and depress him, and would not hear of a reconciliation, when Cyril attempted it. But the prelate kept a standing army of dragoons, namely, the Egyptian monks, and Alexandrian ecclesiastics, who were always ready to fight his battles. Five hundred monks came to Alexandria to assist him. These holy men meeting Orestes in his chariot, first reviled, and then assaulted him, and one of them called Ammonius flung a stone and wounded him in the head, whilst his attendants fled, fearing the vollies of stones, and the fury of the monks. The people at last took courage, and assembled to rescue their governor, and put the monks to flight. Ammonius was seized, and by the governor's order put to the rack, and so severely tortured that he expired. Cyril buried him honourably, and ordered him to be worshipped as a martyr. After these things, Hypatia, a lady much celebrated for virtue, learning, and philosophy, being suspected of favouring Orestes, and of hindering a reconciliation between him and Cyril, was assaulted by the Christian populace, headed by one Peter, a reader in the church, and cruelly murdered. Cyril was strongly suspected of having been an instigator of this iniquity. Du Pin and Lowth endeavour to vindicate him, as to the affair of Hypatia: but though there is not sufficient evidence to condemn him as author of this murder, yet neither is there room to acquit him. If he was innocent, he should at least have excommunicated those who were concerned in so vile an assasination but it appears not that he did so. Neither Socrates nor Valesius have dropped one word in his vindication. Philostorgius says, that Hypatia was murdered P. $24. murdered by the Consubstantialists; and Damascius says that it was done by the instigation of Cyril. Synesius, who had been her disciple, extols, and almost adores her. Cyril had in his service a band of parasites, who used to praise him and clap him when he preached. Afterwards, by his cabals, he with his associates demolished and excommunicated Nestorius in the famous council of Ephesus. As an author, he stands in no high class. Du Pin's judgment of his performances is pretty nearly thus: His fund of mystical and allegorical whimsies was inexhaustible, and his writings overflow with such trash, and are neither fit to convince unbelievers, nor to make believers wiser and better. He was well versed in logic and metaphysics, understood the art of wrangling and quibbling, and was a subtle disputant. His sermons are flat and tiresome to the last degree, and full of puns and of jingles upon words. His books against Julian are tolerable; but even there, in style and manner, he is much inferior to the empe ror. He had a great facility of composing, and may be called an easy writer; that is, a writer of things which it is easy to commit to paper; for either he transcribes the Scriptures, or heaps remarks together in a slovenly way, or expatiates in the visionary regions of allegory, saying every thing that came uppermost; and in this way of proceeding, a volume is soon compiled *. • See Socrates, vii. Tillemont, xiv. 267. Du Pin, iv. 41. Fleury, 360. Barbeyrac, p. 266. S. Basnage, iii. 336. J. Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, vi. 1288. Bayle, Nestorius. 7. His books against Julian are his principal work; and they are not the most elegant, non admodum elegantes, says Valesius on Socrates *. Cyril said, that Christians ought to believe, without enquiring too curiously; that a man must be a Jew to insist upon reasons, and to ask How, on mysterious subjects; and that this same How would bring him to the gallows †." The election of Cyril had been opposed by a large party, which wanted to chuse another bishop; but Cyril, being assisted by the soldiers and their officer, got the better. This victory gave him more authority than even his predecessor Theophilus had enjoyed; and from this time the prelates of Alexandria went a little beyond the bounds of spiritual power, and took a share of the temporal government." Thus says Fleury ‡, who should rather have said, not a little. From Augustin || it appears that the bishops of those times, when they exercised acts of judicature, made use of the wholesome discipline of the whip, which is not a spiritual, but a temporal weapon. A. D. 412, Maruthas, a Mesopotamian, and Abdas, a Persian bishop, propagated the Christian religion in Persia. Maruthas, it is said, cured the king of an inveterate head-ache by his prayers; and together with Abdas, expelled a devil out of the king's son. One can hardly believe that miraculous powers were conferred upon Abdas, who, like an enthusiast, burnt a temple afterwards in Persia, and so by his folly folly brought a violent persecution upon the Chris tians *. A. D. 414. A most cruel decree was made by Honorius against the African Donatists. It runs thus: Donatistas, atque Hæreticos, quos patientia Clementice nostræ nunc usque servavit, competenti constituimus auctoritate percelli, quatenus evidenti præceptione se agnoscant & intestabiles, & nullam potestatem alicujus hæreditatem ineundi habere, sed perpetua inustos infamia, a cœtibus honestis & a conventu publico segregandos. Ea vero loca, in quibus dira superstitio usque nunc servata est, Catholica venerabili Ecclesia socientur : ita ut Episcopi, Presbyteri, omnes Antistites eorum, et Ministri, spoliati omnibus facultatibus, ad singulas quasque insulas atque provincias exsulandi gratiâ dirigantur. Quisquis autem hos fugientes propositam ultionem occultandi causé susceperit, sciat & patrimonium suum fisci nostri compendiis aggregandum, & se ponam, que his proposita est, subiturum. Damna quoque patrimonii pœnasque pecuniarias evidenter imponimus viris, mulieribus, personis singulis, & Dignitatibus pro qualitate sui quæ debeant irrogari. Igitur Proconsulari, aut Vicariano, vel Comitive primi ordinis quisque fuerit honore succinctus, nisi ad observantiam Catholicam mentem propositumque convertent, ducentas argenti libras cogetur exsolvere fisci nostri utilitatibus aggregandus. Ac ne id solum putetur ad resecandam intentionem posse sufficere, quoties cumque ad communionem talem accessisse fuerit confutatus, toties mulctam exigatur: & si quinquies constiterit nec dumnis ab errore revocari, tunc ad nostram Clementiam refera cc 4 tur Socrates, viii. 8. Bayle, ABDAS. tur, ut de solida ejus substantia ac de statu acerbius judicemus, &c. Hereupon these miserable and impetuous fanatics Iwere plunged into despair and fury, and resolved to One of their ay vint hands upon themselves. bishops, called Donatus, attempted many times to kill himself; and another was determined to set fire to his conventicle, and to die in it along with his congregation. Dulcitius, the civil magistrate in Afric, who was a good-natured man, found himself in great · distress, and knew not how to act. He was afraid of offending the emperor, by shewing any favour to the Donatists; and he was no less afraid of driving these desperate people to self-murder, by putting the law in execution. He therefore consulted Augustin, who advised him by all means to use the utmost rigour, as the best way of converting these schismatics, and of compelling them to come in; since it was better that some of them should burn themselves, than that they should all burn eternally in hell: Proculdubio melius incomparabili numerositate plurimis ab illa pestifera divisione redintegratis, atque collectis, quidam suis ignibus pereant, quam pariter universi sempiternis ignibus gehennarum merito sacrilega dissentionis ardebunt t. A. D. 415. Pelagius was called to account for his opinions. I have given a pretty full relation of this controversy. I shail only here transcribe the character bestowed upon his antagonist Augustin, by Cave: Cod. Theod. L. XV. Tit. v. p. 176. + Epist. 61. See Basnage, iii. 254. Mosheim, |