they not been perplexed partly by the over-eagerness of Cyril in imposing his Anathema's as Articles of Faith which made John of Antioch and his Party fly off so that he was forced to quit that imposition before they could be reconciled But chiefly by the dishonesty of the Courtiers who took part with the Hereticks against the Authority of the Church and abused the Emperor with false tales and reports but otherwise all the proceedings in this Matter were fair and regular the Controversie was determin'd by the judgment of the Church and the judgment of the Church abetted by the Power of the Empire and that is the true and proper concurrence of both Jurisdictions in framing Ecclesiastical Laws § XVI The Nestorian Heresie being broke and vanquisht by the Authority of the Ephesine Council and the assistance of the Imperial Power the Church injoyed Peace for the space of eighteen years and govern'd it self by its own Provincial Synods without the need of any concurrence from the Civil State till the fiery Zeal of Abbot Eutyches an over-driving stickler against Nestorius broke out in new Combustions who out of too fierce and eager opposition to the exploded Heresie as it usually happens to Men of furious Tempers runs headlong into the contrary extreme So that whereas Nestorius held that the Divinity and Humanity in our Saviour were two distinct Persons as well as Natures he teaches that though they were two distinct Natures before the Incarnation yet after it they were blended into one And for this dull and absurd Metaphysicks of a thick-skull'd Monk or as Pope Leo calls it Error qui de imperitià magis quà m de versutiâ natus est not a whimsey of subtilty but dullness must the Christian World be set in Flames and Ashes rather then part with the honour of the deep Invention so that it brought much more perplexing trouble and disturbance to the Christian Church then the Nestorian Dream For though that was not overcome without great difficulty through the Treachery of the Eunuchs and the Courtiers yet Theodosius being now grown old and desirous of ease he submitted to their Power especially the Eunuch Chrysaphius who as he was his particular Favourite so was he Eutyches his particular Friend and he so managed the Emperor as Eusebius did Constantius and Eudoxius Valens that instead of assisting the Church with his Imperial Power he opprest and opposed it From whence it was that during all his Reign it could never cope with this Heresie though by the good providence of God it was effectually vanquish't under his Successor Marcian who came to the Crown both by the Marriage of Pulcheria Sister of Theodosius and the Choice of the Senate and the Army one of the greatest Princes in the Imperial Succession and the man that next to Constantine and Theodosius might have deserved the Sir-name of Great A Prince of great Conduct Courage Prudence and Piety a Lover of Justice and Honesty a strict observer of the Laws of the Church and the Empire and who by his wise management left all things in such a quiet posture as perhaps no other Reign can equal when the Successor came in not by Inheritance but Election And therefore I shall give the most exact account that I can of the Ecclesiastical Transactions of his Reign
not to say a greater only to avoid envy a Benefactor to Mankind as any Prince in the whole Succession He delivered Christendom from the Incursions of the Barbarians and when he found it not so properly invaded as besieged and in a great measure possest by them he not only subdued them all to the Empire but which was a much greater work to Civility and the Christian Faith and by that means he left the Peace of the World much better secured and its manners much more improved then they were before His next Improvement of the Creation were his numberless and prodigious Buildings by which he lest the World more habitable then he found it neither do I speak meerly of that vast number of great Cities that he built but of his great care to make Commerce easie and pleasant and remove the difficulties of travelling by building Bridges making High-ways founding Publick-houses for the reception of Strangers in all convenient places in these kind of works he was so munificent in all places that he might not improperly be stiled the Founder of the Roman Empire that as it were turned those vast Dominions into one City A Third Benefit to Posterity is his excellent Body of Laws and Rules of Government gathered out of the Records of that wise State for about 1300 Years A work so glorious in it self that it had been often attempted by the greatest men not only those of the more ancient Common-wealth but of the most polite and emproved Age it entertain'd the ambitious thoughts both of Caesar and Cicero But in vain so great a work was preserved for the glory of Justinian and though if we consider the remote Antiquity of the Laws the seeming inconsistency among themselves and the immense bulk of Books and Records in so long a Tract of time the undertaking must have seem'd an impossible thing to any other man yet he pursued it with that diligence as to bring the greatest work that was ever undertaken to perfection in a little time Now for all these good Deeds that he has done to all Posterity I think no man that pretends to any thing of gratitude or ingenuity can excuse himself from the obligation of doing honour but much more right to his Memory But beside all this his Cause is become the Controversie of all Christendom because the Power that he challenged and exercised in the Christian Church for which he is so much condemned by the Court of Rome is one of the inseparable Branches of Soveraignty and was always challenged by all Christian Emperors so that if the Princes of Christendom should suffer themselves to be stript of it they are thereby outed of one half of their Empire And the true rise of the Court of Romes displeasure against him was not upon the account of any of his own Actions but a late Contest viz. The Famous Quarrel between Paul the 5th and the State of Venice as Eusebius has very well observed about these three Articles 1. The Power of the Civil Magistrate to judge the Clergy in Criminal Causes 2. The Decree of the Senate to prohibit the erecting of new Churches or Religious Houses without the Consent of the State 3. Their Statute of Mortmain against settling Lands upon the Church without the same Consent How high this Quarrel run is vulgarly known but it was so managed by the Learned Men that appeared in behalf of the Senate as to refer its whole decision to the Justinian Law whereas the Pope on the contrary challenged a Superiority over all Laws and would submit to no Rule but his own Authority Now the reason why the Venetian Advocates insisted so stubbornly upon the Justinian Code was not only for the advantage of those several Precedents that we have seen above to warrant the proceedings of the State in the several matters of the present Controversie but chiefly because the Code of the Canons of the Universal Church were taken into the Justinian Code and made part of the Imperial Law and if they could but bring the Pope any way under the Canons that would carry their Cause for it not only proved in behalf of the State that the power of prohibiting Ecclesiastical Laws to be imposed upon their Subjects without their Consent was a right challenged by all Christian Princes but own'd by the Church in the General Councils it being the known Custom of the Fathers to send their Decrees to their Imperial Majesties for Approbation before they presumed to publish them to the World or impose them upon the Church This is the Argument insisted upon by Jacobus Leschasserius a Learned Civilian at Paris in his Apology in behalf of the Senate who recommends the Justinian Code as the Bull-wark of the Liberties of Christendom And this little Treatise first gave the hint to Christophorus Justellus to publish the Code of the Canons of the Universal Church Now when the Court of Rome had for so many Ages been used to an absolute and unlimited Authority it could not but gawl and fret their proud Spirits to hear of being brought into subjection to Imperial Laws and for that reason they set themselves with all the Arts of Malice to beat down the Credit and Reputation of the Justinian Code till at length from his Laws they proceeded to vent their Revenge upon his Person and that was the thing that gave so much joy and transport to Alemannus his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that now the World might see what kind of man this Justinian was who was so prophane as to take upon him a power of medling with Sacred Things and controuling Popes themselves But the indignity of so base a design soon provoked Learned Men to expose it to the World with that scorn that it deserved The first that appeared in the Cause that I know of was a Learned Man of our own Nation in the Year 1626 viz. Dr. Rive Advocate to his late Majesty a Gentleman equally eminent both for Learning and Loyalty in a little but a very ingenious Treatise upon the Argument Entituled Imperatoris Justiniani desensio adversus Alemannum The Book which is great pity is hard to be procured neither indeed had the Learned Author the advantage of some considerable Records that are now brought to light and though he was a Learned Man not only in his own Profession but all other Polite Learning yet I find that he was not so well acquainted with the Records of the Church as to be able to state that matter aright And therefore he is altogether mistaken in that part of his defence especially as to the Controversie of the tria Capitula but he followed the common opinion as it was stated by the Romanists against the Africans as I think all Writers have done to this very day But otherwise he has with great eloquence and strength of reason cleared the reputation of this great Prince from all their dull and dirty aspersions and Convicted the whole design of
Religion and Loyalty The Second Part. OR THE History of the Concurrence of the Imperial and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in the Government of the Church from the Beginning of the Reign of Jovian to the End of the Reign of Justinian By SAMUEL PARKER D.D. Arch-Deacon of Canterbury LONDON Printed for John Baker at the Three Pigeons in St. Paul's Church-yard MDCLXXXV TO THE READER THE Church of England having acknowledged and declared His Majestie 's Supremacy in Causes Ecclesiastical to be of the same Nature and Extent with that Authority that the Christian Emperors claim'd and exercised in the Primitive Church I deem'd it no unuseful piece of Service to my King and Country to inform my self and my Fellow-Subjects out of the Records of those times of our true Duty to the Royal Supremacy And to this end I have drawn up as exact a Chart as my little Skill could reach of the Primitive Practice of the Three first Centuries after the Empire became Christian. Neither have I only Surveyed and coasted the general History but have sounded every part of it and not only described the safe Passages and right Chanels through which the abler Pilots steer'd their Courses but the Shallows the Gulfs the Rocks and the Sands upon which the less Skilful or less Fortunate Shipwrackt their Governments Neither have I presumed to make any Political Remarks of my own but have only observed the Natural and Historical Events of Matters of Fact And by the Experience of 300 years in which all Experiments were tryed we are fully instructed in all the right and all the wrong Measures of Government in the Christian Church In the Reigns of the great Constantine Jovian Gratian Theodosius the Great Arcadius Honorius Theodosius the younger Marcian Leo Justin and Justinian are exemplified the Natural good Effects of abetting the Power of the Church by good Laws and their effectual Execution In the Reigns of Julian and Valentinian we may observe the inevitable Mischiefs of Toleration and Liberty of Conscience In the Reigns of Constantius and Valens but especially of Zeno and Anastasius are to be seen the fatal and bloody Consequences of pretended Moderation or as we phrase it comprehension that indeed unites all Parties but then it is like a Whirlpool into one common Gulf of Ruin and Confusion This is the short account of this Undertaking and the Historical Events of things being withal so very Natural they will of themselves amount to a fair Demonstration of the Necessity of Discipline in the Church and Penal Laws in the State All that I can ensure for the Performance is its Truth and Integrity I have faithfully and impartially perused all the most Material and Original Records both of Church and State and out of them and them alone have Collected the ensuing History and if that prove true and for that I stand bound the Conclusion that I aim at will make it self The CONTENTS SEct. I. The State of the Church under Jovian The Hypocrisie both of the Eusebians to recover their Bishopricks and of the Acacians to preserve theirs in owning the Nicene Faith page 1. § II. Of Valentinian his Edict for Liberty of Conscience The struglings of the Eusebians against the Acacians Their Councils at Lampsacus and Tyana to that end They are defeated by the juglings of the Acacians The dishonest craft of the two Leaders Eudoxius in the East and Auxentius in the West p. 7. § III. The Persecution of St. Basil by the Eudoxians his discourse with the Prefect Modestus Dear to the Emperor Valens Valens himself no Arian but abused by the Eudoxians the deplorable State of the Eastern Church at that time under their Oppressions St. Basil's misfortune in receiving Eustathius of Sebasta to communion The death of St. Athanasius The Heresie of Apollinaris how suppressed p. 27. § IV. The Election of St. Ambrose to the See of Milan The death of Valentinian the mischiefs he brought upon the Empire by his principle of Liberty of Conscience Themistius the Philosopher's Address to Valens in behalf of the Orthodox The Emperor Gratian's Rescripts and effectual Proceedings against Hereticks His restitution of the Discipline of the Church The bounds of the Imperial and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction briefly stated The great Schism at Antioch occasion'd by Julian's toleration p. 35. § V. The singular care of Theodosius the Great to settle the Church and Orthodox Faith Vindicated in his Institution of the Communicatory Bishops He summons the general Council at Constantinople and confirms all their Decrees by several Imperial Rescripts Wisely forbids all Disputes about Religion Assists the young Valentinian against the Tyrum Maximus and prevails with him to reverse his severe Rescript against the Catholicks p. 55. § VI. Valentinian made the first open breach upon the Power of the Church in taking to himself the Power of Judicature in Matters of Faith St. Ambrose his Sufferings upon that account His Embassy to Maximus his Wisdom and Courage Maximus his Conquest of Italy and overthrow by Theodosius The Stars raised by the Hereticks at Constantinople in the Emperor's absence The method of lying People into Tumults His effectual enacting and executing Laws against them settles the Church in Peace p. 66. § VII His Laws made without the concurrence of the Church for reforming the Abuses of Widows and Deaconesses the disorders of Monks and the Abuse of Church-Sanctuary p. 81. § VIII His Laws without the same concurrence against Manichees Apostates Pagans and in behalf of the Jews p. 89. § IX Of the Council of Aquileia Of the Schism at Rome between Damasus and Ursicinus Of the Schism at Alexandria between Peter and Lucius Of the Schism at Antioch between Paulinus and Flavianus p. 98. § X. The unparallell'd Immorality of the Priscillian Heresie The Prosecution of them by Ithacius justified against Mr. B. they were executed as Malefactors and Traitors not as Hereticks St. Martin's great indiscretion in interceding for them p. 124. § XI The praise of Theodosius against the Calumnies of Zosimns The Laws of his Son Arcadius against the Hereticks p. 152. § XII His Laws of Privilege to the Catholicks The several Laws of Tuition The Law of civil Decision in the Church by Arbitration The Laws against Appeals from the Church to the civil Power p. 167. § XIII His Laws of Reformation of Discipline Against the tumults of Monks the abuse of Sanctuary against the Johannites against Apostates In behalf of the Jews The Laws of Honorius against and for the Jews The Laws of both Emperors under the Title de Paganis p. 180. § XIV The history and design of the Theodosian Code Theodosius his own Novels Of the Parabolani of Alexandria The famous Law concerning the Churches of â—lâ—yricum explain'd together with his other Laws and the Laws of Valentinian the third p. 198. § XV. The History and Acts of the Council of Ephesus against Nestorius and Imperial ratification of the Decreeâ—â—f the Church by Marcian p. 225. § XVI The
which way his Pulse beat tamper with Meletius the Orthodox Bishop of Antioch and dear to the new Emperor who at that time resided there to call a Council and though they had in the time of Constantius deposed him for his Apostasie to the Nicene Faith yet now in this Council they unanimously declare for it and signify their Decree and the necessity of it to the Emperor in that they were now convinced that there was no other stop to be put to the Arian Blasphemy viz. that the Son was created out of nothing and by this false and dishonest shufling they out-witted the old Eusebian Knaves and riveted themselves in their new usurpt Preferments But this goes to the very heart of the poor outed Eusebians to be thus over-reach't and supplanted and to turn the whole Game it drives them into their old out-rage against the vir gregis the great Athanasius And so away post Euzoius the then deposed Bishop of Antioch and Lucius the pretended Bishop of Alexandria to Court and there take their old Method of ingaging some of the Eunuchs into their Party and particularly Probatius the Praepositus Cubiculi that succeeded Eusebius in that Office who had done so much mischief in the reign of Constantius and having secured their Patrons they accuse Athanasius to the Emperor upon these three Topicks First that there had been continual Complaints against him during the whole time of his Episcopacy Secondly that upon the truth of those Complaints he had been often banisht by his Predecessors Thirdly that he was the sole Author of all the present Troubles and Disturbances in the Church This is their old train of boldness but the Emperor was a wise Man and saw thrô their Designs and therefore sends them away with very severe threatnings and charges his Eunuchs never to meddle with such Matters under no less Penalty than the Rod and the Cudgel and entertains Athanasius with all the highest expressions of Respect and Honor and so for his short time setled the Church both in Peace and Truth This is the true state and story of the revival of the Arian Controversy under this Emperor that had slept under Julian And not as Sozomen suggests the contentiousness of the Bishops who he says under Julian when the Christian Religion lay at stake pieced together for the security of the common Cause as 't is the custom of all Men to make peace and join forces against a common Enemy but as soon as the danger is blown over to return to their old Fewds and Animosities The observation in general is too true but not rightly applyed to this particular case for the ground of the quarrel here was not the natural contentiousness of Mankind whilst in a condition of peace as the Historian remarks in that the Orthodox had never pieced with any of the other Parties either Eusebians or Acacians under Julian but as we have already seen casheir'd and condemn'd them both and setled the Nicene Faith So that under Jovian there was no new breach but even according to Sozomen's own account the new contest was raised by the Eusebian Bishops that had lost their Bishopricks under Constantius after the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia when they were over-reach't by the Acacians And that is the Argument of their Petition to this Emperor that things might stand as they were left by those Councils and that all after acts might be null'd i. e. that themselves might be restored to their Bishopricks That was the present quarrel and no dispute against the setled Faith for they had already declared for the Nicene Confession And therefore the Acacians upon their complaint against them for the Aëtian Heresy immediately protest against it to secure their Preferments And that was all along the state of this Controversy both before and after this time the zeal of good Men on one side for the true Faith and the Arts of ill Men on the other for Preferment and Court-favor This is hitherto evident from the beginning of the quarrel of Eusebius of Nicomedia with Athanasius and will appear as clearly in all the same Contests as long as they lasted under the succeeding Emperors § 2. Jovian dying suddainly no body knows of what though several wise philosophical Conjectures are made about it by the Historians after him Valentinian is chosen Emperor with a Nemine contradicente being a Man as Marcellinus himself confesses of universal reputation And he deserved it though it were only for that Prince-like saying after his Election when those that chose him press't him to take an Assistant in the Government he replyed when the Empire was vacant it was in your Power to choose me Emperor but now I am in possession of the Crown it is my business and none of yours to take care of the Common-Wealth He understood the true Rights of Soveraign Power in all Monarchies whether Hereditary or Elective and unless it be supreme and unaccountable it is so far from being any Power at all that it is the lowest and most abject kind of Subjection and of a great General he would by his being made Emperor have only become the publick Slave of the Rabble But he coming to the Crown after so many suddain turns and supposing the Empire very much distracted about Religion by so many changes of Government publishes an Edict for Liberty of Conscience ut unicuique quod animo imbibisset colendi libera facultas tributa sit that every Man may have liberty to use what Worship he will according to those Opinions that he had suckt in But then again soon finding himself setled in the Empire in the very same year anno 364 he forbids the night Sacrifices of the Heathens but is prevail'd upon to tolerate all those religious Rites that were celebrated by day And having gain'd so much ground he proceeds to countermine and blow up the Crafts of Julian who made all his Laws with a malicious Aspect towards the Christians and particularly that famous Law that no Man should be allowed to practise Physick or teach any Art or Science but by the approbation of the Magistrates of the place with his own impeperial Consent and by that means he shut all Christians out of any learned or ingenuous Imployment and therefore Valentinian as soon as he comes to the Crown cancels that Law and restores all Professors of Learning to their respective Thrones But as for the Church the Emperor being setled the poor hungry Eusebians that had been so long sequestred out of their Bishopricks resolve once more to try their Fortune and they poor Men had hard luck to quit their Faith as they had done under Jovian and yet not get their Preferments But they hope to meet with kinder usage from this Emperor and therefore send Hypatianus Bishop of Heraclea in an Ambassy to him to request a Council to which he as he was a very civil Gentleman and obliged at that time to
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
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
were shelter'd against the Laws and honest Men cheated of their Rights for I do not find any case in which it was at this time excepted but only Treason and therefore it was often requisite to give check to its Licentiousness as Theodosius here does in the Christian Church and Tiberius was forced to do as to the Heathen Asyla § VIII But beside these Laws made to abet the Laws of the Church he made divers relating to Matters of Religion which though they concern'd the Church concern'd the State more and therefore by vertue of that Authority that he enjoyed as a Soveraign Prince antecedently to the Institution of Christianity he made these Laws meerly by his own Imperial Authority without consulting the Church for the Security of the Empire And among these the most remarkable were the Laws against the Manichees who thô they pretended to the Name of Christians under that pretence warranted the Practice of all manner of Wickedness and Debauchery and therefore were prosecuted by the Emperors of all Principles as the common Enemies of the Peace of Mankind but most severely by this Great and Wise Prince Though before him Valentinian the Elder when he allowed Liberty to all other Sects Christiâ—â—s Jews and Heathens by which he embroil'd and endanger'd the Empire enacted against their Meetings with all manner of severity as a debaucht sort of People not to be endured in humane Society Or as Theodosius the younger expresses it in his Rescript against all sorts of Hereticks in which the Manichees are named in the last place with this particular severe Character Et qui ad imam usque scelerum nequitiam pervenerunt Manichaei as the very dregs of all Wickedness And therefore they are from time to time outlawed by Theodosius from all civil Rights and as for their Religion they are thrust down into the Catalogue of Apostates from the Christian Faith and reckoned in the same rank with Jews and Heathens and that was a Civility to Men that were Apostates from humane Nature Now as to such Laws as these it is evident that the Soveraign Power is enabled to enact them in both Capacities both as a Sovereign and as a Christian Sovereign and therefore because it belong'd to him to punish all Principles and Practices of Debauchery antecedently to his Christianity he for that reason proceeded against them without any consulting with the Church and that is the apparent reason why the Laws of the Empire against this debaucht Sect of Men are enacted purely by the Imperial Authority whereas all their Laws concerning Matters of Christian Faith or Discipline still warrant themselves by the Judgment and Advice of the Church But beside these Laws against these humane Beasts he enacted divers other Laws against Apostates Pagans and Jews by his own Imperial Authority His first Rescript against Apostates to Paganism was published in the year 381 and it was the first that was ever publisht against them For under Constantine and Constantius vast numbers of Heathens turn'd or pretended to turn Christians for a very obvious reason as too much appears through the whole train of the Story And the same Men under Julian turn'd Heathens again and so had the Liberty to continue under Valentinian the Moderate so that this was the first Emperor that had occasion to give check to the Sin of Apostacy And indeed he alone had Power to do it at that time for when they turn'd Apostates they were out of the Churches reach because the utmost Punishment that the Church can inflict is to cast them out of its Communion which is here done by the Crime it self And therefore such rank Offenders are only obnoxious to the Civil Powers for which reason Christian Princes were usually the more severe in their Penalties against them and here the Penalty is as the Lawyers Phrase it Intestability or disabling the Offenders from the Power of making a Will which was under that Government in a great measure to outlaw them or as it is express't in the next Law ut sint absque Jure Romano to deprive them of the Roman Rights and Liberties of which this was the greatest branch For in the Roman Empire there was no settled Inheritance of Estates but every man disposed of his own as he pleased by Will so that to deprive him of this Power was in a great measure to dispossess him of the Power over his own Estate And that was the proper Proportion of the Penalty to the Crime that whoever cast himself out of the Christian Church should be cast out of the Christian Empire too In the year 383 he publishes another Rescript against Apostates and in that distinguishes between Catechumenes and Christians baptized and limits the Penalty of the former Law to the latter sort of Offenders because they alone were properly to be accounted Christians whereas the Catechumenes were not as yet admitted into the Society of the Christian Church but were only Candidates for it and so they could not in any sense be term'd Apostates from the Church who were really never of it And at the same time that Theodosius publisht this Rescript in the East Valentinian publisht another in the West against all sorts of Apostates not only to Paganism but Manicheism and Judaism Which he reinforced in the year 391 limiting the meaning of the Law to the Christians baptized after the example of Theodosius by whom he was entirely govern'd in all things who indeed was so grateful to the Prince that advanced him to the royal Dignity that whil'st he lived he was a kind and tender Father to his Son but as he mitigated the Law by restraining its extent so he enhanced its severity by doubling its Penalties deposing the Apostate from all Honours and Dignities as well as depriving him of the Power over his own Estate and this without any hopes of Restitution upon Repentance Sed nec unquam in statum pristinum revertentur non flagitium morum obliterabitur poenitentiâ neque umbrâ aliquâ exquisitae defâ—nsionis aut Muniminiâ— obducetur But to return to Theodosius at the same time that he restrain'd Apostacy by his own Imperial Authority without any concurrence of the Power of the Church so did he by the same Power make severe Laws against Paganism it self His first Law against their Sacrifices bears date the same year and Gothofred thinks it the first that was made since the time of Constantius which is the Interval of 25 years and yet he could not be ignorant that even Valentinian the Elder made a severe Law against their Night Sacrifices and therefore I suppose the Learned Lawyers meaning is that this was the first Law that was made in all this time against all Heathen Worship in general and so it was for there is no other beside that particular Law of Valentinian against the Night Sacrifices And though Gratian shewed not a little displeasure at Rome against their
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
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
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
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
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
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
rational discourse of the true use of Councils and their Authoritative determinations in the Christian Church It is not say they to make new Doctrines of Faith but to protect the old Truths against the wantonness of Innovators so that if all men would be content with the Ancient Faith it would be needless for the Church to make any new Declarations but when men leave the old Track of Religion to loose themselves in their own new contrived Labyrinths and corrupt the plain and simple Truth with over nice and curious Inventions it is then necessary for the Church to stop their Vanity by its Authoritative Declaration of the Truth it self Not as if there were something defective in the Faith and the Church were always adding to it but to make such wholesome Provisions as it judges most convenient against all Innovated Doctrines And this they exemplifie by â—ll the Decrees of the several Councils against the Prophane Novelties of Arius Pâ—â—tinus Macedonius and Nestorius and shew that they were only Fences to guard and defend the simplicity of the Ancient Faith against the petulâ—nt Assaulâ—s of these several Hereticks and that they declare to be the ground of their present determination against Eutyches that it was only a Declaration of the old Truth against a new Heresie And much more to this purpose and it is the true State of the Authority of Councils to make Decrees to stop the vanities and singularities of Innovators and when they are made they become obligatory by their own Authority and nothing can hinder or take off their Obligation but an apparent contrariety to the Divine Law So that it neither concerns nor becomes the Subject to make a strict and Philosophical search after the truth of the Decree it is enough to him that it is not apparently false In all other Cases the Authority of the Church is sufficient to justifie his Obedience before God by whose Providence they were placed under their Government And the want of this just Civility to Superiors has in all Ages been the true Original of all disturbances in the Christian Church And this was the sence of the Emperor himself who immâ—dâ—ately upon the Receipt of this Report from the Fathers publishes an Edict to the talking Citizens of Constantinople forbidâ—ing all farther disputations about the Christian Faith in that all Controversies were now determined by the Authority of the Council against which he says it were prophaneness and sacriledge for any man to presume to set up his own Opinion and no less madness then to grâ—pe after more Light at noon day and therefore after this clear discovery of the â—ruth whoever will not acquiesce in it but makes farther Enquiry he can neither seek nor find any thing but falshood And for this reason all farther disputes are peremptorily forbidden as an insolent and intolerable affront to the Sacred Authority of the Council and this is enacted under the forementioned Penalties that he declared in the 6th Session for the Confirmation of their Exposition of Faith Deposition of the Clergy Disbanding of Souldiers and Banishment of Citizens And this was afterward alledged as a proper instance by Facundus Hermianensis to the Emperor Justinian against the condemnation of the tria capitula after they had been tryed and acquitted by the Council of Calcedon with this remark upon it The Emperor Marcian judged it no less than Prophaneness and Sacriledg to review the Sacerdotal Judgment and therefore that being once pass't it was an end of all Controversie Here behold a Prince indeed a true Father of the Common-Wealth and a true Son of the Church that does not dictate but follow Ecclesiastical Decrees declaring by his Edict That whoever after the settlement of the truth shall pretend to make any farther inquiry can seek for nothing but Error For this saying forever blessed be his Memory all the World over who not only recover'd the sinking Empire but also restored lasting Peace to the poor distracted Church This Edict was reinforced by a second a Month after and Copies of it sent to all the several Praefecti-praetorio for its more effectual Execution And they are both revived in a third Rescript published the year following in which this Heresie and all the ways of propagating it are supprest by all the punishments against all other Heretiques So that it is in reality a neat Compendium of all the Laws under the Title de Haereticis in the Theodosian Code And because the bastard Council of Ephesus under Dioscorus in which Flavianus Eusebius Theodoret and many other Catholick Bishops were condemn'd had been ratified by a Rescript of Theodosius he here cancels its full force as to all the Sufferers that were surviving And because the Eutychian Itch was got among the Monks of Jerusalem and Alexandria to the raising of botches and tumults especially at Jerusalem by the disorderly behavior of one Theodosius who made himself Bishop of the place the Emperor and Empress write to them to desist at their farther peril But it seems some were stubborn and irreclaimable and no sort of Men so obstinate as those that live remote from the Conversation of the World and therefore in the year 455 the Emperor renews his former Rescript particularly to be put in Execution at Alexandria where the Heresie most reign'd and that is the last time that he appear'd against them And thus in four years time by protecting the Church in its due Authority and by abetting their Decrees with Penal Laws and by seeing his own Laws put in effectual Execution he put an end to this powerful and prevailing Heresie though it had gain'd both the Eunuchs and the Empire to its side § XVII And thus this great Prince this pattern of Government to all his Successors as Evagrius stiles him having settled all things both in Church and State two years after dyes and is succeeded in the year 457 by Leo who was chosen by the unanimous Vote both of the Senate and the Army a Prince says Nicephorus that would have carried the Election in the most flourishing times of the old Common-Wealth when only worth gave right and title to Preferm%nt a Man of that strict and severe Vertue that he must have been chosen Augustus by the Cato's themselves But as great a Man as he was he found it an hard task to keep things in that good order in which they were left by his Predecessor For no sooner came the news of Marcian's death to Alexandria that Metropolis of Sedition but a few of the Eutychian Party among whom were only two Bishops accompanied with the City-rabble make Timotheus Aelurus their Bishop and most inhumanely murther Proterius at Divine service who had been chosen to that See by the Bishops of the Province upon the deposition of Dioscorus and not content with his blood they treat the dead body with all the circumstances of rudeness and barbarity Upon this Complaints are carried to the Emperor by both Parties
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
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
concerning Discipline His Laws concerning Faith are far from being numerous only three of his Predecessors and three of his own and all in pursuance of the Decrees and Definitions of the Church and those of his own are not so properly Laws as Confessions and Declarations of his own Faith sent to some Christian Bishops for their satisfaction and are nothing else than an owning or ratification of the four General Councils by whose Authority as he declares the Apostolical Faith was conveyed down through all Ages to his own time and for that reason he receives both the Nicene Faith because it was deliver'd down from the Apostles and the several Expositions of it by the following Councils Not as if that had been defective in perspicuity but because the Enemies of the truth had endeavor'd to subvert it some one and some another way therefore it was necessary for the Church in the following Councils to explain and defend its truth by Testimonies of Scripture and to anathematise all the Authors of prophane Novelties And for this very reason he lets all his Subjects know that there is no living for any Man within his Dominions that does not submit to the Authority of these Councils In all which he expresses so much Civility and Respect to the Jurisdiction of the Church that there is not an higher declaration of it in all the Imperial Laws so free is he in this matter from that imputation so confidently charged upon him by the Italians as Alemannus expresses it ad Religionis dogmata definienda ecclesiasticasque sanciendas leges effusa licentia a bold and saucy tampering with the Christian Faith which he was so far from ever attempting that no Prince ever declared more vehemently against that sacrilegious abuse of the Imperial Authority In the three following Titles de Sacrosanctis Ecclesiis de Episcopis et Clericis de Episcopali Audientiâ all the Laws enacted by himself are only so many Charters of Priviledg to the Church that express an high sense of Piety and Devotion and are withal contrived with so much prudence that whoever would go about to find fault with them must lay aside his Understanding as well as his Integrity And yet these are all the Laws of his own enacting in the Code for under all the following Titles he has only collected the Laws of his Predecessors without adding any of his own In his Novels as mighty and Ecclesiastical Legislator as he is taken to be his Laws of Religion are not so very numerous and those that are only revive Ecclesiastical Canons or Ecclesiastical Customs but are no new Institutions And any attempt of that kind was so far from finding any entertainment in his thoughts that he ever shun'd it with all manner of tenderness and declares upon all occasions that his Laws only wait as he is pleased to express himself upon the Canons of the Church The first Novel upon this Argument is the Third Enacted Anno 535 in the 9th Year of his Reign where he Enacts that in all Cathedral Churches the Clergy be stinted to a certain number but I hope no man can be so weak as to think that this was never Enacted before that time The next is the 5th de Monachis in which he only keeps the Monks to the Rules of their Institution but makes no new Rules of his own The 6th regulates the other Clergy according to the Canons of the Fathers as he declares in the Preface to it and there occurs nothing in it but what had been often commanded both by the Ecclesiastical and Imperial Law The 7th forbids all Alienations of the Goods of the Church The 9th gives the Church the Priviledge of prescribing for one hundred Years whereas the Plea of Possession against all other Prescription was limited to 30 and this he presents as a Religious Oblation to Almighty God These were all publish't in the same Year In the 11th he raises the place of his birth to the honour of an Arch-Bishoprick or Patriarchate to which he subjects Six Provinces that had hitherto belonged to the Arch-Bishop of Thessalonica and justifies his Power of doing it because the dignity of the Church naturally followed that of the State and therefore his Imperial Majesty having establisht a new Civil Prefecture in that City that gave it a new Prerogative in the Church for as in former times when the Prefecture of Illyricum was fixt at Sirmium then the Episcopal Primacy resided there but when afterward those Parts were invaded and laid wast by Attila King of the Huns Appennius the Prefect was forced to retire to Thessalonica the Archiepiscopal Dignity followed him thither Et Thessalonicensis Episcopus non suâ Authoritate sed sub umbrâ praefecturae meruit aliquam praerogativam i. e. And the Bishop of Thessalonica obtained the Prerogative not by Vertue of his own Authority but under the shelter of the Civil Prefecture And therefore the Emperor having instituted a new praefectus praetorio in his own City upon the Recovery of that part of the Empire that had been lost it was but fit and decent that upon that occasion it should be made an Archiepiscopal See And to it he subjected all Dacia and Pannonia Dacia then containing Transilvania Valachia and Moldavia Pannonia the lower Hungary the upper Austria Carinthia and Carniola as they are now divided And this being done he obtains of Pope Vigilius to grant the new Arch-Bishop his Legantine Dignity in those Provinces But here Baronius storms and says he extorted it by force and cruelty after the great falling out about the tria Capitula and that it was not honest to rob other Churches to enrich and advance his own But his passion has run him into a continued Train of mistakes For first the Grant of Vigilius was made at his first coming to the See as appears by Justinian's 131 st Novel in which it is mentioned that bears date in the Year 541 whereas there was no Quarrel between the Pope and the Emperor till after Vigilius his Journey to Constantinople which was not till the Year 547 neither did he suffer any force till the Year 551 as Baronius himself very well knows who has placed the Story of that Persecution in the History of that Year Neither secondly did the Pope grant the Metropolitical Dignity but only the Legantine Power the first was stablisht before by the Emperor and more then that an Archiepiscopal or Patriarchal Supremacy for at that time those words were synonymous to express the new Jurisdiction above Metropolitans Nor Thirdly were the Ancient and Original Rights of Thessalonica defrauded but only that part of the Empire that was newly Recovered and formerly belonged to Sirmium was settled in its Ancient State under the Metropolis of Justiniana But lastly the Cardinal has little reason to complain of robbing Peter to pay Paul if he would but reflect upon the Actions of the Popes about that time who with Force and Arbitrary Power both against
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
apparently the sense of that offensive passage though perhaps too loosly express't And as for the Opinion it self it has too long had too great a vogue amongst our modern Statesmen viz. that it is below the Wisdom of the State to concern it self in Men's various fancies about Religion but rather to leave them to the folly of their own Apprehensions and this they suppose the best security of the Publick Peace when every Man is indulged the liberty of his own little Conceit But this is a very short-sighted Prospect only providing for the present whereas if they would look home to the natural issue of the thing it tears the Nation into implacable Factions and Animosities For it is certain the People will be zealous for their Religion so that if they differ it is unavoidable but that they will quarrel and hence it has ever come to pass that all Schisms in the Church have ever concluded in Factions in the State So that here it is not material Whether these Controversies are of any moment or not as these Gentlemen would state the Matter but the thing to be first consider'd is Whether to indulge or suppress them be the most effectual way to secure the Publick Peace the first may do it for a short time but the last does it forever For Men will not be over-fond of disputing with a Rod at their backs and when they receive a lash for every Syllogism This I take to be the true state of the Controversie about Procopius that in this point he was as too many great and wise Men have been out in his Politicks but not in his Religion But in the last place say they he frequently makes use of the old Pagan terms and phrases as Fortune Fate Genii publick Genius Omens Oracles He does so but all learned Men know that these were long since become Terms of Art and even vulgar expressions Beside that Procopius was an Orator and familiarly conversant in all the Eloquence of the Ancients and therefore it is no wonder that he endeavour'd to imitate their Stile in familiar Phrases and forms of Expression Though after all he never used them in their proper sense but by way of Metaphor and Allusion with a quasâ— in their meaning as they have ever been used in all Ages and are so to this day And therefore as we find that Procopius has ever express't great kindness to the Christian Faith so we have no reason from any thing that occurs in his Writings to suspect his sincerity in it But what though there were no cruelty in executing the Laws against Dissenters and what if Justinian's practice was warranted by the Precedents of his Predecessors yet they spoil'd not a good work as he did by doing it meerly for covetousness For that says our ingenuous Author and his more ingenuous Commentator was the only thing that set him upon the Project to squeeze all their Estates into his own Coffers This at best is no better than ill-natur'd surmise and betrays the malignity of the Man for how can he look into any other Man's secret Intentions and if he cannot to pass such sowr judgment upon them can proceed from nothing but Malice and Ill-will But as ill-luck will have it here too the matter of Fact it self lyes cross to his ill-nature for whereas most of his Predecessors siezed the Fines and Forfeitures into their own Exchequer Justinian settles them upon the Church thus when in the leading Law of Arcadius and Honorius all Churches of Hereticks and all Goods and Endowments belonging to them are confiscated or forfeited fisco nostro to our Exchequer in the same Law as 't is recited in the Justinian Code instead of Fisco Nostro we read Ecclesiae Catholicae i. e. they are forfeited to the use of the Catholick Churches So little design of Covetousness had this great Emperor in his zeal against Hereticks that he remitted the Forfeitures due to himself by Law and settled them upon pious and charitable uses So that in all particulars our Author might better have vented his poison and ill-nature upon any Man than Justinian who of all the great Men that ever lived will the least endure to be abused But because his Covetousness is aggravated in every page of the Libel as a most insatiable gulf so that the whole Roman Empire was not sufficient to supply its cravings though he used all the ways of Rapin and Oppression to fill his Exchequer I will shew in two or three Instances that he was so far from laying new Burthens upon the Subject that he took off old settled and legal Taxes of mighty value to himself only because he thought them too hard and heavy upon his Subjects The first was the Lex Papia and all the Branches of the Law de Caducis added to it by which if a man had no Heirs of his own begetting or if the next Heirs died before their Actual Livery and Seisin of the Estate all such Estates came to the Imperial Crown which in so vast an Empire could not but arise to a Prodigious Revenue and yet he abrogated all these Laws for the ease of his Subjects as he declares in the Preface to his own Law Such is our Clemency that though all Bona Caduca are due to our Exchequer yet are we pleased to remit them all notwithstanding our Royal Prerogative preferring the common benefit of our good Subjects before our own private Advantage esteeming their Interest to be most our own The second Law was that of the Publicatio Bonorum or the Sale of the Goods and Chattels of all sorts of Malefactors whether Executed Out-lawed or Banished and that was a greater Revenue than the former and yet because it lookt harsh to this just and tender Prince he takes it quite away and setles all forfeited Estates upon the next of Kin. The third was that old and standing Practice of the Sale of all Offices by which the Emperor had a certain Sum not for the Office but his Suffrage in the same manner as if one should purchase a Bishoprick by buying a Conjedelire But this corrupt Custom he scorns and cashieres it as a base and un-Prince-like practice Because as he expresses it Justice we know will be done if we can any way oblige our Prefects and Governors of Provinces to administer Justice with clean hands abstain from Bribery and be content with their Pensions out of the Exchequer But this cannot otherways be brought about unless they may enter upon their places without charge giving nothing to the Prince upon pretence of Suffrage or to any other Officer whatsoever For we are well aware that though it lops off too great a branch of our Revenue yet it will redound to the unspeakable benefit of our good Subjects to be preserved from the oppression of our Officers and both the Empire and the Exchequer will flourish the more by a thriving People And if this Rule were once setled it is unimaginable