De omnigena ejus eruditione pluribus agere, idem esset ac lucem soli offundere. Hospes sit oportet tum in ejus, tum in aliorum scriptis, qui nesciat Augustinum in toto meliorum literarum circulo eminere; in questionibus vero Theologicis primas tenere *. What an excessive compliment is here paid to a man who, in reality, had not a sufficient quantity of erudition and of judgment to entitle him to this character, or to any thing like it! The reliques of St Stephen were found, together with those of Nicodemus, and those of Gamaliel, and of Abbas, his son. They were found by the help of revelations and visions, and they wrought innumerable miracles. Tillemont † calls it one of the principal events of the fifth century, and gives a large detail of it, which surely well deserves to be perused; for, take it altogether, it is perhaps one of the most barefaced and impudent impostures that ever was obtruded upon the Christian world. The vouchers for it are Lucian, a presbyter of the church of Jerusalem, who was the happy discoverer of these reliques, Augustin, Sozomen, Orosius, Gregory of Tours, and many more. "Cave is not willing to give the same credence to modern miracles, as to those which were performed, as they say, in the days of Honorius. He seems inclined to allow that a great number of sick persons were cured by the admirable odour which issued from the sepulchre of St Stephen, when it was first opened, if we may believe Lucian and Photius. But he is much more persuaded of the relation given us by St Augustin concerning the miracles wrought in a chapel, where some reliques of St Stephen were reposited. Cave Cave is of opinion that God might perform such miracles at that time, for the conversion of the Pagans, who were still numerous amongst the Christians; though at present miracles are ceased, because there is not the same occasion for them. The author of the Logic of Port-Royal, speaking of these miracles, affirms that every man of good sense, though he should not have a grain of piety or religion, must needs acknowledge them to be true. But a man may have both good sense and piety too, and yet may rather believe that St Augustin was mistaken and credulous, or that he judged it expedient to propagate miraculous tales, which he thought calculated to convert the Pagans, without examining them too strictly. It is true indeed, that he relates them with the utmost confidence; and with the same confidence the most notorious impostures are still recommended to our belief every day *.” Du Pin, speaking of these miracles, says, "These relations have in them so little of the probable and the credible, that if they were not authorized by the testimony of St Augustin and of Gennadius, we could scarcely believe them." Du Pin, I presume, means somewhat more than he says t. "A phial filled with the blood of St Stephen, brought to Naples by one Gaudioso, an African bishop, used to boil and bubble of itself on the third of August, according to the old calendar. But since Gregory XIII. hath corrected the calendar, the blood doth not boil up till the thirteenth of August, on which † See S. Basnage, iii. 268. J. Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, L. VI. C. xv. p. 1292. Middleton, Free Inq. p. 115. Fleury, v. 431. which the festival of the saint is fixed by the new regulation. A manifest proof that the Gregorian calendar is received in heaven, though some heretical countries upon earth refused to follow it *." year, A. D. 417. Anastasius observes that, this " Easter was kept on a wrong day at Rome, namely, on the twenty-fifth of March, when it ought to have been on the twenty-second of April, on which it was celebrated at Constantinople. He adds that God shewed who were in an error, at a certain village where the fonts, which used to be miraculously filled at Easter, were not found full of water till the twenty-second of April. Baronius produceth many examples of such miraculous fonts †." A. D. 421. The league between the Romans and the Persians was broken, and a war ensued. One cause of it was that the Persian king cruelly persecuted the Christians in his dominions, and sent to demand those of them who had fled for refuge to the Romans. The Romans refused to surrender them, and chose rather to enter into a war, and to run all hazards; and for this behaviour they deserved commendation. The war was terminated altogether to their advantage, and the Persians received a signal overthrow. Whilst the emperor Theodosius and all the people were in great anxiety about the event, angels appeared to some travellers, and bade them go and assure the inhabitants of Constantinople of a victory. This, saith Socrates, animated both the soldiers and the people. He takes it to have been a real miracle; but it looks more like a pious stratagem of Bibl. Univ. vi. 13. some + Tillemont, x. 679. Fleury, v. 462. some Christians, and an imitation of the apparition of Castor and Pollux upon a like occasion. The Romans however had reason to ascribe this victory to the good providence of God, considering the justice of their cause, their great success, the detestable cruelty of the Persians, and the heavy loss which that nation suffered of their best troops. After this, it is said that the persecution ceased, or was much abated in Persia. The Roman soldiers had taken captives seven thousand Persians, who were perishing with hunger and misery. The Persian king earnestly intreated to have them sent back; but the soldiers would not comply with his request. Upon this, Acacius, bishop of Amida in Mesopotamia, performed a most glorious action, to which no victory is to be compared. With the consent of his clergy, he sold all the plate belonging to the church, bought all the prisoners of the Roman soldiers, maintained them for some time till they were in a condition to travel, and sent them home, furnished with all necessaries, to the Persian king, who was astonished at the charity and generosity of Acacius, and sent him an invitation to his court, desiring earnestly that he might have the pleasure of beholding a man to whom he was so much obliged. Acacius obtained leave from Theodosius to go and pay the king a visit *. A. D. 423. Upon the death of Honorius, John, a considerable person in the palace, usurped the empire. He made some laws disagreeable to the clergy, and ordered that they should be subject to the jurisdiction of secular courts. Perhaps he did this, to oblige the laity: laity but it was an impolitic action; for the ecclesiastics in those days were too powerful to bear even the shadow of an insult. Valentinian III. rescinded these decrees of the usurper. Privilegia Ecclesiarum omnium, quæ sæculo nostro Tyrannus inciderat, prona devotione revocamus.—Clericos etiam, quos indiscretim ad sæculares Judices debere deduci infaustus Præsumptor edixerat, Episcopali audientia reservamus. Fas enim non est, ut divini muneris Ministri temporalium Potestatum subdantur arbitrio *. Hence some have concluded that John was not a Catholic but an Arian. However that be, his defeat is represented to us as miraculous; and a dirty shepherd, who was guide to his enemies, is transformed into an angel. "An angel of God, under the appearance of a shepherd, conducted Aspar and his soldiers, and led them through a lake adjoining to Ravenna, which till then had been unpassable. They going over it, as over firm ground, and coming up to the gates of the city, seized upon the tyrant t." Philostorgius, in his relation of this transaction, deals less in the marvellous than Socrates, and says; 66 Aspar coming suddenly, with some cavalry, after a slight engagement, took John prisoner, who was betrayed by his own people, and sent him to Aquileia, to Placidia, and Valentinian. There, his right hand being first cut off, he was beheaded, after an usurpation which had lasted a year and a half." says; Procopius gives him a good character, and John was mild, prudent, and courageous. Although he had usurped the empire, he governed it * Cod. Theod. L. XVI. Tit. ii. p. 94. & Gothofred. with |