LII. CHAP. masters. The empire of the Cæsars undoubtedly checked the activity and progress of the human mind; its magnitude might indeed allow some scope for domestic competition; but when it was gradually reduced, at first to the East, and at last to Greece and Constantinople, the Byzantine subjects were degraded to an abject and languid temper, the natural effect of their solitary and insulated state. From the North they were oppressed by nameless tribes of barbarians, to whom they scarcely imparted the appellation of men. The language and religion of the more polished Arabs were an unsurmountable bar to all social intercourse. The conquerors of Europe were their brethren in the christian faith; but the speech of the Franks or Latins was unknown, their manners were rude, and they were rarely connected, in peace or war, with the successors of Heraclius. Alone in the universe, the self-satisfied pride of the Greeks was not disturbed by the comparison of foreign merit; and it is no wonder if they fainted in the race, since they had neither competitors to urge their speed, nor judges to crown their victory. The nations of Europe and Asia were mingled by the expeditions to the Holy Land; and it is under the Comnenian dynasty that a faint emulation of knowledge and military virtue was rekindled in the Byzantine empire. CHAP. LIV. Origin and doctrine of the Paulicians—Their persecution by the Greek emperors-Revolt in Armenia, &c.-Transplantation into Thrace -Propagation in the West-The seeds, character, and consequences of the reformation. LIV. Supine su of the church. IN the profession of christianity, the variety of CHAP. national characters may be clearly distinguished. The natives of Syria and Egypt abandoned their lives to lazy and contemplative devo- perstition tion: Rome again aspired to the dominion of Greek the world; and the wit of the lively and loquacious Greeks was consumed in the disputes of metaphysical theology. The incomprehensible mysteries of the trinity and incarnation, instead of commanding their silent submission, were agitated in vehement and subtle controversies, which enlarged their faith at the expence perhaps of their charity and reason. From the council of Nice to the end of the seventh century, the peace and unity of the church was invaded by these spiritual wars; and so deeply did they affect the decline and fall of the empire, that the historian has too often been compelled to attend the synods, to explore the creeds, and to enumerate the sects, of this busy period of ecclesiastical annals. From the beginning of the eighth century to the last ages of the Byzantine empire, the sound of controversy was seldom heard: curiosity was exhausted, CHAP zeal was fatigued, and, in the decrees of six LIV. councils, the articles of the catholic faith had been irrevocably defined. The spirit of dispute, however vain and pernicious, requires some energy and exercise of the mental faculties; and the prostrate Greeks were content to fast, to pray, and to believe, in blind obedience to the patriarch and his clergy. During a long dream of superstition, the virgin and the saints, their visions and miracles, their relics and images, were preached by the monks and worshipped by the people; and the appellation of people might be extended without injustice to the first ranks of civil society. At an unseasonable moment, the Isaurian einperors attempted somewhat rudely to awaken their subjects: under their influence, reason might obtain some proselytes, a far greater number was swayed by interest or fear; but the Eastern world embraced or deplored their visible deities, and the restoration of images was celebrated as the feast of orthodoxy. In this passive and unanimous state the ecclesiastical rulers were relieved from the toil, or deprived of the pleasure, of persecution. The pagans had disappeared; the Jews were silent and obscure; the disputes with the Latins were rare and remote hostilities against a national enemy; and the sects of Egypt and Syria enjoyed a free toleration, under the shadow of the Arabian caliphs. About the middle of the seventh century, a branch of manichæans was selected as the victims of spiritual tyranny: their patience was at length exasperated to despair and rebellion; and their exile has scat. tered over the West the seeds of reformation. These important events will justify some enquiry into the doctrine and story of the paulicians; and, as they cannot plead for themselves, our candid criticism will magnify the good, and abate or suspect the evil, that is reported by their adversaries. CHAP. LIV. A. D. 660 &c. The guostics, who had distracted the infancy, Origin of were oppressed by the greatness and authority, cians or disciples of the church. Instead of emulating or surpas- of St Paul, sing the wealth, learning, and numbers of the catholics, their obscure reinnant was driven from the capitals of the East and West, and confined to the villages and mountains along the borders of the Euphrates. Some vestige of the marcionites may be detected in the fifth century; but the numerous sects were finally lost in the odious name of the manichæans; and these heretics, who presumed to reconcile the doctrines of Zoroaster and Christ, were pursued by the two religions with equal and unrelenting hatred. Under the grandson of Heraclius, in the neighbourhood of Samosata, more famous for the birth of Lucian than for the title of a Syrian kingdom, a reformer arose, The errors and virtues of the paulicians are weighed, with his usual judgment and candour, by the learned Mosheim (Hist. Ecclesiast. seculum ix, p. 311, &c.) He draws his original intelligence from Photius (contra Manichæos, 1. i) and Peter Siculus (Hist. Manichæorum). The first of these accounts has not fallen into my hands; the second, which Mosheim prefers, I have read in a Latin version inserted in the Maxima Bibliotheca Patrum (tom. xvi, p. 754-764), from the edition of the Jesuit Raderus (Ingolstadii, 1604, in 4to.) In the time of Theodoret, the diocese of Cyrrhus, in Syria, contained eight hundred villages. Of these, two were inhabited by arians and eunomians, and eight by marcionites, whom the laborious bishop reconciled to the catholic church (Dupin, Bibliot. Ecclesiastique, tom, iv, p. 81, 82). LIV. CHAP. esteemed by the paulicians as the chosen messenger of truth. In his humble dwelling of Mananalis, Constantine entertained a deacon, who returned from Syrian captivity, and received the inestimable gift of the new testament, which was already concealed from the vulgar by the prudence of the Greek, and perhaps of the gnostic, clergy. These books became the measure of his studies and the rule of his faith; and the catholics, who dispute his interpretation, acknowledged that his text was genuine and sincere. But he attached himself with peculiar devotion to the writings and character of St. Paul. The name of the paulicians is derived by their enemies from some unknown and domestic teacher; but I am confident that they gloried in their affinity to the apostle of the gentiles. His disciples, Titus, Timothy, Sylvanus, Tychius, were represented by Constantine and his fellow-labourers: the names of the apostolic churches were applied to the congregations which they assembled in Armenia and Cappadocia; and this innocent allegory revived the example and memory of the first ages. In the gospel, and the epistles of St. Paul, his faithful follower investigated the creed of primitive christianity; and, whatever might be the success, a protestant reader will applaud the spirit of the enquiry. But if the scriptures of the paulicians were pure, they were not per Their Nobis profanis ista (sacra Evangelia) legere non licet sed sacerdotibus duntaxat, was the first scruple of a catholic when was advised to read the bible (Petr. Sicul. p. 761) |