which way his Pulse beat tamper with Meletius the Orthodox Bishop of Antioch and dear to the new Emperor who at that time resided there to call a Council and though they had in the time of Constantius deposed him for his Apostasie to the Nicene Faith yet now in this Council they unanimously declare for it and signify their Decree and the necessity of it to the Emperor in that they were now convinced that there was no other stop to be put to the Arian Blasphemy viz. that the Son was created out of nothing and by this false and dishonest shufling they out-witted the old Eusebian Knaves and riveted themselves in their new usurpt Preferments But this goes to the very heart of the poor outed Eusebians to be thus over-reach't and supplanted and to turn the whole Game it drives them into their old out-rage against the vir gregis the great Athanasius And so away post Euzoius the then deposed Bishop of Antioch and Lucius the pretended Bishop of Alexandria to Court and there take their old Method of ingaging some of the Eunuchs into their Party and particularly Probatius the Praepositus Cubiculi that succeeded Eusebius in that Office who had done so much mischief in the reign of Constantius and having secured their Patrons they accuse Athanasius to the Emperor upon these three Topicks First that there had been continual Complaints against him during the whole time of his Episcopacy Secondly that upon the truth of those Complaints he had been often banisht by his Predecessors Thirdly that he was the sole Author of all the present Troubles and Disturbances in the Church This is their old train of boldness but the Emperor was a wise Man and saw thrô their Designs and therefore sends them away with very severe threatnings and charges his Eunuchs never to meddle with such Matters under no less Penalty than the Rod and the Cudgel and entertains Athanasius with all the highest expressions of Respect and Honor and so for his short time setled the Church both in Peace and Truth This is the true state and story of the revival of the Arian Controversy under this Emperor that had slept under Julian And not as Sozomen suggests the contentiousness of the Bishops who he says under Julian when the Christian Religion lay at stake pieced together for the security of the common Cause as 't is the custom of all Men to make peace and join forces against a common Enemy but as soon as the danger is blown over to return to their old Fewds and Animosities The observation in general is too true but not rightly applyed to this particular case for the ground of the quarrel here was not the natural contentiousness of Mankind whilst in a condition of peace as the Historian remarks in that the Orthodox had never pieced with any of the other Parties either Eusebians or Acacians under Julian but as we have already seen casheir'd and condemn'd them both and setled the Nicene Faith So that under Jovian there was no new breach but even according to Sozomen's own account the new contest was raised by the Eusebian Bishops that had lost their Bishopricks under Constantius after the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia when they were over-reach't by the Acacians And that is the Argument of their Petition to this Emperor that things might stand as they were left by those Councils and that all after acts might be null'd i. e. that themselves might be restored to their Bishopricks That was the present quarrel and no dispute against the setled Faith for they had already declared for the Nicene Confession And therefore the Acacians upon their complaint against them for the Aëtian Heresy immediately protest against it to secure their Preferments And that was all along the state of this Controversy both before and after this time the zeal of good Men on one side for the true Faith and the Arts of ill Men on the other for Preferment and Court-favor This is hitherto evident from the beginning of the quarrel of Eusebius of Nicomedia with Athanasius and will appear as clearly in all the same Contests as long as they lasted under the succeeding Emperors § 2. Jovian dying suddainly no body knows of what though several wise philosophical Conjectures are made about it by the Historians after him Valentinian is chosen Emperor with a Nemine contradicente being a Man as Marcellinus himself confesses of universal reputation And he deserved it though it were only for that Prince-like saying after his Election when those that chose him press't him to take an Assistant in the Government he replyed when the Empire was vacant it was in your Power to choose me Emperor but now I am in possession of the Crown it is my business and none of yours to take care of the Common-Wealth He understood the true Rights of Soveraign Power in all Monarchies whether Hereditary or Elective and unless it be supreme and unaccountable it is so far from being any Power at all that it is the lowest and most abject kind of Subjection and of a great General he would by his being made Emperor have only become the publick Slave of the Rabble But he coming to the Crown after so many suddain turns and supposing the Empire very much distracted about Religion by so many changes of Government publishes an Edict for Liberty of Conscience ut unicuique quod animo imbibisset colendi libera facultas tributa sit that every Man may have liberty to use what Worship he will according to those Opinions that he had suckt in But then again soon finding himself setled in the Empire in the very same year anno 364 he forbids the night Sacrifices of the Heathens but is prevail'd upon to tolerate all those religious Rites that were celebrated by day And having gain'd so much ground he proceeds to countermine and blow up the Crafts of Julian who made all his Laws with a malicious Aspect towards the Christians and particularly that famous Law that no Man should be allowed to practise Physick or teach any Art or Science but by the approbation of the Magistrates of the place with his own impeperial Consent and by that means he shut all Christians out of any learned or ingenuous Imployment and therefore Valentinian as soon as he comes to the Crown cancels that Law and restores all Professors of Learning to their respective Thrones But as for the Church the Emperor being setled the poor hungry Eusebians that had been so long sequestred out of their Bishopricks resolve once more to try their Fortune and they poor Men had hard luck to quit their Faith as they had done under Jovian and yet not get their Preferments But they hope to meet with kinder usage from this Emperor and therefore send Hypatianus Bishop of Heraclea in an Ambassy to him to request a Council to which he as he was a very civil Gentleman and obliged at that time to
appears by those prodigious Provisions that he made that there should be no such thing as Poverty within the Empire but for the Readers satisfaction or rather amazement in this matter I must refer him to the Books de Aedificiis And now I hope I have sufficiently vindicated the Reputation of this matchless Prince against all the malicious Calumnies both of the Libel and the Librarian so as to make it appear that it could never be written by Procopius but by some Man in the barbarous Ages that was ignorant of the Customs and Transactions of that Time and that the whole Work is nothing but an heap of ignorance malice and false-hood And is proved so by the best and most undoubted Records of that Age. And I know not what can be done more for the Discovery and Conviction of an Imposture FINIS Books lately Publisht by the Author DIsputationes de Deo et Providentiâ divinâ I. An Philosophorum ulli et quinam Athei fuerunt II. A rerum finibus Deum esse demonstratur III. Epicuri et Cartesii Hypotheses de Universi Fabricatione evertuntur IV. Mundum neque prorsus infectum neque necessitate factum sed solo Opificis consilio extructum fuisse demonstratur V. A generis humani Ortu et Corporis humani structurâ Deum esse demonstratur VI. Contrâ—â— Sâ—epticorum Academicorum disciplinam potissimùm Ciceronis de Quaestionibus Academicis libros et Cartesii Meditationes Metaphysicas disputatur The divine right of the Law of Nature and the Christian Religion The Case of the Church of England stated An Account of the Government of the Christian Church for the first six Hundred years Religion and Loyalty or a Demonstration of the Power of the Christian Church within it self The Supremacy of Soveraign Powers over it Duty of passive Obedience or Non-resistance to all their Commands Religion and Loyalty Part the 2 d. or the History of the Concurrence of the Imperial and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in the Government of the Church from the beginning of the Reign of Jovian to the end of the Reign of Justinian Can. 2. (a) Invec 1. p. 80. A. (b) Am. Marcel l. 21. c. 2. (c) Theod. l. 4. c. 1. (d) l. 3. c. 22. (e) Sozom. l. 6. c. 3. (f) Greg. Naz. in laud. Athanas (g) Athanas de fide ad Jovian (h) Soc. l. 3. c. 25. (i) Sozom. l. 6. c. 5. (k) lib. 6. c â— (l) Lib. 26. c. 1. (m) de Males et Mathemat l. 9. v. Sozimus lib. 4. (n) ibid. l. (o) De Medicis et Professor l. 5. (p) ibid. l. 6. (q) Sozim l. 6. c. â— L. 20. Qutru Appellat sint suscip (r) Soc. l. 4. c. 12. Saeculi 40 pars prima § 14. (s) Theod. l. 4. c. 8. (t) Epist. 74. (u) Soz. l. 6. c. 12. (w) Hilarii frag l. 1. pag. 40. (x) Athanas ad Episc Afric (y) Athanas ep ad Epictelum (z) Sozom. l. 6. c. 12. (a) Theod. l. 4. c. 13 14. (b) Epist. 61. (c) Sozom. l. 4. c. 27. (d) Epist. 10. (e) ibid. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (f) Socrat. l. 4. c. 13. (g) Socrat. l. 4. c. 14. Sozom. l. 6. c 13. V. Baroâ— an 317. N. 29. et Vales. not in Socrat (h) Socrat. l. 4. c. 15. Sozom. l. 6. c. 13. (i) lib. 4. c. 19. (k) Basil Epist. 69. (l) Epist. 70. (m) V. Greg. Naz. de laud. Basil. (n) Theod. l. 5. c. 10. de Haeret. l. 33. (o) Theod. lib. 4. c. 6. (p) Cod. Theodos. de Episc Cler. l. 3. (q) Can. Apost 80. (r) Am. Marcel lib. 30. C. 6 (s) Epist. 140. (t) Soc. l. 3 c. 25. (u) Orat. 9 (w) lib. 30. (x) Ne Baptisma iteretur l. 1. (y) l. 3. * L. 75 de Decurionibus (z) de Haeret l. 4. (a) Soc. l. 5. c. 2. Sozom l. 7. c. 1. (b) Theod. l. 5.12 (c) l. 2. (d) de Haeret l. 5. (e) de Epist l. 23. (f) de concord l. 2. c. 1. § 4. (g) Novel 83. (h) Am. Marcel l. 31. (i) in Cron. (k) l. 7. c. 33. (l) lib. 4.35 c. 37. (k) Soc. l. â— c. 2. Soz. l. 7. c. 1. Theod. l. 5. c. 2. (l) lib. 3. c. 3. et c. 23. (m) l. 2. (n) Soc. l. 5. c. 4. (†) Account of the Government of the Church § 20. (c) Soc. l. 5. c. 8. Soz. l. 7. c. 7. (p) de Haeret l. 6. (q) de Haeret l. 8. (r) de Haeret l. 11.12 (s) ibid. l. 13. (t) ibid. 14. (u) de his qui super Religione contendunt l. 2. (w) V. Gothofredi Notas in legem (x) Orat. 26. (y) de fide Cathol l. 4. (a) Ruffin l. 2. c. 16. (b) Lib. 4. Epist. 32. (c) Ambros. l. 5. Epist. 27. in which Letter he gives an account of his Embassy to the Emperor (*) Zosimus lib. 4. (d) Ambrose Ep. 26. (e) See his Epistles in their proper place in Labbé (f) De Haeret l. 15. (g) Sozom. l. 7. c. 14. (h) Ambros. Ep. 29. (i) Soc. l. 5. c. 13. (k) De Haeret l. 16. (l) l. 17. (m) De Haeret l. 19. (n) Lib. 7. c. 17. (o) Soc. l. 5. c. 20 22 23. Sozom. l. 7. c. 17. (p) De Episc l. 2â— (q) An. 390. N. 70 71. (r) Lib. 2â— c. 3. (s) Dé Episc l. 20 (t) Epist 31. (u) Marciani Novella 5. (w) De Testam l. 48. (x) De Mâ—nachis l. 1. (y) De D curionibus l. 63. (z) De Episc l. 3.6 9 Cod. Tit. 45. De bis qui ad Eccles confâ—g l. 1. Tacit. Annal lib. 3. (a) De Haeret l. 3. (†) De Haeret l. 65. (b) De Haeret l. 7.9.11.18.20 (c) De Apoatis l. 3. (d) De Apostatis l. 1. (e) De Haeret l. 2. (f) De Haeret l. 3 4 5. (g) Qui sanctum baptisma prophan (h) De Paganis l. 7. (i) De Maleficis l. 7. (k) De pag. l. 8. (l) De Pag. l. 9. (m) Ibid. l. 10. (n) Ibid. l. 11. (o) Ibid. l. 12. (p) De Judais l. 8. (q) Lib. 5. Epist. 29. (r) De Haeret l. 6. Anno 368. Anno 369. Anno 371. N. 1 2 3 4. V. Labbé Vol. 2. Anno 381. p. 1001. Lib. 9. Tit. 29. c. 1. †Ne inter bellicas necessitâ—tes obreptio importuna teâ—tâ—tur (a) Ad annum 385. M. 6. (b) Soc. l. 3. c. 4. (c) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theod. l. 4. c. 22. (d) Lib. 4. c. 21 22. (e) Sozom. l. 7. c. 5. (f) De Haeret l. 6. (g) Extrav de Episcopali Judicio l. 3. * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. (l) l. 5. c. 23 (i) Soz. l. 7. c. 15. (l) Soz. l. 8. c. 3. (l) Pallad dial (m) de his qui super Religione contendunt l. 6. (n) De Haereâ—â—bus Priscillianus instituit maximè Gnosticorum Manichaeorum dogmata permixta sectantur Quamvis et ex aliis Haeresibus in eas sordes tanquam in sentinam quandam horribili confusione confluxerint Propter occultandas autem contaminationes et
Religion and Loyalty The Second Part. OR THE History of the Concurrence of the Imperial and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in the Government of the Church from the Beginning of the Reign of Jovian to the End of the Reign of Justinian By SAMUEL PARKER D.D. Arch-Deacon of Canterbury LONDON Printed for John Baker at the Three Pigeons in St. Paul's Church-yard MDCLXXXV TO THE READER THE Church of England having acknowledged and declared His Majestie 's Supremacy in Causes Ecclesiastical to be of the same Nature and Extent with that Authority that the Christian Emperors claim'd and exercised in the Primitive Church I deem'd it no unuseful piece of Service to my King and Country to inform my self and my Fellow-Subjects out of the Records of those times of our true Duty to the Royal Supremacy And to this end I have drawn up as exact a Chart as my little Skill could reach of the Primitive Practice of the Three first Centuries after the Empire became Christian. Neither have I only Surveyed and coasted the general History but have sounded every part of it and not only described the safe Passages and right Chanels through which the abler Pilots steer'd their Courses but the Shallows the Gulfs the Rocks and the Sands upon which the less Skilful or less Fortunate Shipwrackt their Governments Neither have I presumed to make any Political Remarks of my own but have only observed the Natural and Historical Events of Matters of Fact And by the Experience of 300 years in which all Experiments were tryed we are fully instructed in all the right and all the wrong Measures of Government in the Christian Church In the Reigns of the great Constantine Jovian Gratian Theodosius the Great Arcadius Honorius Theodosius the younger Marcian Leo Justin and Justinian are exemplified the Natural good Effects of abetting the Power of the Church by good Laws and their effectual Execution In the Reigns of Julian and Valentinian we may observe the inevitable Mischiefs of Toleration and Liberty of Conscience In the Reigns of Constantius and Valens but especially of Zeno and Anastasius are to be seen the fatal and bloody Consequences of pretended Moderation or as we phrase it comprehension that indeed unites all Parties but then it is like a Whirlpool into one common Gulf of Ruin and Confusion This is the short account of this Undertaking and the Historical Events of things being withal so very Natural they will of themselves amount to a fair Demonstration of the Necessity of Discipline in the Church and Penal Laws in the State All that I can ensure for the Performance is its Truth and Integrity I have faithfully and impartially perused all the most Material and Original Records both of Church and State and out of them and them alone have Collected the ensuing History and if that prove true and for that I stand bound the Conclusion that I aim at will make it self The CONTENTS SEct. I. The State of the Church under Jovian The Hypocrisie both of the Eusebians to recover their Bishopricks and of the Acacians to preserve theirs in owning the Nicene Faith page 1. § II. Of Valentinian his Edict for Liberty of Conscience The struglings of the Eusebians against the Acacians Their Councils at Lampsacus and Tyana to that end They are defeated by the juglings of the Acacians The dishonest craft of the two Leaders Eudoxius in the East and Auxentius in the West p. 7. § III. The Persecution of St. Basil by the Eudoxians his discourse with the Prefect Modestus Dear to the Emperor Valens Valens himself no Arian but abused by the Eudoxians the deplorable State of the Eastern Church at that time under their Oppressions St. Basil's misfortune in receiving Eustathius of Sebasta to communion The death of St. Athanasius The Heresie of Apollinaris how suppressed p. 27. § IV. The Election of St. Ambrose to the See of Milan The death of Valentinian the mischiefs he brought upon the Empire by his principle of Liberty of Conscience Themistius the Philosopher's Address to Valens in behalf of the Orthodox The Emperor Gratian's Rescripts and effectual Proceedings against Hereticks His restitution of the Discipline of the Church The bounds of the Imperial and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction briefly stated The great Schism at Antioch occasion'd by Julian's toleration p. 35. § V. The singular care of Theodosius the Great to settle the Church and Orthodox Faith Vindicated in his Institution of the Communicatory Bishops He summons the general Council at Constantinople and confirms all their Decrees by several Imperial Rescripts Wisely forbids all Disputes about Religion Assists the young Valentinian against the Tyrum Maximus and prevails with him to reverse his severe Rescript against the Catholicks p. 55. § VI. Valentinian made the first open breach upon the Power of the Church in taking to himself the Power of Judicature in Matters of Faith St. Ambrose his Sufferings upon that account His Embassy to Maximus his Wisdom and Courage Maximus his Conquest of Italy and overthrow by Theodosius The Stars raised by the Hereticks at Constantinople in the Emperor's absence The method of lying People into Tumults His effectual enacting and executing Laws against them settles the Church in Peace p. 66. § VII His Laws made without the concurrence of the Church for reforming the Abuses of Widows and Deaconesses the disorders of Monks and the Abuse of Church-Sanctuary p. 81. § VIII His Laws without the same concurrence against Manichees Apostates Pagans and in behalf of the Jews p. 89. § IX Of the Council of Aquileia Of the Schism at Rome between Damasus and Ursicinus Of the Schism at Alexandria between Peter and Lucius Of the Schism at Antioch between Paulinus and Flavianus p. 98. § X. The unparallell'd Immorality of the Priscillian Heresie The Prosecution of them by Ithacius justified against Mr. B. they were executed as Malefactors and Traitors not as Hereticks St. Martin's great indiscretion in interceding for them p. 124. § XI The praise of Theodosius against the Calumnies of Zosimns The Laws of his Son Arcadius against the Hereticks p. 152. § XII His Laws of Privilege to the Catholicks The several Laws of Tuition The Law of civil Decision in the Church by Arbitration The Laws against Appeals from the Church to the civil Power p. 167. § XIII His Laws of Reformation of Discipline Against the tumults of Monks the abuse of Sanctuary against the Johannites against Apostates In behalf of the Jews The Laws of Honorius against and for the Jews The Laws of both Emperors under the Title de Paganis p. 180. § XIV The history and design of the Theodosian Code Theodosius his own Novels Of the Parabolani of Alexandria The famous Law concerning the Churches of â—lâ—yricum explain'd together with his other Laws and the Laws of Valentinian the third p. 198. § XV. The History and Acts of the Council of Ephesus against Nestorius and Imperial ratification of the Decreeâ—â—f the Church by Marcian p. 225. § XVI The
Reign of the Emperor Leo his Method of preserving the Peace of the Church by way of Encyclical correspondence Pope Leo's concurrence p. 260. § XVII Of the Emperor Leo and the Tyrant Basiliscus The great mischiefs of Zeno's Henoticon or Act of Comprehension Of the Acephali and the Haesitantes i. e. the moderate Men. Of the numberless Schisms occasion'd in the Church by this healing Instrument p. 296. § XIX The reign of Anastasius his outragious zeal for the Henoticon his persecution in pursuance of Moderation till at last the design ended in Wars Tumults and Rebellions p. 335. § XX. Justin's restitution of the Council of Calcedon The re-union of the Eastern and Western Churches thereby The Tumults of the Scythian and Acaemetan Monks His Laws against the Hereticks p. 349. § XXI A general vindication of the Justinian Code A short history of both the Codes Theodosian and Justinian Tribonian's Integrity vindicated in his reciting the Laws of former Emperors against the accusations of Gothofred p. 366. § XXII All Justinian's own Novels vindicated from any Invasion upon the Power of the Church and proved to have been nothing else than Canons enacted into Laws p. 376. § XXIII All his Actions vindicated against Alemannus and the Anecdota The history of the Contest about the tria Capitula with an account of the extravagant behaviour of Pope Vigilius p. 391. § XXIV The Contest between Paul the 5th and the state of Venice the cause of all the displeasure of the Court of Rome against Justinian The Anecdota proved to be spurious and none of Procopius his writings p. 426. § XXV Justinian vindicated from the charge of Cruelty p. 443. § XXVI The unparallel'd gentleness of his reign the Empress Theodora Antonia and the great Belisarius vindicated from the Calumnies of the Anecdota p. 455. § XXVII An account of Justinian's Persian Vandalick and Gothick Wars p. 479. § XXVIII The reason of his siding with the Venetae against the Prasmi i. e. the Tories against the Whigs p. 497. § XXIX His vindication from Folly and Knavery p. 502. § XXX Item From Covetousness and Prodigality p. 510. § XXXI Item From Oppression in putting the Laws in execution p. 523. § XXXII Item From inconstancy and falsehood to his Friends From Vanity from Forgery from Lust from Vnkindness and Overâ—kindness to his Clergy p. 547. § XXXIII An Answer to the whole Rhapsody of smaller Cavils and Calumnies p. 573. ERRATA PAg. 2. l. 3. They kept it themselves Read They kept it to themselves P. 192. l. 2. Welly r. well P. 200. l. 6. Hair r. hare P. 224. l. 2. tyed r. lyed P. 267. l. 8. rehearse r. rehear P. 310. l. 8. Possessions r Possession P. 336. l. 12. Syntax r. Sin-tax P. 354. l. 27. upon r. up P. 378. l. 29. and r. an P. 394. l. 28. onâ—y r. on the contrary P. 404. l. penult Summary r. Summoning P. 406. l. 7. Bishops r. Bishop P. 429. l. 19. Eusebius r. Eichelius P. 432. l. ult Helâ—sted r. Helmsted P. 439. l. 29. Oversâ—en r. Over-keen P. 456. l. 18. Patriarchate r. Patriciate Ibid. l. 22. Patriarchate r. Patriciate P. 466. l. 24. Theodorus r. Theodora ' s. P. 479. l. 20. use r. vie P. 546. l. friends r. fâ—nds P. 550 l. penult Solomons r. Solomon PART I. SECT I. UPon the death of Julian there was another quick and suddain turn of Affairs by the Election of Jovian a Christian to the Empire though the change was rather made in the Emperor than the Religion For Christianity was so universally entertain'd that Julian with all his Arts of Undermining and Persecution could make but very little alteration in the Church and at last left it in the very same or a much better Condition than that in which he found it And for that reason Gregory Nazianzen derides his folly and madness in endeavouring to destroy Christianity when it had so universally prevail'd and himself was so sensible of it that he was forced for a time to conceal his own Religion and as he marched out of France towards Rome he was forced to keep Christmas at Vienna that he might seem to be of the same Religion with his Army And so during his reign they kept it themselves so as to keep it in reality for when Jovian was chosen Emperor upon his death he refused it as being a Christian and so unfit to command Julian's Army whom he could not but suppose to be of the same Religion with their Master At which a great shout was made O Sir take no care for that for you shall command Christian Men and such as are educated in the Discipline and Piety of the Christian Church for the eldest among us were train'd up under Constantine and the younger under Constantius and as for the time of Julian it was too short to make any alteration as to the Principles of our Religion Upon which declaration when he had made them repeat it several times as Socrates tells the Story he accepts the Empire and immediately restores all the Revenues Privileges and Immunities that had been given to the Church by Constantine and his Sons and taken away by Julian And withal restores all the banished Bishops and particularly St. Athanasius with especial regard to his Person to whom he writes for Instructions in order to the settlement of the true Faith who upon it immediately calls a Council and to prevent the Application of the Hereticks sends him out of hand the Nicene Confession not only as the true old Apostolical Faith which Arius and his followers had endeavour'd to corrupt by their prophane Novelties and others i. e. the Eusebians endeavour'd to supplant though they durst not disown it But as the sense of the Catholick Church ever since the Nicene Council in Spain in Britain in France in Italy Dalmatia Mysia Macedonia Greece Affrick Sardinia Cyprus Creet Pamphylia Lysia Isauria Egypt Lybia Pontus Cappadocia and all the Eastern Churches a very few only excepted all whose subscriptions he says and many others more remote we have in our own Possession and therefore though there are some few scatter'd Dissenters that ought to be no prejudice to the Faith of the whole World And this is another clear Confutation of that uncatholick surmise from the mistaken Sense of St. Jerom that all the World were at that time turn'd Arians But the most pleasant Scene of that time was the Council of Antioch when all the Arian World if any such there were would needs turn Orthodox for the Eusebians that had been supplanted by the Acacians under Constantius finding now that they had a Christian Emperor they petition him in his return from Persia that the Acacians who taught the Son to be unlike the Father might be displaced out of their Bishopricks and themselves restored but they receiving no kind answer from him who understood them too well and the Acacians who resolved to keep their hold finding
St. Basil who being a very mortified Man and forced from a retired life into the Wealthy Bishoprick of Caesarea was thought a very easy Prey by Modestus at that time Prefect of the Province and the head Patron of the Eudoxian Faction and therefore the Emperor coming to Caesarea in his Passage to Antioch he is incited by his Courtiers against this old Man as an open Enemy to his favourite Eudoxius The description of the Incounter may be seen in Theodoret but more at large and with some difference in Gregory Nazianzens funeral Oration upon St. Basil which thô it is too lavish and panegyrical in many particulars yet the sum of the account of this business is contein'd in the discourse between the old Bishop and the Prefect Modestus who was sent to perswade him to be reconciled to Eudoxius Where after some conference the Prefect falls into rage and threatning and asks him if he stand not in awe of his Power He replys for what what can you do to me What can I do returns he I can proscribe you banish you torture you kill you Can you so replys the Bishop but if you have nothing else to threaten me with these things concern not me What do you mean says he I mean says the Bishop that he is not obnoxious to the proscription of Goods that has none unless you would rob me of this poor thred-bare Garment and a few old Books Banishment I know none for the Earth is the Lords and that is my Countrey as for Tortures I have not a Body strong enough to feel them the first stroke will put me out of pain and as for death it would be the greatest kindness you could do me to send me out of this feeble Carcass to my Lord and Master At this the Prefect stands astonisht and professes that in all his life he never heard any Man speak with such courage and assurance Perhaps says Basil you never met with a true Christian Bishop till now for if you had he must have discoursed after this manner if call'd into question about these Matters For you must know Sir that we are mild and gentle in all other things the most humble and submissive of all Men as our Law commands us insomuch that we dare not behave our selves with the least pride or stubbornness I will not say to the Emperor or you that are great Men but to the meanest and pooâ—est of the People But where the Cause and the Truth of God is at stake there we lay all other things aside and look at him alone Fire and Sword wild Beasts and Flesh-hooks are in his service rather pleasure than terrour to us and therefore revile us threaten us do what you plâ—ase and the worst you can with us and tell the Emperor what I say we shall never yield nor comply with his Will thâ— he threaten much more dreadful things than all these This is the true old primitive Spirit resolution adorn'd with Civility and by it the Bishop not only overcame the Prefect but became dear to the Emperor who resorted to his Church and received the holy Eucharist from his hands From whence it is evident that this Persecution came not from the zeal of the Emperor but was meerly set on foot by the Grandees of the Faction for the sale and purchase of Sequestrations And for these designs they make use of the Emperors soft nature and vehement desire of Peace and that was all that he here required of St. Basil only to be reconcilâ—d to the Eudoxians not to their Opinions And though he was so well satisfied with St. Basil at this first onset yet they would give him no rest till he condescended to their importunity for his Banishment which was sign'd but upon a suddain Sickness of his Son after it its execution was stopt And this is the true Interpretation of all the dismal Stories in the Historians concerning this Emperor's Arâ—an Persecution but into what a woful condition the Eastern Church was brought by this Court-merchandizing is described in the Letter of Meletius and his Brethren to the Western Bishops The gravity of the Clergy is lost the skilful Pastors have left their Flocks whil'st such as are set over them consume even the Goods of the Poor upon their own Pleasures There is no regard had to the Canons of the Church but an uncontroul'd liberty of Sinning for they who come to the Government of the Church by illegal ways will do any thing to please their Masters So that there is in reality no Government and every-man does what is good in his own Eyes wickedness is boundless and the People stubborn the Bishops trim and dare not speak out for having acquired their Power by Men they are Slaves to all by whose help and Patronage they were advanced With much more to the same purpose from whence we fully understand the true Face of the Church and the right State of the Controversie at that time to displace honest Men upon pretences of Religion only to get into their Preferments as farther appears from their wild way of proceeding as it is there described Whereas no man ought to be concluded Guilty without some shew of Evidence our Bishops are condemn'd only by being accused and punisht without any proof at all some never knew their Accusers others never saw their Judges some were never accused at all but conveyed away by dark Night hurried into Banishment and kept in perpetual Imprisonment This was the deplorable state of the Church at that time under Valens and his Eunuchs for the redress whereof not only Meletius but Athanasius and St. Basil wrote to the Western Bishops to implore the Assistance of the Western Church and Empire Athanasius his Letters are lost but that of St. Basil is very remarkable for its Eloquence and Ingenuity But at this time St. Basil labouring in the Settlement of the distracted Churches in the East by the advice of St. Athanasius visits the Churches in Armenia where he unadvisedly receives that old insinuating Prevaricator Eustathius of Sebasta to the Communion of the Catholick Church upon his reiterated Profession of the Orthodox Faith Upâ—n which Theodotus Bishop of Nicopolis where the Reconciliation was made who better understood the Man though Basil was not unacquainted with his former Shufflings falls out with him But Eustathius like himself finding that by reason of that great opposition that was maâ—e against him and knowing that his Enormities were so great that St. Basil was neither able nor willing to restore him falls foul upon him and loads him with so many base Calumnies which though St Basil at first despised for some years it was the great work of his life to wipe off one part of Mankind it seems being so credulous and another so ill-natured as easily and greedily to swallow any ill surmise and of this he often complains even in his own Friends till he was at last tempted to sing the burden
his old road as his Eunuchs are pleased to drive him till Gregory Nazianzen solicites his ingenious Friend Themistius a great Philosopher and a great Man in the State to take him off from his Fury which he might the more easily do as being unconcern'd in the quarrel and like a Gentleman he undertakes it and in his Speech entituled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 perswades the Emperor for some time to lay aside his Bigotry for the Eudoxian Faction And to say the truth of him he was both a Gentleman and a Philosopher he was first made Prefect of the City by Julian who was possess 't with a vehement Ambition of preferring Learned Men he was always a Friend to the Catholicks for their Integrity and as much as a Man of his Temper and Principles could be an Hater of the Eusebians of all sorts for their shuffling and dishonesty saying in his Oration to Jovian that they Worship't not God but the Imperial Purple And after the overthrow of Procopius he out of pure good Nature intercedes with the Emperor for Mercy and Clemency to the vanquisht and withal advises him to beware of listning to Whisperers and Flatterers by whom he means his Eudoxian Courtiers that thrust him upon all his extravagant Actions So now here at the request of his Friend Nazianzen he rubs up the Emperor's good Nature in behalf of the Catholicks And for the sweetness and gentleness of his temper he was a Favourite to all the Emperors from Julian to Theodosius the Great between whom notwithstanding the difference of their Religion and the distance of their Station there was a particular Friendship and Endearment cemented purely by the likeness of their Tempers in so much that the Emperor Theodosius left him the Guardianship of his young Son Arcadius But notwithstanding this learned Gentlemans advice to Valens his Officers proceed in their old Track of Violence in the East whilst his Nephew the young Emperor Gratian in the West steers the contrary course for being sensible of the great disorders in the Church and Common-Wealth by reason of his Father Valentinian's remisness he thought it high time to settle things better by a stricter Government for though Valentinian was a wise Prince and Orthodox in the Faith yet he was possest with one unhappy Principle that spoil'd his reign that indeed has been most fatal to Princes in all Ages and that is as Ammianus describes it Postâ—emò hoc moderamine principatus inclaruit quod inter religionum diversitates medius stetit nec quenquam inquietavit neque ut hoc coleretur imperavit aut illud neque interdictis minaâ—ibus subjectorum cervicem ad id quod ipse voluit inclinabat sed intemeratas reliquit has partes ut reperit He excelled in the moderation of his Government in that he stood unconcern'd among all the diversities of Religions and never disturb'd any Man neither commanded this or that way of Worship nor forced his Subjects necks to look which way he pleased but left these Matters altogether inviolated But by the Souldiers leave who was not bound to be an accurate Lawyer this is not universally true for there is extant in the Theodosian Code a particular Law of his own making against the Donatists to forbid their rebaptising upon pain of Deposition and there is another under the title de Haereticis against the Manichees though indeed they were rather Villains than Heretiques who taught and practised all kinds of Vice and Wickedness as the Principles of their Sect and therefore no wonder if they were excepted out of his Clemency but otherwise it extended equally to all By which means the Christian Church was not only over-run with Heresies and its discipline utterly defeated as we have seen in the case of that wicked Man Auxentius who though he were so justly deposed by the Judgment of the Catholick Church yet it took no effect because Valentinian was withheld by this Principle from doing the Office of a Christian Emperor in abetting the legal Decrees of the Church and such an one he himself thought that against Auxentius But beside this Calamity within the Church Heathenism hereby gain'd great ground and appear'd publickly in the World especially by his Edict to restore the heathen Priests to their ancient Immunities and for the sake of this it is that Ammianus commends this Emperor's moderation for it is the most certain rule of Government that all Parties that are under most are for this Principle because it is the only ground that can give them advantage to mount uppermost But the young Emperor Gratian a Prince of great Wisdom and Vertue finding things in so great a disorder by it he at his first coming to the Crown takes particular care for the Churches Peace and Settlement And publishes a Rescript against the publick Meetings of all Hereticks i. e. as the Law it self defines it all Parties whatsoever that did not join in Communion with the Catholicks under punishment of Confiscation of their meeting Places whether Fields or Houses and because by reason of the connivance or corruption of his Officers it was not executed he reinforces it two years after with a threatning Injunction to his Judges to neglect its execution at their Peril And yet Valens perishing soon after in the East and that part of the Empire falling to this Emperor who left the Western Parts that were better settled to his younger Brother Valentinian when he came thither he found things in such confusion by Valens his mis-government that he was forced to submit to the necessity of the Times and for that reason publisht an Edict at Sirmium granting the liberty of publick Assemblies to all Sects excepting only Manichees Photinians and Eunomians This the Historians Socrates and Sozomen set down as the first act of his Government but they were ignorant of what he had enacted in the West As for Theodoret he is quite lost in the whole story turning this act of Indulgence into a severe Law but the apparent ground of his Mistake is his confounding this Rescript with another of Theodosius de fide Catholicâ that bears this Emperor's Name though enacted by Theodosius alone For that was the custom that though the Law were made by one Emperor it was publisht in the name of all But to proceed with Gratian he having setled things as well as he could in the East and returning the year after into the West publishes a Rescript at Milan to cancel the Sirmian indulgence and forbid the Assemblies of all Sects that had been adjudged Hereticks by the Church and Imperial Laws thus we may see what Princes are frequently forced to do as to their Penal Laws by the necessity of the Times and vary their Edicts as the present temper of the World will bear them But now this Emperor having by this seasonable Law given check to the Hereticks in the next place he restores the effectual Discipline of
the Church by a Rescript bearing date the year 376 that the same Custom should be observed in Ecclesiastical Affairs as was in Civil Causes that Controversies belonging to Religion should be judged by the Synod of the Diocess but all criminal Causes should be reserved to the Audience of the Secular Governors Not to inquire at present into the particular occasion of this Law which Gothofred conjectures was made in the controversy of punishing the Priscillianists with the Sword it is agreeable with the practice of the Empire and so this learned Civilian divides all Controversies into Causes ecclesiastical and political the Ecclesiastical into Controversies of Faith or Discipline these he says appertain to the Church The political are divided into Causes pecuniary or Causes criminal and these he says appertain to the Civil Power This I know is the common state of the bounds of Jurisdiction and has made great confusions in Christendom whilst both Powers contend to keep their own ground and especially since the power over the Catholick Church was swallowed up into the papal Omnipotency what troubles have the Popes given the Christian Emperors for daring to intermeddle with spiritual Matters But this Argument of the bounds of Jurisdiction I shall fully state when I have first set down the exercise of it in matter of Fact and therefore though I need at present only say that it is a dangerous Mistake to divide them by the different Matters about which they are conversant when they are both conversant about the same Matters and unless they are so both of them will be too weak to attain the ends of their Institution Yet because it is the fundamental Mistake on both sides and because I may never come to finish this wide undertaking and lastly because I find it to be the great stumbling block to the wiser and more judicious Men of the Church of Rome I shall here a little briefly consider its consequence The learned Petrus de Marca one of the wisest Writers of that Church affirms and believes the bounds of these two Jurisdictions to be so plainly determin'd by the Matters themselves about which they are imployed that no Man can possibly miss their true boundaries that does not industriously over-look them in that it is so evident that the regal Power extends only to things secular and the Ecclesiastical to things spiritual Whereas on the contrary nothing is more evident than that all Actions are both Secular and Spiritual the same Action as it relates to the peace of the World and the Civil Government of Mankind is of a secular Nature and as it is a moral Vertue and required by the Law of God as a duty of Religion so it is of a spiritual Nature And so on the other side those things that are esteem'd Spiritual yet as they have an influence upon the publick Peace and nothing has a greater they must come under the cognizance of the civil Government So that these Jurisdictions are so far from being distinguisht by the Objects about which they are conversant that they are always both equally extended to the same Objects so as that if we limit either to one sort of Actions we destroy both For to take Matters spiritual in their strictest acceptation and as they are vulgarly understood for the Offices of divine Worship and especially the publick Devotions that are performed by the Sacerdotal Order in the publick Assemblies yet if the Sacerdotal Power reach not beyond this to secular things it can never reach its end for that is to procure the future happiness of the Souls of Men and that very much depends upon their good or bad behavior in the Affairs of this life so that if their spiritual Guides and Governors are barr'd from intermedling in all such Matters they are cut off from the chief part of their Office and what remains will be too weak to attain its end for when Men have been never so careful in all the Offices of Religion yet if care be not taken to regulate the Actions of humane intercourse all their Devotion will avail them very little in the World to come So on the other side when the Civil Power has done all that it can to settle and secure the quiet of the Common-Wealth by the wisest Laws of Justice and Honesty yet if they may not take notice of what Doctrins are instill'd into their Subjects by their Teachers or what divisions or commotions are raised by them in the Church they may soon be involved into disturbance or confusion without any Power to relieve themselves I am not at present concern'd to prove that this is now actually done by any Party of Men it is enough to my present purpose that it is a possible thing to disturb the peace of Government under Pretences or by Mistakes of Religion or to pray and preach Men into Rebellion And if it be so then the consequence is unavoidable that it must be subject to the power of the Civil Magistrate if that be any of its Office to take any care of the peace and quiet of the World But in truth this distinction has been all along chiefly cherisht by the Bishops of Rome since the time of their Usurpation because when they had got all the spiritual Power of the Church into their own hands their next care was to hug and keep it intire to themselves and therefore they confin'd the Power of Princes wholly to Matters of State but as for all things that concern'd the Church they were bound with all submission to resign themselves to his Holinesses Orders and if they presumed to gain-say any of his Edicts though never so prejudicial to their own Affairs it was open defyance to Holy Church and though the Popes never proceeded any farther against him as none of them did till Hildebrand yet that alone was at that time a forfeiture of the Affections of his best Subjects i. e. all those plain and good People that have any real love or value for their Religion And this one thing alone gave the Popes of Rome though they had never proceeded to the scandalous boldness of deposing Princes an absolute Empire and Authority over all the Princes of Christendom And it is observable that they were the high flying Popes that were the chief sticklers for the advancement of this distinction as appears not only from the Collection of Gratian Distinct. 69. where it is largely exemplified but from Petrus de Marca himself warranting the truth of this Doctrin from the Authorities of Gelasius Symmachus Gregory the second Nicolaus the first Innocentius the third who in their several high Contests with the Emperors that indeavour'd to check and bridle their Ecclesiastical Insolence still bid them mind their own business and not presumâ— to meddle with the Church the Government whereof was intrusted to St. Peter and his Successors But their Adversaries have been even with them especially the Erastian Hereticks for what greater Heresy can
there be in the Church than to take away the very Being of the Church by distinguishing between the sacred Function which they grant to be the proper office of the Church and the Power over sacred things which they annex intirely to the Civil Power by which distinction they leave the Governors of the Church no other Power than to administer the Offices of Religion without any Power of punishing Offenders against the Laws of Religion and then they have none at all for there can be no power without a Power of inflicting Penalties And there lyes the true distinguishing point between these two Jurisdictions not in the Matters about which their Power is imployed but in the Penalties by which it is inforced Thus to be short and give one example for all whereas Justinian leaves to the Church the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sins committed against the Ecclesiastical Order by the Clergy and to the State the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Sins against the Laws of the State This division is so far from being true that both Powers are equally concern'd in both Crimes for if any Clergy-man disturb the Government as the Donatists did by a Contest about a Canon of the Church then though it were an Ecclesiastical sin it concern'd the Civil Government to check the Mischief by the proper Penalties of Sedition as Honorius drove them into banishment and thereby restored the long interrupted Peace of the Empire And on the other hand if any Clergy-Man let him be never so regular to the Laws and Rules of the Church shall in a state-Faction ingage in a Rebellion against his Soveraign that is properly a Political sin the Church is bound to inflict such Penalties upon him as are denounced by the Laws of their Religion against all Traitors and Rebels i. e. to cast him out of their Society and the capacity of Salvation And that is the only difference in the case that when the King cuts a Traitor off for this life the Church cuts him off â—or the next and so it is in all other Crimes where the Prince punishes for breach of the Laws of the Land the Church punishes proportionably for breach of the Laws of Religion And as by the Laws of the Land the Penalty is proportionable to the Crime so is it by the Laws of the Church for as some Offences are Capital and some only Penal in the State so in the Church some are punisht by Penance some by utter excision or cutting off from the Kingdom of Heaven which is the same thing in its kind as cutting off life in this World So that the same Crimes are so far from belonging to different Judicatures that all belong to both the only difference is that one punishes here and the other hereafter And now this one observation of the difference of Penalties in the same cause being supposed which cannot be be avoided without destroying or intrenching upon the Rights of Church or State the bounds of Jurisdiction are evident enough without splitting of Causes and it is easy enough to understand how the same Causes belong to both Jurisdictions from their different ends without setting any restraint to either Power And thus having in this short digression as briefly as I could secured this point of the Controversy which is the main Hinge upon which depends the disingenuous Contention of both the extreme Parties both Papal and Erastian I now return to the course of the History which was broke off at the year 376. At which time the Huns breaking into the Eastern Empire and Valens being extremely distrest by them and the Goths at the same time St. Jerom and Crosius say that he repented of his former severity and upon it recall'd the Orthodox Bishops from banishment but Socrates only says and that much more probably that being otherwise imployed he desisted and so the banisht Bishops particularly Peter of Alexandria had opportunity of returning home And that I doubt was all notwithstanding St. Jerom's lavish story of his Repentance which good Father partly by his boldness partly by his eagerness has occasion'd the greatest Mistakes in the story of the Church and therefore when he is a single witness his Testimony is not to be regarded in any Matter of Fact unless when he speaks of his own knowledg for he was an honest Man and would not lye yet he was so very hot-headed that it often betrayed him into false-hoods and therefore his single Authority ought not to be trusted unless in Matters of his own knowledg And by relying upon it and that contrary to the testimony of calmer Authors great darkness has been brought upon the Records of the Church and has particularly blemisht Baronius his Annals who has very often followed his Authority not only without but against all other Authors and by it run himself into a great many Mistakes against the best Records of the Church And this I take to be one though no material one that Valens repented of his Persecution and callâ—d back the banisht Bishops for which there is no proof but only his saying so and they that followed his Authority otherwise we do not find that they were solemnly recall'd till Gratian came into the East after his death when indeed all the Historians agree that they were restored In the Year 377 a Council was held at Antioch for preventing or rather curing a Schism in that Church that was first created by Julian's spiteful and treacherous toleration to all Sects for by that means 3 Bishops had been set up in one Church Meletius who was first an Acacian but afterwards revolting to the Nicene Faith Euzoius was put in his place by the Acacian Faction and Paulinus set up by that hot Man Lucifer Calaritanus who would accept of none of Meletius his repentance in opposition to both With Meletius the Arian Converts communicated with Paulinus the old Orthodox because Paulinus himself had ever been so and as for Euzoius he presided over the Acacian Party But he dying about this time a Controversy arose who should be the true and proper Bishop of the Place in which not only the People of the City made Parties but the Bishops of other Churches St. Basil was zealous for Meletius Pope Damasus for Paulinus so that it became a Controversy between the East and West But at last this expedient was found out that both during their lives should keep their own shares but when ever one of them dyed the surviver should govern the whole Church and that the Schism might not be perpetuated an Oath was administred to six of the eldest Presbyters of that Church who were the only Candidates for the Election to submit to the Decree and this for the present ended the Quarrel And yet when after this Meletius dyed Flavianus one of the six Presbyters that had sworn never to invade the Bishoprick whilst either of the present Bishops survived violently thrusts himself into the See and
there is Evidence of such a Custom yet there is none of such a Word and therefore I think there is no need of any such far-fetcht Curiosity when the words are so intelligible in their natural sense against the Court-Eunuchs that had been all along the Patrons of this Faction and so were to be restrain'd by this Law of forfeiture of Estates being generally Men of great Wealth No says Gothofred that was only under Constantius yes say I they first set up their Trade of Simony under him but continued it in all following Reigns and did all that Mischief that was brought upon the Church under this Emperor's Predecessor Valens and therefore for preventing this Disorder for the time to come in these great Courtiers he forbids them to act at all for these Hereticks under the great Penalty of Confiscation of their whole Estate Or rather it is most probable that Eunuch was become a Proverbial Nick-name to the whole Party for the Trade between the Court Eunuchs and the Eunomians was so notorious under Valens that it might in just derision be named the Eunuchean Sect. This is I fancy the most easie sense of the words In the same year he puts out another Rescript to restrain the Meetings of all sorts of Hereticks in the City or Suburbs of Constantinople Gothofred conjectures that the Suburbs are here added because Eunomius being expell'd the City kept his Conventicles there as Sozomen informs us but that is one of Sozomen's Mistakes for he was not at that time banisht from Constantinople but Calcedon But his Conjectures why all sorts of Heresies and Errors ar◠here named is more probable because at that time the Eunomians themselves were broke into several Factions and Animosities though this is not singular to this Law but all the Laws of this Emperor run in the same comprehensive stile to prevent all Shifts and Evasions In the years 392 and 394 to all the former Edicts and Penalties he publishes his Rescripts against all Ordination by Hereticks under a severe Pecuniary Mulct upon the Persons both Ordaining and Ordain'd The same Law that his Son Honorius at first executed against the Donatists as we have seen in the History of that Schism The last Law that he made about these Matters was to abrogate the 17th Law that disabled the Eunomians from making Wills and as he often as well as all other Emperors varied his Laws upon Reasons of State so he had now some particular Reason that induced him to reverse this and what that was is not to be known but by Conjecture he was then departing to the War against Eugenius and so was willing to leave all People as easie and peaceable as he could especially the Courtiers if the Law referr'd to them or the whole Party whom its severity had made Malecontents And therefore this Indulgence was in a short time after taken away by his Son Arcadius this Emperor dying in his return home and before he could reverse it But the most usual reason of their altering their Rescripts were the various Tempers of their Ministers of State The former Laws were enacted when Tatianus was Praefectus Praetorio a Vigorous and an Active and an experienced Man that prosecuted them with all severity But this was made when Rufinus succeeded to the Office who being at his first entrance upon it more wary though otherwise of a bold Temper advised the Suspension of that severe Law for those nice times and as soon as they were over again advised its execution And thus this great Prince broke the heart of the Faction by abetting the Sentence of the Church against them with vigorous Laws And that had been sooner done had they been more vigorously executed by his Judges and Officers whose Neglect or Connivance was the reason of his so often renewing the same Law And there indeed generally lyes the greatest Miscarriages of all Governments And of this his Son Honorius was so convinced both by his Father's and his own Experience that he made all his Laws effectual by annexing severe Penalties upon their non-execution § VII But beside these Laws to back these new Decrees of the Church against Hereticks and Heresies he enacted others by his own Authority to rescue the Ancient rules of Discipline that were grown obsolete by the abuses and corruptions of time And first he reduces the Order of Deaconesses to their Primitive Institution commanding in pursuance of the rule of the Apostles and Practice of the Primitive Church that none be admitted into that Order under the Age of Sixty and that too with several Limitations that she appoint Curators or Trustees for her Children that she carry away with her none of the Plate or Jewels of the Family and that she bequeath nothing by Will to the Church Clergy or Poor though the particular occasion of this Law was that wicked Fact that Sozomen reports to have been committed at this time by a Deacon of the Church of Constantinople with one of the Deaconesses of the same Church who had probably setled her personal Estate upon him not for the Churches Service but her own And in the same Rescript commands That all Women who shave their Hair upon pretence of Religion be cast out of the Church which was done not only in pursuance of the rule of the Apostle and the Canons of the Church particularly the Council of Gangra that was then taken into the Codex of the Laws Ecclesiastical but of the Law of Nature it self to prevent the Confusion of Sexes the distinction being chiefly preserved by this Custom This Rescript was publisht in July but in September following the Clause disabling Deaconesses to dispose of their Moveables by Will to Pious and Charitable Uses is reverst provided the Will be made in time of Health and not upon their Death-beds when they might be too apt to be imposed upon by Superstition and the Frauds of Priests At the first Law Baronius takes fire as if it were a violent restraint of Devotion to God and Charity to the Poor and an Abridgement of the Priviledges of Holy Church which therefore he says was soon cancel'd by the Advice of St. Ambrose that great Assertor of Ecclesiastical Liberty But that St. Ambrose had any hand in reversing it we have no Authority of any Historian that I know of but the Cardinal himself But beside by his leave such restraining Laws are requisite nay necessary in all Commonwealths for there is nothing so Prodigal as Superstition and wherever there is Religion that will creep into great numbers of the People and therefore it concerns the Government every where to take care that Families and the Publick be not defrauded by Prodigal Zeal or under pretence of Devotion And this abuse was so early that when Constantine the Great made a Law to the Citizens of Rome to enable all Persons whatsoever to give by Will to the Church not only what Legacies but what Lands they pleased
which was the occasion of the great Wealth of that Church that as Am. Marcellinus observes was made fat with the Offerings of Widows This Liberty the succeeding Emperors found such a consumptive profuseness from the Publick that they were forced to limit it in some cases and in some to stop it quite up Valentian the Elder directed a Rescript to Damasus Bishop of the City to be read in all Churches under his Jurisdiction to forâ—id the Clergies acceptance of any Legacies from Religious Women Which Law was variously censured by the Fathers themselves St. Ambrose complains of it as a particular Spite and Unkindness to the Church St. Jerom approves of it as being extorted by the Rapaciousness of the Clergy But it continued in force till it was by name abrogated by the Emperor Marcian as too rigid and severe a restraint of Pious Uses and an entire Liberty granted to all Widows and Religious Women to dispose of their own Estates according to the old Constantinian Law Justinian limited the sense of it so as that it should not extend to the wrongful disinheriting of Children because he says when Princes grant such Liberties they cannot be supposed to grant any thing contrary to the Law of Nature and the known Custom of the Empire and therefore the Right of Inheritance belonging by both to the Children or Kindred of the Family if the Alienation from them by such Gifts be apparent the Government ought to stop it and not suffer the Subjects civil Rights to be defrauded by their too religious bounty so that these Imperial Concessions are to be limited to such cases only in which no other Person is wrong'd but if any be so that anticipates the Grant And in truth this Imposture and so it is when it is imposed by the Artifice of the Priests upon the Folly of the People grew so exorbitant in the times of Superstition that almost all the States of Christendom were forced to make Statutes of Mortmain as well as we in England and it was such a Law that was the ground of that famous Quarrel between Paul the Fifth and the Venetians But though former Ages were so wise as to stay their hand when they supposed the Church had enough for it self and the Poor for in those days they were no Parish Charge but were the care of the Church yet they were never so Prophane and Sacrilegious as to Strip and Plunder her when they were pleased to imagine that she had too much That is the peculiar Glory of our last worthy Age of Reformation when some great Pretenders swept away its Abuses and Revenues together Reforming Rectories that were a competent maintenance for Men of Education into Vicaredges the meanness of whose Revenues cannot but expose the poor Incumbents to the contempt of the People for be the Men what they will or do they what they can not only the Common People but all men will trample upon their Poverty And when all is done that is the true ground of the contempt of the Clergy Though there are many more Reasons for it as the Prophaneness of the Age and contempt of the Function it self though that in a great measure first comes from the contempt of the Men and their Poverty The wicked licentiousness of the Schismaticks in venting perpetual Lies and Calumnies against all Men that are truly honest for the Church yet the bottom of all other Contempts and that which will make them everlasting is this Remediless Poverty And it is to be fear'd that the curse of God has and does hang very heavy over this Nation for this wrong done to himself and I doubt will never be removed till some Publick â—â—re be taken to make him some competent Restitution for if there be any one Sin punisht with signal and remarkable Judgments from Heaven 't is this daring Sin of National Sacriledge of which I shall give the peculiar Reason when I come to shew the high Obligation that is laid by God upon all Christian States to endow the Church with setled Revenues which is so great that without it they cease to be Christian States But to return to the Series of the History as this Prince reform'd by himself the abuse of Widows and Deaconesses so did he correct the disorders of Monks or the Professors of solitary life for the first Monks were properly Hermites and enlarge or contract their Priviledges according to his own Will or Pleasure or according to the Temper of the Times Thus whereas it had been an old Custom indulged them to intercede with the Emperors Judges for Mercy to Criminals and Malefactors they grew so bold and insolent as to besiege the Courts raise Tumults and obstruct the whole course of Justice of which Disorders complaint being made by the Judges he Publishes a Rescript to Command them from all Cities into their Solitudes And two years after either upon change of Mind or change of Affairs or change of Councils he cancels it A very frequent thing that with all Princes to alter their Laws of Privilege as the conveniences of things alter'd So the Emperor Valens when great numbers of Men left their civil Employments to herd among the Monks for ease and idleness ferrets them back to their business under pain of forfeiture of Goods and Chattels And so when Constantine the Great had granted great Immunities to the Clergy and Exemptions from Publick Burthens great Multitudes quitted their Stations in the Common-wealth to enjoy the Privileges of the Church this forced him to enact a Rescript forbidding the admission of Civil and Military Officers into Holy Orders lest under Pretence of Religion the Service of the State be starved and defrauded And there are no less than 16 Laws in the Theodosian Code against this abuse of Clericatus as they stile it they may be seen all together at one View in Gothofred's Paratitlon to the Title De Decurionibus But the most observable Act of Reformation is his Law to restrain the abuse of Ecclesiastical immunity or the Sanctuary of Christian Churches where all sorts of Persons that escaped to them were protected by the Clergy against the Execution of the Law and they were grown so bold in the abuse of that Privilege that they would not deliver them up till they had sued out their Pardon and therefore this Emperor strictly forbids them to receive or conceal any Debtors especially those of the Crown upon penalty of paying the Debt themselves This was the first Law that was made of this kind though the following Emperors were very quick-sighted in watching this abuse For as such Customs naturally spring up of themselves from that respect that all Men have to their Religion and therefore this right of Sanctuary was common to all Religions in the World so having Superstition to back it it as naturally runs into abuse to the subversion of Justice and Honesty when under pretence of Mercy and Humanity ill Men
were shelter'd against the Laws and honest Men cheated of their Rights for I do not find any case in which it was at this time excepted but only Treason and therefore it was often requisite to give check to its Licentiousness as Theodosius here does in the Christian Church and Tiberius was forced to do as to the Heathen Asyla § VIII But beside these Laws made to abet the Laws of the Church he made divers relating to Matters of Religion which though they concern'd the Church concern'd the State more and therefore by vertue of that Authority that he enjoyed as a Soveraign Prince antecedently to the Institution of Christianity he made these Laws meerly by his own Imperial Authority without consulting the Church for the Security of the Empire And among these the most remarkable were the Laws against the Manichees who thô they pretended to the Name of Christians under that pretence warranted the Practice of all manner of Wickedness and Debauchery and therefore were prosecuted by the Emperors of all Principles as the common Enemies of the Peace of Mankind but most severely by this Great and Wise Prince Though before him Valentinian the Elder when he allowed Liberty to all other Sects Christiâ—â—s Jews and Heathens by which he embroil'd and endanger'd the Empire enacted against their Meetings with all manner of severity as a debaucht sort of People not to be endured in humane Society Or as Theodosius the younger expresses it in his Rescript against all sorts of Hereticks in which the Manichees are named in the last place with this particular severe Character Et qui ad imam usque scelerum nequitiam pervenerunt Manichaei as the very dregs of all Wickedness And therefore they are from time to time outlawed by Theodosius from all civil Rights and as for their Religion they are thrust down into the Catalogue of Apostates from the Christian Faith and reckoned in the same rank with Jews and Heathens and that was a Civility to Men that were Apostates from humane Nature Now as to such Laws as these it is evident that the Soveraign Power is enabled to enact them in both Capacities both as a Sovereign and as a Christian Sovereign and therefore because it belong'd to him to punish all Principles and Practices of Debauchery antecedently to his Christianity he for that reason proceeded against them without any consulting with the Church and that is the apparent reason why the Laws of the Empire against this debaucht Sect of Men are enacted purely by the Imperial Authority whereas all their Laws concerning Matters of Christian Faith or Discipline still warrant themselves by the Judgment and Advice of the Church But beside these Laws against these humane Beasts he enacted divers other Laws against Apostates Pagans and Jews by his own Imperial Authority His first Rescript against Apostates to Paganism was published in the year 381 and it was the first that was ever publisht against them For under Constantine and Constantius vast numbers of Heathens turn'd or pretended to turn Christians for a very obvious reason as too much appears through the whole train of the Story And the same Men under Julian turn'd Heathens again and so had the Liberty to continue under Valentinian the Moderate so that this was the first Emperor that had occasion to give check to the Sin of Apostacy And indeed he alone had Power to do it at that time for when they turn'd Apostates they were out of the Churches reach because the utmost Punishment that the Church can inflict is to cast them out of its Communion which is here done by the Crime it self And therefore such rank Offenders are only obnoxious to the Civil Powers for which reason Christian Princes were usually the more severe in their Penalties against them and here the Penalty is as the Lawyers Phrase it Intestability or disabling the Offenders from the Power of making a Will which was under that Government in a great measure to outlaw them or as it is express't in the next Law ut sint absque Jure Romano to deprive them of the Roman Rights and Liberties of which this was the greatest branch For in the Roman Empire there was no settled Inheritance of Estates but every man disposed of his own as he pleased by Will so that to deprive him of this Power was in a great measure to dispossess him of the Power over his own Estate And that was the proper Proportion of the Penalty to the Crime that whoever cast himself out of the Christian Church should be cast out of the Christian Empire too In the year 383 he publishes another Rescript against Apostates and in that distinguishes between Catechumenes and Christians baptized and limits the Penalty of the former Law to the latter sort of Offenders because they alone were properly to be accounted Christians whereas the Catechumenes were not as yet admitted into the Society of the Christian Church but were only Candidates for it and so they could not in any sense be term'd Apostates from the Church who were really never of it And at the same time that Theodosius publisht this Rescript in the East Valentinian publisht another in the West against all sorts of Apostates not only to Paganism but Manicheism and Judaism Which he reinforced in the year 391 limiting the meaning of the Law to the Christians baptized after the example of Theodosius by whom he was entirely govern'd in all things who indeed was so grateful to the Prince that advanced him to the royal Dignity that whil'st he lived he was a kind and tender Father to his Son but as he mitigated the Law by restraining its extent so he enhanced its severity by doubling its Penalties deposing the Apostate from all Honours and Dignities as well as depriving him of the Power over his own Estate and this without any hopes of Restitution upon Repentance Sed nec unquam in statum pristinum revertentur non flagitium morum obliterabitur poenitentiâ neque umbrâ aliquâ exquisitae defâ—nsionis aut Muniminiâ— obducetur But to return to Theodosius at the same time that he restrain'd Apostacy by his own Imperial Authority without any concurrence of the Power of the Church so did he by the same Power make severe Laws against Paganism it self His first Law against their Sacrifices bears date the same year and Gothofred thinks it the first that was made since the time of Constantius which is the Interval of 25 years and yet he could not be ignorant that even Valentinian the Elder made a severe Law against their Night Sacrifices and therefore I suppose the Learned Lawyers meaning is that this was the first Law that was made in all this time against all Heathen Worship in general and so it was for there is no other beside that particular Law of Valentinian against the Night Sacrifices And though Gratian shewed not a little displeasure at Rome against their
Nicomedia and ever after kept on foot by the Faction For the Western Church had been all along true and faithful to the Orthodox Faith and happy in a succession of Orthodox Emperors and therefore the Easterling Merchants that hitherto made a trade of their Religion and changed their Faith with their Interest greedily seized all Opportunities of breaking with the West where the Faith was fixt and settled because such a settlement would break the Court-Exchange for Preferments upon every Turn of Affairs And such Eceboliuses were the Bishops that raised and promoted this disorder They had ever changed their Faith with the Times and as they had bought their Bishopricks of the Courtiers under Constantius and Valens so were they resolved to keep them under Theodosius And therefore finding his Resolution to stand by the Nicene Faith they readily vote with the Council for its establishment but to prevent the establishment of the Church they start this new and unseasonable Controversie about the Ordination of Paulinus to keep up the division between the East and West Their wrigling and changing of Faith and their buying and selling of Preferments is admirably described by Gregory himself in the Poem of his own Life upon his resignation from whence I have chiefly collected this whole Story You are welcome Chap-Men how often soever you may have barter'd your Faith now 't is high Fair-time let no Man depart without a good penny-worth And now let R. B. here set his Presbyterian hand as his custom is to point out this Character of this prophane Faction against all the good Catholick Bishops with his cold Exclamation Are not these lamentable descriptions of the Bishops of those happy Times and excellent Councils But no multiplying-Glass like Malice unless perhaps Ignorance Upon this Hinge all along turn'd this Controversy it was not kept up by any zeal for the Arian Heresie but the Heresie it self was only pretended to keep up divisions in the Church and by that means a good Exchange was kept up at Court for the sale of Church-Preferments upon every turn of Times And so here upon Gregory's Resignation every Man hoped for a good penny-worth but the Courtiers were grown too cunning and it being so valuable a prize instead of sharing with the Church-men by Simony seize the Bishoprick for themselves Nectarius an unlearned Man but a great Courtier I know not by what art but I am sure by too much interposition of the Emperor being against all the Canons of the Church hoisted into it And it is the great blemish of that Princes reign though it may perhaps be some excuse that he stretcht a point to serve a Friend But the Western Church is startled at these irregular Proceedings and upon them Pope Damasus a resolute Man and one of the first that valued himself upon the great Authority of the Apostolick See moves the Emperors Gratian and Theodosius to grant a General Council at Rome for the better settlement of things But the Eastern Bishops baulk their appearance upon pretence that they cannot be so long absent from their Flocks having been assembled the year before at Constantinople and therefore send only their Legates with a Copy of the Acts of the Council With which the Council at Rome were so 〈◊〉 satisfied 〈◊〉 with very little 〈…〉 adjudged the See of Antioch to Paulinus alone and yet forbore to denounce the sentence of Deposition against Flavianus for fear the Faction should take the advantage that they watcht for to break off Communion with them In order to which it is probable that they raised the Bishop of Constantinople to so great an height of dignity as to take place and precedency next to the Bishop of Rome who upon the account of the Grandeur of the Imperial City had all along held the greatest esteem in the Christian Church And by vertue of this Decree of the Council at Rome Paulinus takes and keeps possession of his Bishoprick to his dying day and is succeeded in it by Evagrius Of the legality of his Succession against the claim of Flavianus see St. Ambrose his 78 th Epistle that runs parallel so luckily with Theodoret's partial story as to discover all its particular flaws and dawbings For says Theodoret after this they would never let Flavianus be at quiet but tired the Emperor with Complaints against him till he undertook his defence himself and by it so satisfied the Western Bishops that they promised reconciliation to him upon which he sent his Legates to treat the Peace which was at last agreed on in the time of Innocent the first But according to St. Ambrose his account who was an Actor in the business the Story runs thus The Emperor upon the Complaint of Siricius that succeeded Damasus against Flavianus refers the Cause to a Council at Capua but Flavianus refuses to appear and moves for an Eastern Synod But the Bishops at the Council being aware of this old device of dividing between East and West immediately vote Communion with all Bishops of the Eastern Church that own'd the Nicene Faith of whatsoever side in this Controversy to cut off that old pretence of Schism upon which Flavianus relyed Upon it he peremptorily refuses all appearance and upon that they refer it to Theophilus Bishop of Alexandria and the Egyptian Bishops but he shuns the reference and takes shelter at Court. Upon which the good Father thus expostulates Frustra ergo tantorum sacerdotum fusus labor Iterum ad hujus seculi Judicia revertendum Iterum ad Rescripta Iterum vexabuntur Sacerdotes senes transfretabunt maria Iterum invalidi corpore patriam peregrino mutabunt solo Iterum sacrosancta Altaria deserentur ut in longinquum proficiscamur Iterum pauperum turbae Episcoporum quibus ante onerosum paupertas non erat externae opis egentes compellentur inopiam gemere aut certè victum inopum itineris usurpare Interea solus exlex Flavianus ut illi videtur non venit quando omnes convenimus But soon after this Evagrius dyes and Flavianus bestirs himself that no Successor should be chosen but yet for all that the People would not be reconciled to him And St. Chrysostom coming at this time to the Throne of Constantinople he prevails with Theophilus of Alexandria to join with him in an Ambassy to Rome to reconcile Flavianus to the Western Church and by that means to remove those heart-burnings that were kept up between the Eastern and Western Bishops upon that account Which was done with some success for it abates the Schism though it does not end it And so things stood till the death of Flavianus in the year 404 who is succeeded by Porphyrius a Bishop of the Court-mould of as bad a Character and as true an Huckster as ever was bred up in the shop of the Nicomedian Eusebius He procured both the banishment of his Competitor and his own Ordination by money and when he had once got into his See
into open wickedness and practise all the lewd and dishonest things that the worst of Men can act with the confidence and authority of a divine Commission I am sure it was no more severe than what was done by the great Theodosius himself in his Laws against the Manichees in one of which he distinguishes between the Contemplative and the Practical Hereticks the first he out-laws but as for the others known by the names of Eucratitae Saccophori Hydroparastatae and I know not what salvage Sects more he brings them under the sentence of death And is withal so severe as to appoint an Inquisition for their discovery and in truth no care can be too great nor punishment too severe when Men under pretences of a stricter Piety bring in the practice of all sorts of uncleanness and immorality And that was the case of these brutish Wretches they pretended to singular mortification and under it acted all the Wickedness that humane Nature was capable of committing And therefore in such Cases as these it was a great mistake in St. Martin to think a Censure of the Church sufficient punishment and to disswade the Prince from drawing the temporal Sword against them when if ever it is necessary it is certainly most so when Men pervert Religion to the subversion of humane Society And then if they are executed it is not for their Heresie against the Faith but their Treason against the State and such Traitors all such Men are that teach such Doctrins as destroy the Faith of Mankind and the Peace of humane Society And therefore how blame-worthy soever Ithacius might be in his own life or manner of prosecuting and Sulpitius gives him a very ill Character as to both no wise Man could ever have blamed him so severely as he has done as to the prosecution it self and no good Man could have been too active in bringing such brutal Wretches to their due punishment And therefore it was at best but an indiscreet action supposing the truth of the Indictment which Sulpitius himself allows in Theognostus and his Followers in separating Communion from him for prosecuting though in a cause of blood When what he did in that case he was obliged to do as a Member of the Common-Wealth and antecedently to his holy Orders which certainly to whatsoever degree of Gentleness they may oblige a Man they cannot cancel that duty that by nature he owes to his Country And it is no better than Julian's Sarcastick Abuse of our Saviour's Laws to apply his Precepts of Mercy and Forgiveness against the just execution of Laws as if his Religion were set up as the Apostate prophanely objected to it only for the subversion of Civil Government The duty that he commands is a point of Prudence as well as Vertue that Men preserve the temper of their Minds in all the intercourses of life they may prosecute a Malefactor to the Gallows without strangling themselves with spite and revenge but only for the same ends for which the Government that owes him no malice inflicts the Penalty of the Law upon him A Man may hang a Thief and forgive him too And therefore it was no better than a rash and weak action of Theognostus St. Martin and their Adherents in general to condemn Ithacius his prosecution of the Priscillianists as if it had been inconsistent with the meekness of a Christian but much more the exemplary mercy of a Bishop It is indeed an Office that no good-natur'd Man can ever be fond of and less becomes a Clergy-man than any other but yet it is not unlawful nor the breach of any Precept of our Religion and therefore he could not be justly condemn'd for it nay it was so far from being a Sin that it was a duty both in him and all other good Subjects to take care of the preservation of the Common-Wealth by indeavouring to remove such plague-sores out of it And therefore Maximus did but do him justice to call a Synod at Trâ—ives to absolve him from the Excommunication of Theognostus and if he had beside that punisht Theognostus for indeavouring to intercept and obstruct publick Justice I cannot see but that he had acted as became a good and a wise Governor At least I am sure it is much less decent for a Clergy-man to patronize wicked Men against the Laws than to prosecute them provided they have reputation enough which the Civil Law requires and all other Laws ought to do to qualifie them for Evidences If indeed these had been Malefactors of an ordinary size it might not have been unbecoming a Bishop to interpose for mercy but Men that were made up of nothing but Villainy were beyond the reach of compassion and no Man in whatsoever station he was placed ought to spare their prosecution And therefore it was no better than Monkish stubbornness in St. Martin to refuse communion with the Prosecutors after the judgment of the Council and though he was at last induced to communicate with the Council it self by Maximus who bought that condescension of him by giving him the Lives of two of his Friends that had been loyal Officers under Gratian though our crude Abridger says that it was for the sake of a great Priscillianist yet upon it he quitted the Council and could have no peace till he received absolution from an Angel after which he would never more communicate with the Bishops and that I take to be no better than Monkish Enthusiasm These affectations of mercy are very popular things and easily seize Men possess 't and tainted with mortified Vanity for there is generally the height of pride and ostentation under the pomps and shews of Humility And this I doubt was St. Martin's case who though he was a devout Man yet he was altogether unlearned and indiscreet and most miserably over-run with the Scurvy of Enthusiasm and not understanding the true nature of Pride as none of that sort of Men do he was apparently acted by it in all his singularities to the very height of a Cynical vanity that is the rankest sort of Insolence in the World And this is too evident from his Story as it is told by Sulpitius himself To give one instance for all when he was treated by the Emperor who invited all his Nobles to the Entertainment he carried one of his Presbyters along with him and the Emperor being very proud that he had reconciled to himself and his ill Cause a Man so much adored by the People treats him with all the flatteries of Civility seats him next himself and places his Presbyter in the midst of his Nobles that was the highest Place at the Table A Cup is brought to the Emperor according to custom to drink in the first place he commands it to be given to St. Martin expecting at least that he would have return'd the Complement but he without any farther formality very fairly takes off his draught and so delivers the Cup to his Presbyter as the
they were exempted by Law And in the year 399 the same Law is repeated with a pecuniary Mulct not only upon the Offender that commits the Crime but upon the Judg that connives at it And in the same year another Rescript is publisht to refer Ecclesiastical Causes to the Ecclesiastical judgment but contentious about Civil Rights to the Secular Courts And there are many more Laws of the same strein in the Imperial Code the meaning whereof is not wholly to limit the Judgment of all Ecclesiastical Causes to the Church and of all Civil Causes to the Secular Courts because most Causes as I have shewn above appertain to both But their plain intention is that Causes purely Ecclesiastical or Offences against the Canons Rubricks and Orders of the Church for the preservation of Peace and Decency or Offences against the Rule of Faith shall be judged by the Church alone and as for civil Controversies they are to receive their decision only from Civil Courts For the final power of Decision is all the Authority that can be used in that case but though the Church has none of that yet it has a Power to judg of the same Actions as far as they concern the Laws of their Religion or as Theodosius the younger expresses it Christianam sanctitatem And though when one Man stands convict of having defrauded another they have not Power to right the Person wronged or to inforce a Restitution yet they have a Power to pass sentence upon the injury as a breach of the Christian Law and that sentence will have its effect So that though they have not a Civil Authority in Civil Causes yet they have an Ecclesiastical that is distinguisht not by the Matter but the Penalty of the Law But the true and proper meaning of these Laws is best understood by the occasion upon which they were enacted and the occasion of this was that the Emperors had impowr'd Bishops to decide Controversies by arbitration and the consent of Parties which they in process of time challenge as their right and derive their Authority for it from Apostolical Law as was done by the African Fathers at this time petitioning the Emperor That if any Persons will choose to have their Controversies decided by the Church according to Apostolical Law and one Party shall appeal from the Award that the Priest who was the Judg shall not be cited to the temporal Courts by him to give in any account or testimony of the proceedings To which Petition the Emperor returns this Law as a just denyal though that neither does nor can take away their Power of Ecclesiastical Censures that they received from our Saviour but of civil Decision that was granted them by the favor and indulgence of Princes and when once they pretended to an higher Commission for it it was but time to clip their pretences But in the year 400 he publisht a very remarkable Rescript in defence of the true power and discipline of the Church against all Appeals from their Sentence even to the Imperial Throne it self Whoever shall be deposed from his Office in the Church by a Synod of Bishops if he shall presume against the modesty of the Church and the Peace of the Empire to resume that Office to himself from which he is deposed he shall according to the Law of Gratian of blessed Memory be banisht an hundred Miles from the City that he infested for it is but fit that he should be banisht their Assemblies who is cut off from their Society And be it farther enacted by the force of this Law That no such Persons apply themselves to our Secretaries to procure our Rescripts in their behalf and if they shall by stealth obtain any all Rescripts granted to such Persons as are deposed from their Priesthood are hereby declared null and void And lastly let such Persons upon whose favor they relie take notice that they shall not escape the punishment due to such as shall undertake the protection of such Men as are already cast by the judgment of God This Law of stopping all Appeals from the Church was of all others most necessary for the preservation of discipline in it and therefore it was always with greatest care establisht by the Canons against all Invasions and observed with the greatest tenderness by all the wisest Emperors And we have seen through the whole series of this History that from the very time that Princes took upon them the protection of the Church the only thing that debaucht and defeated the Efficacy of its Discipline was Church-mens taking sanctuary at Court against the Authority of their Superiors And the mischiefs of this abuse having been so often experienced it was but high time to take it quite away insomuch that the Emperor was pleased to tye up his own hands from untying any sentence of the Church As for the occasion of this Law there are many conjectures about it but I think the most probable is that of Gothofred that it was made at the Petition of the African Fathers who were actually sitting at that time to restore the ancient and effectual discipline of the Church and reform the Abuses and Corruptions that were crept or were creeping into it and so among others implore the Emperor that he would be pleased to stop all ways of appeal to Persons that stood legally condemn'd by the sentence of the Church and to injoin this to all his Officers as they word it interpositâ poenâ damni pecuniae atque honoris And this Petition the Emperor grants with that frankness as to take away this abused Power of Appeals not only from his Judges but himself and damn their Authority by this Rescript once for all and for ever In the year 401 he exempts those of the Clergy that were forced to trade to get a Lively-hood from the payment of all Customs the same Law that was made by Constantius in the year 343. So that it seems the Church was not as yet indowed with sufficient Revenues to maintain it self when some of the Clergy were forced to traffick for bread Thô they were afterward forbidden all manner of Trade by Valentinan the third when it seems the Church was grown rich enough to subsist upon its own stock In the year 407 he not only confirms all the ancient Priviledges and Immunities of the Clergy but he grants them a new sort of Tuition viz. Secular Advocates for the management of all their Secular Affairs but lest by this means the Church should be cheated by these Trustees the Bishops of the Province are required to survey their Accounts This Law was made at the Petition of the African Fathers in the fourth Council of Africa and is extant in their Code Canon 97. And it was done for this end that the Clergy might not be forced to appear in Law-Courts and leave their Functions to follow Law-Suits And this is the first time that Lay-men were taken
into the concerns of the Church and that not to intermeddle with any thing of its discipline and jurisdiction but only as their Stewards and Solicitors And this Emperor was so kind to them as to follow this Rescript with another commanding that the Advocates of the Church should be put to no delays in the Common-Law-Courts but admitted to Audience at their first appearance In the year 412 he recites the particular Priviledges granted to the Clergy and commands all his Officers to keep them inviolable upon pain of perpetual Banishment The Priviledges he enumerates are these six 1 Exemption from Offices 2 From repairing of High-ways 3 From extraordinary Taxes 4 From building of Bridges 5 From maintaining the publick Carriages 6 From the Gold-Contribution which was a particular Tax imposed at that time In short they were excused from all Payments but their Canonical Tribute the rate of which was known and customary For their Lands were never exempt from Taxes and the proportion that they paid was call'd the Canonical Contribution and whatever Officer demanded more than their standing rate he was by this Rescript banisht for ever as a sacrilegious Person In the same year he publishes another Rescript forbidding the accusation of Clergy-men before any Judg but the Bishops and if any Person of what degree and quality soever shall bring an Indictment against them and be not able to make it good he shall be branded with publick Infamy as the Person accused must have been if found guilty This Rescript notwithstanding its general words that the Clergy ought to be accused before the Bishops and not else where the Lawyers will have to be understood of Ecclesiastical and not Civil Crimes but this proceeds from their common Prejudice that I have noted above that only Ecclesiastical Offences fall under the Judicature of the Church but Civil and Political Crimes are restrain'd to the cognisance of the State whereas both are punishable by both with those different Penalties that are proper to the different Jurisdictions And as for this Law in particular it cannot be understood of any other but Civil Crimes and this is evidently proved by those very Arguments that are alledged by Gothofred himself to appropriate it to Ecclesiastical Miscarriages First that they are such Crimes as are punisht by the shame of Deposition and therefore most properly Civil Crimes for there were very few Ecclesiastical Offences so great as to deserve so high a Punishment and those few that did so as in the case of Schism and Heresy were always appropriated to the Ecclesiastical Judicature before this Rescript and therefore not by it And this appears more pregnantly from his second reason the cause of enacting this Law viz. that Lay-men and even Persons of the greatest Quality being apt upon slite provocations to bear spite to the Clergy would be apt enough to way-lay their Reputation with popular defamations and false reports So that the apparent design of the Law was to prevent these scandalous Informations before the Secular Judges and restrain them from so much as taking them till they had been first examin'd by the Ecclesiastical Judicature And in the last place this is still more evident from the particular occasion of this Law that Heros a worthy Man Bishop of Arles had been thrust out by Constantius a great Court-Officer there and afterwards Emperor for six Months upon a tumultuary Accusation and Patroclus an infamous Person placed in his stead and therefore to prevent the like Disorders for the time to come it was but seasonable to enact this Law to restrain Secular Governors from receiving accusations against the Clergy till they have been first heard by the Provincial Synod So that this Law does not exempt the criminal Actions of the Clergy from the Civil Courts as Gothofred imagines when he objects that it is against the Jus Commune but only limits the exercise of their Jurisdiction viz. that they neither receive nor proceed in such Causes till the Judgment of the Church had been pass't upon them and after that they were at liberty to punish them according to Law This is the fairest and most ingenuous sense that I can make of this Law These are the chief Laws of these Emperors in the Church the Penal Laws against the Hereticks and the Laws of Priviledg to the Catholicks § XIII But beside these there were divers others enacted either to abet the Discipline of the Church by removing Abuses that were crept in upon its ancient Constitutions or by backing its present Decrees with the Imperial Authority Or else to set in order such Matters of Religion that though they related to the Church were yet without its Jurisdiction i. e. those Laws that concern Jews Heathens and Apostates in all which they followed the example of their Royal Father Theodosius And first they take care of the due and regular Ordination of the Clergy Constantine the Great had been forced to forbid his Officers both Civil and Military to be admitted into Holy Orders and the same Decree was frequently renewed by his Successors with alterations and limitations as the Prince thought most convenient for the present time that the State might not be defrauded or indamaged by too much bounty to the Church and when Men flockt so fast into it it was but requisite to lock its doors upon such as were already useful to the Common-Wealth Which Constantine did with a peremptory and universal Law but Valentinian the first with this limitation That any Person who had an Office in the State might be admitted into the Church so that he provided an able Person to supply his former Office But before this time the Priviledg of Clergy had taken place and the Bishop was impowr'd to redeem any Criminal from Justice or Debtor from Goal if he judged him qualified for doing Service in the Church that was grown into such an abuse that the Monks took them away by force and tumult to the hindrance of Publick Justice and the subversion of private Mens rights For when they were once enter'd into a Monastery or into Orders their Crimes were cancel'd and their Debts paid to redress which abuse Arcadius enacts a severe Law in the year 398 as his Father Theodosius had done before him against these violent interpositions of the Monks and threatens the Bishops that if any such Riots were made by the Monks under their Jurisdictions and not punisht by them the fault should lye at their Doors and commands them for the time to come that whenever they wanted Clerks they should take them from the Colledges of Monks if they found them clear of all Debts both Publick and Private otherwise as they ought not to have been admitted into the Monasteries so he now commands that they shall not be admâ—tted into Orders And this Law was but agreeable to the Constitution of things in those Times when the Monasteries as now our Universities were the proper Seminaries
they took away their lawful Gains His next forbids all contumelious language in publick against their Patriarchs His third commands all his Governors of Provinces to protect them and their Synagogues from all violence of the People His fourth restores and confirms to the Patriarchs and Clergy the Priviledg of Exemption à Muneribus curialibus from Publick Offices that had been granted by former Emperors Constantine Constantius Valentinian and Valens but had been since taken away by Gratian and Valentinian the younger In his fifth Law he renews the same together with an addition of all those Priviledges that had been granted by his Royal Father To which may be added his Grant to them impowring them to determine all their Law-suits by the arbitration of their Patriarchs if both Parties consented to it enacted the same year in which he granted the same Power to Christian Bishops But as indulgent as Arcadius was to them in the East they were at first treated ruggedly enough by Honorius in the West who first of all forbid the payment of the Crown-gold to the Patriarch of the Jews and his Apostles i. e. his Assessors where he resided and the Collectors of it in the several Provinces This Tribute had been ever paid from the destruction of Jerusalem though it is now intercepted by Honorius with expressions of high displeasure He calls it a cheat and the Patriarch a Thief and orders his Apostles to be punisht by his Judges as Pick-pockets But all this was done more out of spite to his Brother Arcadius than to the Jews for the two Brothers had first by the instigation of Rufinus and afterward of Eutropius Consul this year conceived a mortal hatred against each other and therefore because the Patriarch of the Jews resided in the Eastern Empire under the Government of Arcadius Honorius thought it unworthy his Majesty as he declares in his Rescript to suffer one of his Brothers Subjects to exercise so high a Power over his Subjects as to impose Taxes and Tributes upon them And for the same reason when Arcadius granted the Jewish Clergy exemption from all Offices in the year 398 Honorius forbids the execution of that Law within his Dominions as prejudicial to his Government and commands them and all Men of whatsoever condition to undergo their share of the publick Burthens And therefore five years after viz. in the year 404 when the Brothers were reconciled Honorius in token of his Reconciliation cancels this Rescript and restores them to this and all the other Priviledges that had been granted them by any of his Predecessors and from this time forward he was the most indulgent of all the Emperors to the Jews But his next Law is of a peculiar Nature against a certain new Sect of Jews that he calls Caelicolae in the year 409 commanding them because they pretended to be Christians to join Communion with the Catholick Church within a years time otherwise to be obnoxious to all the Laws against Hereticks and forbids them making any Converts for the time to come as they would not incur the guilt of High-Treason Now what these Caelicolae were or why so named 't is difficult to find because we no where meet with any mention of them but in this Emperor's time nor any description of them but in this Rescript unless once in St. Austin as Gothofred observes and though it is found in Justinian in the Law of Constantius against the Jews yet as he observes it must have been foisted in afterward from this Law because we hear of no such Sect any where else till this time and Honorius never mentions them but with the Title of a new up-start Sect. And as for the other two Laws in which they occurr viz. 43 d and 44 th de Haereticis he only names them in the rout of other Hereticks and therefore all that can be guessed at them is from this Law where they are described to be pretenders to Christianity but Jews in reality So that they seem'd to have been a sort of Mongrel Christians such as the Nazarites were of old confounding both Religions together and observing the Sacraments of both i. e. they were both circumcised as Jews and baptised as Christians being such another hotch-potch out of both Religions as was afterward made by Mahumetanism But how the name of Caelicolae came to be appropriated to them I cannot find the least foot-step for a probable conjecture How the Name came to be in former Times given to the Jewish Nation in general I am pretty well satisfied viz. not allowing any Images and Representations of the Deity they were Sarcastically represented by the heathen Poets as if they had address't all their Devotions to the Clouds and Sky But how it came to be appropriated to this particular Sect as distinct from the other Jews I believe is scarce capable of a guess there being no other Record of them than what I have mention'd in which we only find the Name but no reason of it and as the Sect began so it ended under this Reign for we hear no more of it whether it sunk by its own absurdity or the severity of the Law against it His next Rescript to the Jews in the year 412 is a confirmation of all their ancient Priviledges in the free use of their Sabboths their Synagogues their Festivals and all the other Rites of their Religion Of the same nature and to the same purpose is his third Law under the Title de feriis and the eighth under the Title de Executoribus and were no doubt but one and the same Law at first as divers others were though afterwards torn into several Parcels to reduce them to their proper heads by the Collectors of the Code There remains but one Law more of this Emperor under this Title enacted in the year 416 and that is to redress that common abuse of counterfeit Converts to Christianity from among the Jews only to avoid their Crimes and their Debts commanding all his Governors to seek out all such Impostors in all Places and for the honor of Christianity to turn them out of the Church and return them back to their own Religion And this was done at the request of the Jewish Governors to whom the Rescript is directed thereby to give them Authority to demand the execution of it of his Officers in his name Which was a much higher favor than if he had sent his Rescript immediately to the Officers themselves because by this means the execution of this Law was put into the Jews own hands To all which Laws we may add one more under the next Title ne Christianum Mancipium Judaeus habeat that is very singular and shews this Emperor's great kindness to the Jews and that is to give them the liberty of keeping Christian Slaves and Servants which was forbidden by all the Emperors both before and after him and for that reason it
rational discourse of the true use of Councils and their Authoritative determinations in the Christian Church It is not say they to make new Doctrines of Faith but to protect the old Truths against the wantonness of Innovators so that if all men would be content with the Ancient Faith it would be needless for the Church to make any new Declarations but when men leave the old Track of Religion to loose themselves in their own new contrived Labyrinths and corrupt the plain and simple Truth with over nice and curious Inventions it is then necessary for the Church to stop their Vanity by its Authoritative Declaration of the Truth it self Not as if there were something defective in the Faith and the Church were always adding to it but to make such wholesome Provisions as it judges most convenient against all Innovated Doctrines And this they exemplifie by â—ll the Decrees of the several Councils against the Prophane Novelties of Arius Pâ—â—tinus Macedonius and Nestorius and shew that they were only Fences to guard and defend the simplicity of the Ancient Faith against the petulâ—nt Assaulâ—s of these several Hereticks and that they declare to be the ground of their present determination against Eutyches that it was only a Declaration of the old Truth against a new Heresie And much more to this purpose and it is the true State of the Authority of Councils to make Decrees to stop the vanities and singularities of Innovators and when they are made they become obligatory by their own Authority and nothing can hinder or take off their Obligation but an apparent contrariety to the Divine Law So that it neither concerns nor becomes the Subject to make a strict and Philosophical search after the truth of the Decree it is enough to him that it is not apparently false In all other Cases the Authority of the Church is sufficient to justifie his Obedience before God by whose Providence they were placed under their Government And the want of this just Civility to Superiors has in all Ages been the true Original of all disturbances in the Christian Church And this was the sence of the Emperor himself who immâ—dâ—ately upon the Receipt of this Report from the Fathers publishes an Edict to the talking Citizens of Constantinople forbidâ—ing all farther disputations about the Christian Faith in that all Controversies were now determined by the Authority of the Council against which he says it were prophaneness and sacriledge for any man to presume to set up his own Opinion and no less madness then to grâ—pe after more Light at noon day and therefore after this clear discovery of the â—ruth whoever will not acquiesce in it but makes farther Enquiry he can neither seek nor find any thing but falshood And for this reason all farther disputes are peremptorily forbidden as an insolent and intolerable affront to the Sacred Authority of the Council and this is enacted under the forementioned Penalties that he declared in the 6th Session for the Confirmation of their Exposition of Faith Deposition of the Clergy Disbanding of Souldiers and Banishment of Citizens And this was afterward alledged as a proper instance by Facundus Hermianensis to the Emperor Justinian against the condemnation of the tria capitula after they had been tryed and acquitted by the Council of Calcedon with this remark upon it The Emperor Marcian judged it no less than Prophaneness and Sacriledg to review the Sacerdotal Judgment and therefore that being once pass't it was an end of all Controversie Here behold a Prince indeed a true Father of the Common-Wealth and a true Son of the Church that does not dictate but follow Ecclesiastical Decrees declaring by his Edict That whoever after the settlement of the truth shall pretend to make any farther inquiry can seek for nothing but Error For this saying forever blessed be his Memory all the World over who not only recover'd the sinking Empire but also restored lasting Peace to the poor distracted Church This Edict was reinforced by a second a Month after and Copies of it sent to all the several Praefecti-praetorio for its more effectual Execution And they are both revived in a third Rescript published the year following in which this Heresie and all the ways of propagating it are supprest by all the punishments against all other Heretiques So that it is in reality a neat Compendium of all the Laws under the Title de Haereticis in the Theodosian Code And because the bastard Council of Ephesus under Dioscorus in which Flavianus Eusebius Theodoret and many other Catholick Bishops were condemn'd had been ratified by a Rescript of Theodosius he here cancels its full force as to all the Sufferers that were surviving And because the Eutychian Itch was got among the Monks of Jerusalem and Alexandria to the raising of botches and tumults especially at Jerusalem by the disorderly behavior of one Theodosius who made himself Bishop of the place the Emperor and Empress write to them to desist at their farther peril But it seems some were stubborn and irreclaimable and no sort of Men so obstinate as those that live remote from the Conversation of the World and therefore in the year 455 the Emperor renews his former Rescript particularly to be put in Execution at Alexandria where the Heresie most reign'd and that is the last time that he appear'd against them And thus in four years time by protecting the Church in its due Authority and by abetting their Decrees with Penal Laws and by seeing his own Laws put in effectual Execution he put an end to this powerful and prevailing Heresie though it had gain'd both the Eunuchs and the Empire to its side § XVII And thus this great Prince this pattern of Government to all his Successors as Evagrius stiles him having settled all things both in Church and State two years after dyes and is succeeded in the year 457 by Leo who was chosen by the unanimous Vote both of the Senate and the Army a Prince says Nicephorus that would have carried the Election in the most flourishing times of the old Common-Wealth when only worth gave right and title to Preferm%nt a Man of that strict and severe Vertue that he must have been chosen Augustus by the Cato's themselves But as great a Man as he was he found it an hard task to keep things in that good order in which they were left by his Predecessor For no sooner came the news of Marcian's death to Alexandria that Metropolis of Sedition but a few of the Eutychian Party among whom were only two Bishops accompanied with the City-rabble make Timotheus Aelurus their Bishop and most inhumanely murther Proterius at Divine service who had been chosen to that See by the Bishops of the Province upon the deposition of Dioscorus and not content with his blood they treat the dead body with all the circumstances of rudeness and barbarity Upon this Complaints are carried to the Emperor by both Parties
so childish and such meer Legend that out of respect to so great a man I will not recite it All that certainly appears is this that there was at that time some misunderstanding between Justin and Theodorick for that was the Accusation upon which the Great Boëtius was then put to death that he held correspondence with Justin. And that Pope John was sent by Theodorick to treat with the Emperor but what was his particular Errand is not recorded but whatever it was it seems he managed it so as to fall into the King's displeasure and this is all that we have of that Popes Actions and this Emperor's reign § XXI For he dying after he had reign'd nine years in his extreme old Age before his death saw his Nephew Justinian fixt in the actual possession of the Imperial Throne by the choice of the Senate one of the greatest Princes in the whole Succession whether we regard the Success of his Arms the Magnificence of his Buildings or the Wisdom of his Laws the three greatest Ornaments of any Princes Reign And yet Envy and one ill-natur'd Libel of a malecontent Courtier if it be his has been able such is the ill-nature of Mankind to slur all the Miracles of his reign But I find that the ground of all the late displeasure against this great Prince was as some Men suppose his too busie intermedling in Church-Matters this is the thing that is taken unkindly by the Church-Men at Rome as an invasion of their Province But others on the contrary top him up for a Pattern to all Princes to keep the Jurisdiction of the Church in their own hands against all the pretences of Ecclesiasticks But as it falls out and ought so to do they are both equally mistaken for Justinian never attempted any thing in the Church that was not warranted by continued Precedents of his best Predecessors He only protected the Power of the Church in the exercise of its Jurisdiction as they did but never claim'd it to himself howsoever he might err as sometimes he did in the execution of his Office And whereas they load him so severely for presuming to make so many Novels or Laws of his own about Religion the whole charge is founded meerly upon ignorance and mistake they being all known Canons of the Church before ever he enacted them into Laws And therefore he is no more to be blamed than the best of his Predecessors unless it be for his too pious and watchful care to preserve the Discipline of the Christian Church So that it is no less than high ingratitude in the Clergy of Rome to requite so great a Benefactor to the Cause of Religion with nothing but unkind Censures and foul Calumnies But the ground of all their present Quarrel is his taking down the pride of one of their most haughty Popes Vigilius though by their own confession one of the worst of Men and that too was done at a time when their Holinesses had been accustom'd to trample upon the state of the Imperial Majesty it self And if in these contentions the Emperor fell into any indecencies that cannot be justified yet he ought not only in good Manners but in justice to be excused because it is evident from the Design of his whole Reign that his only aim was to resettle the long-disturb'd Peace of the Church and if at any time he fail'd in his Measures his Integrity ought by all the rules of Candor to attone for the defect of his Politicks But whether all his Acts of Government in the Church are justifiable or not I dare insure for all his Laws and for that I shall here account to finish the parallel between the Ecclesiastical and Imperial Laws in this Matter because by this Prince the Imperial Law was brought to its full Perfection And after that it will be needless to inquire into the practice of succeeding Princes who received either the Theodosian or Justinian Body of Laws as the sixt and standing rule of the Imperial Government Though of the two the Theodosian Code met with much the better Fortune for that having had ninety Years possession both in the Eastern and Western Empire it was not easily removed especially when it had been received by the barbarous People that invaded and conquer'd some Parts of the Empire as the only establisht Law of the Romans And so it was by that great wise and prosperous Prince Theodorick King of the Goths who enacted its obligation upon his own People in a compendious Edict drawn out of it consisting of 154 heads extant in Cassiodorus But Alaric his Successor and Grand-child by his Daughter Amalesuntha that greatest of Women made a new body of Institutes out of it vulgarly known by the name of the Breviary of Anianus not that Anianus composed it but because he by his Office compared and examin'd the Original Copy that was laid up among the Crown-Records and subscribed his Approbation from thence in after-Ages it came to bear his Name But after the Goths the Lombards the Franks the Burgundians and other People of Germany over-run the Western Empire and these when they came to settle blended the Theodosian Laws with their own ancient Customs from whence came the Feudal Law that to this day carries the greatest sway in the Government of all the European Nations But as for the Justinian Law that was received only in the Eastern Empire and there it had scarce reign'd 300 years when it was thrust out of Authority by the Basilica of Leo the Philosopher who added to the Justinian Collection the Novels of all the succeeding Emperors down to his own time But in the West it was never so much as heard of for 600 years after the death of Justinian there are not so much as any footsteps of it in the Capitulars of Charles the Great or any other European Laws Neither were they ever made publick to the Western World till the time of that great Prince Lotharius the second Emperor and Duke of Saxony who reign'd not till the year 1125. And he first brought it to light at the perswasion and by the assistance of Irnerius the most learned Man in that Age from which time forward it has kept possession together with the Feudal Law not only in the Schools and Universities but in the Government of the Empire But as for the Law it self it consists of two parts the Code and the Novels that is Laws made by himself after the publication of the Code and these are again to be subdivided into Laws concerning Faith and Laws concerning Discipline in both which he has behaved himself with as much decency and respect to the Church as any of his most admired Predecessors As for the Code it is a Collection of former Laws with some additions of his own Of the former Laws we have treated in order under the several Reigns in which they were enacted and therefore need say nothing of them here but only to vindicate
contains nothing new in it The 132 d is against the Conventicles of Hereticks of all Herds The 133 d reduces Monks to the observation of the Laws of the Church and the Rules of their Order The 137 th reâ—ulates Ordinations of the Clergy by the â—anons The 146 th is an indulgence of Liberty to the Jews and these are all the Laws enacted by this Emperor about Religion for those few that follow were made by his Successor Justin though they are placed under this Princes name by mistake Now I pray what is there in all this that is not warrantable in a Prince What is there that is not highly praise-worthy What is there that is not warranted by Precedents of his Predecessors unless it be this That he exceeded them all in his care and kindness to the Church What then can be the meaning of those ungrateful Men who requite him with nothing but Calumnies and unkind reflections for being too busie in Church-Matters unless it be this That they care not that Princes should inspect and observe the Neglects and Disorders of the Clergy I am sure Baronius betrays great dis-ingenuity in loading him so heavily as he has done when yet at the same time he is forced to excuse him first from the necessity of the times for recovering the Discipline of the Church for the Canons having lain neglected all the time of Zeno Basiliscus and Anastasius that obliged him to be the more active to recover their Authority and if he were so why does the Cardinal charge him with pragmaticalness against the Power of the Church Secondly from Justinian's own declaration that runs through all his Laws that he does not take upon himself the Authority of enacting Ecclesiastical Laws but of abetting them and putting them in executioâ— by secular Penalties a fault that would be very commendable in all Princes But some distance after the great Cardinal so far forgets his displeasure against this great Emperor that upon his sending an Ambassy to Pope John the second against the Acaemetan Monks he writes a Panegyrick upon his decent and regular Proceedings in the Church in that he always acted by the Authority of his Bishops with the consent of the Pope Adeo ut nihil his sanctius rectiusque perfici potuerit ab Orthodoxo Imperatore qui Catholicae fidei patrocinium studio indefesso susceperit And beside this he might have remembred what himself says in the year following ought never to be forgot Pope Agapetus his high Commendation of the Emperor's acting in Church-Matters in his Epistle to the Emperor Firmamus laudamus amplectimur non quia Laicis Auctoritatem praedicationis admittimus sed quia studium fidei vestrae Patrum nostrorum regulis conveniens confirmamus atque roboramus Another excuse he has made that with him out-weighs all the rest that he was under the Government of a wicked Woman kneadâ—d up of no less than six she-Devils Eve Dalilah and Herodias Alecto Megaera and Tisiphone and there is not one Lady in all his story if she be out of his favor that he does not compound of some or all of these Ingredients And concludes that he might have been the greatest Prince that ever swayed Scepter had it not been for this Penelope or six-fold Devil who made it her business to cross and controul him in all his Designs and unravel as fast as he could wind up in all his great Under-takings So true is that of the Preacher It is better to dwell with a Lyon or a Dragon than with a wicked Woman § XXIII And thus having vindicated his Laws from the Cavils of these ungratful Men I come now to vindicate his Person and his Actions from their more disingenuous Aspersions And here lies the main ground of the Quarrel against him not his medling too much with Church-Matters but with Church-Men He would not suffer himself as some of his Predecessors did to be outhufft by the Papal Insolence but brought Vigilius one of the proudest of them all to complyance and submission and that is a Crime never to be forgiven And for want of better or rather worse Information against him they are content to take up with a scandalous Libel i. e. Procopius's Anecdota Baronius was grieved to the heart that he could not find it because from thence he says it would appear what the Humor what the Wisdom what the Piety of Justinian was when his sauciness against Ecclesiasticks was such as no good or pious Prince could be guilty of But Alemannus a Convert from the poor Greek Church and one of the Cardinals Successors as he proudly intitles himself in the Office of Apostolical Librarian chancing it seems to light upon it as he was brushing the old Manuscripts in the Vatican is transported with joy and is all on fire to oblige holy Church with the publication of so useful a Work that the World might now see what manner of Man this same Justinian was who treated a Bishop so rudely as he did the good Pope Vigilius and not only so but he has helpt out the original Copy in his Latin Translation and what Procopius relates only as a flying Report he makes bold to set down as a known and certain truth And among many other strong strains of disingenuity he has been so injudicious as to undertake to make out the truth of this Libel by Procopius his own History that was publisht to the World in Justinian's own time approved of by himself and the Author advanced for it to the highest Preferments in the Empire Now that Man that will seriously go about to prove a Panegyrick to be a Satyr only shews that he is a little too much in good earnest But before I prove the false-hood of these Slanders it will be convenient to shew the occasion of raising them and that was the great heats in the Controversie about the tria capitula in which the Emperor created to himself a great number of Enemies by his zeal and resolution on that side that he unhappily took to I shall therefore first set down the progress of that Story that was the only false step of his Reign but so unluckily made that he could never wholly recover himself again before I ingage the Librarian and his supposed Author This Emperor then having appear'd so zealously in behalf of the Orthodox Faith having declared so severely against all Hereticks by several Edicts and particularly publisht a Rescript against the singularities of Origen upon complaint of the Palestine Monks set on by Pelagius the Popes Legate at the Court of Constantinople in spite to Theodorus Bishop of Caesarea his Rival in Court-favor but a great Admirer of Origen having appointed a Conference at Constantinople in the year 533 to reconcile the Acephali to the Church and the Council of Calcedon in which he expresses a very high Passion for the resettlement of Peace and Unity Having been so bold as to consent to the deposition of Anthimus Bishop
willful Malice and apparent Forgery In the same undertaking he is followed 〈◊〉 Eichelius Professor at Heltusted in Franconia in the Year 1654 who has after the German Fashion of writing for Marts improved the little Treatise into a great Book by transcribing those Quotations at length which the other only referred to And though both the substance and the wit of his Book are too grosly borrowed and that sometimes in the very same words without owning his Author yet he was a Learned man and has added a great many useful Remarks of History from his own observation has prosecuted the design more at large and demonstrated the disingenuity of the Procopian Author from these 11 Topicks 1. That he writes many things impossible in themselves 2. Many things contradicted by Co-Temperary Writers 3. By himself 4. That what he vehemently commends in his other Writings he here as vehemently inveighs against 5. That what came to pass by chance or by other mens default he imputes to Justinian 6. That he blames many commendable Actions 7. That he praises what he ought to blame 8. That he exaggerates things indifferent to the disadvantage of Justinian 9. That he wrests many of Justinians bravest Actions to an ill sense 10. That he picks up all trifling Reports of the Vulgar against him 11. That he writes divers things of great moment that are no where attested by any Co-Temporary Writers All which are I think sufficient to over-whelm the Reputation of any Writer and yet they are all so visible through the whole Vein of this Libel as to expose themselves to every mans view without searching for them But though this Author has quitted himself in the Historical Part of his Book as became a Learned Man yet he being an Erastian by principle he has all along failed in his observations upon Matter of Fact proceeding every where in that Fundamental mistake about Justinian as if he had pretended to give not only his Ratification but the first Validity to the Laws of the Church And therefore though I shall gratefully accept and acknowledge any assistance that thâ—se Learned Men have given me I shall be forced to make my own observations especially as to those things that concern Religion in which they are both mistaken And as for the Historical Part I shall not trouble my self or the Reader with any later Writers as they have done such as Zonaras Nicephorus Cedrenus c. but shall meerly relye upon Co-temporaries or such as lived upon the next Confines of the Age that they write of as I have carefully done through this whole History And such are in the Age that we are now treating of Procopius himself Agathius Marcellinus Comes Facundus Hermianensis Liberatus Diaconus Cassiodorus Jornandes Victor Tunonensis Gregorius Turonensis Evagrius Scholasticus under Mauritius and the Chronicon Alexandrinum under Heraclius And from them though the greatest part of them were either enemies or disobliged Persons I doubt not but to shew the falshood of the Libel it self and the Malice of its Abettors In the first place we have all the reason in the World to reject the Book it self as a spurious Pamphlet dishonestly fathered upon Procopius when we find it never so much as mention'd by any of the Ancients or by any Writer whatsoever for many Ages after his own time And yet it is next to impossible but that they must have taken notice of a work of such a peculiar streâ—n if it had been extant in their time especially when his other Writings were so well known in his own and all following Ages Evagrius who writ in the same Age though some time after viz. under Mauritius commends his other Histories without any mention of this Agathias Scholasticus that both Epitomised and continued his History and Johannes Scholasticus that writ not long after the death of Justinian knew nothing of this work though both were so well acquainted with his other Writings Photius that diligent and judicious Critick gives an high Character of his other works but is utterly silent about this In short the first Author that makes any mention of it is that crude and injudicious Rhapsodist Suidas who lived not till the 11th Century 500 Years after Procopius but he comes too late not being vouch't by any more Ancient Testimony and then his own can be of no Credâ—t especially considering the humour of the man who was a meer Collector without choice or judgment setting down whatsoever came to his hands without examining into the truth of the Record so that it seems this Libel being forged before his time he imbraces it contrary to the fundamental Law of the Criticks without any ancient Testimony to certifie its legitimacy Alemannus pleads that the reason why it was so long unknown was because Procopius was forced to suppress it for the security of his own life That might be a good reason for Procopius his own time but certainly not for the long interval of so many Ages as from the sixth Century to the eleventh And to give any credit to a Book that never appear'd once in the World till 500 years after the death of its pretended Author is a Civility that the Criticks would never allow in any Case neither do I know it ever challenged unless in this I know indeed Books may have been buried five hundred or a thousand years but then they have always had some ancient Testimonies that there were once such Books written by such Authors and upon no other terms were they ever received and this was the case of St. Clement's Epistle But however this Vatican Plea for suppressing Procopius his Book for his own safety may be consistent with it self I am sure it is very inconsistent with the pretence that he has undertaken to make good viz. that it may be all proved out of Procopius his other Writings in which he tells many more and many worse Stories than in this little Epitome And yet they were not only seen but approved by the Emperor himself But if so he ought either to have suppress't all or none and not to have publisht the sharper Invective to gain the Emperor's favor and keep back the milder to avoid his displeasure These are pretty consistent Dreams that could never have come into any Man's head but in a Vatican Nap. But beside the want of sufficient Certificates to warrant the reception of the Book the thing is so very unlikely in it self that Procopius should write so dirty a Libel both against Justinian and Belizarius that it would require very strong proof only to make it a thing credible For when he had through his whole life been so infinitely obliged by both when he had been raised by Justinian from a low Condition to the highest Preferments in the Empire when he had ever kept the most entire and intimate friendship with Belizarius and lastly when he made it the great work of his life both before and after the writing of this Book to
either have dared to record it or expect to gain belief to it when it is so apparently contradicted not only by the whole History of the Justinian Reign but by the very Libel it self For when he makes mention of the Wars with the Persians the Goths and the Vandals I would know whether nothing were expended in defraying the Charges of those great Expeditions And if they cost any thing then all the publick Treasury was not exhausted in Gifts to the Barbarians and unprofitable Sea-walls But for our better satisfaction let us briefly audit his Accounts and then we shall find that no Prince ever did so great things for the Common-wealth with so little Charge to the Subject so hard a thing is it to defend him from the Malice of his Enemies without writing â—anegyricks upon all his Actions so Heroick and Glorious was the whole Course of his Reign At present to say nothing of his many great and successful Wars that could not but require an immense Treasury to maintain them though as they were managed they more then paid their own Charges as I shall shew anon The vast number of his Allyes put him to prodigious expenses especially in the Circumstances of his Reign For he being a great Lover of his Religion spared neither Cost nor Pains for its Propagation and he gave himself one great advantage in it by his Bounty and Courtesie to Ambassadors and Gentlemen of Forreign Nations who repairing from all parts to Constantinople to see the grandeur of that Court then famous through all the World and being overcome by the great kindness and urbanity of the Prince they return'd home with a kind of transported opinion of the Christian civility And the good Emperor the better to compass his pious designs sent some of his best-bred Clergy to wait upon them home who by the Modesty and Neatness of their Address rivetted such an Interest at Court as easily made way for the entertainment of the Christian Faith And by this means he reformed the barbarous People with much more fineness then Constantine did the Empire For when that great Prince had once declared for the Christian Faith all Orders and Professions of men naturally flock't into it for Interest and Preferment whereas this great Prince won and vanquish't several Nations not at all subject to his Empire by nothing but the Power of Courtesie and Civility The first that were reduced were the Blemmyes and Nobatae two barbarous African Nations situated on the other side the Nile that to that timâ— worship't the old Egyptian Idols Isis Osyris and Priapus and kept up that inhumane Custom of humane Sacrifices all whose Temples were demolish't by Justinian their Priests Cashier'd and imprisoned and their obscene Images sent to Constantinople and there destroyed and that put an end to that old Superstition The next were the Eruli seated on the North side the Ister these exceeded the former in the barbarity of their manners for beside the Humane Sacrifices to their Gods it was a Religious Custom among them to cut the Throats of all old and sick People and the duty of Wives to hang themselves at their Husbands Graves These People in the time of Anastasius being vanquish't by the Long-beards seated themselves on this side the Ister and submitted to the Jurisdiction of the Empire without any Change of their Religion but Justinian so wrought upon them as to bring them over to the profession of the Christian Faith though such was the innate petulancy of the Nation that it was little to its Credit because though they took up a new Religion they for the most part kept up their old manners The third were the Abasgi inhabiting at the Foot of the Mountain Caucasus a barbarous sort of People that worshipt Trees for Gods though the worst barbarity practiced among them was the Custom of their Princes to make all their handsome Youths Eunuchs and sell them to the Romans But Justinian finding the Court full of Boys of this Nation sends Euphrates a grave Eunuch to prevail with the Prince for the time to come to lay aside this barbarous Custom and imbrace the civility of the Christian Faith and succeeding in it he sent a Christian Bishop to instruct and govern them and built for their use a Cathedral Church dedicated to the Virgin Mary These were followed by the Tetraxitae inhabiting upon the River Tanais where it discharges it self into the Lake Maeotis who being a wild and barbarous sort of Christians and hearing that the great Christian Emperor had sent a Bishop to the Abasgi they request the same favor of him for themselves a Request that was no doubt with more ease granted than it was asked The next are the Inhabitants about Pentapolis in Lybia that worshipt Jupiter Ammon and Alexander the Great these the Emperor with great pains reclaimed from their Superstition to the Christian Faith and built for them a Temple consecrated to the Virgin Mary And what is the hardest of all he over-came the stubbornness of the Jews who thô they had an ancient Temple in the Citâ— of Borium founded as Tradition weâ—â— by King Solomon they were prevail'd upon to quit their old Religion and transform their Temple into a Christian Church The next are the Maurusians and Gadabitans in Africk who retain'd the old barbarous Superstition of Greece whom he brought off to Christianity and encompassed their City of Sabaratha with Walls and founded a Church in it for the Service of God To these may be added the Iberians who are commended by Procopius as the best of the Christian Converts and them the Emperor protected from the fury of the barbarous Persians and with great sums of Money hired the Huns to come to their assistance And to mention no more the conversion of the Zani seems more remarkable then all the rest they inhabited a barren Country on the North of Armenia were subject to no settled Government but lived like herds of beasts worshipt Trees and Birds for their Gods and subsisted upon nothing but plunder and robbery but being vanquisht by Justinian who was the first that ever master'd them they imbraced the Christian Faith and at the same time cast off their barbarous Manners and the Empeeror to secure their perseverance built them a stately Church These correspondencies I hope are no Childrens Rattles for beside their great piety in bringing over so many barbarous People to the Christian Faith it was a mighty Point of State to unite Religion as well as Interest that being the strongest Cement of all Allyances So that laying all this together the Emperor 's generous bounty to all Strangers his religious care of all his Allies his bestowing magnificent Churches upon all coâ—verted Nations it is at once an undenyable proof of his Prudence and Piety and as great a reproof to all charges of profuseness and prodigality This is the first sum of his Accounts which I am sure the
own Nation by which Artifice the Empire was deliver'd from its greatest Plague to all future Ages Now can any Man be so disingenuous as to cry out here what need of this Expence or can any Man assign me an Instance of Money better laid out for the good of the Common-Wealth than to destroy so great an Enemy for ever without the loss of a Subject And therefore though the People of Constantinople at first murmur'd against it to see the Barbarians depart loaded with so much Wealth yet when they saw the Event they could not enough praise and admire the Emperor's great Conduct and Wisdom § XXXI The next Topick of Calumny is oppression and continual fleecing of the Subject but without any instance to abet the Charge and therefore I need at present only oppose to it the contrary Character that is given of this Prince by his Successor Quem non hominem pietate benignâ Continuit fovit monuit nutrivit amavit Et tamen innocuo plures voluere nocere Non caret invidiâ regni locus But I shall not concern my self to wipe it off till we come to his allegation of Particulars in the 11 th Chapter and there we shall see that all the ground of this pretended Crime was the Emperor's putting the Laws in execution against Jews Heathens Samaritans Sodomites and the whole herd of Hereticks which our ingenuous Author is pleased to surmise was not done out of any regard to Religion but out of pure love to Fines and Confiscations But in the next place he was very like Domitian in the shape and features of his Body who being torn in pieces by the Assassinates the Senate decreed that there should be no Statue or any other Monument erected to his Memory but his Empress being a vertuous Lady and extremely beloved of all Men they gave her leave to ask what she pleased and it should be granted She begs her Lords Body and leave withal to erect only one Statue of Brass to his Memory This is granted and she to leave a Monument of the Assassinates Cruelty to Posterity gathers the fragments of the Body and unites them into one Spectacle of horror from whence was taken his Statue that to this day stands at the descent or foot of the Capitol What pains are here taken to hale in a pitiful piece of Malice For what if Justinian had the ill luck to be like Domitian what follows but that Domitian had the good luck to be like Justinian But not to honor so mean a Calumny with any Answer the story it self is all fable and ignorance for there is no such Report in any of the ancient Greek or Latin Historians Suetonius Dio Cassius Philostratus Sextus Aurelius who are very nice and particular in the Story relate it quite another way in all circumstancâ—s They say nothing of his being cut in pieces but only that he was kill'd with seaven Wounds Nothing of his Bodies being begg'd by the Empress Domitia but that it was buried by Phillis the Chamber-Maid nothing of her erecting a Statue as a Monument of the barbarous Cruelty of the Conspirators but that she her self was the head and Contriver of the whole Conspiracy Where then this barbarous Writer could pick up the Fable I cannot divine unless it be that he lived in an Age when it was the fashion to debauch all the ancient History with Fable and Romance But all this says Alemannus detracts nothing from the truth of the Procopian report because the Ancients do not contradict it But all this say I demonstrates it to be a palpable false-hood because they do nothing but contradict it Yet however he says the thing is evidently proved by the brazen Statue extant in the Authors own time But this pieces exactly with all the rest of the story for there never was any such Statue seen before or since And yet such a remarkable thing could never have escaped the observation of other Writers if it had continued so long a time in so eminent a place So that the Statue is so far from proving the rest that it disproves it self and only proves that the Founder of the Tale lived in a barbarous Age when Men scribled any thing without being accountable for the truth of their Reports But beside all this 't is very likely and becoming Romantick tale that when a Man has been hewed and chopt to bits they should again be so pieced together that from thence any Man should be so subtile-sighted as to discern the exact shape of his Body and Features of his Face And yet that we must suppose in this story of the great resemblance between Domitian and Justinian Though when all is done we are still harping upon the burden of Don John for if we compare their several descriptions as they are drawn by Suetonius and our pretended Procopius Domitian was a very tall and a very fat man but Justinian of a middle stature and a moderate habit of body But however if he resemble him not in shape he did so in Rapine and Cruelty as for example he it was that was the first Prince that punish't Hereticks with temporal Penalties Enacting Dracho's Laws against those innocent Dissenters Montanists Sabbatians Arians Nestorians Manichees Jews Sodomites Pagans and Astrologers only to enrich himself by seizing the forfeitures of their Estates This indeed is a Tragical Story but so like the Author himself that it would have been great pity if it had been omitted And though it is more then enough confuted by the account that I have given above of this Princes Ecclesiastical Laws yet because the passage is of a remarkable strein and so well stuft with lucky mistakes I will be at the pains to transcribe it to satisfie the Reader that it is impossible that it could ever have been written by any man that was not an utter stranger to all the Affairs of that Age. Thus then the black Tragedy begins There are in the Roman Empire divers Sects of Christians commonly call'd Heresies as Montanists Sabatians and several others that poysoned the People All these he commanded to quit their own Sentiments threatning the obstinate among other Penalties with the great punishment of Intestability In the Temples of these Hereticks especially those of the Arian Sect were treasured up incredible heaps of Wealth so that neither the whole Senate it self nor any other eminent Body of the Roman Empire could compare with these Churches for abundance of Wealth and Riches All their Furniture and Ornaments were of Gold Silver and precious Stones of value not to be estimated and number not to be computed beside vast Purchases and Estates in all parts of the World no Prince having ever before this time given them any disturbance so that they were able to relieve and maintain out of their common stock great numbers of the Orthodox Christians The Treasures of these wealthy Churches were seized on and made a Prey to the Emperor to the utter undoing of
vast numbers of Subjects And his Officers prowling up and down into all parts forced upon all Men the change of the Religion in which they were educated The Countrey People thought this Inquisition too oppressive and from that thought proceed to think of making resistance against it but are sacrificed by the Imperial Inquisitors Others out of superstitious madness cut their own Throats and vast numbers deserted their native Countrey The followers of Montanus in Phrygia locking up themselves in their Churches set fire on them and perisht together with them and from this time forward there was nothing to be seen throughout the whole Roman Empire but Slaughters and Desolations And the same Law being executed upon the Samaritans it occasion'd wild Tumults in Palestine but those of my Native City of Caesarea counterfeited themselves Christians to escape the severity of the Laws though some of the more honest sort proved real Converts But the greater part disdain'd to be hector'd out of the Religion of their Fore-fathers in meer spite rather than turn Christians turn'd Manichees and Pagans Till at last the Boors rise in Arms against the Emperor and chose Julian the Son of Sabaris for their Leader but after a long and doubtful fight with the Imperial Forces are vanquisht and their General slain there being as 't is credibly reported no less than an hundred thousand Men slain in the Battel The best Estates being thrown up by the Farmers the Landlords that were Christians were the greatest Losers who though they received no Rents were forced to pay heavy annual Taxes to the Emperor that were exacted without mercy or abatement This being done in the next place he turns his Fury upon the Heathens cutting their Throats and siezing their Estates and they that counterfeited Christianity only to escape the fury of the Inquisition were watch't so diligently as some time or other to be snapt at their old prophane Rites and Sacrifices How he treated the Christians we shall declare afterward In the next place he prohibited Sodomy punishing the Offenders not from the date of the Law but from any time before And these he punisht though none prosecuted upon no other Evidence than the Testimony of a Boy or a Servant and that extorted against his own Master And those that were found Guilty were punisht with the loss of their Privy Members Though at first this severity did not extend to all but only to the Prasini and the Men of great Estates or those that were cast out of favor Then he was much offended with the Astrologers or Fortune-tellers and upon that account disgracefully whipt divers grave and honest Men through the City Upon all which accounts vast crowds of People betook themselves not only to the Barbarians but to the farthest distant Countries So that in every City you might observe Strangers that were fled from home to hide and shelter themselves as if their own Country had been laid wast by some commmon Enemy How Justinian's reign was all ruin and desolation to the Roman Empire we have seen above so that when he recover'd those two great branches of it Africk and Italy from the barbarous People that great reckoning is discounted as an universal Destruction But now he cannot so much as punish an Heretick no not a Sodomite without the same subversion of the Roman Empire As for the Laws themselves in general and the wisdom of enacting them and the good effect of putting them in execution they are able to justifie themselves against such mean and impotent Cavils And I know not how this Author could more have betrayed his folly malice and ignorance than by blaming such wise such useful and such necessary Laws to that height of aggravation as if to punish Arians Manichees Sodomites were of no less consequence than the subversion of the Roman Empire And therefore at present I shall not trouble my self to answer a Cavil that sinks and breaks by the weight of its own folly but shall content my self with proving the Author of it a perfect stranger to the Records and Transactions of those times For I pray what could have been contrived more absurd than the story of the infinite Wealth of the Arian Hereticks by reason of that undisturbed Peace and Quiet that they had injoyed under all former Emperors When it is so undenyably evident that the Sect was long before that time so reduced by the severity of former Emperors that by that time it had scarce any thing left but the name within the Empire And for this reason he never enacted any particular Rescripts against them nor as I remember makes so much as any mention of them unless in those general declarations of his Faith in which he enters his Protestation against all the Heresies that either then were or ever had been So unfortunate is this barbarous Writer in this Tale of the infinite Wealth of the Arians But behold the strange dexterity of the Vatican Librarian at an excuse Procopius he says does not deny that the Arians were prosecuted by former Emperors but that they were not so publickly fin'd in all Cities but rather punisht only as it were by stealth and upon certain occasions But I say Procopius here says as plainly as words can express that they were not punisht at all and therefore when Alemannus says that he does not say it for civility sake I will say no more than that he says an untruth Nay it is not only destitute of but contrary to the most known and undoubted truth it self when the former Emperors pursued them with that rigour and severity that if Justinian had design'd to set up an Inquisition he would have wanted Objects to vent his Cruelty upon There were only a few stragling Goths of that Sect at that time and these were particularly excepted out of the first Commission for prosecuting all other Hereticks so ill a Botcher is our Vatican Commentator at patching up Apologies But though he has every where betrayed his want of Skill yet he has no where fail'd more unfortunately than in this Paragraph composed of no other materials than Excuses that apparently contradict the Author 's on sense Thus when the Author says that none of the former Emperors ever inflicted any Penalties at all upon Hereticks the meaning of that says he is not that he did not inflict any at all but not so much And now again when the Author blames Justinian for the attempt it self No no says Alemannus he only blames him for the wrong manner of putting it in execution But this is a direct Affront to the Author 's own Words for though he afterward indeavors to aggravate the folly of the Design by its ill consequences yet his first and main displeasure is vented against the Design it self as absurd illegal and without Precedent as is undenyably evident from the passage it self But still his hardest task is to bring off his Author from his angry Censure of the Laws against Sodomy for