CENT. XV. Fortress of Faith. Nor were these pious labours PART II in the defence of the gospel at all unseasonable or

between the

Greeks yet healed.

superfluous; on the contrary, the state of things at this time rendered them necessary. For, on the one hand, the aristotelian philosophers in Italy seemed, in their public instructions, to strike at the foundations of all religion; and, on the other hand, the senseless subtilties and quarrels of the schoolmen, who modelled religion according to their extravagant fancies, tended to bring it into contempt. Add to all this, that the Jews and Saracens lived in many places promiscuously with the christians, who were therefore obliged, by the proximity of the enemy, to defend themselves with the utmost assiduity and zeal.

The schism XIII. We have already taken notice of the fruitLotet less attempts that had been made to heal the unhappy divisions that separated the Greek and Latin churches. After the council of Florence, and the violation of the treaty of pacification by the Greeks, Nicholas V. exhorted and entreated them again to turn their thoughts toward the restoration of peace and concord. But his exhortations were without effect; and in about the space of three years after the writing of this last letter, Constantinople was besieged and taken by the Turks. And from that fatal period to the present time, the Roman pontiffs, in all their attempts to bring about a reconciliation, have always found the Grecian patriarchs more obstinate and intractable than they were when their empire was in a flourishing state. is this circumstance so difficult to be accounted for, when all things are duly considered. This obstinacy was the effect of a rooted aversion to the Latins and their pontiffs, that acquired, from day to day, new degrees of strength and bitterness in the hearts of the Greeks; an aversion, produced and nourished by a persuasion that the calamities they suffered under the Turkish yoke might have

Nor

been easily removed, if the western princes and the CENT. XV. Roman pontiffs had not refused to succour them PART 11. against their haughty tyrants. And accordingly, when the Greek writers deplore the calamities that fell upon their devoted country, their complaints are always mingled with heavy accusations against the Latins, whose cruel insensibility to their unhappy situation, they paint in the strongest and most odious colours.

divisions and

Latins.

XIV. We pass over in silence many trifling con- The intestine troversies among the Latins, which have no sort contests of the of claim to the attention of our readers. But we must not omit mentioning the revival of that famous dispute concerning the kind of worship that was to be paid to the blood of Christ, which was first kindled at Barcelona, in the year 1351, between the franciscans and dominicans, and had been left undecided by Clement VI. This controversy was now renewed at Brixen, in the year 1462, by Jacobus a Marchia, a celebrated franciscan, who maintained publicly, in one of his sermons, that the blood, which Christ shed upon the cross, did not belong to the divine nature, and of consequence was not to be considered as an object of divine and immediate worship. The dominicans rejected this doctrine; and adopted, with such zeal, the opposite side of the question, that James of Brixen, who performed the office of inquisitor, called the franciscan before his tribunal, and accused him of heresy. The Roman pontiff, Pius II. having made several ineffectual attempts to suppress this controversy, was at last persuaded to submit the matter to the examination and judgment of a select number of able divines. But many obtacles arose to prevent a final decision, among which we may

d Luc. Waddingi Annal. Minor. tom. viii. p. 58. Jac. Echardí Scriptor. Prædicator. tom. i. p. 650.

PART II.

CENT. XV. reckon as the principal, the influence and authority of the contending orders, each of which had embarked with zeal in the cause of their respective champions. Hence, after much altercation and chicane, the pontiff thought proper to impose silence on both the parties in this miserable dispute, in the year 1464; declaring, at the same time, "That both sides of the question might be lawfully held, until Christ's vicar upon earth should find leisure and opportunity for examining the matter, and determining on what side the truth lay." This leisure and opportunity have not as yet been offered to the pontiffs.

CHAPTER IV.

CONCERNING THE RITES AND CEREMONIES USED IN THE CHURCH
DURING THIS CENTURY.

Rites of the I. THE state of religious ceremonies among the Greek church. Greeks may be learned from the book of Simeon of Thessalonica, concerning Rites and Ceremonies,f from which it appears, that the substance of religion was lost among that people; that a splendid shadow of pomp and vanity was substituted in its place by the rulers of the church; and that all the branches of divine worship were ordered in such a manner as to strike the imaginations and captivate the senses of the multitude. They pretended indeed to allege several reasons for multiplying as they did the external rights and institu

• Waddingi Annal. Minor. tom. xiii. p. 206. Nat. Alexander, Hist. Eccles. Sec. xv. p. 17.

fJ. A. Fabricius gives us an account of the contents of this book in his Biblioth. Græca, vol. xiv. p. 54.

PART II.

tions of religion; and casting over the whole of CENT. XV. divine worship such a pompous garb of worldly splendour. But in these reasons, and in all the explications they give of this gaudy ritual, there is much subtilty and invention, without the least appearance of truth or good sense to render them plausible. The origin of these multiplied rights, that cast a cloud over the native beauty and lustre of religion, is often obscure, and frequently dishonourable. And such as, by force of ill applied genius and invention, have endeavoured to derive honour to these ceremonies from the circumstances that gave occasion to them, have failed egregiously in this desperate attempt. The deceit is too palpable to seduce any mind that is void of prejudice and capable of attention.

edi the Lat

II. Though the more rational and judicious of the Rites increas Roman pontiffs complained of their overgrown mul- in church. titude of ceremonies, festivals, temples, and the like, and did not seem unwilling to have this enormous mass somewhat diminished, they nevertheless distinguished, every one his own pontificate, by some new institution, and thought it their duty to perpetuate their fame by some new edict of this nature. Thus Calixtus III. to immortalize the remembrance of the deliverance of Belgrade from the victorious arms of Mahomet II. who had been obliged to raise the siege of that city, ordered, in the year 1456, the festival in honour of the transfiguration of Christ, which had been celebrated in some places by private authority before this period, to be religiously observed throughout all the western world. And Sixtus IV. in the year 1476, granted indulgences, by an express and particular edict, to all those who should devoutly celebrate an annual festival in honour of the immaculate conception of the blessed Virgin, with respect to which none of the Roman pontiffs before him had thought proper to make any

CENT. xv. express declaration, or any positive appointment." PART 11. The other additions that were made to the Roman

ritual, relating to the worship of the Virgin Mary, public and private prayers, the traffic of indulgences, and other things of that nature, are of too little importance to deserve an exact and circumstantial enumeration. We need not such a particular detail to convince us, that in this century religion was reduced to mere show, to a show composed of pompous absurdities and splendid trifles.

CHAPTER V.

CONCERNING THE HERESIES, SECTS, AND DIVISIONS THAT TROUBLED
THE CHURCH DURING THIS CENTURY.

Manicheans and waldenses.

1. NEITHER the severe edicts of the pontiffs and emperors, nor the barbarity and vigilance of the unrelenting inquisitors, could extirpate the remains of the ancient heresies, or prevent the rise of new sects. We have already seen the franciscan order at open war with the church of Rome. In Bosnia, and the adjacent countries, the manicheans, or paulicians, who were the same with the sect named in Italy, catharists, propagated their doctrines with confidence, and held their religious assemblies with impunity. It is true indeed, that the great protector of the manicheans, Stephen Thomascus, king of Bosnia, abjured their errors, received baptism by the ministry of John Carvaialus, a Roman

See Raph. Volaterrani Comment. Urbani, lib. viii. f. 289. Æneas Sylvius, De Statu Europe sub Frederico III. cap. x. in Freheri Scriptor. rerum Germanicar. tom. ii. p. 104.