of their immunities, were oppressed by a vexatious law which compelled them to observe the festival of Easter the same day on which it was celebrated by the Christians.* And they might complain with the more reason, since the Catholics themselves did not agree with the astronomical calculations of their sovereign: the people of Constanti nople delayed the beginning of their Lent a whole week after it had been ordained by authority; and they had the pleasure of fasting seven days, while meat was exposed for sale by command of the emperor. The Samaritans of Palestine were a motley race, an ambiguous sect, rejected as Jews by the Pagans, by the Jews as schismatics, and by the Christians as idolaters. The abomination of the cross had already been planted on their holy mount of Garizim, but the persecution of Justinian offered only the alternative of baptism or rebellion. They chose the latter: under the standard of a desperate leader, they rose in arms, and retaliated their wrongs on the lives, the property, and the temples of a defenceless people. The Samaritans were finally subdued by the regular forces of the East; twenty thousand were slain, twenty thousand were sold by the Arabs to the infidels of Persia and India, and the remains of that unhappy nation atoned for the crime of treason by the sin of hypocrisy. It has been computed that one hundred thousand Roman subjects were extirpated in the Samaritan war,§ which converted himself employed by the emperor. (Asseman. Bib. Orient. tom. ii, p. 85.) Compare Procopius (Hist. Arcan. c. 28, and Aleman's Notes) with Theophanes (Chron. p. 190.) The council of Nice has intrusted the patriarch, or rather the astronomers, of Alex andria, with the annual proclamation of Easter; and we still read, or rather we do not read, many of the Paschal epistles of St. Cyril Since the reign of Monophysitism in Egypt, the Catholics were perplexed by such a foolish prejudice as that which so long opposed, among the Protestants, the reception of the Gregorian style.

For the religion and history of the Samaritans, consult Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, a learned and impartial work.

Sichem, Neapolis, Naplous, the ancient and modern seat of the Samaritans, is situate in a valley between the barren Ebal, the mountain of cursing, to the north, and the fruitful Garizim, or mountain of blessing, to the south, ten or eleven hours' travel from Jerusalem. See Maundrell, Journey from Aleppo, &c. p. 59-63.

§ Procop. Anecdot. c. 11; Theophan. Chron. p. 152; John Malalas Chron. tom. ii, p. 62. I remember an observation, half philosphical, half superstitious, that the province which had been ruined by the bigotry of Justinian, was the same through which the Mahometans

the once fruitful province into a desolate and smoking wilderness. But in the creed of Justinian, the guilt of murder could not be applied to the slaughter of unbelievers; and he piously laboured to establish with fire and sword the unity of the Christian faith.

With these sentiments, it was incumbent on him, at least, to be always in the right. In the first years of his administration, he signalized his zeal as the disciple and patron of orthodoxy: the reconciliation of the Greeks and Latins established the tome of St. Leo as the creed of the emperor and the empire; the Nestorians and Eutychians were exposed, on either side, to the double edge of persecution; and the four synods of Nice, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon, were ratified by the code of a Catholic lawgiver.† But while Justinian strove to maintain the uniformity of faith and worship, his wife Theodora, whose vices were not incompatible with devotion, had listened to the Monophysite teachers; and the open or clandestine enemies of the church revived and multiplied at the smile of their gracious patroness. The capital, the palace, the nuptial bed, were torn by spiritual discord: yet so doubtful was the sincerity of the oyal consorts, that their seeming disagreement was imputed by many to a secret and mischievous confederacy against the religion and happiness of their people. The famous dispute of the THREE CHAPTERS, § which has filled more penetrated into the empire. *The expression of Procopius is remarkable: οὐ γὰρ οἱ ἐδόκει φόνος ἀνθρώπων εἶναι, ἤν γε μὴ τῆς αὐτοῦ δόξης οἱ τελευτῶντες τύχοιεν ὄντες. Anecdot. c. 13.

See the Chronicle of Victor, p. 328, and the original evidence of the laws of Justinian. During the first years of his reign, Baronius himself is in extreme good humour with the emperor, who courted the popes, till he got them into his power.

Procopius, Anecdot. c. 13; Evagrius, 1. 4, c. 10. If the ecclesiastical never read the secret historian, their common suspicion proves at least the general hatred. § On the subject of the three chapters, the original acts of the fifth general council of Constaninople supply much useless though authentic knowledge. (Concil. lom. vi, p. 1—194.) The Greek Evagrius is less copious and correct (l. 4, c. 38) than the three zealous Africans, Facundus (in his twelve cooks de tribus capitulis, which are most correctly published by Sirmond), Liberatus (in his Breviarum, c. 22-24), and Victor Tununensis in his Chronicle (in tom. i, Antiq. Lect. Canisii, p. 330-334). The Liber Pontificalis, or Anastasius (in Vigilio Pelagio, &c.) is original Italian evidence. The modern reader will derive some information from Dupin (Bibliot. Eccles. tom. 5. p. 189-207), and Basnage, (Hist.

volumes than it deserves lines, is deeply marked with this subtle and disingenuous spirit. It was now three hundred years since the body of Origen* had been eaten by the worms: his soul, of which he held the pre-existence, was in the hands of its Creator, but his writings were eagerly perused by the monks of Palestine. In these writings, the piercing eye of Justinian descried more than ten metaphysical errors; and the primitive doctor, in the company of Pythagoras and Plato, was devoted by the clergy to the eternity of hell-fire, which he had presumed to deny. Under the cover of this precedent, a treacherous blow was aimed at the council of Chalcedon. The fathers had listened without impatience to the praise of Theodore of Mopsuestia :† and their justice or indulgence had restored both Theodoret of Cyrrhus, and Ibas of Edessa, to the communion of the church. But the characters of these Oriental bishops were tainted with the reproach of heresy; the first had been the master, the two others were the friends of Nestorius; their most suspicious passages were accused under the title of the three chapters; and the condemnation of their memory must involve the honour of a synod, whose name was pronounced with sincere or affected reverence by the Catholic world. If these bishops, whether innocent or guilty, were annihilated in the sleep of death, they would not probably be awakened by the clamour which after a hundred years was raised over their grave. If they were already in the fangs of the demon, their torments could neither be aggravated nor assuaged by

de l'Eglise, tom. i, p. 519–541); yet the latter is too firmly resolved to depreciate the authority and character of the popes. ["The Three Chapters,” is an incorrect translation of περὶ τριῶν κεφαλαίων—de tribus capitulis, which denoted, not chapters, but the three heads or points of dispute which had so long agitated the church (Neander, 4, 254). This edict was designed by Justinian, like the Henoticon of Zeno, to compose differences, but was equally ineffectual.-ED.]

* Origen had indeed too great a propensity to imitate the πλávη and dvooßeia of the old philosphers. (Justinian, ad Mennam, in Concil. tom. vi, p. 356.) His moderate opinions were too repugnant to the zeal of the church, and he was found guilty of the heresy of reason.

Basnage (Prefat. p. 11-14, ad tom. i, Antiq. Lect. Canis.) has fairly weighed the guilt and innocence of Theodore of Mopsuestia. If he composed ten thousand volumes, as many errors would be a charitable allowance. In all the subsequent catalogues of heresiarchs, he alone, without his two brethren, is included: and it is the duty of Asseman (Bibliot. Orient. tom. iv, p. 203–207) to justify the sentence.

human industry. If in the company of saints and angels they enjoyed the rewards of piety, they must have smiled at the idle fury of the theological insects who still crawled on the surface of the earth. The foremost of these insects, the emperor of the Romans, darted his sting, and distilled his venom, perhaps without discerning the true motives of Theodora and her ecclesiastical faction. The victims were no longer subject to his power, and the vehement style of his edicts could only proclaim their damnation, and invite the clergy of the East to join in a full chorus of curses and anathemas. The East, with some hesitation, consented to the voice of her sovereign: the fifth general council, of three patriarchs and one hundred and sixty-five bishops, was held at Constantinople; and the authors, as well as the defenders, of the three chapters were separated from the communion. of the saints, and solemnly delivered to the prince of darkness. But the Latin churches were more jealous of the honour of Leo and the synod of Chalcedon; and if they had fought as they usually did under the standard of Rome, they might have prevailed in the cause of reason and humanity. But their chief was a prisoner in the hands of the enemy; the throne of St. Peter, which had been disgraced by the simony, was betrayed by the cowardice, of Vigilius, who yielded, after a long and inconsistent struggle, to the despotism of Justinian and the sophistry of the Greeks. His apostacy provoked the indignation of the Latins, and no more than two bishops could be found who would impose their hands on his deacon and successor Pelagius. Yet the perseverance of the popes insensibly transferred to their adversaries the appellation of schismatics; the Illyrian, African, and Italian churches, were oppressed by the civil and ecclesiastical powers, not without some effort of military force; the distant barbarians transcribed the creed of the Vatican, and in the period of a century, ine schism of the three chapters expired in an obscure angle of the Venetian

* See the complaints of Liberatus and Victor, and the exhortations of Pope Pelagius to the conqueror and exarch of Italy. Schisma.... per potestates publicas opprimatur, &c. (Concil. tom. vi, p. 467, &c.). An army was detained to suppress the sedition of an Illyrian city. See Procopius (de Bell. Goth. I. 4, c. 25): ŵvπep öveka opioir avrołę οἱ Χριστιανοὶ διαμάχονται. He seems to promise an ecclesiastical history. It would have been curious and impartial.

province.* But the religious discontent of the Italians had already promoted the conquests of the Lombards, and the Romans themselves were accustomed to suspect the faith, and to detest the government, of their Byzantine tyrant.

Justinian was neither steady nor consistent in the nice process of fixing his volatile opinions and those of his subjects. In his youth he was offended by the slightest deviation from the orthodox line; in his old age he transgressed the measure of temperate heresy; and the Jacobites, not less than the Catholics, were scandalized by his declaration that the body of Christ was incorruptible, and that his manhood was never subject to any wants and infirmities, the inheritance of our mortal flesh. This phantastic opinion was announced in the last edicts of Justinian; and at the moment of his seasonable departure, the clergy had refused to subscribe, the prince was prepared to persecute, and the people were resolved to suffer or resist. A bishop of Treves, secure beyond the limits of his power, addressed the monarch of the East in the language of authority and affection. "Most gracious Justinian, remember your baptism and your creed! Let not your grey hairs be defiled with heresy. Recall your fathers from exile, and your followers from perdition. You cannot be ignorant, that Italy and Gaul, Spain and Africa, already deplore your fall, and anathematize your name. Unless, without delay, you destroy what you have taught; unless you exclaim with a loud voice, I have erred, I have sinned, anathema to Nestorius, anathema to Eutyches, you deliver your soul to the same flames in which they will eternally burn." He died and made no sign. His death restored in some degree the peace of the church, and the reigns of his four successors, Justin, Tiberius, Maurice, and Phocas, are distinguished by a rare, though fortunate, vacancy, in the ecclesiastical history of the East.‡

* The bishops of the patriarchate of Aquileia were reconciled by Pope Honorius, A.D. 638 (Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. v, p. 376); but they again relapsed, and the schism was not finally extinguished till 698. Fourteen years before, the church of Spain had overlooked the fifth general council with contemptuous silence. (13 Concil. Toletan. in Concil. tom. vii, p. 487-494). Nicetius, bishop of Treves (Concil. tom. vi, p. 511-513); he himself, like most of the Gallican prelates (Gregor. Epist. 1. 7, ep. 5, in Concil. tom. vi, p. 1007), was separated from the communion of the four patriarchs by his refusal to condemn the three chapters. Baronius almost pronounces the damnation of Justinian (A.D. 565, No. 6). After relating the