Page images
PDF
EPUB

LXVI.

can bind their successors invested with powers equal to CHAP. their own. But the dictates of inspiration must be true, and unchangeable; nor should a private bishop, or a provincial synod, have presumed to innovate against the judgment of the Catholic church. On the substance of

the doctrine, the controversy was equal and endless: reason is confounded by the procession of a deity; the gospel, which lay on the altar, was silent; the various texts of the fathers might be corrupted by fraud or entangled by sophistry; and the Greeks were ignorant of the characters and writings of the Latin saints. Of this at least we may be sure, that neither side could be convinced by the arguments of their opponents. Prejudice may be enlightened by reason, and a superficial glance may be rectified by a clear and more perfect view of an object adapted to our faculties. But the bishops and monks had been taught from their infancy to repeat a form of mysterious words; their national and personal honour depended on the repetition of the same sounds; and their narrow minds were hardened and inflamed by the acrimony of a public dispute.

tions with

the

While they were lost in a cloud of dust and darkness, Negotiathe pope and emperor were desirous of a seeming union, which could alone accomplish the purposes of their in- Greeks. terview; and the obstinacy of public dispute was softened by the arts of private and personal negotiation. The patriarch Joseph had sunk under the weight of age and infirmities; his dying voice breathed the counsels of charity and concord, and his vacant benefice might tempt the hopes of the ambitious clergy. The ready and active obedience of the archbishops of Russia and Nice, of Isidore and Bessarion, was prompted and recompensed by their speedy promotion to the dignity of cardinals. Bessarion, in the first debates, had stood forth the most strenuous and eloquent champion of the Greek church: and if the apostate, the bastard, was reprobated by his country's, he appears in ecclesiastical story a rare ex

64 Ως sfa (said an eminent Greek) οταν εις ναον εισελθω Λατίνων ο προσκυνώ τινα των εκείσε αγίων, επει δε γνωρίζω τινα (Syropulus, p. 109). See the perplexity of the Greeks (p. 217, 218. 252, 253.273).

65 See the polite altercation of Mark and Bessarion in Syropulus (p. 257), who never dissembles the vices of his own party, and fairly praises the virtues of the Latins.

CHAP. ample of a patriot who was recommended to court-faLXVI. vour by loud opposition and well-timed compliance. With the aid of his two spiritual coadjutors, the emperor applied his arguments to the general situation and personal characters of the bishops, and each was successively moved by authority and example. Their revenues were in the hands of the Turks, their persons in those of the Latins; an episcopal treasure, three robes and forty ducats, was soon exhausted": the hopes of their return still depended on the ships of Venice and the alms of Rome; and such was their indigence, that their arrears, the payment of a debt, would be accepted as a favour, and might operate as a bribe. The danger and relief of Constantinople might excuse some prudent and pious dissimulation; and it was insinuated, that the obstinate heretics who should resist the consent of the East and West, would be abandoned in a hostile land to the revenge or justice of the Roman pontiffs. In the first private assembly of the Greeks, the formulary of union was approved by twenty-four, and rejected by twelve, members: but the five cross-bearers of St. Sophia, who aspired to represent the patriarch, were disqualified by ancient discipline; and the right of voting was transferred to an obsequious train of monks, grammarians, and profane laymen. The will of the monarchi produced a false and servile unanimity, and no more than two patriots had courage to speak their own sentiments and those of their country. Demetrius, the emperor's brother, retired to Venice, that he might not be witness of the union; and Mark of Ephesus, mistaking perhaps his pride for his conscience, disclaimed all communion with the Latin heretics, and avowed himself the champion and confessor of the orthodox creed".

66 For the poverty of the Greek bishops, see a remarkable passage of Ducas (c. 31). One had possessed, for his whole property, three old gowns, &c. By teaching one-and-twenty years in his monastery, Bessarion himself had collected forty gold florins; but of these, the archbishop had expended twen ty-eight in his voyage from Peloponnesus, and the remainder at Constantinople (Syropulus, p. 127).

67 Syropulus denies that the Greeks received any money before they had subscribed the act of union (p. 283): yet he relates some suspicious circumstances; and their bribery and corruption are positively affirmed by the historian Ducas.

68 The Greeks most piteously express their own fears of exile and perpetual slavery (Syropul. p. 196): and they were strongly moved by the emperor's threats (p. 260).

69 I had forgot another popular and orthodox protester; a favourite hound,

In the treaty between the two nations, several forms of CHAP. consent were proposed, such as might satisfy the La- LXVI. tins, without dishonouring the Greeks: and they weighed the scruples of words and syllables, till the theological balance trembled with a slight preponderance in favour of the Vatican. It was agreed (I must entreat the attention of the reader), that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son, as from one principle and one substance; that he proceeds by the Son, being of the same nature and substance, and that he proceeds from the Father and the Son, by one spiration and production. It is less difficult to understand the articles of the preliminary treaty; that the pope should defray all the expenses of the Greeks in their return home; that he should annually maintain two gallies and three hundred soldiers for the defence of Constantinople; that all the ships which transported pilgrims to Jerusalem, should be obliged to touch at that port; that as often as they were required, the pope should furnish ten gallies for a year, or twenty for six months; and that he should powerfully solicit the princes of Europe, if the emperor had occasion for land-forces.

Basil,

The same year and almost the same day, were mark-Eugenius ed by the deposition of Eugenius at Basil; and, at Flo- deposed at rence, by his-reunion of the Greeks and Latins. In the A.D.1438, former synod (which he styled indeed an assembly of June 25. dæmons), the pope was branded with the guilt of simony, perjury, tyranny, heresy, and schism70; and declared to be incorrigible in his vices, unworthy of any title, and incapable of holding any ecclesiastical office. In Re-union the latter he was revered as the true and holy vicar of of the Christ, who, after a separation of six hundred years, Florence, had reconciled the Catholics of the East and West, in A.D. 1438, one fold, and under one shepherd. The act of union was subscribed by the pope, the emperor, and the principal members of both churches; even by those who,

who usually lay quiet on the foot-cloth of the emperor's throne; but who barked most furiously while the act of union was reading, without being silenced by the soothing or the lashes of the royal attendants (Syropul. p. 265, 266).

70 From the original Lives of the Popes, in Muratori's Collection (tom. iii. P. ii. tom. xxv.), the manners of Eugenius IV. appear to have been decent, and even exemplary. His situation, exposed to the world and to his enemies, was a restraint, and is a pledge.

VOL. VIIK

Greeks at

July 6.

CHAP. like Syropulus", had been deprived of the right of votLXVI. ing. Two copies might have sufficed for the East and West; but Eugenius was not satisfied, unless four authentic and similar transcripts were signed and attested as the monuments of his victory72. On a memorable day, the sixth of July, the successors of St. Peter and Constantine ascended their thrones; the two nations assembled in the cathedral of Florence; their representatives, cardinal Julian and Bessarion archbishop of Nice, appeared in the pulpit, and, after reading in their res pective tongues the act of union, they mutually embraced in the name and the presence of their applauding brethren. The pope and his ministers then officiated according to the Roman liturgy; the creed was chanted with the addition of filioque; the acquiescence of the Greeks was poorly excused by their ignorance of the harmonious, but inarticulate, sounds73; and the more scrupulous Latins refused any public celebration of the Byzantine rite. Yet the emperor and his olergy were not totally unmindful of national honour. The treaty was ratified by their consent: it was tacitly agreed that no innovation should be attempted in their creed or ceremonies; they spared and secretly respected, the generous firmness of Mark of Ephesus; and, on the decease of the patriarch, they refused to elect his successor, except in the cathedral of St. Sophia. In the distribution of public and private rewards, the liberal pontiff. exceeded their hopes and his promises: the Their re- Greeks, with less pomp and pride, returned by the same turn to road of Ferrara and Venice; and their reception at Constantinople was such as will be described in the folA.D. 1440, lowing chapter'. The success of the first trial, encouraged Eugenius to repeat the same edifying scenes; and

Constanti

nople,

Feb. 1.

71 Syropulus, rather than subscribe, would have assisted, as the least evil, at the ceremony of the union. He was compelled to do both; and the great ecclesiarch poorly excuses his submission to the emperor (p. 290–299).

72 None of these original acts of union can at present be produced. Of the ten MSS. that are preserved (five at Rome, and the remainder at Florence, Bologna, Venice, Paris, and London), nine have been examined by an accurate critic (M. de Brequigny), who condemns them for the variety and im perfections of the Greek signatures. Yet several of these may be esteemed as authentic copies, which were subscribed at Florence before (26th of August 1439) the final separation of the pope and emperor (Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xliii. p. 287-311).

73 Ημιν δε ως ασημοι εδοκεν φωναι (Syropul. p. 297):

74 In their return, the Greeks conversed at Bologna with the ambassadors of England; and after some questions and answers, these impartial strangers laughed at the pretended union of Florence (Syropul. p. 307).

[ocr errors]

the deputies of the Armenians, the Maronites, the Jaco- CHAP. bites of Syria and Egypt, the Nestorians and the Ethio- LXVI. pians, were successively introduced, to kiss the feet of the Roman pontiff, and to announce the obedience and the orthodoxy of the East. These Oriental embassies, unknown in the countries which they presumed to represent', diffused over the West the fame of Eugenius: and a clamour was artfully propagated against the remnant of a schism in Switzerland and Savoy, which alone impeded the harmony of the Christian world. The vigour of opposition was succeeded by the lassitude of despair: the council of Basil was silently dissolved; and Felix, renouncing the tiara, again withdrew to the devout or delicious hermitage of Ripaille". A general Final peace was secured by mutual acts of oblivion and indem- peace of nity: all ideas of reformation subsided; the popes con- church, tinued to exercise and abuse their ecclesiastical despotism; nor has Rome been since disturbed by the mischiefs of a contested election".

the

A.D. 1449.

language

The journies of three emperors were unavailing for State of their temporal, or perhaps their spiritual, salvation; but the Greek they were productive of a beneficial consequence; the at Conrevival of the Greek learning in Italy, from whence it stantinople, was propagated to the last nations of the West and D. 1300 North. In their lowest servitude and depression, the -1453. subjects of the Byzantine throne were still possessed of a golden key that could unlock the treasures of antiquity of a musical and prolific language, that gives a soul to the objects of sense, and a body to the abstractions of philosophy. Since the barriers of the monarchy, and even of the capital, had been trampled under foot, the various Barbarians had doubtless corrupted the

75 So nugatory, or rather so fabulous, are these re-unions of the Nestorians, Jacobites, &c. that I have turned over, without success, the Bibliotheca Ori. entalis of Assemannus, a faithful slave of the Vatican.

76 Ripaille is situate near Thonon in Savoy, on the southern side of the lake of Geneva. It is now a Carthusian abbey; and Mr. Addison (Travels into Italy, vol. ii. p. 147, 148. of Baskerville's edition of his works) has celebrated the place and the founder. Æneas Sylvius, and the fathers of Basil, applaud the austere life of the ducal hermit; but the French and Italian proverbs most unluckily attest the popular opinion of his luxury.

77 In this account of the councils of Basil, Ferrara, and Florence, I have consulted the original acts, which fill the xviith and xviiith tomes of the cdition of Venice, and are closed by the perspicuous, though partial history of Augustin Patricius, an Italian of the xvth century. They are digested and abridged by Dupin (Bibliotheque Eccles. tom. xii), and the continuator of Fleury (tom. xxii); and the respect of the Gallican church for the adverse parties confines their members to an awkward moderation.

« PreviousContinue »