LIII. selves, to astonish the reader, and to involve a trivial mean- CHAP. ing 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 po·litical or city verses.' 113 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 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.' 114 national In all the pursuits of active and speculative life, the emu- Want of lation of states and individuals is the most powerful spring emulation. 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: 115 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 113 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 Manasses, John Tzetzes, &c. (Ducange, Gloss. Latin. tom. ii. p. i. p. 345, 346 edit. Basil, 1762). 114 As St. Bernard of the Latin, so St. John Damascenus in the viiith contury, is revered as the last father of the Greek, church. 115 Hume's Essays, vol. i. p. 125. LIII. CHAP. 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 scarely 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. 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. The 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 Greek IN the profession of Christianity, the variety of na- CHAP. tional characters may be clearly distinguished The natives of Syria and Eygpt abandoned their lives to lazy and contemplative devotion: Rome again aspired to the dominion perstition of the world; and the wit of the lively and loquacious Grecks of the was consumed in the disputes of metaphysical theology.church. 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 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 deplorH VOL. VII. LIV. CHAP. ed 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 hostilites 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 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. Origin of cians or The Gnostics, who had distracted the infancy, were op the Pauli- pressed by the greatness and authority, of the church. Indisciples of stead of emulating or surpassing the wealth, learning, and St. Paul, numbers, of the Catholics, their obscure remnant was driA. D. 660, &c. venfrom 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, esteemed by the Paulicians as the chosen messenger of truth. In his humble dwelling of Mananalis, Constantine entertain 1 The errors and virtues of the Paulicians are weighed, with his usual judg ment 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 (Igolstadii, 1604, in 4to). 2 in the time of Theodoret, the diocese of Cyrrhus, in Syria, oontained eight hundred villages. Of these, two were inhabited by Arians and Euno. mians, and eight by Marcionites, whom the laborious bishop reconciled to the Catholic church (Dupin, Bibliot. Ecclesiastique, tom. iv. p. 81, 82). LIV. ed a deacon, who returned from Syrian captivity, and re- CHAP. ceived 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.3 These books became the measure of his studies and the rule of his faith; and the Catholics, who dispute his interpretation, acknowledge 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, Tychicus, 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 Their Bigospel, and the epistles of St. Paul, his faithful follower in- bie. vestigated 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 perfect. Their founders rejected the two epistles of St. Peter, the apostle of the circumcision, whose dispute with their favourite for the observance of the law could not easily be forgiven. They agreed with their Gnostic brethren in the universal contempt for the Old Testament, the books of Moses and the prophets, which have been consecrated by the decrees of the Catholic church. With equal boldness, and doubtless with more reason, Constantine, the new Sylvanus, disclaimed the visions, which, in so many bulky and splendid volumes, had been 3 Nobis profanis ista (sacra Evangelia) legere non licet sed sacerdotibus duntaxat, was the first scruple of a Catholic when he was advised to read the Bible (Petr. Sicul. p. 761). 4 In rejecting the second epistle of St. Peter, the Paulicians are just fied by some of the most respectable of the ancients and moderns (see Wetstein ad lcc. Simon, Hist. Critique du Nouveau Testament, c. 17). They likewise overlooked the Apocalypse (Petr. Sicul. p. 756); but as such neglect is not imputed as a crime, the Greeks of the ninth century must have been careless of the credit and honour of the Revelations. 5 This contention, which has not escaped the malice of Porphyry, supposes some error and passion in one or both of the apostles. By Chrysostom, Jerom, and Erasmus, it is represented as a sham quarrel, a pious fraud, for the benefit of the Gentiles and the correction of the Jews (Middleton's Works, vol. ii. p. 1...20). |