civil courts, in all other cases, For this wholesome decree Baronius insults and reviles the emperor, and calls it indignam plane Christiano Principe sanctionem. But Fleury mentions this law, without passing any censure at all upon it. A. D. 453. The popes at this time began to keep spies and informers at Constantinople, "St Leo recommends to the emperor Marcian one Julian, whom he declares to be his legate, established by him to solicit at the emperor's court all things relating to the faith and peace of the church against the heretics of the age. This is the beginning of the pope's legates residing at Constantinople, who were afterwards called apocrisiarii, or correspondents, employed by the popes to maintain faith and discipline, to watch narrowly the prelates of Constantinople, and to hinder them and other patriarchs of the east from attempting any thing prejudicial to the Catholic church t." A. D. 455. Geisericus king of the Vandals attacked Rome, and pillaged, and in a manner destroyed it, and returned to Carthage with a great number of prisoners. When the captives had reached the African shore, a new calamity was added to their distress; for the husbands were to be separated from their wives, and the children from their parents. Upon this sad occasion, the bishop of Carthage, whose name was Decgratias, surpassed himself in liberality. To hinder this cruel separation, he sold all the church-plate, which was of gold and silver, and ransomed these cap vi. 478. t Fleury, vi. 485. tives, tives. As there was no accommodation in the city for them, he filled the churches with beds of straw. He visited their sick who were numerous, attended with physicians, and carrying with him proper food for them; and went the rounds every night, to see how they fared, and what they wanted; not deterred by his own infirmities and weak old age *. In our travels through the gloomy paths of Ecclesiastical History, we now and then meet with such prelates as this, shining lights, of whom the world was not worthy. A. D. 457. Timotheus was made bishop of Alexandria, a profligate wretch, who was nicknamed Timotheus Elurus, that is, Timothy the Cat, because he had crept about in the dark, pretending to be an angel, and deluding the stupid monks, to serve his own ends, and to obtain the bishoprick. He caused his predecessor Proterius to be murdered in the church, and his dead body to be dragged through the city, and cast into the fire †. A. D. 459. Salvian, a presbyter of Marseilles, a learned and candid man, and a firm Consubstantialist, speaks very handsomely and charitably of the Goths and Vandals of the fifth century, who were Arians; and boldly declares that in regularity and good discipline, in piety, charity, chastity, moderation, and every moral virtue, they much surpassed the orthodox Romans, or Greeks. They are heretics, says he, in our opinion, but not in their own they are in an error, but they err for want Victor, De Persec. Vandal, Basnage, iii. 486. Fleury, vi. 504. + Theodorus Lector, l. i. p. 565. want of knowledge, and with a pious intention. What sentence the Judge will pronounce upon them at the last day, he alone knows. In the mean time, God is long-suffering towards them, and exercises his just judgments upon us, because if our faith is better than theirs, their behaviour is better than ours; because ignorance is entitled to some favour; wickedness to none, &c. *. "It is an illustrious instance of the piety of the Goths, that when, under Alaric, they took Rome, they granted not only life, but liberty to all those who fled to the churches of the apostles, and to the tombs. of the martyrs. St Augustin highly extols this their behaviour, and Orosius scruples not to call it a proof of their fear of God, and reverence for religion. He adds that Alaric took care that all the sacred vessels, which had been taken away out of St Peter's church, should be restored. Nor was it Alaric alone who acted thus. Totilas afterwards did the same, when he took possession of Rome, as Procopius informs us. He also adds that the Goths, whilst they besieged Rome, did no damage to the churches of the two apostles, which were without the city, and suffered the Roman presbyters to perform divine service in them. Nor is it a matter deserving small commendation, that the Vandals, except in the reign of Hunneric, and of Gundebund, and the Goths at all times, abstained from doing violence to the consciences of their subjects, and permitted the embracers of the Nicene faith to believe, to teach, and to worship God after their own way. The ambassadors of the Goths declare to Belisarius that no man amongst them was eyer driven by threats or violence to change his re De Provident. 1, v. ligion; ligion; that the Goths themselves, if they were inclin ed to adopt the Nicene faith, were at full liberty to do it; and that the Goths shewed no less reverence to all consecrated places than the Romans. Sidonius, a prelate of great renown amongst the Catholics, says of Theodoric, king of the Westrogoths, Antelucanos Sacerdotum suorum cœtus minimo comitatu expetit, grandi sedulitate veneratur. Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths and of Italy, is highly extolled for his piety by Ennodius, a catholic bishop. So careful was he even of the religion of the Consubstantialists, though he followed it not, that he always gave them for bishops the worthiest persons that he could find. He put a stop to all simoniacal ordinations; and respectfully desired the prayers of the catholic clergy, as we are told by Cassiodorus. So that I wonder not to find that even Silverius, the catholic bishop of Rome, was suspected by the Greeks as preferring the dominion of the Goths to that of the Greek emperor As the Gothic princes shewed their humanity in tolerating those of a different persuasion, they shewed their prudence in not permitting their clergy and their people to chuse themselves bishops without leave of the sovereign, or any of their subjects to enter into the service of the church, or into a monastic state, without their permission, and thus they continued to act after they had quitted Arianism †. Theodoric put Symmachus and Boëtius to death, upon false reports; and this, says Procopius +, was the only act of injustice and cruelty that ever he committed against his subjects. Grotius, Proleg. ad Hist. Goth. A. D, A. D. 461. Pope Leo died. Basnage * observes of him, that his foible was ambition, and that he obtained of the emperor Valentinian that all the western bishops should be obedient to his jurisdiction; but that he compensated this defect by his religious zeal, and by oppressing the Manichæans, Eutychians, Nestorians, and Pelagians. About this time Daniel, the monk, at the death of Symeon Stylites, took up the same profession, and lived on the top of a pillar. He died upon it, A. D. 490, being eighty years old †. A. D. 466. A certain man fled for protection to a monastery, of which St Marcellus was abbot. Some soldiers were sent to fetch him out by force: but the abbot would not give him up. The soldiers surrounded the monastery in the night, threatening to break in at the morning. But they saw a fire from the top of the building, darting its rays at them, like flashes of lightning; upon which they laid down their weapons, and went to prayers.-This miracle is supposed to have given occasion to the celebrated law of the emperor Leo, in favour of sanctuaries ‡, &c. Thus an artificial Phosphorus served for many excellent purposes. St Mamertus, bishop of Vienna in Gaul, was the institutor of the rogation days, or three days of fasting and supplications, before the feast of the ascension. He was a worker of miracles, and the finder of the bodies of two old martyrs. He was persecuted and condemned by Pope Hilarus; upon which Baronius observes; Who knows not that it often happens that popes VOL. II. E e * iii. 504. |