The faculties of sense and reason are least capable of act ing on themselves; the eye is most inaccessible to the sight, the soul to the thought; yet we think, and even feel, that one will, a sole principle of action, is essential to a rational and conscious being. When Heraclius returned from the Persian war, the orthodox hero consulted his bishops, whether the Christ whom he adored, of one person, but of two natures, was actuated by a single or a double will. They replied in the singular, and the emperor was encouraged to hope that the Jacobites of Egypt and Syria might be reconciled by the profession of a doctrine, most certainly harmless, and most probably true, since it was taught even by the Nestorians themselves.* The experiment was tried without effect, and the timid or vehement Catholics condemned even the semblance of a retreat in the presence of & subtle and audacious enemy. The orthodox (the prevailing) party devised new modes of speech, and argument, and interpretation: to either nature of Christ, they speciously applied a proper and distinct energy; but the difference was no longer visible when they allowed that the human and the divine will were invariably the same. The disease was attended with the customary symptoms; but the Greek clergy, as if satiated with the endless controversy of the incarnation, instilled a healing counsel into the ear of the prince and people. They declared themselves MONOTHELITES (assertors of the unity of will), but they treated the words as new, the questions as superfluous: and recom

last heresy of Justinian (1. 4, c. 39-41), and the edict of his successor (1. 5, c. 3,) the remainder of the history of Evagrius is filled with civil, instead of ecclesiastical, events. * This extraordinary, and perhaps inconsistent, doctrine of the Nestorians, had been observed by La Croze (Christianisme des Indes, tom. i, p. 19, 20), and is more fully exposed by Abulpharagius (Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii, p. 292, Hist. Dynast. p. 91, vers. Latin. Pocock.), and Asseman himself (tom. iv, p. 218). They seem ignorant that they might allege the positive athority of the ecthesis. Ο μίαρος Νεστόριος καίπερ διαίρων τὴν θείαν τοῦ Κυρίου ἐνανθρώπησιν, καὶ δύο εἰσάγων υἱοὺς, (the common reproach of the Monophysites,) δύο θελήματα τούτων εἴπειν οὐκ ἐτόλ μησε, τουναντιον δὲ ταῦτο Βουλίαν τῶν . . δύο πρόσωπων ἐδόξασε. (Concil. tom. vii, p. 205). See the orthodox faith in Petavius (Dogmata Theolog. tom. v, 1. 9, c. 6-10, p. 433-447); all the depths of this controversy are sounded in the Greek dialogue between Maximus and Pyrrhus, (ad calcem tom. viii, Annal. Baron. p. 755-794,) which relates a real conference, and produced as short

mended a religious silence as the most agreeable to the prudence and charity of the gospel.

This law of silence was successively imposed by the ecthesis or exposition of Heraclius, and the type or model of his grandson Constans; and the Imperial edicts were subscribed with alacrity or reluctance by the four patriarchs of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch. But the bishop and monks of Jerusalem sounded the alarm in the language, or even in the silence, of the Greeks, the Latin churches detected a latent heresy; and the obedience of pope Honorius to the commands of his sovereign was retracted and censured by the bolder ignorance of his successors. They condemned the execrable and abominable heresy of the Monothelites, who revived the errors of Manes, Apollinaris, Eutyches, &c.; they signed the sentence of excommunication on the tomb of St. Peter; the ink was mingled with the sacramental wine, the blood of Christ; and no ceremony was omitted that could fill the superstitious mind with horror and affright. As the representative of the Western church, pope Martin and his Lateran synod anathematized the perfidious and guilty silence of the Greeks; one hundred and five bishops of Italy, for the most part the subjects of Constans, presumed to reprobate his wicked type and the impious ecthesis of his grandfather, and to confound the authors and their adherents with the twenty-one notorious heretics, the apostates from the church, and the organs of the devil. Such an insult under the tamest reign could not pass with impunity. Pope Martin ended his days on the inhospitable shore of the Tauric Chersonesus, and his oracle, the abbot Maximus, was inhumanly chastised by the amputation of his tongue and his right hand.† But the same invincible spirit survived in their successors, and the triumph of the Latins avenged their recent defeat, and obli

lived a conversion. * Impiissimam ecthesim . . . . scelerosum typum (Concil. tom. vii, p. 366,) diabolicæ operationis genimina, (fors. germina, or else the Greek yevvýpara in the original. Concil. p. 363, 364,) are the expressions of the eighteenth anathema. The epistle of Pope Martin to Amandus, a Gallican bishop, stigmatizes the Monothelites and their heresy, with equal virulence (p. 392).

The sufferings of Martin and Maximus are described with pathetic simplicity in their original letters and acts (Concil. tom. vii, p. 63-78. Baron. Annal. Eccles. A.D. 656, No. 2, et annos subsequent.). Yet the chastisement of their disobedience, εξόρια and σώματος αἴκισμος, had

terated the disgrace of the three chapters. The synods of Rome were confirmed by the sixth general council of Con stantinople, in the palace and the presence of a new Constantine, a descendant of Heraclius. The royal convert con verted the Byzantine pontiff and a majority of the bishops;* the dissenters, with their chief, Macarius of Antioch, were condemned to the spiritual and temporal pains of heresy; the East condescended to accept the lessons of the West; and the creed was finally settled, which teaches the Catholics of every age that two wills or energies are harmonized in the person of Christ. The majesty of the pope and the Roman synod was represented by two priests, one deacon, and three bishops; but these obscure Latins had neither arms to compel, nor treasures to bribe, nor language to persuade; and I am ignorant by what arts they could determine the lofty emperor of the Greeks to abjure the catechism of his infancy, and to persecute the religion of his fathers. Perhaps the monks and people of Constantinoplet were favourable to the Lateran creed, which is indeed the least reasonable of the two and the suspicion is countenanced by the unnatural moderation of the Greek clergy, who appear in this quarrel to be conscious of their weakness. While the synod debated, a fanatic proposed a more summary decision, by raising a dead man to life: the prelates assisted at the trial, but the acknowledged failure may serve to indicate, that the passions and prejudices of the multitude were not enlisted on the side of the Monothelites. In the next generation, when the son of Constantine was deposed and slain by the disciple of Macarius, they tasted the feast of revenge and dominion: the image or monument of the sixth council was defaced, and the original acts were committed to the flames. But in the second year, their been previously announced in the type of Constans. (Concil tom. vii, p. 240.) * Eutychius (Annal. tom. ii, p. 368,) most erroneously supposes that the one hundred and twenty-four bishops of the Roman synod transported themselves to Constantinople; and, by adding them to the one hundred and sixty-eight Greeks, thus composes the sixth council of two hundred and ninety-two fathers.

The Monothelite Constans was hated by all dià roì raŭra (says Theophanes, Chron. p. 292,) έμισηθη σφοδρῶς παρα πάντων. When the Monothelite monk failed in this miracle, the people shouted-d λads aveẞónoɛ. (Concil. tom. vii, p. 1032.) But this was a natural and transient emotion; and I much fear that the latter is an anticipation of orthodoxy in the good people of Constantinople.

patron was cast headlong from the throne, the bishops of the East were released from their occasional conformity, the Roman faith was more firmly replanted by the orthodox successors of Bardanes, and the fine problems of the incarnation were forgotten in the more popular and visible quarrel of the worship of images.*

Before the end of the seventh century, the creed of the incarnation, which had been defined at Rome and Constantinople, was uniformly preached in the remote islands of Britain and Ireland,† the same ideas were entertained, or rather the same words were repeated, by all the Christians whose liturgy was performed in the Greek or the Latin tongue. Their numbers, and visible splendour, bestowed an imperfect claim to the appellation of Catholics: but in the East, they were marked with the less honourable name

* The history of Monothelitism may be found in the Acts of the Synods of Rome (tom. vii, p. 77-395. 601-608), and Constantinople (p. 609-1429). Baronius extracted some original documents from the Vatican library; and his chronology is rectified by the diligence of Pagi. Even Dupin (Bibliothèque Ecclés. tom. vi, p. 57-71,) and Basnage (Hist. de l'Eglise, tom. i, p. 541-555,) afford a tolerable abridgment. In the Lateran synod of 679, Wilfrid, an Anglo-Saxon bishop, subscribed pro omni aquilonari parte Britanniæ et Hiberniæ, quæ ab Anglorum et Brittonum, necnon Scotorum et Pictorum, gentibus colebantur. (Eddius, in Vit. St. Wilfrid. c. 31, apud Pagi, Critica, tom. iii, p. 88.) Theodore (magnæ insulæ Britanniæ archiepiscopus et philosophus) was long expected at Rome (Concil. tom. vii, p. 714); but he contented himself with holding (a.D. 680) his provincial synod of Hatfield, in which he received the decrees of Pope Martin and the first Lateran council against the Monothelites. (Concil. tom. vii, p. 597, &c.) Theodore, a monk of Tarsus in Cilicia, had been named to the primacy of Britain by Pope Vitalian (A.D. 668, see Baronius and Pagi), whose esteem for his learning and piety was tainted by some distrust of his national character-ne quid contrarium veritati fidei, Græcorum more, in ecclesiam cui præesset introduceret. The Cilician was sent from Rome to Canterbury under the tuition of an African guide. (Bedæ Hist. Eccles. Anglorum, 1. 4, c. 1.) He adhered to the Roman doctrine; and the same creed of the incarnation has been uniformly transmitted from Theodore to the modern primates, whose sound understanding is perhaps seldom engaged with that abstruse mystery. [Wighard, who had been appointed to the see of Canterbury by Egbert, king of Kent, died at Rome, whither he had gone for ordination. Vitalian selected in his place Hadrian, abbot of the Niridian monastery near Naples, who declined the dignity, and recommended the monk Theodore. This choice the hope confirmed, on condition that Hadrian should accompany his friend. On their arrival, the new archbishop gave to his associate

of Melchites or royalists;* of men, whose faith, instead of resting on the basis of Scripture, reason, or tradition, had been established, and was still maintained, by the arbitrary power of a temporal monarch. Their adversaries might allege the words of the fathers of Constantinople, who profess themselves the slaves of the king; and they might relate, with malicious joy, how the decrees of Chalcedon had been inspired and reformed by the emperor Marcian and his virgin bride. The prevailing faction will naturally inculcate the duty of submission, nor is it less natural that dissenters should feel and assert the principles of freedom. Under the rod of persecution, the Nestorians and Monophysites degenerated into rebels and fugitives; and the most ancient and useful allies of Rome were taught to consider the emperor not as the chief, but as the enemy of the Christians. Language, the leading principle which unites or separates the tribes of mankind, soon discriminated the sectaries of the East, by a peculiar and perpetual badge, which abolished the means of intercourse and the hope of reconciliation. The long dominion of the Greeks, their colonies, and, above all, their eloquence, had propagated a language, doubtless the most perfect that has been contrived by the art of man. Yet the body of the people, both in Syria and Egypt, still persevered in the use of their national idioms; with this difference, however, that the Coptic was confined to the rude and illiterate peasants of the Nile, while the Syriac,† from the mountains of Assyria to the Red sea, was

the abbey of St. Peter (afterwards St. Augustine's); they not only acted together in cordial harmony, but diffused the same spirit around them. Bede says, that Theodore was the first "whom all the English church obeyed." (Ecc. Hist. p. 170-172, edit. Bohn.)—ED.]

This name, unknown till the tenth century, appears to be of Syriac origin. It was invented by the Jacobites, and eagerly adopted by the Nestorians and Mahometans; but it was accepted without shame by the Catholics, and is frequently used in the Annals of Eutychius. (Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii, p. 507, &c.; tom. iii, p. 355. Renaudot. Hist. Patriarch. Alexandrin. p. 119.) 'Hμɛły doúλoi Toù Basilews, was the acclamation of the fathers of Constantinople. (Concil. tom. vii, p. 765.)

The Syriac, which the natives revere as the primitive language, was divided into three dialects.-1. The Aramæan, as it was refined at Edessa and the cities of Mesopotamia. 2. The Palestine, which was used in Jerusalem, Damascus, and the rest of Syria. 3. The Nabathæan, the rustic idiom of the mountains of Assyria and the villages of