XX. VI. Freedom of public name and privileges of Chriftians, of the participation of the facraments, and of the hope of Paradife. The bishop exhorts the clergy, the magiftrates, and the people, to renounce all fociety with the enemies of Chrift; to exclude them from their houses and tables; and to refufe them the common offices of life, and the decent rites of burial. The church of Ptolemais, obscure and contemptible as she may appear, addreffes this declaration to all her fifter churches of the world; and the profane who reject her decrees, will be involved in the guilt and punishment of Andronicus and his impious followers. Thefe fpiritual terrors were enforced by a dexterous application to the Byzantine court; the trembling prefident implored the mercy of the church, and the defcendant of Hercules enjoyed the fatisfaction of raising a proftrate tyrant from the ground Such principles and fuch examples infenfibly prepared the triumph of the Roman pontiffs, who have trampled on the necks of kings. 122 VI. Every popular government has experienced the effects of rude or artificial eloquence. The coldest preaching. nature is animated, the firmeft reafon is moved, by the rapid communication of the prevailing impulse; and each hearer is affected by his own paffions, and by those of the furrounding multitude. The ruin of civil liberty had filenced the demagogues of Athens, and the tribunes of Rome; the custom of preaching, which feems to conftitute a confiderable part of Chriftian devotion, had not been introduced into the temples of antiquity; and the ears of monarchs were never invaded by the harsh found of popular eloquence, till the pulpits of the empire were filled with facred orators, who poffeffed fome advantages unknowa to their profane predeceffors". The arguments and rhetoric of the tribune were inftantly oppofed, with equal arms, by skilful and refolute antagonists; and the caufe of truth and reafon might derive an accidental fupport from the conflict of hostile paffions. The bishop, or fome diftinguished pres byter, to whom he cautiously delegated the powers of preaching, harangued, without the danger of interruption or reply, a fubmiffive multitude, whofe minds had been prepared and fubdued by the awful ceremonies of religion. Such was the ftrict fubordination of the catholic church, that the fame concerted founds might iffue at once from an hundred pulpits of Italy or Egypt, if they were tuned by the mafter hand of the Roman or Alexandrian primate. The defign of this inftitution was laudable, but the fruits were not always falutary. The preachers recommended the practice of the focial duties; but they exalted the perfection of monaftic virtue, which is painful to the individual, and ufelefs to mankind. Their charitable exhortations betrayed a fecret wish, that the clergy might be permitted to manage the wealth of the faithful, for the benefit of the poor. The most fublime reprefentations of the attributes and laws of the Deity were fullied by an idle mixture of metaphyfical fubtleties, puerile rites, and fictitious miracles: and they expatiated, with 124 СНАР. XX. СНАР. XX. VII. Privi gislative affemblies. the most fervent zeal, on the religious merit of hating the adversaries, and obeying the minifters, of the church. When the public peace was distracted by herefy and fchifm, the facred orators founded the trumpet, of difcord, and perhaps of fedition. The understandings of their congre gations were perplexed by mystery, their paffions were inflamed by invectives: and they rushed from the Chriftian temples of Antioch or Alexandria, prepared either to fuffer or to inflict martyrdom. The corruption of tafte and language is ftrongly marked in the vehement declamations of the Latin bishops; but the compofitions of Gregory and Chryfoftom have been compared with the moft fplendid models of Attic, or at least of Afiatic, eloquence 125 VII. The reprefentatives of the Chriftian relege of le- public were regularly affembled in the fpring and autumn of each year: and thefe fynods diffused the fpirit of ecclefiaftical difcipline and legislation through the hundred and twenty provinces of the Roman world". The archbishop or metropolitan was empowered, by the laws, to fummon the fuffragan bishops of his province; to revise their conduct, to vindicate their rights, to declare their faith, and to examine the merit of the candidates who were elected by the clergy and people to fupply the vacancies of the epifcopal college. The primates of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Carthage, and afterwards Conftantinople, who exerciled a more ample jurisdiction, convened the numerous affembly of their dependent bishops. But the XX. convocation of great and extraordinary fynods, CHAP. was the prerogative of the emperor alone. Whenever the emergencies of the church required this decifive measure, he difpatched a peremptory fummons to the bishops, or the deputies of each province, with an order for the use of post-horses, and a competent allowance for the expences of their journey. At an early period, when Con- A. D. 314. ftantine was the protector, rather than the profelyte, of Chriftianity, he referred the African controversy to the council of Arles; in which the bishops of York, of Treves, of Milan, and of Carthage, met as friends and brethren, to debate in their native tongue on the common intereft of the Latin or Western church "". Eleven years afterwards, a more numerous and celebrated A. D. 325. affembly was convened at Nice in Bithynia, to extinguish, by their final fentence, the fubtle disputes which had arifen in Egypt on the subject of the Trinity. Three hundred and eighteen bishops obeyed the fummons of their indulgent mafter; the ecclefiaftics of every rank, and fect, and denomination, have been computed at two thousand and forty-eight perfons ""; the Greeks appeared in perfon; and the confent of the Latins was expreffed by the legates of the Roman pontiff. The feffion, which lafted about two months," was frequently honoured by the presence of the emperor. Leaving his guards at the door, he feated himself (with the permiffion of the council) on a low ftool in the midft of the hall. Conftantine listened with patience, and spoke with mo. 128 XX. CHAP. defty and while he influenced the debates, he humbly professed that he was the minister, not the judge, of the fucceffors of the apostles, who had been established as priests and as gods upon earth". Such profound reverence of an abfolute monarch towards a feeble and unarmed affembly of his own fubjects, can only be compared to the respect with which the fenate had been treated by the Roman princes who adopted the policy of Auguftus. Within the space of fifty years, a philofophic fpectator of the viciffitudes of human affairs might have contemplated Tacitus in the fenate of Rome, and Conftantine in the council of Nice. The fathers of the capitol and thofe of the church had alike degenerated from the virtues of their founders; but as the bishops were more deeply rooted in the public opinion, they sustained their dignity with more decent pride, and fometimes opposed, with a manly fpirit, the wishes of their fovereign. The progrefs of time and fuperftition erazed the memory of the weakness, the paffion, the ignorance, which difgraced thefe ecclefiaftical fynods; and the Catholic world has unanimously fubmitted to the infallible decrees of the general councils 130 CHAP. XXI. |