Chapter VI: Part 6

It was while he was staying at Saul that the apostle of Ireland was seized with his last illness. He had lived to a good old age, and the sunset of his life was calm and peaceful. Perceiving that his end drew nigh, and desirous, as we are told, that Armagh should be the resting-place of his remains, he set out thither, but was unable to continue the journey. Increasing weakness, and, as it seemed to him the voice of an angel, bade him return to the church of his first convert; and there he closed his eyes in death, probably in the year A.D. 466, leaving behind him the visible memorials of a noble work nobly done. He and his fellow-laborers had made for themselves, by the labors of their own hands, civilized dwellings amid the tangled forest and the dreary morass. At a time when clan-feuds and bloodshed were rife, and princes rose and fell, and all was stormy and changeful, they had covered the islands with monastic schools, where the Scriptures were studied, ancient books collected and read, and native missionaries trained for their own country, and for the remotest parts of the European continent.

JUSTINIAN THE GREAT

(483-565)

]

Flavius Anicius Justinianus, nephew on the mother's side of the Emperor Justin, was born in 482 or 483 A.D., in the village of Tauresium, in Illyria. His original name was Upranda. Although of obscure parentage, and indeed slave-born, he shared the success of his maternal uncle, Justin, being invited at an early age to Constantinople, where he received an early education. When his uncle assumed the purple, in 518, he appointed Justinian commander-in-chief of the army of Asia. His tastes, however, inclining him rather to civic pursuits, he declined this appointment, and remained attached to the court of Constantinople. In 521, he was named consul, and during the remaining years of the reign of his uncle he continued to exercise great influence. In 527 the Emperor Justin, by the advice of the senate, proclaimed him his partner in the empire. Justin survived this step but four months, and in the same year Justinian was proclaimed sole emperor, and crowned along with his wife, the famous Theodora, whom, despite her more than dubious antecedents as an actress, he had raised to the position as his wife. Justinian on his accession was in his forty-fifth year. His reign, which extends over thirty-eight years, is the most brilliant in the history of the late empire. Although himself without the taste or the capacity for military command, he had the good fortune or the skill to select the ablest generals of the last days of Roman military ascendency. Under the direction of his generals, and especially of the celebrated Narses and Belisarius, his reign may be said to have restored the Roman Empire, at least in outward appearance, to its ancient limits, and to have reunited the East and the West under a single rule. In his first war--that with Persia--he concluded a treaty by which the crisis that had so long threatened, was at least warded off; but the rejoicings which celebrated its termination had, owing to a domestic revolution, almost proved fatal to the authority of Justinian himself. A conflict of the so-called Blue and Green factions in the circus, in 532, was but an outburst of political discontent, which went so far as to elect a rival emperor, Hypatius. Justinian himself was struck with dismay, and had made preparations for flight; but the vigor and determination of Theodora arrested the revolt. Narses, with a relentless hand, repressed the tumults, 30,000 victims having, it is said, fallen in a single day. By the arms of Belisarius, the Vandal kingdom of Africa was re-annexed to the Empire; and the same general, conjointly with Narses, restored the imperial authority in Rome, in Northern Italy, and in a large portion of Spain. One of the most extraordinary, though in the end ineffective works of the reign of Justinian, was the vast line of fortification which he constructed, or renewed and strengthened, along the eastern and southeastern frontier of his empire. These works of defence, and the construction of many public buildings both in his capital and in other cities of the Empire, involved an enormous expenditure, and the fiscal administration of Justinian, in consequence, pressed heavily on the public resource.

It is, however, as a legislator that Justinian has gained his most enduring renown. His good fortune in obtaining the services of able generals was not greater than that which attended him in the field of law and legislation. Brilliant as were the triumphs of Narses and Belisarius, they were indeed short-lived in comparison with the work done by the celebrated Tribonian and his coadjutors in the way of reforming and codifying the law. Immediately on his accession Justinian set himself to collect and codify the principal imperial constitutions or statutes enacted prior to, and in force at, the date of his accession. In this respect he followed the example set by his predecessor, Theodosian. The code in which these constitutions were collected was published in 528-29, and it contained a general provision by which all previous imperial enactments were repealed. But Justinian's ambition in the matter of consolidating the laws went much further. Imperial constitutions made up but a comparatively small part of the body of the law. The bulk of it (what might be called the common law) was contained in the writings of the jurists, that is, of text-writers and commentators. Of these writers there were at this time many hundreds of volumes in existence, and, owing to want of agreement in the opinion of the various writers, the law was in a state of great uncertainty, not to say confusion.

To remedy this evil, Justinian resolved upon the publication of a single treatise in which the commentaries and other writings of the jurists might be digested and harmonized. The preparation of this great work was intrusted to Tribonian, with the assistance of Theophilus, a celebrated professor of law at Berytus (modern Beyrout), and two other professors, and it was completed in the almost incredibly short period of four years. It was published in fifty books, under the title Digesta or Pandectae. While the Digest was in course of preparation Justinian resolved on the composition of a third work--viz., a systematic and elementary treatise on the law which might serve as a text-book for the use of students, and as an introduction to the larger work. The preparation of this was also intrusted to Tribonian and his colleagues, and having been completed a few days before the Digest, was published in four books on the same day (December 31, 534), under the title of Institutiones. It is based upon the Institutes of Gaius, and is familiar to all modern lawyers under the name of "Justinian's Institutes." Meantime, while both the Digest and the Institutes were being prepared, the Code of 529 above mentioned was withdrawn from circulation and republished in 534 with some alterations, and especially with the addition of fifty new constitutions (known as the Quinquaginta Decisiones) which had in the interim been pronounced by Justinian. This new edition, in twelve books, is known as the Codex Repetitiae Proelectionis, and is the one which has come down to us, no copy of the earlier codex being extant. All these works (Code, Digest, Institutes) were written originally in Latin, and all of them were prepared with care and skill, and testify to the great ability of Tribonian and his co-editors. Upon the publication of the "Digest" Justinian declared by a constitution that all previous law-books and decisions were to be held as superseded and it was forbidden to refer to them in the practice of the courts. During the subsequent years of his reign Justinian pronounced from time to time several new constitutions or laws, some of them making very important changes in certain departments of the law. These (mostly in Greek) were collected and published under the title of "Novellae" (_i.e._, "The Novels" or "New Works"). There were, so far as can be ascertained, about one hundred and seventy of these Novels. The Institutes, Digest, Code, and Novels together make up what is known as the Corpus Juris Civilis.

The character of Justinian has been much canvassed, and opinions are not agreed about it. Procopius, in two separate works, has painted him in very different lights. Making allowance, however, for much exaggeration of his abilities by contemporary writers, it may be said that he contrasts favorably with most of the emperors, whether of the earlier or of the later Empire. If his personal virtues be open to doubt (and certainly vanity, avarice, and inconstancy were in no small degree characteristic of him), he, on the other hand, displayed undoubted ability as a ruler, and, in the main, just and upright intentions. He was easy of access, patient of hearing, courteous and affable in discourse, and perfect master of his temper. In the conspiracies against his authority and person he often showed both justice and clemency. He excelled in the private virtues of chastity and temperance; his meals were short and frugal; on solemn fasts he contented himself with water and vegetables, and he frequently passed two days and as many nights without tasting any food. He allowed himself little time for sleep, and was always up before the morning light. His restless application to business and to study, as well as the extent of his learning, have been attested even by his enemies. He was, or professed to be, a poet and philosopher, a lawyer and theologian, a musician and an architect; but the brightest ornament of his reign is the compilation of Roman law which has immortalized his name. He died on November 14, 565, at the age of eighty-three, and in the thirty-eighth year of his reign.

A few words must be said about the legislative reforms carried through by Justinian. He was not only a collector and a codifier of the laws; he also introduced in many directions the most fundamental changes into the substantive law itself. The following were the most important changes. (1) He ameliorated the condition of slaves--depriving their masters of the power of putting them to death. He declared that any one who put a slave to death by his own hand should be guilty of homicide. (2) He greatly revolutionized the law of intestate succession by giving to cognati (relatives on the mother's side) an equal share with agnati (relatives on the father's side) of the same degree. These two changes in the law were probably in a large measure induced by the circumstances of his birth. (3) He made considerable changes in the law of divorce, and as to the property of spouses. (4) He reformed civil procedure in the way of making it uniform, and introducing a system of small-debt courts.

ST. AUGUSTINE OF CANTERBURY[9]

By RT. REV. HENRY CODMAN POTTER, BISHOP OF NEW YORK

(DIED, 604)

[Footnote 9: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]

]

A complete biography of St. Augustine of Canterbury it is impossible to write: almost all that is known of him is his work as a missionary to the English, and almost the only source of our knowledge of that missionary work is the "Ecclesiastical History" of Baeda. But the mission of St. Augustine was one of the great crises, not only of the history of the Christian Church, but of the history of human civilization. The difference between a number of Celtic churches, with bishops largely subordinate to the abbots of monasteries, included (as it seems) in none of the great Catholic patriarchates, cut off from all communication with the great centres of human thought and life--and a Church of England taking her place, at once independent and subordinate, in the swift development of human progress, both conservative and creative--this difference is quite incalculable. And the mission of St. Augustine made the difference.

The triumph of Christianity depended--apart from its divine authority--upon the thorough organization of the Christian communities; and that organization had for its centre the Episcopacy. But as separate congregations without a bishop could never have escaped disintegration, so the united congregations, with their presbyters and bishop, would have been powerless without some further organization, uniting the bishops, with well-defined regulations, under some recognized hierarchy of authority. Thus arose metropolitan sees, and the great patriarchates of the Catholic Church--Jerusalem, Antioch, Rome, Alexandria, Constantinople. This centralization was rendered necessary by the course of events; but it had otherwise no divine authority and might be modified just as validly as it was created. When the Roman Empire was submerged under the deluge of barbarian races, a yet closer centralization became necessary, at least in the West; and the ark in which floated over that terrible deluge not only the Christian religion, but the remains of ancient civilization, both Greek and Roman, was the patriarchate of Rome. The man who not only clearly perceived, but was absolutely compelled to assume, his awful responsibility in the West, the Saviour at once of the Church and the world, was the splendid pontiff, Gregory the Great; the great pontiff who sent St. Augustine and his companions to preach the gospel to the English conquerors of Britain. If we would clearly understand the work of St. Augustine we must free our minds from the illusion produced by familiar names. One of these is the name Britain. In the time of Gregory the Great the island called by that name was, of course, the same as that on which Julius Caesar had landed. The barbarians whom Caesar encountered had been subdued by his successors, and a Roman province had been formed. Roman civilization had been introduced and, one might almost say, had flourished. The Christian religion had found its way thither; there had been Christian congregations and bishops, and even a heresiarch. But Rome, in the struggle for her own existence, had been compelled to withdraw her legions from the province of Britain; and to leave the people not only to their internal dissensions, but to the attacks of the "Scots" and "Picts," from Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland. Then followed the conquest of Britain by the English, as the Teutonic invaders began soon to be called. The Celtic people were largely driven out, including the Celtic Christians. The English were heathens, and the Celtic Christians seem to have made no effort whatever for their conversion. The English, again, were by no means consolidated into an English nation. It was to one division of these English heathens that Gregory the Great sent Augustine.

Even the term "the British Church" is somewhat misleading. There is not the slightest trustworthy evidence, either as to the time when, or the person by whom, Christianity was introduced into Britain. There, of course, as everywhere else, the Church was under the rule of bishops; but, excepting for the purpose of ordaining, the authority of the British bishops seems to have been entirely overshadowed by the authority of the abbots of monasteries. There seems, as we have said, no evidence of anything resembling the patriarchal system among them; nor of any close or frequent communication between the British churches and the rest of Christendom. This is proved, among other things, by their curious reckoning of Easter; which (as Gieseler shows, "Eccle. Hist.," ii., 164, English translation) was by no means identical with that of the Quarto-decimans. It was simply the survival of the use of an old cycle which had been elsewhere superseded by one more accurate and convenient.

The ascertainable biography of St. Augustine begins with his mission, by command of Gregory, to the heathen English; and especially to the subjects of Ethelbert, King of Kent, who had married a Christian lady. There is not the slightest reason for discrediting the story related by Baeda, of the incident which first excited Gregory's interest in the heathen English. The relations between Britain and Rome having come to an end, it is not in the least surprising that even a person so exceptionally well informed should have known nothing about the Teutonic peoples--Angles, Jutes, Saxons--which had driven out the British. That he should have played upon words so suggestive as Angli, Deira, and AElla, is exactly what might be expected from the author of the "Magna Moralia." The familiar story--he calls it "opinio quae de beato Gregorio traditione majorum ad nos usque perlata est"--as told by Baeda, is as follows ("Hist. Eccl.," ii., 1):--

It is reported that some merchants, having just arrived at Rome on a certain day, exposed many things for sale in the market-place, and abundance of people resorted thither to buy; Gregory himself went with the rest, and, among other things, some boys were set to sale, their bodies white, their countenances beautiful, and their hair very fine. Having viewed them, he asked, as is said, from what country or nation they were brought? and was told, from the island of Britain, whose inhabitants were of such personal appearance. He again inquired whether those islanders were Christians, or still involved in the errors of paganism? and was informed that they were pagans. Then, fetching a deep sigh from the bottom of his heart, "Alas! what pity," said he, "that the author of darkness is possessed of men of such fair countenances; and that being remarkable for such graceful aspects, their minds should be void of inward grace." He therefore again asked, what was the name of that nation? and was answered that they were called Angles. "Right," said he, "for they have an angelic face, and it becomes such to be co-heirs with the angels in heaven. What is the name," proceeded he, "of the province from which they are brought?" It was replied, that the natives of that place were called Deiri. "Truly are they De ira," said he, "withdrawn from wrath, and called to the mercy of Christ. How is the king of that province called?" They told him his name was AElla; and he, alluding to the name, said, "Hallelujah, the praise of God the Creator must be sung in those parts."

Gregory was eager to go at once on a mission to the home of these beautiful children, and the then pope gave his consent; but the Roman people could not bear the loss of one already so useful and distinguished, and almost before he had started he was recalled. When, during his own pontificate, Gregory carried out his purpose, it was probably due to a request of Queen Bertha, speaking, most likely, in behalf of some of the Kentish people, made to the Frankish bishops for missionaries. "It has come to our knowledge," writes Gregory, "that, through the mercy of God, the people of the Angli are eagerly desiring to be converted to the Christian faith, but that the priests of their own neighborhood neglect them." When Bertha married Ethelbert it was on condition that she should retain her own religion; and she was accompanied to Kent by a French bishop, named Luidhard, who must have acted chiefly as her private chaplain. Ethelbert nobly kept his word, and thus the piety of Bertha, and her religion, may easily and deeply have impressed the Kentish heathen. That the Celtic bishops and clergy--"sacerdotes e vicinio"--did nothing for the conversion of the heathen English can scarcely be matter of surprise, though possibly of regret. For they were not only Christians, but belonged to the conquered race; whom, apart from their religion, it was the policy of the conquerors to drive out of the country, and who were compelled to take refuge in the remotest districts of the land. The Frankish bishops seem to have done little or nothing in response to Queen Bertha's solicitations; and Gregory ordered Candidus, administrator of the Patrimony of St. Peter in Gaul, to bring up English youths, and have them trained in monasteries, and fitted to be made missionaries to their own land. At length, in the sixth year of his pontificate, he determined to undertake the work himself; and sent from his own monastery of St. Andrew, on the Caelian Hill, in Rome, a company of forty monks, headed by their prior, Augustine.

Their progress at first was rapid. Starting in the summer of A.D. 596, they soon arrived in the neighborhood of Aix, in Provence. But the nearer they came to what should have been their journey's end, the less inclined they were for the work to which they had been appointed. The heathen English were represented as barbarians of unusual ferocity; and the companions of Augustine were as frightened as the companions of Caleb and Joshua. They induced their prior to return to Gregory and seek a release from their perilous task. But Gregory was not a man to be frightened himself, or to have much sympathy with cowards. He wrote, however, with great gentleness: "For as much as it had been better not to begin a good work than to think of desisting from that which has been begun, it behoves you, my beloved sons, to fulfil the good work which, by the help of the Lord, you have undertaken. Let not, therefore, the toil of the journey, nor the tongues of evil-speaking men, deter you: but with all possible earnestness and zeal, perform that which by God's direction you have undertaken." He furnished them with letters to the bishops of Tours, Marseilles, Vienne, and Autun, and also to the metropolitan of Arles. After the lapse of a year they slowly continued their journey, and landed at last at Ebbe's Fleet, in the Isle of Thanet.

As soon as they had landed Augustine sent the interpreters, whom he had obtained from "the nation of the Franks," to tell Ethelbert of his arrival. Ethelbert seems to have been a really noble-hearted man, and had doubtless been attracted by the piety of his wife Bertha. The missionaries told him that they had come from Rome, the great capital of the West, and "had brought a joyful message which most undoubtedly assured to all that took advantage of it, everlasting joys in heaven, and a kingdom that would never end, with the living and true God." The king ordered them to remain in the island where they had landed, and promised that they should be furnished with all necessaries till he should consider what he would do with them. Soon after he came to the island, and conferred with Augustine and his companions in the open air; fearing the possibility of magic enchantments if he met them under any roof. He was much impressed by their ceremonial, their bearing, and their teaching. "Your words and promises," he said, "are very fair, but as they are new to us, and of uncertain import, I cannot approve of them so far as to forsake that which I have so long followed with the whole English nation ["cum omni Anglorum gente:" this by no means implies, it is scarcely necessary to say, an English nation in the modern sense of those words]. But because you are come from far into my kingdom, and, as I conceive, are desirous to impart to us those things which you believe to be true and most beneficial, we will not molest you, but give you favorable entertainment, and take care to supply you with your necessary sustenance; nor do we forbid you to preach, and gain as many as you can to your religion."

By the king's invitation they crossed from Thanet and took their abode in the then rude town of Canterbury, and before long were allowed to worship in St. Martin's Church, with the queen. Their influence gradually increased, and a considerable number of the English were converted. At last Ethelbert himself received baptism (Whitsunday, A.D. 597); and following his example, it is said that on December 25th following--mid-winter!--upward of ten thousand were baptized in the waters of the Swale. Of course, it cannot be supposed that in these mediaeval "conversions" of whole tribes or "nations," there was any rational acceptance of the complete theology of the Church. The conversion was rather the acceptance of a discipline, a mode of life; founded indeed on Christian doctrine and in all kinds of subtle ways symbolizing it; but primarily an imitation of a sweeter and purer life, and a more spiritual and suggestive worship. The words of Baeda (i., 26) are worthy of note as indicating the temper both of Gregory and Augustine: "Their conversion the king so far encouraged, as that he compelled none to embrace Christianity, but only showed more affection to the believers, as to his fellow-citizens in the heavenly kingdom. For he had learnt from his instructors and leaders to salvation, that the service of Christ ought to be voluntary, not by compulsion."

Having so far succeeded in his mission, Augustine went to Arles and was consecrated archbishop of the English by the Metropolitan Virgilius. [Baeda says (i., 27): "Archiepiscopus genti Anglorum ordinatus est," the actual see probably being then undetermined.] On his return he despatched Lawrence and Peter to Rome to tell Gregory that the Angli had been converted to the faith, and that he himself (Augustine) had been made a bishop. They were also to bring back the Pope's answers to sundry questions respecting the conduct of the mission which Augustine proposed to him. Both the questions and the answers are highly suggestive. The first question was as to the division of the offerings of the faithful. The second as to differences of "Use" in the celebration of Mass and other divine offices. The answer of Gregory is almost classical, and may well be repeated here: "You know, my brother," he says, "the custom of the Roman Church.... But it pleases me that if you have found anything, whether in the Roman Church, or the church of the Gauls ["Galliarum"], or any church whatever, which may be more pleasing to Almighty God, you carefully make choice of the same and diligently teach the church of the English, which as yet is new in the faith ... whatever you have been able to collect from many churches. For things are not to be loved for the sake of places, but places for the sake of good things." The fourth and fifth questions of Augustine refer to prohibited degrees of marriage, and Gregory replies, as to the marriage of first-cousins, among other objections, "we have learned by experience that no offspring can come of such marriage." To Augustine's inquiry as to his relations with the bishops of Gaul and Britain ["Galliarum Brittaniarumque,"] Gregory replies that Augustine has no authority whatever within the jurisdiction of the metropolitan of Arles; but he adds: "As for all the bishops of Britain ["Brittaniarum"], we commit them to your care, that the unlearned may be taught, the weak strengthened by persuasion, and the perverse corrected by authority." Considering the context--Augustine had been asking whether, under the circumstances, he could consecrate bishops without the presence of any other bishops; and, moreover, he had not as yet come into any kind of contact with the Celtic bishops--it seems probable that "the bishops of Britain" here placed under Augustine's jurisdiction were the bishops to be afterward consecrated by himself, with or without the presence and witness of Gallic or other bishops. Gregory's advice to Augustine, conveyed through the Abbot Mellitus, may well be pondered by the managers of modern missions. He says: "The temples of the idols in that nation [the English] ought not to be destroyed; but let the idols that are in them be destroyed; let holy water be made and sprinkled in the said temples, let altars be erected, and relics placed. For if those temples are well built it is requisite that they be converted from the worship of devils to the service of the true God; that the nation ... adoring the true God, may the more familiarly resort to the places to which they have been accustomed." He even suggests that their sacrifices--which were largely festivals, as much social as religious--should be discontinued, indeed, as sacrifices, but changed into banquets and associated with the day of the dedication of a church, or the "nativity" of a holy martyr. And all this on the perfectly sound principle, too often forgotten, that "he who strives to reach the highest place raises himself by steps and degrees, and not by leaps [gradibus vel passibus non autem saltibus elevatus]."

At last Augustine was brought into contact with the Celtic bishops. It was clear that their assistance would be very valuable in the endeavor to convert the English, and also that their peculiar usages would convey the impression of far greater diversity of doctrine than actually existed. Augustine was willing to make much concession. There were three conditions of union which seemed to him indispensable: agreement as to the time of keeping Easter; agreement as to the mode of administering baptism; and hearty co-operation in mission work among the heathen. We may leave out of consideration alleged miracles; also the curious, or even the ludicrous, test of a divine mission suggested by "the aged hermit" of the story. The Celtic bishops refused any sort of co-operation, and Augustine left them, not without a solemn warning: "If they would not have peace with their brethren, they would have to accept war from their enemies; if they would not preach the way of life to the nation of the Angli, they would have to suffer at their hands the vengeance of death." It is scarcely credible--though in religious controversy almost anything is credible--that a warning so obviously wise, and even charitable, should have been interpreted as a mere threat, and as evidence that Augustine himself was the author of the calamities that afterward befell the Celtic Church.

Such is the simple story of the mission and the life--for we read nothing about his life but his mission--of Augustine, the first archbishop of Canterbury. He was not able to carry out the whole scheme of Gregory. He was not the first to introduce Christianity into Britain. But, apart from Queen Bertha's private chaplain, he was the first to introduce Christianity to the English--those Teutonic tribes which were the ancestors of the English of to-day. Who first brought the gospel to the Roman province of Britain no one knows; nor is it of the slightest importance that anyone should know. But that there should have been two Christian religions in England when the nation was being consolidated, would have been fatal both to nation and church. We conclude this brief notice by a passage from two historians, neither of whom could possibly be suspected of any undue subservience to the modern Church of Rome. The first is from Mr. Green's "The Making of England" (pp. 314, 315); he is speaking of the results of the Synod of Whitby (A.D. 664).

"It is possible that lesser political motives may have partly swayed Oswin in his decision, for the revival of Mercia had left him but the alliance of Kent in the south, and this victory of the Kentish Church would draw tighter the bonds which linked together the two powers. But we may fairly credit him with a larger statesmanship. Trivial in fact as were the actual points of difference which parted the Roman Church from the Irish, the question to which communion Northumbria should belong was, as we have seen, of immense moment to the after-fortunes of England. It was not merely that, as Wilfrid said, to fight against Rome was to fight against the world. Had England, indeed, clung to the Irish Church, it must have remained spiritually isolated from the bulk of Western Christendom. Fallen as Rome might be from its older greatness, it preserved the traditions of civilization, of letters, and art and law. Its faith still served as a bond which held together the nations that sprang from the wreck of the Empire. To repulse Rome was to condemn England to isolation. But grave as such considerations were, they were of little weight beside the influence which Oswin's decision had on the very unity of the English race. The issue of the Synod not only gave England a share in the religious unity of Western Christendom; it gave her a religious unity at home. However dimly such thoughts may have presented themselves to Oswin's mind, it was the instinct of a statesman that led him to set aside the love and gratitude of his youth, and to secure the religious oneness of England in the Synod of Whitby."

The other is from Milman's "History of Latin Christianity" (ii., 198, 199, Amer. Edition): "The effect of Christianity on Anglo-Saxon England was at once to re-establish a connection both between the remoter parts of the island with each other, and of England with the rest of the Christian world. They ceased to dwell apart, a race of warlike, unapproachable barbarians, in constant warfare with the bordering tribes, or occupied in their own petty feuds or inroads, rarely, as in the case of Ethelbert, connected by intermarriage with some neighboring Teutonic state. Though the Britons were still secluded in the mountains, or at extremities of the land, by animosities which even Christianity could not allay, yet the Picts and Scots, and the parts of Ireland which were occupied by Christian monasteries, were now brought into peaceful communication, first with the kingdom of Northumbria, and through Northumbria with the rest of England. The intercourse with Europe was of far higher importance, and tended much more rapidly to introduce the arts and habits of civilization into the land. There was a constant flow of missionaries across the British Channel, who possessed all the knowledge which still remained in Europe. All the earlier metropolitans of Canterbury and the bishops of most of the southern sees, were foreigners; they were commissioned at Rome, if not consecrated there; they travelled backward and forward in person, or were in constant communication with that great city, in which were found all the culture, the letters, the arts, and sciences which had survived the general wreck."

Nobody need disparage the Celtic Church; but it is not too much to say that the Celtic Church could never have preserved Christianity in Britain against the victorious Saxon or English heathen. But from the very beginning the Church of England has retained the traces of her early origin, when Gregory the Great was Pope, when the claim to be universal bishop was deemed untenable, when even the ritual of the Mass was still in unessential details flexible.

[Signature of the author.]

MAHOMET

(571-632)

The Arabian "Prophet" was born at the city of Mecca, some time during the sixth century, but the precise year has, after much discussion, still been left in doubt. Hottinger says, A.D. 571, Reiske, A.D. 572, and Gagnier, A.D. 578. His lineage has also been the subject of great altercation, one party exalting him above most of his countrymen, while the other degraded him to the lowest rank--particularly contemporary Christian writers, who were desirous of rendering him an object of contempt; and in the same degree that the Christians felt themselves called upon to degrade the Arabian prophet, so did the Mahometans think themselves compelled to exalt him. Mahomet successfully vindicated for himself a high lineage among his countrymen; the tribe of Koreish, to which he belonged, laying claim to Ishmael as their progenitor, and this claim, arising from the vanity of the tribe, was eagerly laid hold of and supported by his votaries.

]

Abdallah, the father of Mahomet, was the youngest son of Abd al Motalleb, the son of Hashem. "Hashem," say the authors of the "Modern Universal History," "succeeded his father Abd al Menaf in the principality of the Koreish, and consequently in the government of Mecca, and the custody of the Caaba." So far the genealogy of the prophet is supported by authentic history--that he was descended from the princes of his people cannot be denied. This descent from Ishmael, Gibbon, after Sale, thus disproves: "Abulfeda and Gagnier describe the popular and approved genealogy of the prophet. At Mecca I would not dispute its authenticity; at Lausanne, I will venture to observe, 1st, That, from Ishmael to Mahomet, a period of two thousand five hundred years, they reckon thirty instead of seventy-five generations. 2d. That the modern Bedoweens are ignorant of their history, and careless of their pedigree."

Abdallah, though of high lineage, was possessed of little wealth; and as he died while his son was yet an infant, we may easily suppose that little to have been diminished by the rapacity of his kindred. At the early age of six years Mahomet lost his mother, Amina; and two years after, his grandfather, Abd al Motalleb, who when dying, earnestly confided the helpless orphan to the care of Abu Taleb, the eldest of his sons, and the successor to his authority. From him, though treated with kindness, Mahomet received a scanty education; but whether that education was equal or inferior to that of his countrymen, it is not easy to discover. Tradition states that at the time of Mahomet's first declaration concerning his mission, only one man in Mecca could write. If so, it is nothing wonderful that Mahomet, like the rest of his kindred, should also he unable to write. At thirteen years of age, he is said to have made a journey to Syria, in the caravan of his uncle, and, some years after, to have performed the same journey in the capacity of factor to his mistress, Cadijah.

The next remarkable event in the life of Mahomet, is his appearance in the character of a soldier. At the early age of fourteen, he served under his uncle, who commanded the troops of his tribe, the Koreish, in their wars against the rival tribes of Kenan and Hawazan. The circumstance is worthy of remark, as illustrative of the perfect compatibility between the business of a merchant and that of a soldier, among the Arabian people, and upon the constant and rapid transition from one to the other.

By the assistance of his uncle he became soon after the factor of a rich trading widow in his native city. The animosity of his enemies has degraded the confidential agent into a driver of camels. It has been confidently and constantly asserted that he was a menial servant in the household of his mistress, Cadijah; while, in truth, he was employed to carry on her mercantile transactions, and to superintend her affairs. In this situation of factor, his conduct and integrity gained him the affections of his mistress. Cadijah was not, in the eyes of her people, degraded by an alliance with the grandson of their prince; and in her own estimation, by bestowing her hand and fortune upon Mahomet, she gained a young, handsome, and affectionate husband. Twenty years of constancy, of kind and respectful attention, on the part of Mahomet, fully justified her choice. It may, indeed, be imagined, and we confess the supposition bears the appearance of some plausibility, that the affection of Cadijah was not uninfluenced by the handsome person and insinuating eloquence of her youthful suitor. And we cannot refuse our applause to the conduct of Mahomet, who, whatever might have been her motives, never afterward forgot the benefits he had received from his benefactress, never made her repent having so bestowed her affection, or grieve at having placed her fortune and her person at his absolute disposal. Cadijah, at the time of her marriage, was forty; Mahomet, twenty-five years of age. Till the age of sixty-four years, when she died, did Cadijah enjoy the undivided affection of her husband; "in a country where polygamy was allowed, the pride or tenderness of the venerable matron was never insulted by the society of a rival. After her death he placed her in the rank of the four perfect women: with the sister of Moses, the mother of Jesus, and Fatima, the best beloved of his daughters. 'Was she not old?' said Ayesha, with the insolence of a blooming beauty; 'has not Allah given you a better in her place?' 'No, by Allah!' said Mahomet, with an effusion of honest gratitude, 'there never can be a better! She believed in me, when men despised me: she relieved my wants when I was poor and persecuted by the world.'"

Commerce now occupied his attention, and till the age of forty nothing remarkable happened in the life of the future prophet. His marriage with Cadijah raised him to an equality with the first citizens of Mecca, gave an importance to his opinions, and, combined with the power of his family, probably rendered it impossible to punish or interrupt the first steps he made toward the propagation of his new religion. When relieved from the pressure of indigence, his mind seems almost immediately to have been turned toward religious meditation. The result of this meditation was an opinion exceedingly unfavorable to the religion of his countrymen. The first statement of this conviction was met rather by ridicule than anger, being considered the fantasy of a dreaming enthusiast, who was little to be dreaded, and unworthy of opposition. We are told that he retired to a cave in Mount Hara, near Mecca, where, as he assured his first proselyte, his wife, he regularly received the visits of the angel Gabriel. This tale his wife believed, or affected to believe. The next on the list of true believers were Zeid, the servant of the prophet, and Ali, the son of his uncle, Abu Taleb. The impetuous youth, disdaining his two predecessors in the true faith, proudly styled himself the first of believers. The next and most important convert was Abu Bekr, a powerful citizen of Mecca, by whose influence a number of persons possessing great authority were induced to profess the religion of Islam. Three years were spent in the arduous task of converting six of these men. They were afterward his chief companions, and with a few others, were the only proselytes to the new religion before it became publicly known.

The apostle, who was at first derided, came at length to be feared. The people flocked to hear his doctrines, and as they retired, wondering and believing, general consternation reigned among the governors of Mecca. Frightened by his growing influence, they imprudently endeavored to arrest the evil by punishing the offender. For some time, however, the power of Abu Taleb, the prophet's uncle, defended him against these hostile attacks, which served, by manifesting the alarm and hatred of the nobles, to increase Mahomet's fame and importance. Persecution gave him strength by bringing him before the public. Once known, he gained sympathizing listeners among the benevolent, because a persecuted man; and blindly believing votaries among the ignorant and fearful, because a bold and vehement declaimer against wickedness, as well as an eloquent describer of the horrible torments attached to unbelief. In the seventh year of his mission, the heads of the tribe of Koreish made a solemn league one with another, engaging themselves to have no commerce or connection with the families of Hashem and Al Motalleb. While Abu Taleb lived the league was of no avail; the power of the uncle defended the nephew against the designs of his enemies. At length, at the end of the seventh year, Abu Taleb died; and a few days after his death Mahomet was left a widower, by the decease of Cadijah. In his affliction he termed this fatal year the year of mourning.

The unprotected prophet was now completely exposed to the attacks of his enemies. His only safety was in flight, and had not the city of Medina been friendly to his cause, the religion of Islam would have been crushed in the bud. The fame of Mahomet, however, had extended far beyond the walls of his native town. Distance, by shrouding him in mystery, increased his influence. While he was scorned and derided at Mecca, he was worshipped at Medina. A secret deputation from the city of Medina waited on the apostle, and an alliance was entered into "during two secret and nocturnal interviews, on a hill in the suburbs of Mecca." Seventy-three men and two women having professed the faith of Islam, as well as some yet unbelievers, met the prophet and proffered him assistance. "What recompense," said they, "have we to expect, should we fall in your defence?" "Paradise," exclaimed the confident apostle. They promised him fidelity and allegiance.

From a fugitive Mahomet became a monarch; no sooner had he arrived at Medina than he found himself at the head of an army devoted to his person, obedient to his will, and blind believers in his holy office. The _fugitives_ from Mecca and the _auxiliaries_ of Medina (the two parties into which Mahomet's followers were now divided) gathered round their chief, and with friendly emulation vied with each other in obedience and in valor. To prevent all jealousy between the brethren, Mahomet wisely gave each one a friend and companion from the rival band; each _fugitive_ had for his brother one of the _auxiliaries_. Their fraternity was continued in peace and in war, and during the life of the prophet their union was undisturbed by the voice of discord.

The commands of the prophet were followed to the letter. The first warlike attempt of the believers was, nevertheless, unsuccessful. Mahomet having learned that a caravan, the property of the hostile Koreish, was on its way from Syria to Mecca, despatched his uncle Hamza, with a party of thirty horse, to capture it. Hamza, however, discovering the caravan to be guarded by 300 men, desisted from his hostile enterprise, and returned without the expected booty. On the plain of Beder, Mahomet, at the head of his troops, effaced the shame of this failure. A rich caravan, proceeding to Mecca, and guarded by Abu Sofian, with between thirty and forty men, occasioned the contest. The spies of Mahomet informed him that this rich and apparently easy prey was within his grasp. He advanced with a few followers in pursuit of it; but before he could overtake the unprotected band, Abu Sofian had sent for a reinforcement from Mecca. A troop consisting of 950 men, among whom were the chief persons of that city, instantly obeyed the summons. Mahomet was posted between the caravan and the coming succor, being able to oppose to this formidable force no more than 313 soldiers, mounted for the most part on camels; some few (according to some authors, not more than two) being mounted on horses.

Undismayed by this disparity of force, Mahomet determined to try the event of a battle, and risk his fortune and perhaps his life upon the contest. The troops were persuaded to engage the superior forces of the enemy, and for the present to abandon the tempting prize of Abu Sofian's rich caravan. Mahomet animated them by his prayers, and in the name of the Most High promised them certain victory. However assured he might have been of divine assistance, he was careful to let slip no human means of securing success. An entrenchment was made to cover the flanks of his troop, and a rivulet flowed past the spot he had chosen for his encampment, and furnished his army with a constant supply of water. When the enemy appeared, descending from the hills, Mahomet ordered his soldiers to the attack; but before the armies could engage, three combatants, Ali, Al Hareth, and Hamza, on the side of the Moslems, and three of the Koreish, joined in single conflict. The Moslem warriors were victorious, and thus gave to both armies a presage of the coming engagement. The prophet, with Abu Bekr, at the commencement of the battle, mounted a pulpit, fervently demanding of God the assistance of Gabriel and three thousand angels; but when his army appeared to waver, he started from his place of prayer, mounted a horse, and flinging a handful of dust into the air, exclaiming, "May their faces be confounded!" rushed upon the enemy. Fanaticism rendered his followers invincible; the numerous forces of the Koreish were unable to break the ranks or resist the furious attacks of his confiding soldiers. They fled, leaving seventy of their principal officers dead upon the field, and seventy prisoners in the hands of the enemy. Of the Moslems, only fourteen were slain. The names of the slaughtered warriors have been handed down to posterity, and enrolled among the list of pious martyrs whom the faithful Mussulman is taught to worship.

Space will not permit us to enumerate the various battles fought by Mahomet; according, however, to the computation of some authors, no less than twenty-seven expeditions were undertaken, in which he personally commanded, and in which nine pitched battles were fought. During the same period, he was besieged in Medina, by the implacable Koreish; but, by his own skill, and the bravery of his troops, he repelled all their attacks. In the sixth year of the Hegira, with 1,400 men, he meditated what he asserted to be a peaceful pilgrimage to the holy temple of Mecca. Entrance into the city being refused by the people, the prophet, in his anger, determined to force his way. At this critical juncture an ambassador was despatched from Mecca to demand a peace. The policy of Mahomet induced him to lay aside his determination of assaulting his native city, and to accept the peaceful offers of his countrymen. A truce of ten years was consequently concluded between the prophet and the Koreish.

Two years had hardly elapsed when Mahomet accused the people of Mecca of a breach of their engagement. When a man is really desirous of quarrelling, a pretext is never wanting. He was now strong, and his enemies were weak. His superstitious reverence for the city of his nativity, and for the temple it contained, served also to influence his determination for war. The time since the concluding of the truce had been skilfully employed in seducing the adherents of the Koreish, and converting to his religion the chief citizens of Mecca. With an army of 10,000 men he marched to besiege it, and no sooner did he appear before the walls than the city surrendered at discretion.

The religion of Mahomet may be considered now to have been permanently settled. The conquest of Mecca and of the Koreish was the signal for the submission of the rest of Arabia. The events of the prophet's after-life cease, therefore, to possess an interest for a Western reader. They were, for the most part, merely expeditions undertaken for the purpose of reducing the petty tribes who still resisted his authority, and were all of them eventually successful. The influence and religion of Mahomet continued rapidly to extend; his difficulties were over; and the hour of his prosperity has nothing to instruct or to amuse the general reader. Between the taking of Mecca and the period of his death, not more than three years elapsed. In that short period he had destroyed the idols of Arabia; had extended his conquests to the borders of the Greek and Persian empires; had rendered his name formidable to those once mighty kingdoms; had tried his arms against the undisciplined troops of the former, and defeated them in a desperate encounter at Muta. His throne was now firmly established, and an impetus given to the Arabian nations that in a few years induced them to invade, and enabled them to subdue, a great portion of the globe. India, Persia, the Greek Empire, the whole of Asia Minor, Egypt, Barbary, and Spain, were reduced by their victorious arms. The Muezzin[10] was heard throughout an empire greater than Alexander's; and though the temporal power of his successors has now faded to a shadow, the religion which he founded still holds sway throughout all that empire, and is even endeavoring to extend itself. Although Mahomet did not live to see such mighty conquests, he laid the first foundations of this wide-spreading dominion, and established over the whole of Arabia, and some part of Syria, the religion he had proclaimed.

[Footnote 10: The Muezzin is the Mahometan official who
announces to the faithful the hour of prayer. Three times in
the day and twice at night he goes up to the balcony of one of
the minarets of the mosque, and chants the call. It is a simple
but solemn melody, which floats down from the height of his
turret upon the sleeping or bustling city with vast
impressiveness, and receives immediate and universal
obedience.]

ALFRED THE GREAT

By SIR J. BERNARD BURKE, LL.D.

(849-901)

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No name in English history is so popular, and so justly popular, as that of Alfred the Great. That he taught his people to defend themselves and defeat their enemies, is the least of his many claims to our grateful admiration; he did much more than this; he gave the first impulse to the spirit of civilization, and taught a horde of wild barbarians that there were other and worthier pursuits than war or the pleasures of the table. In fact, he was one of those highly gifted men that would seem to be raised up especially by Providence to meet certain emergencies, or to advance the career of nations. Such was the hero, so beautifully recorded by the pen of Edmund Burke, and of whose history we now purpose to give a slight sketch for the amusement of those who might turn in weariness from a more ample record.