Yet, paradoxical as it may seem, from the admitted fact, that, In all ages have the Paulicians and the Albigenses invariably denied themselves to be Manichèans, does Bossuet undertake to demonstrate the asserted fact of their inveterate Manichèism.

BUT it will be said: that There must surely have been some plausible ground at least for fixing, upon the ancient Paulicians and Albigenses, the particular charge of Manichèism, rather than the charge of any other Heresy. Hence it will be asked: Could their enemies have so pertinaciously brought against them the specific and well-defined accusation of Manichèism, if there had been nothing whatever, in their doctrinal system, which could give an apparent sanction to such an accusation ?

That the charge, in the first instance, was built upon the circumstance of The infant Paulician Community having been, to a considerable extent, composed of honest converts from Manichèism, is, I think, abundantly manifest: nor does the intrinsic absurdity and contradictoriness of the charge at all derogate from the certainty of the fact, when the character of blind and deaf and furious and unreasoning bigotry is considered.

From Asia, as I have already observed, the charge attended the emigrant Paulicians into Europe and, whether from the intercourse of ordinary conversation, or from dishonestly distorted reports of occasional apostates (such as Reinerius Sacco) eager to please their new friends, or from resolute misconstruction of unprincipled Inquisitors in their examination of pretended heretics, nothing would be more easy than to fix a semblance of Manichèism, quite enough to satisfy vulgar ignorance and prejudiced bigotry, upon these hated reformers and provoking reprovers.*

• According to the plan adopted by the Inquisitors of Languedoc, it was morally impossible for any of the accused Albigenses to escape.

By the twenty-second canon of the Council of Narbonne, which sat in the year 1244 for the purpose of aiding and abetting the recently-established Holy Office of Holy Dominic in its project of exterminating the reputed heretics of Southern France, Inquisitors (much, no doubt to their satisfaction) were forbidden to reveal the names of witnesses: by the twentyfourth canon, it was enacted; that the testimony of infamous persons, of criminals, and of those who confessed themselves to have been accomplices, should be received in the process of the Inquisition against the Albigenses: and, by the twenty-sixth canon, to make all sure, it was decreed; that he, who shall have been convicted by witnesses, or through any other proofs, shall henceforth be always reputed a heretic, even though he should deny the truth of the allegation. Hist. Gener. de Langued. par un Bénédictin. livr. xxv. § 81. vol. iii. p. 445.

Deeply steeped in infamy as is the Pontifical Church, we can scarcely theorise a lower depth than this glaring and scan

The view, which I take of the process, will be perfectly intelligible, when a few specimens of

dalous prostitution of justice. One benefit, however, may be said to result from it for good occasionally springs even out of evil. No rational being can, by any conceivable possibility, believe a syllable of the tales of Manichèism related of the Albigenses, when those tales rest upon such a foundation as that which has been laid by the Council of Narbonne. For, in sooth, how stands the case? A man of infamous character charges an unoffending individual with Manichèism: the name of the wretch, who lays the accusation, is concealed: the accused, however, flatly denies the truth of the charge, avowing his firm belief in all the Articles of the Christian Faith: but still the charge, though in matters secular the word of the accuser would not be taken for a single farthing, is held to have been fully established; and the accused shall be dealt with as a clearly convicted heretic. Such is the evidential basis, on which rests the pretended Manichèism of the Albigenses!

:

It must in all fairness be admitted that, through their supreme contempt for the doubtless very miserable superstitions of Popery, the Albigenses were, at times, sufficiently provoking to the Romish Clergy. Of this we have a whimsical instance given us, with most amusing simplicity, by that zealous heretichater, good Bishop Lucas of Tuy. The story, in brief, runs to the following effect:

Through some ingenuity of management on the part of agents employed by the mischievous Albigenses, a fountain was found to work most surprising miracles, healing alike the blind and the halt, and ejecting demons from the persons of the possessed. Such a display must needs result from an adequate theological cause: and, through a continuation of the same management, it was soon discovered, that the bones of a sacred martyr and of a holy abbot rested, in the odour of sanctity, close to the wonderworking fountain. The whole country, sacerdotal as well as

facile perversion shall have been produced: and, by such a system of management, I will readily

laic, was in a state of triumphant agitation: but the secret was far too good a secret to remain a secret. The laughter-loving Albigenses had contrived to deposit the remains of a condemned heretic and of an executed murderer, in the somewhat novel character of a catholic martyr and of a beatified abbot, near to the sacred fountain and the bones of those two respectable individuals were found to be quite as efficacious in the performance of miracles, as the bones of the most approved saint in the pontifical calendar. From such premises, the logic of the Albigenses drew a most heterodox conclusion. They dared to hint, that popish miracles, as performed by the Hohenlohes of the day, were not a whit better than those which they themselves had got up. Quid plura? says honest Lucas. Quod callidè fecerant quibusdam detegentes, hæretici deridebant Fidem Catholicam: et, simili artificio fieri miracula in Ecclesia coram Sanctorum corporibus, affirmabant. Unluckily, this albigensic argumentum ad hominem was not unsuccessful; for Lucas goes on to say; Non defuerunt aliqui, qui crederent illis, quibus profana consilia revelaverant, et in hæresin laberentur. the progress of the malady was soon stopped by a judicious application of the regular popish medicine, for such cases had and provided. After an appeal to heaven somewhat on the plan of that of Elijah and the Baalites, which, Lucas assures us, was eminently successful, in despite of the blast of a trumpet credibly said to have been sounded by Lucifer himself: a simple deacon, fervent in the faith, effectually settled the entire controversy, in the good old way of persecution. The moral of the whole, as summed up by the Prelate of Tuy, runs thus: Hæc idcirco scripsi, ut ab astuta calliditate hæreticorum fideles caveant: quia multæ sunt eoram insidiæ, quibus intendunt, pervertere fidem Christi. Luc. Tudens. adv. Albig. lib. iii. c. 9, 10. in Bibl. Patr. vol. xiii. p. 280, 281.