XII. PART II.

distinguished its members, and the various alter-C EN T. ations which were introduced into their rule of, discipline in process of time. They observe, that, among other marks which were used to distinguish the Carmelites from the seculars, the tonsure was one; that, this mark of distinction exposed them, indeed, to the mockeries of a profane multitude; and that this furnishes the true explication of the terms bald head, which the children addressed, by way of reproach, to ELISHAH as he was on his way to Carmel [x]. They tell us, moreover, that PYTHAGORAS was a member of this ancient order; that he drew all his wisdom from mount Carmel, and had several conversations with the prophet DANIEL at Babylon, upon the subject of the Trinity. Nay, they go still farther into the region of fable, and assert, that the Virgin MARY, and JESUS himself, assumed the habit and profession of Carmelites; and they load this fiction with a heap of absurd circumstances, which it is impossible to read without the highest astonishment [y].]

[x] See 2 Kings ii. 23.

XXII.

[y] For an ample account of all the absurd inventions here hinted at, see a very remarkable work entitled, ORDRES MONASTIQUES, Histoire extraite de tous les Auteurs qui ont "conservé à la Postorité ce qu'il y a de plus curieux dans chaque ordre, enrichie d'un tres grand nombre de passages des mémes Auteurs; pour servir de demonstration que ce qu'on y avance est egalement veritable et curieux." This work, which was first printed at Paris in 1751, under the title of Berlin, and which was suppressed almost as soon as it appeared, is written with great wit, eloquence, and learning; and all the narrations it contains are confirmed by citations from the most eminent authors who have given accounts of the religious orders. The author's design seems to have been to expose the monks of every denomination to the laughter of his readers; and it is very remarkable, that, in the execution of his purpose, he has drawn his materials from the gravest authors, and from the most zealous defenders of monachism. If he has embellished his subject, it is by the vivacity of his manner, and the witty elegance of his style, and not by lay

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XII.

XXII. To this brief account of the religious PART II. orders, it will not be amiss to add a list of the principal Greek and Latin writers that flourished in this century. The most eminent among the Greeks were those that follow:

Greek writers.

PHILIPPUS SOLITARIUS, whose Dioptra, or controversy between the soul and the body, is sufficiently known;

EUSTRATIUS, who maintained the cause of the Greek church against the Latins with great learning and spirit, and who wrote commentaries on certain books of ARISTOTLE;

EUTHYMIUS ZIGABENUS, who, by his Antiheretical Panoply, together with his commentaries upon several parts of the sacred writings, has acquired a place among the principal authors of this century [x];

JOHANNES ZONARAS, whose Annals, together with several other productions of his learned pen, are still extant;

MICHAEL GLYCAS, who also applied himself to historical composition, as well as to other branches of learning [a];

CONSTANTIUS HARMENOPULUS, whose commentaries on the civil and canon laws are deservedly esteemed;

ANDRONICUS

ing to the charge of the monastic communities any practices which their most serious historians omit or disavow. The authors of the Bibliotheque des Sciences et de Beaux Arts, at the Hague, have given several interesting extracts of this work in the 2d, 3d, 4th, and 5th volumes of that Literary Journal.

The Carmelites came into England in the year 1240, and erected there a vast number of monasteries almost through the whole kingdom. See BROUGHTON's Historical Library, vol. i. p. 208.

[*] See RICH. SIMON, Critique de la Bibliotheque des Auteurs Eccles. par M. DU PIN, tom. i. p. 318. 324. [a] Other historians place GLYCAS in the fifteenth century. See LAMI Dissertatio de Glyca, which is prefixed to the first volume of his Delicia vivorum eruditorum,

XII.

ANDRONICUS CAMATERUS, who wrote with C E N T. great warmth and vehemence against the Latin PART II. and Armenians;

EUSTATHIUS, bishop of Thessalonica, the most learned of the Greeks in this century, and the celebrated commentator of the Iliad ;

THEODORUS BALSAMON, who employed great diligence, erudition, and labour, in explaining and digesting the civil and ecclestiastical laws of the Greeks [b].

XXIII. The most eminent among the Latin Latin wri writers were,

BERNARD, abbot of Clairval, from whom the Cistertian monks, as has been already observed, derived the title of Bernardins; a man who was not destitute of genius and taste, and whose judgment, in many respects, was just and penetrating; but who, on the other hand, discovered in his conduct, many marks of superstition and weakness, and, what is still worse, concealed the lust of dominion under the mask of piety, and made no scruple of loading with false accusations, such as had the misfortune to incur his displeasure [c];

INNOCENT III. bishop of Rome, whose epistles and other productions contribute to illustrate the religious sentiments, as also the discipline and morals, that prevailed in this century [d];

ANSELM of Laon, a man of a subtile genius and deeply versed in logical disquisition;

[b] See the Bibliotheca Græca of FABRICIUS.

ABELARD

[c] The learned MABILLON has given a splendid edition of the works of St BERNARD, and has not only in his Preface made many excellent observations upon the life and history of this famous abbot, but has also subjoined to his Works, the accounts that have been given, by the ancient writers, of his life and actions.

[d] The Epistles of INNOCENT III. were published at Paris, in two large volumes in folio, by BALUZIUS, in the year 1682.

ters.

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PART II.

ABELARD, the disciple of ANSELM, and most /XII. famous in this century, on account of the elegance of his wit, the extent of his erudition, the power of his rhetoric, and the bitterness of his unhappy fate [e];

GEOFFRY of Vendome, whose Epistles and Dissertations are yet extant;

RUPERT of Duytz, and the most eminent, perhaps, of all the expositors of the holy scriptures, who flourished among the Latins during this century, a man of a sound judgment and an elegant taste [f];

HUGH of St Victor, a man distinguished by the fecundity of his genius, who treated in his writings of all the branches of sacred and profane erudition that were known in his time, and who composed several dissertations that are not destitute of merit [g] ;

RICHARD of St Victor, who was at the head of the Mystics in this century, and whose treatise, entitled, The Mystical Ark, which contains, as it were, the marrow of that kind of theology, was received with the greatest avidity, and applauded by the fanatics of the times [b];

HONORIUS

[] See BAYLE's Dictionary, at the articles ABELARD and PARACLET. GERVAIS, Vie de Pierre Abeillard, Abbe de Ruys, et de Heloise, published at Paris in two volumes 8vo, in the year 1728. The works of this famous and unfortunate monk were published at Paris in 1616, in one volume 4to, by FRANC. AMBOISE. Another edition, much more ample, might be given, since there are a great number of the productions of ABELARD that have never yet seen the light.

[f] See MABILLON, Annal. Bened. tom. vi. p. 19. 20. 42. 144. 160. 261. 282. 296. who gives an ample account of RuPERT, and of the disputes in which he was involved.

[g] See Gallia Christiana, tom. vii. p. 661. The works of this learned man were published at Rouen, in three volumes in folio, in the year 1648. See for a farther account of him, DERLANGII Dissert. de Hugoni a S. Victore, Helmstadt, 1746, in 4to, and MARTENE'S Voyage Litteraire, tom. ii. p. 91. 92. [b] Gallia Christiana, tom. vii. p. 669.

HONORIUS of Autun [i], no mean philosopher, C EN T. and tolerably versed in theological learning;

GRATIAN, a learned monk, who reduced the canon law into a new and regular form, in his vast compilation of the decisions of the ancient and modern councils, the decretals of the pontifs, the capitularies of the kings of France, &c.;

WILLIAM of Rheims, the author of several productions, every way adapted to excite pious sentiments, and to contribute to the progress practical religion;

of

PETER LOMBARD, who was commonly called, in France, Master of the Sentences, because he had composed a work so entitled, which was a collection of opinions and sentences relative to the various branches of theology, extracted from the Latin doctors, and reduced into a sort of system [k];

GILBERTUS PORRETANUS [1], a subtle dialectician, and a learned divine, who is, however, said to have adopted several erroneous sentiments concerning The Divine Essence; The Incarnation; and The Trinity [m];

WILLIAM of Auxerre, who acquired a considerable reputation by his Theological System [n]; PETER of Blois [0], whose epistles and other productions may yet be read with profit;

JOHN

[i] Such is the place to which HONORIUS is said to have be longed. But LE BOEUF proves him to have been a German, in his Dissert. sur l'Hist. Francoise, tom. i. p. 254. [k] Gallia Christiana, tom. vii. p. 68.

[ GILBERT, Da la Poirée.

[m] He held, among other things, this trifling and sophistical proposition that the divine essence and attributes are not God; a proposition that was every way proper to exercise the quibbling spirit of the scholastic writers.

[n] LE BOEUF, Dissert. sur la Somme Theologique de Guillaume d' Auxerre, in MOLAT's Continuation des Memoires d Histoire et de Litterature, tom, iii. part II. p. 317.

[o] PETRUS BLESENSIS.

XII. PARTIL