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mish. He incited Nectarius to persecute the Apollinarists; which was done accordingly

"Amongst the causes which made Gregory desirous of declining the office of a bishop or of a presbyter, he mentions the mean and scandalous manner by which many, unworthy as they were, endeavoured to acquire those stations, and the multitude of competitors for ecclesiastical preferments. They consider this dignity, says he, not as a station wherein they ought to be a pattern of every virtue, but as a trade to get money; not as a ministry and a stewardship, of which an account must be given, but as a magistracy subject to no examination. They are become almost as numerous as those whom they govern; and I believe it will come at last to that pass, that there will be none to be governed, but all will be doctors, and Saul also will be amongst the prophets. He adds that the pulpits were filled with illiterate pastors, with mere boys, with imitators of the Scribes and Pharisees; that there was no such thing as charity among them, but only acrimony and wrath; that their religion consisted in condemning the irreligion of others, whose behaviour they watched, not to reform them, but to defame them; that they blamed or praised persons, not for their bad or good lives, but according to the party to which they belonged, admiring in one what they reviled in another; engaged in everlasting disputes; disputes resembling a battle fought in the dark, where a man cannot distinguish his friends from his foes; wrangling, shuffling, and cavilling about baubles, under the specious pretext of defending the faith; abhorred by the Pagans, and despised by all honest Christians.

* See Basnage iii. 94.

"This is a faithful portrait of the manners of the ecclesiastics in the days of Gregory, as the history of those times too plainly shews.” Le Clerc, Bibl. Univ. xviii. 56. where he hath given us the Life of Gregory.

A. D. 381. Theodosius took away from all heretics and schismatics all their churches, and made a present of them to the orthodox. The Apollinarists, on this occasion, pleaded for themselves, that they were of the orthodox party, and ought not to undergo this punishment: upon which Tillemont exclaims *; Surely nothing equals the impudence of an heretic! The good man was mistaken; the impudence of a bigot is usually equal to it, to say the least.

Theodosius was the first prince who established an inquisition, a spiritual office, which hath since been prodigiously improved by the sons of Dominic.

"He made a law that the Pagans should not offer sacrifices. He forbad the assemblies of the Manichæans, and took from them the power of making a testament. He ordered that the heretics called Encratitae, Saccophori, and Hydroparastatæ, should be punished summo supplicio, & inexpiabili pona. And for the detection of such persons, he appointed inqui sitors, who were thus instituted for the first time. He adds; Nemo tales occultos cogat latentesque conventus: Agris vetitum sit, prohibitum mænibus, sede publica pri vataque damnatum. Ac summa exploratione rimetur, ut quicumque in unum Paschec diem non obsequenti religione convenerint, tales indubitanter, quales hac Lege damnamus, habeantur.

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• viii. 370.

. The latter part of this law hath in view the Quartadecimans, and the Audians, who celebrated Easter on the same day with the Jews *.

"

Two years afterwards, he made a law against the Tascodrogite, and would not suffer them to assemble together. All that we know of these poor obscure heretics is from the testimony of their adversaries, of Epiphanius and Augustin, who tell us that they were a sort of Pythagorean fanatics, who made their prayers inwardly and silently, holding their noses and their lips with their hands, lest any sound should transpire, It was cruel to teize and punish these folks for saying nothing; since, according to the Roman law, silentü rationem nemo reddere tenetur. They could not be fairly charged with heresy or treason in their silent meetings.

A. D. 382. Evagrius went and dwelt amongst the Egyptian monks. Palladius says that this Evagrius, when news was brought to him that his father was dead, replied to the messenger, Do not blaspheme; for my Father is immortal. Socrates ascribes this saying to some monk, whose name is not preserved. The same thought is to be found in Q. Curtius †, who might borrow it from some Greek writer:

When Alexander, says he, had accepted from the priest of Jupiter Hammon the title of Hammon's son, he forgat himself a little, and talked as if he had been the son of Philip. Post hæc, institit quærere, an omnes parentis sui interfectores panus dedissent? Sacerdos parentem ejus negat ullius scelere posse violari: Philippi autem omnes interfectores luisse supplicia.

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Some have suspected Q. Curtius to be a modern author; but Montfaucon * observes that there is a manuscript of this historian, in Colbert's library, eight hundred years old,

Helvidius wrote a book, about this time, to shew that the Virgin Mary had children by Joseph, after the birth of Christ; and was of opinion that a state of virginity was not holier than a married state. Jerom wrote against him, at the request of many pious brethren, Fratrum precibus, and treats him as an insignificant blockhead; but so he treated every one with whom he had controversies,

Jovinian had been brought up with the monks, and had left them. He also had the same slight opinion with Helvidius concerning the dignity of virginity, and the duty of abstinence from certain meats. Jerom wrote against him likewise, extolling virginity, and depressing matrimony in a fanatical and a scandalous manner. Jerom's treatises on this subject excited the indignation of reasonable persons; but he had the wrong-headed, that is to say, a vast majority on his side.

He cited some sentences from Jovinian, as speci mens of his bad style; and indeed they are bad enough, and gave Jerom a fair opportunity to ridicule him,

Jerom calls Jovinian an epicurean, and a debauché, though the man lived in a state of continence. Pope Siricius excommunicated him and his followers, as heretics and blasphemers; and the emperor Honorius, at the instigation of the ecclesiastics of those days, condemned him to be whipped, like the vilest crimi

See Bibl. Chois. xvii. 344, and Fabricius Bibl. Lat.

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nal, in a brutal manner, and then sent in banishment to a poor little island,

Jovinianum sacrilegos agere conventus extra muros Urbis sacratissime, Episcoporum querela deplorat. Quare supra memoratum corripi precipimus, & contusum plumbo cum cæteris suis participibus & ministris exsilio coërceri: ipsum autem machinatorem in insulam Boạn festina celeritate deduci.

There, says

*Gennadius, he died like a glutton, with intemperate feasting. That is, as Juvenal says of Marius,

Exsul ab octava Marius bibit, & fruitur Dis

Iratis.

One would rather imagine that he died like a beggar. It is not a probable story, that a poor, hated, anathematized, persecuted, beaten, and banished man should have lived in affluence, and fared sumptuously every day, upon hams and cock-pheasants, as Jerom tells us, when he says;

Ille Romana Ecclesia auctoritate damnatus, inter phasides aves & carnes suillas, non tam emisit spiritum, quam eructavit.

Boa was a small island of Illyricum, the worst I suppose which could be found, to which criminals used to be transported.

Jerom, who exerted himself against Helvidius and Jovinian, hath well described his own temper, when he breaks out into these vehement words;

Canes latrant pro dominis suis: tu me non vis latrare pro Christi veritate? Mori possum : tacere non possum. In this sort of turbulent zeal our learned and warlike father hath had a multitude of disciples and imi

*

X 2

See Basnage iii. 88. 124. Fleury v. 384.

tators,

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