the emperor intended to turn all his Christian subjects into informers and pettifoggers, and to set them like so many spies and eves-droppers to peep into the dwellings of the pagans, and to see whether they paid any religious honours to their household gods. A. D. 394. Paulinus was ordained a presbyter, and afterwards bishop of Nola. Paulinus says, that the clergy of Rome envied all the ecclesiastics who had a reputation for piety, and gives this as one of the reasons for which he chose to live far from that city. He opposes to the proud and insolent manner in which Pope Siricius had used him, the charity and affability of the bishops and the clergy who dwelt in the country. Paulinus, as Dn Pin observes, was not very learned; but there is something that is agreeable in his compositions. He was much beloved and esteemed by all the eminent men of his time, in all parties, and he never fell out with any of them. He was remarkably charitable, and gave his great estate to the poor; he lived soberly and frugally, yet without practising any extraordinary mortifications. He was of a pious and humble temper, had a great veneration for saints and martyrs, a propensity to believe miracles, and a reverence for reliques *. Ausonius pays a compliment to Paulinus, and says ; Assurgit Muse nostra Camana tuce. The Donatists in Afric made a schism amongst themselves, and three hundred and ten of their bishops held a council, to condemn their own brethren, in which they poured out all sorts of execrations against Y 2 See Cave, i. 228. them; them; and also implored the help of the civil magistrate. They thus prefaced their decree : Placuit Spiritui sancto, qui in nobis est, pacem firmare perpetuam, et schismata reserare sacrilega.--Maximianum [Episcopum] fidei cemulum, veritatis adulterum, Ecclesia Matris inimicum, Dathan, Core et Abiron Ministrum, de pacis gremio fulmen excussit, et quem adhuc eundem dehiscens terra non sorbuit, ad majus supplicium Superis reservavit. Then they proceed to anathematize those who had ordained Maximianus: Famosi ergo criminis reos-qui funesto opere perditionis vas sordidum collectá feculentiâ glutinaverunt, sed et clericos aliquando Ecclesie Carthaginiensis, qui dum facinori intersunt, illicito incestui lenocinium præbuerunt, Dei præsidentis arbitrio, Consilii ore veridico damnatos esse cognoscite. Augustin, writing against these men, says, You sent a crier to make proclamation, Whosoever shall communicate with Maximian, his house shall be burnt. You seized upon Salvius, one of those prelates who ordained Maximian, and tying dead dogs to the old man's neck, you led him about the streets in triumph, dancing round him. Yet after all this violence, the Donatists made up the quarrel, and received Maximian and his partizans; which levity and inconstancy gave Augustin no small advantage in his disputes with these schismatics. The uncouth style of this African decree, and its turgid jargon we may pardon, as the fault of the age, and of the country, and the language of men who knew no better, and who doubtless thought the composition to be wonderfully smart and elegant: but the indecency of it is inexcuseable, and the profane impudence impudence of joining the name of God and of the Holy Spirit to such uncharitable scurrility *. A. D. 395. " Arcadius and Honorius were taught to believe that the prosperity of their father Theodosius, and the destruction of their enemy Rufinus, were the effects of that emperor's piety, that is, according to the language of those days, of his exalting the orthodox, and depressing the heretics. Therefore they confirmed all that their father had done in favour of the church, and made many new laws against heretics and schismatics, against the Arians, Eunomians, Luciferians, Macedonians, &c. The Eunomians, who carried Arianism to the greatest length, were deprived of the power of making a will, or of receiving a legacy, and were excluded from all employments at court. Arcadius ordered that all edifices, in which the heretics assembled at Constantinople, should be confiscated, that their ecclesiastics should be expelled from that city, and that they should not meet together, even to pray to God. What is singular, is that this emperor was very favourable to the Jews, and took them under his protection. It is hard to conceive how these princes could hope to draw down the favour of heaven by persecuting heretics, most of whom certainly received the greatest part of the essentials of Christianity, and by protecting the Jews who rejected it entirely. For, in short, a man must have been no better than fool or mad, not to see that the Jews were sworn enemies of Jesus Christ, and held him to have been an impostor; and that the heretics, as the Y 3 * See Basnage, iii. 147. Arians Arians of all denominations, the Macedonians, &e. believed him, on the contrary, to be a person, at least, sent from God, and that they professed to acknowledge all his doctrines as true and sacred, though they might be mistaken in the sense which they affixed to some parts of them. This being the case, if Jesus Christ was well pleased when the heretics were persecuted, if he rewarded the orthodox persecutors with victories and prosperity, how much more must he have been delighted to see the Jews oppressed. To reject the whole of Christianity, without deigning to give the Christians an hearing, as the Jews did; and to profess an assent to the whole, and be mistaken only in some particular points; these are faults which surely are not equal. Yet they shewed the most favour to those who were most culpable; and with great severity they oppressed those whose offence was smaller. But it is easy to guess the cause of all this. They shewed no regard to the ordinary rules of justice, and would not sedately consider their own proceedings. They complied with the passions of some orthodox prelates, who had no fear that the Jews would entice their congregations from them, and therefore cared not what the Jews said, or what they taught; but being apprehensive lest heretical preachers should draw away their flock, and weary of disputing with such people, instigated the emperors to shut their mouths, and to treat them with severity. It was necessary therefore to talk of the glory of God, to describe him as grievously offended at those, who having the power to exterminate heretics, would not exert it; to represent him as granting success to orthodox persecutors, and causing those to be shamefully overthrown, who had any compassion for the heterodox, heterodox. As to the Jews, they were considered as quite out of the question, as men with whom Jesus Christ had no concern. And perhaps the Jews, by bribes properly applied, bought the favours which were granted to them, whilst heretical Christians called themselves orthodox, and either scorned or scrupled to purchase that liberty which they had a right to enjoy. The misfortune was, that the boasted victories obtained by these persecuting princes were very trifles, compared with the calamities under which the Roman empire had groaned for twenty years, and which Jerom deplores in tragical terms. But far heavier soon ensued in Italy and Afric, by the invasions of the Goths and Vandals. No sufferings inflicted by the princes on the heretics, no curses and excommunications poured out upon them by holy councils could avert the wrath of heaven, which gave up the Roman empire a prey to barbarians. It is strange that the emperors never once took it into their heads to try whether they could obtain the divine protection by a method directly contrary, by tolerating heretics, since whilst they oppressed them, they saw the barbarians growing more and more formidable, and invading the best provinces of the empire. Such a conduct had been more conformable to natural humanity and Christian charity. Even the rules of worldly policy, and the peace and repose of the empire, might have induced him to try the experiment. But the outrageous zeal of the ecclesiastics, their desire to domineer over mens consciences, and their inhumanity covered with the mask of orthodoxy prevailed, and obliged the emperors to trample under foot justice, benevolence, charity, and prudence, and totally Y 4 |