Roman armies. The chief person of this embassy was the celebrated Gothic bishop, Ulfila, who had great authority amongst them, having laboured incessantly to civilize them, and to instruct them in Christianity, and having on that account suffered persecution from those Goths who were Pagans. He taught his con-verted Goths the use of letters, and made them a Gothic alphabet formed upon the model of the Latin and Greek characters. He also translated the Scriptures into their language; but it is said, that he omitted. the books of kings, lest the wars, of which so much is there recorded, should increase their inclination to fighting, which was already too prevalent. Coming as embassador to Constantinople, he had conferences with the Arian bishops: and whether he hoped to succeed in his negotiations through their credit with Valens, or whether he was of himself inclined to the same opinion with them, or whether he was influenced by their representations and arguments, he sided in some measure with them, and was the occasion that the Goths embraced Arianism, or rather Semiarianism, and spread it afterwards quite through the west. Ulfila is said to have told the Goths that those violent disputes about the doctrine. of the Trinity arose from the mere pride and ambition of ecclesiastics, and were altercations of no importance, and that the fundamentals of Christianity were not concerned in them. Accordingly the Goths used to affirm that the Father was greater than the Son, but yet would never say that the Son was a creature, though they held communion with those who said so. About the same time, or a little sooner, the Pagan Goths persecuted their Christian countrymen, and put many of them to death, who yet are supposed by Socrates to have been Arians. But Basnage and others are mighty unwilling to allow of Arian martyrs, and suppose that Socrates was mistaken, and that these martyrs were good Catholics. As to Arius, says Socrates*, he being embarrassed in controversy, and endeavouring to confute Sabellianism, ran, as it often happens, into the other extreme, and fell into an opposite heresy. But these poor Goths, plain, illiterate, and simple-minded men, received Christianity, and died for it, without entering into such deep speculations, and as to those points, were rather adox than heterodox. What Socrates and Theodoret have said on this occasion, is mild and moderate, compared with the language of Tillemont †, who seems quite beside himself, and says, that Ulfila, after having done and suffered great things in propagating the Gospel amongst the Pagan Goths, was puffed up with diabolical pride, and that, bribed by the Arians, and seduced by worldly and wicked motives, he fell like Lucifer, and drew after him to hell and eternal damnation an innumerable multitude of Goths, and of other northern nations. ‡ Gudila [i. e. Ulfila] Episcopus Gothos legem docuit Christianam, et Scripturas Novi et Veteris Testamenti linguam transtulit in eandem. Speciales literas, quas eis cum Lege Gudila tradiderat, habuerunt, quæ in antiquis Hispaniarum et Galliarum libris adhuc hodie superextant, specialiter que dicitur Toletana. * iv. 33. + vi. 604. Rodericus Toletanus. See Grotius, Hist. Goth. Elog. p. 141. & Cave, i. 229. A. D. 378. Gratian, who came to the empire when he was a boy, made a law granting a toleration to all Christian sects except three, namely, the Eunomians, the Photinians, and the Manichæans, who were not permitted to have any churches or religious assemblies. Afterwards, being better instructed by his teachers, he made laws against all heretics and schismatics; for which Basnage commends him, and says, Mutatá in melius sententia, Hereticis omnibus silentium imponit*. A. D. 379. ↑ The Priscillianists spread themselves through Spain and Portugal, and were persecuted with great violence and cruelty. "Their tenets, says Tillemont, were an horrible confusion of all sorts of impieties, which flowed into this sect, as into a jakes. There was nothing so abominable in the most profane opinions which it did not adopt. It was a monstrous compound of the grossest and filthiest errors, collecting into itself all the stinking ordure dispersed throughout other heresies. Not content with these impieties, it added to them the follies of Paganism, the sacrilegious curiosities of magic, and the wild reveries of astrology. But, in particular, it adopted the doctrines of the Manichæans, Gnostics, or Basilidians." Who would not imagine from this that Priscillian was the vilest of men, such another as Count Zinzendorf, the infamous head of the modern Moravians? But whence did Tillemont collect this detestable character of the Priscillianists? From Augustin, Jerom, Pope Socrates, v. 2. Tillemont, vi. 617. Basnage, iii. 65. Tillemont, viii. 491. Basnage, iii, 110, 181. Lardner, ix, 257: Pope Leo, the acts of councils, and so forth: that is, from bigots, from persecutors, from noisy declaimers, from the sworn enemies of these people, from men whose testimony is to be suspected, and who may justly be supposed to have exaggerated things, and to have given too much credit to vulgar reports. As to their notions of the Trinity, says Tillemont, they were Sabellians and Arians. Good! One might as well have said of Tillemont, that he was a Pelagian, and a Jansenist. Priscillian, says Sulpitius Severus, drew away many people, especially females: Ad hoc mulieres novarum rerum cupide fluxa fide, et ad omnia curioso ingenio, catervatim ad eum confluebant. Tillemont did not let this cursory censure drop, but sets it forth thus: "The women more especially, who by nature love novelty, whose faith is fickle and changeable, and who are curious of knowing all things, flocked after this new doctor. The women of Spain and Portugal, who, as St Jerom observes, were of the number of those whom St Paul calls silly women, laden with sins, led away with diverse lusts, ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth, suffered themselves to be seduced with new Scriptures, recommended by specious names, and received with joy fables mixed with voluptuous charms." What pity is it that women do not write ecclesiastical history, and take their revenge upon us! The Priscillianists seem, as far as we can guess from their adversaries, to have been in some points a sort of Manichæans, but in one respect better than the Manichæans, for they received all the canonical Scrip tures tures of the Old and New Testament. If there were knaves and hypocrites amongst them, as in all probability there were, the orthodox prelates who pursued them to death were beyond measure worse. The council of Cæsaraugusta condemned and excommunicated them. Then Idatius and Ithacius, two Spanish bishops, obtained from the emperor Gratian a decree that they should be banished from all places of the empire. Then the Priscillianists went to Rome, to justify themselves before Damasus; but he would not admit them even into his presence. Then they repaired to Milan, to beg the same favour of Ambrose; but he also would not give them an hearing. Then they bribed some of the magistrates, and insinuated themselves into their favour. Then Idatius and Ithacius accused them to the usurper Maximus, and managed their affairs so well, with the help of other bishops like themselves, that Priscillian and several of his followers were put to death for heresy. "For my part, I neither approve the prosecutors, nor the prosecuted. As to Ithacius, I am persuaded that he was a man void of all principles; he was loquacious, impudent, expensive, and a slave to his belly; so senseless as to represent every holy person, who delighted in religious studies, and practised mortification and abstinence, as an associate or disciple of Priscillian. He even dared openly to accuse of heresy Martin the bishop, a man comparable to the apostles. For Martin being then at Treves, never ceased to reprimand Ithacius, and to admonish him to desist from his prosecution. He also entreated the emperor Maximus not to shed the blood of those unhappy sufferers, telling him that it was enough to subject |