A.D. 988.7

DECAY OF TASTE AND GENIUS.

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comedies of Menander, and the odes of Alcæus and Sappho. The frequent labour of illustration attests not only the existence, but the popularity of the Grecian classics; the general knowledge of the age may be deduced from the example of two learned females, the empress Eudocia and the princess Anna Comnena, who cultivated in the purple, the arts of rhetoric and philosophy.† The vulgar dialect of the city was gross and barbarous; a more correct and elaborate style distinguished the discourse, or at least the compositions, of the church and palace, which sometimes affected to copy the purity of the Attic models.

In our modern education, the painful though necessary attainment of two languages, which are no longer living, may consume the time and damp the ardour of the youthful student. The poets and orators were long imprisoned in the barbarous dialects of our western ancestors, devoid of harmony or grace; and their genius, without precept or example, was abandoned to the rude and native powers of their judgment and fancy. But the Greeks of Constantinople, after purging away the impurities of their vulgar speech, acquired the free use of their ancient language, the most happy composition of human art, and a familiar knowledge of the sublime masters who had pleased or instructed the first of nations. But these advantages only tend to aggravate the reproach and shame of a degenerate people. They held in their lifeless hands the riches of their fathers,

Clinton (F. H. ii. 355, 356. 391), whose conclusion is, that the oration which has been preserved is the spurious production of some later and inferior rhetorician.-ED.] * From obscure and hearsay evidence, Gerard Vossius (de Poetis Græcis, c. 6) and Le Clerc (Bibliothèque Choisie, tom. xix. p. 285), mention a commentary of Michael Psellus on twenty-four plays of Menander, still extant in MS. at Constantinople. Yet such classic studies seem incompatible with the gravity or dulness of a schoolman who pored over the Categories (De Psellis, p. 42); and Michael has probably been confounded with Homerus Sellius, who wrote arguments to the comedies of Menander. In the tenth century Suidas quotes fifty plays, but he often transcribes the old scholiast of Aristophanes. + Anna Comnena may boast of her Greek style (τὸ 'Ελληνίζειν ἐς ἄκρον ἐσπουδακυῖα), and Zonaras, her contemporary, but not her flatterer, may add with truth, γλῶτταν εἶχεν ἀκριβῶς ̓Αττικίζουσαν. The princess was conversant with the artful dialogues of Plato; and had studied the TerpаKTÙS, or quadrivium of astrology, geometry, arithmetic, and music. (See her preface to the Alexiad, with Ducange's notes.)

232

DECAY OF TASTE AND GENIUS. [CH. LIII.

without inheriting the spirit which had created and improved that sacred patrimony; they read, they praised, they compiled; but their languid souls seemed alike incapable of thought and action. In the revolution of ten centuries, not a single discovery was made to exalt the dignity or promote the happiness of mankind. Not a single idea has been added to the speculative systems of antiquity, and a succession of patient disciples became in their turn the dogmatic teachers of the next servile generation. Not a single composition of history, philosophy, or literature, has been saved from oblivion by the intrinsic beauties of style or sentiment, of original fancy, or even of successful imitation. In prose the least offensive of the Byzantine writers are absolved from censure by their naked and unpresuming simplicity; but the orators, most eloquent* in their own conceit, are the farthest removed from the models whom they affect to emulate. In every page our taste and reason are wounded by the choice of gigantic and obselete words, a stiff and intricate phraseology, the discord of images, the childish play of false or unseasonable ornament, and the painful attempt to elevate themselves, to astonish the reader, and to involve a trivial meaning in the smoke of obscurity and exaggeration. Their prose is soaring to the vicious affectation of poetry; their poetry is sinking below the flatness and insipidity of prose. The tragic, epic, and lyric muses, were silent and inglorious; the bards of Constantinople seldom rose above a riddle or epigram, a panegyric or tale; they forgot even the rules of prosody; and with the melody of Homer yet sounding in their ears, they confound all measure of feet and syllables in the impotent strains which have received the name of political or city verses.† The minds of the Greeks were bound in the fetters of a base and imperious superstition, which extends her dominion round the circle of profane science. Their understandings were bewildered in metaphysical controversy; in the belief of visions and miracles, they had lost

* To censure the Byzantine taste, Ducange (Prefat. Gloss. Græc. p. 17) strings the authorities of Aulus Gellius, Jerome, Petronius, George Hamartolus, Longinus; who give at once the precept and the example. The versus politici, those common prostitutes, as, from their easiness, they are styled by Leo Allatius, usually consist of fifteen syllables. They are used by Constantine

A.D. 988.] WANT OF NATIONAL EMULATION.

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all principles of moral evidence, and their taste was vitiated by the homilies of the monks, an absurd medley of declamation and Scripture. Even these contemptible studies were no longer dignified by the abuse of superior talents; the leaders of the Greek church were humbly content to admire and copy the oracles of antiquity, nor did the schools or pulpit produce any rivals of the fame of Athanasius and Chrysostom.*

In all the pursuits of active and speculative life, the emulation of states and individuals is the most powerful spring of the efforts and improvements of mankind. The cities of ancient Greece were cast in the happy mixture of union and independence, which is repeated on a larger scale, but in a looser form, by the nations of modern Europe: the union of language, religion, and manners, which renders them the spectators and judges of each other's merit;t the independence of government and interest, which asserts their separate freedom, and excites them to strive for pre-eminence in the career of glory. The situation of the Romans was less favourable; yet in the early ages of the republic, which fixed the national character, a similar emulation was kindled among the states of Latium and Italy; and, in the arts and sciences, they aspired to equal or surpass their Grecian 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 insurmountable bar to all social intercourse. The conManasses, John Tzetzes, &c. (Ducange, Gloss. Latin. tom. iii. p. 1, p. 345, 346, edit. Bazil. 1762. As St. Bernard of the Latin, so St. John Damascenus in the eighth century is revered as the last father of the Greek, church. Hume's Essays, vol. i.

P. 125. [This "bar to social intercourse" cannot have been so insurmountable. Without an extensive communion between the two races, the Arabians could not have been led to study the sages of Greece, and work out their own improvement, as we have seen in ch. 52, p. 146

234

GROSS SUPERSTITION OF

[CH. LIV. querors 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.

CHAPTER LIV.-ORIGIN AND DOCTRINE OF THE PAULICIANS.THEIR PERSECUTION BY THE GREEK EMPERORS.-REVOLT IN ARMENIA, ETC. -TRANSPLANTATION INTO THRACE.-PROPAGATION IN THE WEST.THE SEEDS, CHARACTER, AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE REFORMATION.

In the profession of Christianity, the variety of national characters may be clearly distinguished. The natives of Syria and Egypt abandoned their lives to lazy and contemplative devotion; Rome again aspired to the dominion of 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 expense 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

nor could their literary success have "rekindled the emulation of the Greeks," as just related in a preceding page. The example of Abulpharagius, though at a later period, illustrates the habits of the two See note, ch. 47, vol. v. p. 266. ED.]

races.

CH. LIV.]

THE GREEK CHURCH.

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of the eighth century, to the last ages of the Byzantine empire, the sound of controversy was seldom heard; curiosity was exhausted, zeal was fatigued, and, in the decrees of six 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 .emperors 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 scattered over the West the seeds of reformation. These important events will justify some inquiry into the doctrine and story of the PAULICIANS; and, as they cannot plead for themselves, our

* The errors and virtues of the Paulicians are weighed, with his usual judgment and candour, by the learned Mosheim. (Hist. Ecclesiast. seculum 9, p. 311, &c.) He draws his original intelligence from Photius (contra Manichæos, L. 1) 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.).