of solid silver, if possible, were procured in all directions. From this may easily be conjectured what must have been the costliness of the other sacred furniture.

§ 3. On the contrary, the Agape, or Love-feasts, were abolished; because, as the ancient piety was daily more upon the decrease, they gave to many persons occasions for sin.5 Among the Latins, offenders of the graver kind, who had before to confess their fault in public, were relieved from this unpleasant duty; for Leo the Great gave them liberty to make an acknowledgment of their crimes privately to a priest selected for that purpose. In this way was broken up the ancient discipline, that sole barrier of chastity and modesty, and priests, greatly to their interest, sate in judgment on the actions of mankind."

(Au

5 [The abolition of the love-feasts was, in part, effected in the fourth, century. The council of Laodicea, canon 28, first ordained, that they should no longer be held in the churches. A similar decree was passed, in the year 397, by the third council of Carthage, canon 20 [30]. Yet the custom was too firmly established to be at once rooted out. Hence we find, that in the times of Augustine, love-feasts were still kept in the churches. gustine, contra Faustum, 1. xx. c. 20, 21. Confess. 1. vi. c. 2. and Epist. Ixiv.) Yet he there informs us, that all kinds of feasting had been excluded from the church by Ambrose. In the Gallic churches, love-feasts were prohibited by the council of Orleans, A. D. 541; and as here and there some relics of them appeared in the seventh century, the council in Trullo [A. D. 692, can. 74.] was induced to confirm the canon of the Laodicean council, by annexing the penalty of excommunication. Schl.]

[That the strictness of the ancient discipline was greatly relaxed, admits no question. But that all public testimony against particular offenders, all public penances, and public censures, were commuted for private confession before priests, and for private penances (as Dr. Mosheim seems to intimate), is contrary to the voice of history. All public offenders, and all such as were proved guilty of gross crimes, were still liable to public censures. But the ancient practice of voluntary confession, before the church, of private offences and secret sins, had for some time gone

into desuetude. Instead of such confessions before the church, in most places both of the East and the West, these voluntary confessions were made only to a priest, in private; and he directed the persons to such a course as he deemed proper. In some churches, however, in Campania and the vicinity, the practice was for the priests to write down these voluntary disclosures; and if the persons were directed to do penance, their confessions were also read in public. It was to correct this public disclosure of voluntary confessions, that Leo I. in the year 460, wrote the Epistle to the bishops of Campania, Picenum, and Samnium, to which Dr. Mosheim refers. See his works, Epist. 130, or in some editions, ep. 80. It is cited also in Baronius, Annales, ann. 459, sub finem. The following is a literal translation.

"We also decide, that it is every way proper to rescind the practice, so contrary to the apostolic rule, which I learn has been lately followed by some. Let not written statements concerning the nature of the particular sins, be any longer rehearsed in public; since it is sufficient to disclose the accusations of the conscience to the priests, by' a private confession. For although that abundance of faith may seem commendable, which, from reverence of God, does not hesitate to take shame before men, yet, as the sins of all are not of such a nature that the penitents have no fear to publish them, let this censurable practice be abolished; lest many should be kept back from doing penance, because they are either ashamed

+

CHAPTER V.

HISTORY OF RELIGIOUS SCHISMS AND HERESIES.

§ 1, 2, 3. Old heresies remaining. The Donatists.—§ 4. State of the Arians.— § 5. Origin of the Nestorian sect.-§ 6, 7. The occasion of it.-§ 8. The council of Ephesus. § 9. Opinion respecting this controversy. § 10. Progress of Nestorianism after this council.-§ 11, 12. Its propagator, Barsumas. -§ 13. Eutychian sect. § 14. The council called Conventus Latronum.-15. Council of Chalcedon.§ 16. Subsequent contests. § 17. In Syria and Armenia. - § 18. Troubles occasioned by Peter the fuller. Theopaschites. -§ 19. The Henoticon of Zeno-§ 20. produces new contests among the Eutychians-§ 21. among the defenders of the council of Chalcedon. -§ 22. The doctrines of Eutyches and the Monophysites.-§ 23. The Pelagian controversy.-§ 24. Its progress.—§ 25. The Predestinarians.-§ 26. The Semi-Pelagians.—§ 27. Various controversies concerning grace.

§ 1. SOME of the older sects, having gained new strength, became bold enough to disturb the church. I will pass in silence those inauspicious names of former days, the Novatians, Marcionites, and Manichæans, notwithstanding that a numerous progeny of them appeared in many places, and will confine my remarks to those two pests of the preceding century, the Donatists and the Arians.

The Donatists had hitherto enjoyed tolerable prosperity. But near the commencement of this century, the catholic bishops of Africa, led on principally by St. Augustine, of Hippo, put forth all their energies to crush and destroy this sect; which was not only very troublesome to the church, but also through the Circumcelliones, who were its soldiers, pernicious to the commonwealth. Therefore in the year 404, the council of

Carthage sent deputies to the emperor Honorius, petitioning that the imperial laws against heretics might be so extended as to embrace explicitly the Donatists, who denied that they were heretics; and likewise, that the fury of the Circumcelliones might be restrained. The emperor, accordingly, first imposed a fine upon all Donatists who would not return to the church: their bishops and teachers he made liable to banishment.2 In the following year, additional and more severe laws, usually called Edicts of Unity3, were enacted against all Donatists. And as the magistrates were, perhaps, somewhat remiss in executing these laws, a council of Carthage, in the year 407, by means of another deputation to the emperor, both requested and obtained special executors of these Edicts of Unity.*

§ 2. The weakened party recovered strength and courage in the year 408, when Stilicho was put to death by order of Honorius; and still more, in the year 409, when Honorius issued a law that no one should be compelled in matters of religion. But a council convened at Carthage, in the year 410, again sent a deputation to the emperor, and obtained a repeal of this law; and likewise the appointment of Marcellinus, a tribune, and a notary, to visit Africa, in the year 411, with full power to bring this long and pernicious controversy to a conclusion. Accordingly, Marcellinus, about the feast of Easter, A. D. 411, in that solemn trial which is called a conference, formally examined the cause, and after a three days' hearing of Theodos. de Hæret. 1. 38. Schl.]

[The documents of this transaction may be found in Mansi, Collectio Concilior. Ampliss. tom. iii. p. 1157, and in Harduin's Collection, tom. i. in Cod. Eccles. African. can. 92, &c. p. 915, &c. and in Du Pin, Monument. Vet. ad Donatist. Histor. Pertinent. p. 216. Compare also Augustine, Ep. 93, and, among the moderns, Dr. Walch, Historie der Ketzereyen, vol. iv. p. 192, &c. Schl.]

[Even before the arrival of the deputies from the council, the emperor had determined vigorously to persecute the Donatists, and to compel them to a union with their opposers, and had issued a law, by which the refractory bishops and clergy were to be banished, and the laity to be fined. The character of this law may be learned from Augustine, Epist. 185, § 25, &c. and Epist. 88, § 7. The law itself is probably lost. The edict which was issued after the petition of the council, is in the Coder VOL. I.

3

[These Edicts of Uniformity are mentioned in the Codex Theodos. 1. 2. de religione; and in the Decree of the council of Carthage A. D. 407, in Cod. Eccles. African. can. 99, and by Du Pin, p. 220. Godofroi and Tillemont suppose the before-mentioned law, (1. 38, de Haret.) and 1. 3. ne Bapt. Iterand. were included among them. Schl.]

[The documents are found in Du Pin, and the laws in the Codex Theodos. 1. 41 and 43 de Hæret. Schl.]

5 [See Augustine, Ep. 97, § 2, &c. ep. 100. § 2, ep. 105, § 6. Schl.]

6

[This law is in the Codex Theodos. 1. 50, de Hæret. and in Du Pin, Monument. p. 224. Schl.]

H H

8 [Or imperial secretary. Tr.]
[Collatio. Ed.]

the parties, gave sentence in favour of the Catholics.' At this court 286 Catholic bishops, and 279 Donatist bishops, were present. The vanquished Donatists then appealed to the emperor; but in vain. The principal actor in all these scenes was that most celebrated Augustine, who almost completely governed, by his writings, counsels, and admonitions, not only the church in Africa, but likewise the leading men there.2

§ 3. By the conference at Carthage, the Donatist party lost a large part of its strength; nor could it ever recover from the shock, although favoured by changes of affairs. Very many, through fear of punishment, submitted to the will of the emperor, and returned to the church. On the contumacious, the severest penalties were inflicted, such as fines, banishment, confiscation of goods, and even death upon the more obstinate and seditious. Some escaped these penalties by flight, others

3

See Fran. Baldwin, (who was a lawyer,) Historia Collationis Carthag. subjoined to Optatus Milevitanus, ed. Du Pin, p. 337.- This meeting, called by Marcellinus, is improperly denominated a conference, or a free discussion; for the Donatists and Catholics did not enter into a disputation, in which each party endeavoured to vanquish the other by arguments. It was truly and properly a legal trial, in which" Marcellinus, as the judge of this ecclesiastical cause appointed by the emperor, after a three days' hearing of the parties, pronounced sentence authoritatively. It appears, therefore, that no one, then, once thought of any supreme judge in the church, appointed by Christ. These bishops of Africa made application solely to the emperor in this contest.

-[For an account of this Conference, the reader may consult with advantage Dr. Walch's Historie der Ketzereyen, vol. iv. p. 198, &c. As to the sources of knowledge concerning it, see the Gesta Collationis Carthagine Habitæ, published in Du Pin's Monument Vet. ad Hist. Donatist. p. 225, &c. and in Harduin's Collectio Concil. tom. i. p. 1043, &c. also Augustine, Brevicul. Collationis cum Donatistis, in his Opp. tom. ix. p. 371, &c. Schl.]

2

[His writings against the Donatists fill the whole ninth volume of his works, according to the Amsterdam impression of the Benedictine edition. His recommendations, in the Donatist contest, were not always the best. In his Epis

tles to Vincentius and to Boniface, he speaks in such a manner about punishing heretics, that he must be regarded as the man whose writings afforded most support to that spirit of persecution which laid waste the church in afterages more than in his own times. In the contests with the Donatists, he seemed often to show himself on the side of those who would pursue mild measures; for he himself made representations to the imperial court against punishing the Donatists with death. Yet these representations are founded, not on correct views respecting toleration, but on the current principle that it is unseemly for Christians to bear a part in the execution of criminals. Schl.]

3

[By virtue of the law, (Codex Theodos. de Hæreticis, 1. 52,) all Donatists,、 without distinction, and their married women, if they would not unite with the orthodox, were to be fined, according to the wealth of each individual. Such as would not be reclaimed by this means, were to forfeit all their goods; and such as protected them, were liable to the same penalties. Servants and country tenants were to undergo corporeal punishments by their masters and lords, or on the other hand suffer the same pecuniary mulets. The bishops and all the clergy were to be banished to different places, yet always beyond the province; and all Donatist churches were transferred to the opposite party. Schl.]

by concealment, and some by a voluntary death; for the Donatists were very prone to self-destruction. The Circumcelliones, wandering over Africa, and raging every where, escaped by dint of arms and violence. Their former liberties and repose were restored to the Donatists by the Vandals, who under Genseric, invaded Africa in the year 427, and wrested this province from the Romans. But the edicts of the emperors had inflicted such a wound upon this sect, that, though renovated and augmented under the Vandals, it never could regain its former numbers.4

§ 4. The Arians, oppressed and persecuted by the imperial edicts, took refuge among those barbarous nations who gradually overturned the Roman empire in the West, and found among the Goths, Heruli, Suevi, Vandals, and Burgundians, a fixed residence and a quiet retreat. Being now safe, they treated the Catholics with the same violence that the Catholics had employed against them and other heretics, and had no hesitation about persecuting the adherents to the Nicene doctrines in a variety of ways. The Vandals, who had established their kingdom in Africa, surpassed all the rest in cruelty and injustice. At first Genseric their king, and then Huneric his son, demolished the temples of such Christians as maintained the divinity of the Saviour, sent their bishops into exile, mutilated many of the more firm and decided, and tortured them in various ways. And they expressly stated, that they were authorized to do so by the example of the emperors, who had enacted similar laws against the Donatists in Africa, the Arians, and others who dissented from them in religion. During this African persecution, God himself is said to have confuted the Arians by a great miracle, causing by his almighty power the persons, whose tongues had been cut out by order of the tyrants, to speak distinctly notwithstanding, and to proclaim the praises and majesty of Christ. The fact itself no one can well deny, for it rests on powerful testimony: but whether there was any thing supernatural in it, may be questioned."

[See Witsins, Histor. Donatist. c. viii. 9. Schl.]

5 See Victor Vitensis, de Persecutione Vandalica libri iii.; published by Theo. Ruinart, in connexion with his own Historia Persecutionis Vandal. Paris, 1698, 8vo, [and reprinted, Venice, 1732.]

See the edict of king Huneric, in Victor Vitensis, lib. iv. c. ii. p. 64, where much is said on this subject.

7 See Ruinart, Historia Persecut. Vandal. pt. ii. c. 7, p. 482, &c. and the recent and acute discussions of some Englishmen, respecting this miracle. Bibliothèque Britannique, tom. iii. pt. ii.