Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part V

I. Both in his native and his episcopal province, the heresy of
the unfortunate Nestorius was speedily obliterated. The Oriental
bishops, who at Ephesus had resisted to his face the arrogance of
Cyril, were mollified by his tardy concessions. The same
prelates, or their successors, subscribed, not without a murmur,
the decrees of Chalcedon; the power of the Monophysites
reconciled them with the Catholics in the conformity of passion,
of interest, and, insensibly, of belief; and their last reluctant
sigh was breathed in the defence of the three chapters. Their
dissenting brethren, less moderate, or more sincere, were crushed
by the penal laws; and, as early as the reign of Justinian, it
became difficult to find a church of Nestorians within the limits
of the Roman empire. Beyond those limits they had discovered a
new world, in which they might hope for liberty, and aspire to
conquest. In Persia, notwithstanding the resistance of the Magi,
Christianity had struck a deep root, and the nations of the East
reposed under its salutary shade. The catholic, or primate,
resided in the capital: in his synods, and in their dioceses, his
metropolitans, bishops, and clergy, represented the pomp and
order of a regular hierarchy: they rejoiced in the increase of
proselytes, who were converted from the Zendavesta to the gospel,
from the secular to the monastic life; and their zeal was
stimulated by the presence of an artful and formidable enemy. The
Persian church had been founded by the missionaries of Syria; and
their language, discipline, and doctrine, were closely interwoven
with its original frame. The catholics were elected and ordained
by their own suffragans; but their filial dependence on the
patriarchs of Antioch is attested by the canons of the Oriental
church. 113 In the Persian school of Edessa, 114 the rising
generations of the faithful imbibed their theological idiom: they
studied in the Syriac version the ten thousand volumes of
Theodore of Mopsuestia; and they revered the apostolic faith and
holy martyrdom of his disciple Nestorius, whose person and
language were equally unknown to the nations beyond the Tigris.
The first indelible lesson of Ibas, bishop of Edessa, taught them
to execrate the Egyptians, who, in the synod of Ephesus, had
impiously confounded the two natures of Christ. The flight of the
masters and scholars, who were twice expelled from the Athens of
Syria, dispersed a crowd of missionaries inflamed by the double
zeal of religion and revenge. And the rigid unity of the
Monophysites, who, under the reigns of Zeno and Anastasius, had
invaded the thrones of the East, provoked their antagonists, in a
land of freedom, to avow a moral, rather than a physical, union
of the two persons of Christ. Since the first preaching of the
gospel, the Sassanian kings beheld with an eye of suspicion a
race of aliens and apostates, who had embraced the religion, and
who might favor the cause, of the hereditary foes of their
country. The royal edicts had often prohibited their dangerous
correspondence with the Syrian clergy: the progress of the schism
was grateful to the jealous pride of Perozes, and he listened to
the eloquence of an artful prelate, who painted Nestorius as the
friend of Persia, and urged him to secure the fidelity of his
Christian subjects, by granting a just preference to the victims
and enemies of the Roman tyrant. The Nestorians composed a large
majority of the clergy and people: they were encouraged by the
smile, and armed with the sword, of despotism; yet many of their
weaker brethren were startled at the thought of breaking loose
from the communion of the Christian world, and the blood of seven
thousand seven hundred Monophysites, or Catholics, confirmed the
uniformity of faith and discipline in the churches of Persia. 115
Their ecclesiastical institutions are distinguished by a liberal
principle of reason, or at least of policy: the austerity of the
cloister was relaxed and gradually forgotten; houses of charity
were endowed for the education of orphans and foundlings; the law
of celibacy, so forcibly recommended to the Greeks and Latins,
was disregarded by the Persian clergy; and the number of the
elect was multiplied by the public and reiterated nuptials of the
priests, the bishops, and even the patriarch himself. To this
standard of natural and religious freedom, myriads of fugitives
resorted from all the provinces of the Eastern empire; the narrow
bigotry of Justinian was punished by the emigration of his most
industrious subjects; they transported into Persia the arts both
of peace and war: and those who deserved the favor, were promoted
in the service, of a discerning monarch. The arms of Nushirvan,
and his fiercer grandson, were assisted with advice, and money,
and troops, by the desperate sectaries who still lurked in their
native cities of the East: their zeal was rewarded with the gift
of the Catholic churches; but when those cities and churches were
recovered by Heraclius, their open profession of treason and
heresy compelled them to seek a refuge in the realm of their
foreign ally. But the seeming tranquillity of the Nestorians was
often endangered, and sometimes overthrown. They were involved in
the common evils of Oriental despotism: their enmity to Rome
could not always atone for their attachment to the gospel: and a
colony of three hundred thousand Jacobites, the captives of
Apamea and Antioch, was permitted to erect a hostile altar in the
face of the catholic, and in the sunshine of the court. In his
last treaty, Justinian introduced some conditions which tended to
enlarge and fortify the toleration of Christianity in Persia. The
emperor, ignorant of the rights of conscience, was incapable of
pity or esteem for the heretics who denied the authority of the
holy synods: but he flattered himself that they would gradually
perceive the temporal benefits of union with the empire and the
church of Rome; and if he failed in exciting their gratitude, he
might hope to provoke the jealousy of their sovereign. In a later
age the Lutherans have been burnt at Paris, and protected in
Germany, by the superstition and policy of the most Christian
king.

113 (return) [ See the Arabic canons of Nice in the translation
of Abraham Ecchelensis, No. 37, 38, 39, 40. Concil. tom. ii. p.
335, 336, edit. Venet. These vulgar titles, Nicene and Arabic,
are both apocryphal. The council of Nice enacted no more than
twenty canons, (Theodoret. Hist. Eccles. l. i. c. 8;) and the
remainder, seventy or eighty, were collected from the synods of
the Greek church. The Syriac edition of Maruthas is no longer
extant, (Asseman. Bibliot. Oriental. tom. i. p. 195, tom. iii. p.
74,) and the Arabic version is marked with many recent
interpolations. Yet this Code contains many curious relics of
ecclesiastical discipline; and since it is equally revered by all
the Eastern communions, it was probably finished before the
schism of the Nestorians and Jacobites, (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec.
tom. xi. p. 363—367.)]

114 (return) [ Theodore the Reader (l. ii. c. 5, 49, ad calcem
Hist. Eccles.) has noticed this Persian school of Edessa. Its
ancient splendor, and the two aeras of its downfall, (A.D. 431
and 489) are clearly discussed by Assemanni, (Biblioth. Orient.
tom. ii. p. 402, iii. p. 376, 378, iv. p. 70, 924.)]

115 (return) [ A dissertation on the state of the Nestorians has
swelled in the bands of Assemanni to a folio volume of 950 pages,
and his learned researches are digested in the most lucid order.
Besides this ivth volume of the Bibliotheca Orientalis, the
extracts in the three preceding tomes (tom. i. p. 203, ii. p.
321-463, iii. 64—70, 378—395, &c., 405—408, 580—589) may be
usefully consulted.]

The desire of gaining souls for God and subjects for the church,
has excited in every age the diligence of the Christian priests.
From the conquest of Persia they carried their spiritual arms to
the north, the east, and the south; and the simplicity of the
gospel was fashioned and painted with the colors of the Syriac
theology. In the sixth century, according to the report of a
Nestorian traveller, 116 Christianity was successfully preached
to the Bactrians, the Huns, the Persians, the Indians, the
Persarmenians, the Medes, and the Elamites: the Barbaric
churches, from the Gulf of Persia to the Caspian Sea, were almost
infinite; and their recent faith was conspicuous in the number
and sanctity of their monks and martyrs. The pepper coast of
Malabar, and the isles of the ocean, Socotora and Ceylon, were
peopled with an increasing multitude of Christians; and the
bishops and clergy of those sequestered regions derived their
ordination from the Catholic of Babylon. In a subsequent age the
zeal of the Nestorians overleaped the limits which had confined
the ambition and curiosity both of the Greeks and Persians. The
missionaries of Balch and Samarcand pursued without fear the
footsteps of the roving Tartar, and insinuated themselves into
the camps of the valleys of Imaus and the banks of the Selinga.
They exposed a metaphysical creed to those illiterate shepherds:
to those sanguinary warriors, they recommended humanity and
repose. Yet a khan, whose power they vainly magnified, is said to
have received at their hands the rites of baptism, and even of
ordination; and the fame of Prester or Presbyter John 117 has
long amused the credulity of Europe. The royal convert was
indulged in the use of a portable altar; but he despatched an
embassy to the patriarch, to inquire how, in the season of Lent,
he should abstain from animal food, and how he might celebrate
the Eucharist in a desert that produced neither corn nor wine. In
their progress by sea and land, the Nestorians entered China by
the port of Canton and the northern residence of Sigan. Unlike
the senators of Rome, who assumed with a smile the characters of
priests and augurs, the mandarins, who affect in public the
reason of philosophers, are devoted in private to every mode of
popular superstition. They cherished and they confounded the gods
of Palestine and of India; but the propagation of Christianity
awakened the jealousy of the state, and, after a short
vicissitude of favor and persecution, the foreign sect expired in
ignorance and oblivion. 118 Under the reign of the caliphs, the
Nestorian church was diffused from China to Jerusalem and Cyrus;
and their numbers, with those of the Jacobites, were computed to
surpass the Greek and Latin communions. 119 Twenty-five
metropolitans or archbishops composed their hierarchy; but
several of these were dispensed, by the distance and danger of
the way, from the duty of personal attendance, on the easy
condition that every six years they should testify their faith
and obedience to the catholic or patriarch of Babylon, a vague
appellation which has been successively applied to the royal
seats of Seleucia, Ctesiphon, and Bagdad. These remote branches
are long since withered; and the old patriarchal trunk 120 is now
divided by the Elijahs of Mosul, the representatives almost on
lineal descent of the genuine and primitive succession; the
Josephs of Amida, who are reconciled to the church of Rome: 121
and the Simeons of Van or Ormia, whose revolt, at the head of
forty thousand families, was promoted in the sixteenth century by
the Sophis of Persia. The number of three hundred thousand is
allowed for the whole body of the Nestorians, who, under the name
of Chaldeans or Assyrians, are confounded with the most learned
or the most powerful nation of Eastern antiquity.

116 (return) [ See the Topographia Christiana of Cosmas, surnamed
Indicopleustes, or the Indian navigator, l. iii. p. 178, 179, l.
xi. p. 337. The entire work, of which some curious extracts may
be found in Photius, (cod. xxxvi. p. 9, 10, edit. Hoeschel,)
Thevenot, (in the 1st part of his Relation des Voyages, &c.,) and
Fabricius, (Bibliot. Graec. l. iii. c. 25, tom. ii. p. 603-617,)
has been published by Father Montfaucon at Paris, 1707, in the
Nova Collectio Patrum, (tom. ii. p. 113—346.) It was the design
of the author to confute the impious heresy of those who
maintained that the earth is a globe, and not a flat, oblong
table, as it is represented in the Scriptures, (l. ii. p. 138.)
But the nonsense of the monk is mingled with the practical
knowledge of the traveller, who performed his voyage A.D. 522,
and published his book at Alexandria, A.D. 547, (l. ii. p. 140,
141. Montfaucon, Praefat. c. 2.) The Nestorianism of Cosmas,
unknown to his learned editor, was detected by La Croze,
(Christianisme des Indes, tom. i. p. 40—55,) and is confirmed by
Assemanni, (Bibliot. Orient. tom. iv. p. 605, 606.)]

117 (return) [ In its long progress to Mosul, Jerusalem, Rome,
&c., the story of Prester John evaporated in a monstrous fable,
of which some features have been borrowed from the Lama of
Thibet, (Hist. Genealogique des Tartares, P. ii. p. 42. Hist. de
Gengiscan, p. 31, &c.,) and were ignorantly transferred by the
Portuguese to the emperor of Abyssinia, (Ludolph. Hist. Aethiop.
Comment. l. ii. c. 1.) Yet it is probable that in the xith and
xiith centuries, Nestorian Christianity was professed in the
horde of the Keraites, (D’Herbelot, p. 256, 915, 959. Assemanni,
tom. iv. p. 468—504.) Note: The extent to which Nestorian
Christianity prevailed among the Tartar tribes is one of the most
curious questions in Oriental history. M. Schmidt (Geschichte der
Ost Mongolen, notes, p. 383) appears to question the Christianity
of Ong Chaghan, and his Keraite subjects.—M.]

118 (return) [ The Christianity of China, between the seventh and
the thirteenth century, is invincibly proved by the consent of
Chinese, Arabian, Syriac, and Latin evidence, (Assemanni,
Biblioth. Orient. tom. iv. p. 502—552. Mem. de l’Academie des
Inscript. tom. xxx. p. 802—819.) The inscription of Siganfu which
describes the fortunes of the Nestorian church, from the first
mission, A.D. 636, to the current year 781, is accused of forgery
by La Croze, Voltaire, &c., who become the dupes of their own
cunning, while they are afraid of a Jesuitical fraud. * Note:
This famous monument, the authenticity of which many have
attempted to impeach, rather from hatred to the Jesuits, by whom
it was made known, than by a candid examination of its contents,
is now generally considered above all suspicion. The Chinese text
and the facts which it relates are equally strong proofs of its
authenticity. This monument was raised as a memorial of the
establishment of Christianity in China. It is dated the year 1092
of the era of the Greeks, or the Seleucidae, A.D. 781, in the
time of the Nestorian patriarch Anan-jesu. It was raised by
Iezdbouzid, priest and chorepiscopus of Chumdan, that is, of the
capital of the Chinese empire, and the son of a priest who came
from Balkh in Tokharistan. Among the various arguments which may
be urged in favor of the authenticity of this monument, and which
has not yet been advanced, may be reckoned the name of the priest
by whom it was raised. The name is Persian, and at the time the
monument was discovered, it would have been impossible to have
imagined it; for there was no work extant from whence the
knowledge of it could be derived. I do not believe that ever
since this period, any book has been published in which it can be
found a second time. It is very celebrated amongst the Armenians,
and is derived from a martyr, a Persian by birth, of the royal
race, who perished towards the middle of the seventh century, and
rendered his name celebrated among the Christian nations of the
East. St. Martin, vol. i. p. 69. M. Remusat has also strongly
expressed his conviction of the authenticity of this monument.
Melanges Asiatiques, P. i. p. 33. Yet M. Schmidt (Geschichte der
Ost Mongolen, p. 384) denies that there is any satisfactory proof
that much a monument was ever found in China, or that it was not
manufactured in Europe. But if the Jesuits had attempted such a
forgery, would it not have been more adapted to further their
peculiar views?—M.]

119 (return) [ Jacobitae et Nestorianae plures quam Graeci et
Latini Jacob a Vitriaco, Hist. Hierosol. l. ii. c. 76, p. 1093,
in the Gesta Dei per Francos. The numbers are given by Thomassin,
Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. i. p. 172.]

120 (return) [ The division of the patriarchate may be traced in
the Bibliotheca Orient. of Assemanni, tom. i. p. 523—549, tom.
ii. p. 457, &c., tom. iii. p. 603, p. 621—623, tom. iv. p.
164-169, p. 423, p. 622—629, &c.]

121 (return) [ The pompous language of Rome on the submission of
a Nestorian patriarch, is elegantly represented in the viith book
of Fra Paola, Babylon, Nineveh, Arbela, and the trophies of
Alexander, Tauris, and Ecbatana, the Tigris and Indus.]

According to the legend of antiquity, the gospel was preached in
India by St. Thomas. 122 At the end of the ninth century, his
shrine, perhaps in the neighborhood of Madras, was devoutly
visited by the ambassadors of Alfred; and their return with a
cargo of pearls and spices rewarded the zeal of the English
monarch, who entertained the largest projects of trade and
discovery. 123 When the Portuguese first opened the navigation of
India, the Christians of St. Thomas had been seated for ages on
the coast of Malabar, and the difference of their character and
color attested the mixture of a foreign race. In arms, in arts,
and possibly in virtue, they excelled the natives of Hindostan;
the husbandmen cultivated the palm-tree, the merchants were
enriched by the pepper trade, the soldiers preceded the nairs or
nobles of Malabar, and their hereditary privileges were respected
by the gratitude or the fear of the king of Cochin and the
Zamorin himself. They acknowledged a Gentoo of sovereign, but
they were governed, even in temporal concerns, by the bishop of
Angamala. He still asserted his ancient title of metropolitan of
India, but his real jurisdiction was exercised in fourteen
hundred churches, and he was intrusted with the care of two
hundred thousand souls. Their religion would have rendered them
the firmest and most cordial allies of the Portuguese; but the
inquisitors soon discerned in the Christians of St. Thomas the
unpardonable guilt of heresy and schism. Instead of owning
themselves the subjects of the Roman pontiff, the spiritual and
temporal monarch of the globe, they adhered, like their
ancestors, to the communion of the Nestorian patriarch; and the
bishops whom he ordained at Mosul, traversed the dangers of the
sea and land to reach their diocese on the coast of Malabar. In
their Syriac liturgy the names of Theodore and Nestorius were
piously commemorated: they united their adoration of the two
persons of Christ; the title of Mother of God was offensive to
their ear, and they measured with scrupulous avarice the honors
of the Virgin Mary, whom the superstition of the Latins had
almost exalted to the rank of a goddess. When her image was first
presented to the disciples of St. Thomas, they indignantly
exclaimed, “We are Christians, not idolaters!” and their simple
devotion was content with the veneration of the cross. Their
separation from the Western world had left them in ignorance of
the improvements, or corruptions, of a thousand years; and their
conformity with the faith and practice of the fifth century would
equally disappoint the prejudices of a Papist or a Protestant. It
was the first care of the ministers of Rome to intercept all
correspondence with the Nestorian patriarch, and several of his
bishops expired in the prisons of the holy office.

The flock, without a shepherd, was assaulted by the power of the
Portuguese, the arts of the Jesuits, and the zeal of Alexis de
Menezes, archbishop of Goa, in his personal visitation of the
coast of Malabar. The synod of Diamper, at which he presided,
consummated the pious work of the reunion; and rigorously imposed
the doctrine and discipline of the Roman church, without
forgetting auricular confession, the strongest engine of
ecclesiastical torture. The memory of Theodore and Nestorius was
condemned, and Malabar was reduced under the dominion of the
pope, of the primate, and of the Jesuits who invaded the see of
Angamala or Cranganor. Sixty years of servitude and hypocrisy
were patiently endured; but as soon as the Portuguese empire was
shaken by the courage and industry of the Dutch, the Nestorians
asserted, with vigor and effect, the religion of their fathers.
The Jesuits were incapable of defending the power which they had
abused; the arms of forty thousand Christians were pointed
against their falling tyrants; and the Indian archdeacon assumed
the character of bishop till a fresh supply of episcopal gifts
and Syriac missionaries could be obtained from the patriarch of
Babylon. Since the expulsion of the Portuguese, the Nestorian
creed is freely professed on the coast of Malabar. The trading
companies of Holland and England are the friends of toleration;
but if oppression be less mortifying than contempt, the
Christians of St. Thomas have reason to complain of the cold and
silent indifference of their brethren of Europe. 124

122 (return) [ The Indian missionary, St. Thomas, an apostle, a
Manichaean, or an Armenian merchant, (La Croze, Christianisme des
Indes, tom. i. p. 57—70,) was famous, however, as early as the
time of Jerom, (ad Marcellam, epist. 148.) Marco-Polo was
informed on the spot that he suffered martyrdom in the city of
Malabar, or Meliapour, a league only from Madras, (D’Anville,
Eclaircissemens sur l’Inde, p. 125,) where the Portuguese founded
an episcopal church under the name of St. Thome, and where the
saint performed an annual miracle, till he was silenced by the
profane neighborhood of the English, (La Croze, tom. ii. p.
7-16.)]

123 (return) [ Neither the author of the Saxon Chronicle (A.D.
833) not William of Malmesbury (de Gestis Regum Angliae, l. ii.
c. 4, p. 44) were capable, in the twelfth century, of inventing
this extraordinary fact; they are incapable of explaining the
motives and measures of Alfred; and their hasty notice serves
only to provoke our curiosity. William of Malmesbury feels the
difficulty of the enterprise, quod quivis in hoc saeculo miretur;
and I almost suspect that the English ambassadors collected their
cargo and legend in Egypt. The royal author has not enriched his
Orosius (see Barrington’s Miscellanies) with an Indian, as well
as a Scandinavian, voyage.]

124 (return) [ Concerning the Christians of St. Thomas, see
Assemann. Bibliot Orient. tom. iv. p. 391—407, 435—451; Geddes’s
Church History of Malabar; and, above all, La Croze, Histoire du
Christianisme des Indes, in 2 vols. 12mo., La Haye, 1758, a
learned and agreeable work. They have drawn from the same source,
the Portuguese and Italian narratives; and the prejudices of the
Jesuits are sufficiently corrected by those of the Protestants.
Note: The St. Thome Christians had excited great interest in the
ancient mind of the admirable Bishop Heber. See his curious and,
to his friends, highly characteristic letter to Mar Athanasius,
Appendix to Journal. The arguments of his friend and coadjutor,
Mr. Robinson, (Last Days of Bishop Heber,) have not convinced me
that the Christianity of India is older than the Nestorian
dispersion.—M]

II. The history of the Monophysites is less copious and
interesting than that of the Nestorians. Under the reigns of Zeno
and Anastasius, their artful leaders surprised the ear of the
prince, usurped the thrones of the East, and crushed on its
native soil the school of the Syrians. The rule of the
Monophysite faith was defined with exquisite discretion by
Severus, patriarch of Antioch: he condemned, in the style of the
Henoticon, the adverse heresies of Nestorius; and Eutyches
maintained against the latter the reality of the body of Christ,
and constrained the Greeks to allow that he was a liar who spoke
truth. 125 But the approximation of ideas could not abate the
vehemence of passion; each party was the more astonished that
their blind antagonist could dispute on so trifling a difference;
the tyrant of Syria enforced the belief of his creed, and his
reign was polluted with the blood of three hundred and fifty
monks, who were slain, not perhaps without provocation or
resistance, under the walls of Apamea. 126 The successor of
Anastasius replanted the orthodox standard in the East; Severus
fled into Egypt; and his friend, the eloquent Xenaias, 127 who
had escaped from the Nestorians of Persia, was suffocated in his
exile by the Melchites of Paphlagonia. Fifty-four bishops were
swept from their thrones, eight hundred ecclesiastics were cast
into prison, 128 and notwithstanding the ambiguous favor of
Theodora, the Oriental flocks, deprived of their shepherds, must
insensibly have been either famished or poisoned. In this
spiritual distress, the expiring faction was revived, and united,
and perpetuated, by the labors of a monk; and the name of James
Baradaeus 129 has been preserved in the appellation of Jacobites,
a familiar sound, which may startle the ear of an English reader.
From the holy confessors in their prison of Constantinople, he
received the powers of bishop of Edessa and apostle of the East,
and the ordination of fourscore thousand bishops, priests, and
deacons, is derived from the same inexhaustible source. The speed
of the zealous missionary was promoted by the fleetest
dromedaries of a devout chief of the Arabs; the doctrine and
discipline of the Jacobites were secretly established in the
dominions of Justinian; and each Jacobite was compelled to
violate the laws and to hate the Roman legislator. The successors
of Severus, while they lurked in convents or villages, while they
sheltered their proscribed heads in the caverns of hermits, or
the tents of the Saracens, still asserted, as they now assert,
their indefeasible right to the title, the rank, and the
prerogatives of patriarch of Antioch: under the milder yoke of
the infidels, they reside about a league from Merdin, in the
pleasant monastery of Zapharan, which they have embellished with
cells, aqueducts, and plantations. The secondary, though
honorable, place is filled by the maphrian, who, in his station
at Mosul itself, defies the Nestorian catholic with whom he
contests the primacy of the East. Under the patriarch and the
maphrian, one hundred and fifty archbishops and bishops have been
counted in the different ages of the Jacobite church; but the
order of the hierarchy is relaxed or dissolved, and the greater
part of their dioceses is confined to the neighborhood of the
Euphrates and the Tigris. The cities of Aleppo and Amida, which
are often visited by the patriarch, contain some wealthy
merchants and industrious mechanics, but the multitude derive
their scanty sustenance from their daily labor: and poverty, as
well as superstition, may impose their excessive fasts: five
annual lents, during which both the clergy and laity abstain not
only from flesh or eggs, but even from the taste of wine, of oil,
and of fish. Their present numbers are esteemed from fifty to
fourscore thousand souls, the remnant of a populous church, which
was gradually decreased under the impression of twelve centuries.
Yet in that long period, some strangers of merit have been
converted to the Monophysite faith, and a Jew was the father of
Abulpharagius, 130 primate of the East, so truly eminent both in
his life and death. In his life he was an elegant writer of the
Syriac and Arabic tongues, a poet, physician, and historian, a
subtile philosopher, and a moderate divine. In his death, his
funeral was attended by his rival the Nestorian patriarch, with a
train of Greeks and Armenians, who forgot their disputes, and
mingled their tears over the grave of an enemy. The sect which
was honored by the virtues of Abulpharagius appears, however, to
sink below the level of their Nestorian brethren. The
superstition of the Jacobites is more abject, their fasts more
rigid, 131 their intestine divisions are more numerous, and their
doctors (as far as I can measure the degrees of nonsense) are
more remote from the precincts of reason. Something may possibly
be allowed for the rigor of the Monophysite theology; much more
for the superior influence of the monastic order. In Syria, in
Egypt, in Ethiopia, the Jacobite monks have ever been
distinguished by the austerity of their penance and the absurdity
of their legends. Alive or dead, they are worshipped as the
favorites of the Deity; the crosier of bishop and patriarch is
reserved for their venerable hands; and they assume the
government of men, while they are yet reeking with the habits and
prejudices of the cloister. 132

125 (return) [ Is the expression of Theodore, in his Treatise of
the Incarnation, p. 245, 247, as he is quoted by La Croze, (Hist.
du Christianisme d’Ethiopie et d’Armenie, p. 35,) who exclaims,
perhaps too hastily, “Quel pitoyable raisonnement!” Renaudot has
touched (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 127—138) the Oriental accounts
of Severus; and his authentic creed may be found in the epistle
of John the Jacobite patriarch of Antioch, in the xth century, to
his brother Mannas of Alexandria, (Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom.
ii. p. 132—141.)]

126 (return) [ Epist. Archimandritarum et Monachorum Syriae
Secundae ad Papam Hormisdam, Concil. tom. v. p. 598—602. The
courage of St. Sabas, ut leo animosus, will justify the suspicion
that the arms of these monks were not always spiritual or
defensive, (Baronius, A.D. 513, No. 7, &c.)]

127 (return) [ Assemanni (Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii. p. 10—46) and
La Croze (Christianisme d’Ethiopie, p. 36—40) will supply the
history of Xenaias, or Philoxenus, bishop of Mabug, or
Hierapolis, in Syria. He was a perfect master of the Syriac
language, and the author or editor of a version of the New
Testament.]

128 (return) [ The names and titles of fifty-four bishops who
were exiled by Justin, are preserved in the Chronicle of
Dionysius, (apud Asseman. tom. ii. p. 54.) Severus was personally
summoned to Constantinople—for his trial, says Liberatus (Brev.
c. 19)—that his tongue might be cut out, says Evagrius, (l. iv.
c. iv.) The prudent patriarch did not stay to examine the
difference. This ecclesiastical revolution is fixed by Pagi to
the month of September of the year 518, (Critica, tom. ii. p.
506.)]

129 (return) [ The obscure history of James or Jacobus Baradaeus,
or Zanzalust may be gathered from Eutychius, (Annal. tom. ii. p.
144, 147,) Renau dot, (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 133,) and
Assemannus, (Bibliot. Orient. tom. i. p. 424, tom. ii. p. 62-69,
324—332, 414, tom. iii. p. 385—388.) He seems to be unknown to
the Greeks. The Jacobites themselves had rather deduce their name
and pedigree from St. James the apostle.]

130 (return) [ The account of his person and writings is perhaps
the most curious article in the Bibliotheca of Assemannus, (tom.
ii. p. 244—321, under the name of Gregorius Bar-Hebroeus.) La
Croze (Christianisme d’Ethiopie, p. 53—63) ridicules the
prejudice of the Spaniards against the Jewish blood which
secretly defiles their church and state.]

131 (return) [ This excessive abstinence is censured by La Croze,
(p. 352,) and even by the Syrian Assemannus, (tom. i. p. 226,
tom. ii. p. 304, 305.)]

132 (return) [ The state of the Monophysites is excellently
illustrated in a dissertation at the beginning of the iid volume
of Assemannus, which contains 142 pages. The Syriac Chronicle of
Gregory Bar-Hebraeus, or Abulpharagius, (Bibliot. Orient. tom.
ii. p. 321—463,) pursues the double series of the Nestorian
Catholics and the Maphrians of the Jacobites.]

III. In the style of the Oriental Christians, the Monothelites of
every age are described under the appellation of Maronites, 133 a
name which has been insensibly transferred from a hermit to a
monastery, from a monastery to a nation. Maron, a saint or savage
of the fifth century, displayed his religious madness in Syria;
the rival cities of Apamea and Emesa disputed his relics, a
stately church was erected on his tomb, and six hundred of his
disciples united their solitary cells on the banks of the
Orontes. In the controversies of the incarnation they nicely
threaded the orthodox line between the sects of Nestorians and
Eutyches; but the unfortunate question of one will or operation
in the two natures of Christ, was generated by their curious
leisure. Their proselyte, the emperor Heraclius, was rejected as
a Maronite from the walls of Emesa, he found a refuge in the
monastery of his brethren; and their theological lessons were
repaid with the gift a spacious and wealthy domain. The name and
doctrine of this venerable school were propagated among the
Greeks and Syrians, and their zeal is expressed by Macarius,
patriarch of Antioch, who declared before the synod of
Constantinople, that sooner than subscribe the two wills of
Christ, he would submit to be hewn piecemeal and cast into the
sea. 134 A similar or a less cruel mode of persecution soon
converted the unresisting subjects of the plain, while the
glorious title of Mardaites, 135 or rebels, was bravely
maintained by the hardy natives of Mount Libanus. John Maron, one
of the most learned and popular of the monks, assumed the
character of patriarch of Antioch; his nephew, Abraham, at the
head of the Maronites, defended their civil and religious freedom
against the tyrants of the East. The son of the orthodox
Constantine pursued with pious hatred a people of soldiers, who
might have stood the bulwark of his empire against the common
foes of Christ and of Rome. An army of Greeks invaded Syria; the
monastery of St. Maron was destroyed with fire; the bravest
chieftains were betrayed and murdered, and twelve thousand of
their followers were transplanted to the distant frontiers of
Armenia and Thrace. Yet the humble nation of the Maronites had
survived the empire of Constantinople, and they still enjoy,
under their Turkish masters, a free religion and a mitigated
servitude. Their domestic governors are chosen among the ancient
nobility: the patriarch, in his monastery of Canobin, still
fancies himself on the throne of Antioch: nine bishops compose
his synod, and one hundred and fifty priests, who retain the
liberty of marriage, are intrusted with the care of one hundred
thousand souls. Their country extends from the ridge of Mount
Libanus to the shores of Tripoli; and the gradual descent
affords, in a narrow space, each variety of soil and climate,
from the Holy Cedars, erect under the weight of snow, 136 to the
vine, the mulberry, and the olive-trees of the fruitful valley.
In the twelfth century, the Maronites, abjuring the Monothelite
error were reconciled to the Latin churches of Antioch and Rome,
137 and the same alliance has been frequently renewed by the
ambition of the popes and the distress of the Syrians. But it may
reasonably be questioned, whether their union has ever been
perfect or sincere; and the learned Maronites of the college of
Rome have vainly labored to absolve their ancestors from the
guilt of heresy and schism. 138

133 (return) [ The synonymous use of the two words may be proved
from Eutychius, (Annal. tom. ii. p. 191, 267, 332,) and many
similar passages which may be found in the methodical table of
Pocock. He was not actuated by any prejudice against the
Maronites of the xth century; and we may believe a Melchite,
whose testimony is confirmed by the Jacobites and Latins.]

134 (return) [ Concil. tom. vii. p. 780. The Monothelite cause
was supported with firmness and subtilty by Constantine, a Syrian
priest of Apamea, (p. 1040, &c.)]

135 (return) [ Theophanes (Chron. p. 295, 296, 300, 302, 306) and
Cedrenus (p. 437, 440) relates the exploits of the Mardaites: the
name (Mard, in Syriac, rebellavit) is explained by La Roque,
(Voyage de la Syrie, tom. ii. p. 53;) and dates are fixed by
Pagi, (A.D. 676, No. 4—14, A.D. 685, No. 3, 4;) and even the
obscure story of the patriarch John Maron (Asseman. Bibliot.
Orient. tom. i. p. 496—520) illustrates from the year 686 to 707,
the troubles of Mount Libanus. * Note: Compare on the Mardaites
Anquetil du Perron, in the fiftieth volume of the Mem. de l’Acad.
des Inscriptions; and Schlosser, Bildersturmendes Kaiser, p.
100.—M]

136 (return) [ In the last century twenty large cedars still
remained, (Voyage de la Roque, tom. i. p. 68—76;) at present they
are reduced to four or five, (Volney, tom. i. p. 264.) These
trees, so famous in Scripture, were guarded by excommunication:
the wood was sparingly borrowed for small crosses, &c.; an annual
mass was chanted under their shade; and they were endowed by the
Syrians with a sensitive power of erecting their branches to
repel the snow, to which Mount Libanus is less faithful than it
is painted by Tacitus: inter ardores opacum fidumque nivibus—a
daring metaphor, (Hist. v. 6.) Note: Of the oldest and best
looking trees, I counted eleven or twelve twenty-five very large
ones; and about fifty of middling size; and more than three
hundred smaller and young ones. Burckhardt’s Travels in Syria p.
19.—M]

137 (return) [ The evidence of William of Tyre (Hist. in Gestis
Dei per Francos, l. xxii. c. 8, p. 1022) is copied or confirmed
by Jacques de Vitra, (Hist. Hierosolym. l. ii. c. 77, p. 1093,
1094.) But this unnatural league expired with the power of the
Franks; and Abulpharagius (who died in 1286) considers the
Maronites as a sect of Monothelites, (Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii.
p. 292.)]

138 (return) [ I find a description and history of the Maronites
in the Voyage de la Syrie et du Mont Liban par la Roque, (2 vols.
in 12mo., Amsterdam, 1723; particularly tom. i. p. 42—47, p.
174—184, tom. ii. p. 10—120.) In the ancient part, he copies the
prejudices of Nairon and the other Maronites of Rome, which
Assemannus is afraid to renounce and ashamed to support.
Jablonski, (Institut. Hist. Christ. tom. iii. p. 186.) Niebuhr,
(Voyage de l’Arabie, &c., tom. ii. p. 346, 370—381,) and, above
all, the judicious Volney, (Voyage en Egypte et en Syrie, tom.
ii. p. 8—31, Paris, 1787,) may be consulted.]

IV. Since the age of Constantine, the Armenians 139 had
signalized their attachment to the religion and empire of the
Christians. 1391 The disorders of their country, and their
ignorance of the Greek tongue, prevented their clergy from
assisting at the synod of Chalcedon, and they floated eighty-four
years 140 in a state of indifference or suspense, till their
vacant faith was finally occupied by the missionaries of Julian
of Halicarnassus, 141 who in Egypt, their common exile, had been
vanquished by the arguments or the influence of his rival
Severus, the Monophysite patriarch of Antioch. The Armenians
alone are the pure disciples of Eutyches, an unfortunate parent,
who has been renounced by the greater part of his spiritual
progeny. They alone persevere in the opinion, that the manhood of
Christ was created, or existed without creation, of a divine and
incorruptible substance. Their adversaries reproach them with the
adoration of a phantom; and they retort the accusation, by
deriding or execrating the blasphemy of the Jacobites, who impute
to the Godhead the vile infirmities of the flesh, even the
natural effects of nutrition and digestion. The religion of
Armenia could not derive much glory from the learning or the
power of its inhabitants. The royalty expired with the origin of
their schism; and their Christian kings, who arose and fell in
the thirteenth century on the confines of Cilicia, were the
clients of the Latins and the vassals of the Turkish sultan of
Iconium. The helpless nation has seldom been permitted to enjoy
the tranquillity of servitude. From the earliest period to the
present hour, Armenia has been the theatre of perpetual war: the
lands between Tauris and Erivan were dispeopled by the cruel
policy of the Sophis; and myriads of Christian families were
transplanted, to perish or to propagate in the distant provinces
of Persia. Under the rod of oppression, the zeal of the Armenians
is fervent and intrepid; they have often preferred the crown of
martyrdom to the white turban of Mahomet; they devoutly hate the
error and idolatry of the Greeks; and their transient union with
the Latins is not less devoid of truth, than the thousand
bishops, whom their patriarch offered at the feet of the Roman
pontiff. 142 The catholic, or patriarch, of the Armenians resides
in the monastery of Ekmiasin, three leagues from Erivan.
Forty-seven archbishops, each of whom may claim the obedience of
four or five suffragans, are consecrated by his hand; but the far
greater part are only titular prelates, who dignify with their
presence and service the simplicity of his court. As soon as they
have performed the liturgy, they cultivate the garden; and our
bishops will hear with surprise, that the austerity of their life
increases in just proportion to the elevation of their rank.

In the fourscore thousand towns or villages of his spiritual
empire, the patriarch receives a small and voluntary tax from
each person above the age of fifteen; but the annual amount of
six hundred thousand crowns is insufficient to supply the
incessant demands of charity and tribute. Since the beginning of
the last century, the Armenians have obtained a large and
lucrative share of the commerce of the East: in their return from
Europe, the caravan usually halts in the neighborhood of Erivan,
the altars are enriched with the fruits of their patient
industry; and the faith of Eutyches is preached in their recent
congregations of Barbary and Poland. 143

139 (return) [ The religion of the Armenians is briefly described
by La Croze, (Hist. du Christ. de l’Ethiopie et de l’Armenie, p.
269—402.) He refers to the great Armenian History of Galanus, (3
vols. in fol. Rome, 1650—1661,) and commends the state of Armenia
in the iiid volume of the Nouveaux Memoires des Missions du
Levant. The work of a Jesuit must have sterling merit when it is
praised by La Croze.]

1391 (return) [ See vol. iii. ch. xx. p. 271.—M.]

140 (return) [ The schism of the Armenians is placed 84 years
after the council of Chalcedon, (Pagi, Critica, ad A.D. 535.) It
was consummated at the end of seventeen years; and it is from the
year of Christ 552 that we date the aera of the Armenians, (L’Art
de verifier les Dates, p. xxxv.)]

141 (return) [ The sentiments and success of Julian of
Halicarnassus may be seen in Liberatus, (Brev. c. 19,) Renaudot,
(Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 132, 303,) and Assemannus, (Bibliot.
Orient. tom. ii. Dissertat. Monophysitis, l. viii. p. 286.)]

142 (return) [ See a remarkable fact of the xiith century in the
History of Nicetas Choniates, (p. 258.) Yet three hundred years
before, Photius (Epistol. ii. p. 49, edit. Montacut.) had gloried
in the conversion of the Armenians.]

143 (return) [ The travelling Armenians are in the way of every
traveller, and their mother church is on the high road between
Constantinople and Ispahan; for their present state, see
Fabricius, (Lux Evangelii, &c., c. xxxviii. p. 40—51,) Olearius,
(l. iv. c. 40,) Chardin, (vol. ii. p. 232,) Teurnefort, (lettre
xx.,) and, above all, Tavernier, (tom. i. p. 28—37, 510-518,)
that rambling jeweller, who had read nothing, but had seen so
much and so well]

V. In the rest of the Roman empire, the despotism of the prince
might eradicate or silence the sectaries of an obnoxious creed.
But the stubborn temper of the Egyptians maintained their
opposition to the synod of Chalcedon, and the policy of Justinian
condescended to expect and to seize the opportunity of discord.
The Monophysite church of Alexandria 144 was torn by the disputes
of the corruptibles and incorruptibles, and on the death of the
patriarch, the two factions upheld their respective candidates.
145 Gaian was the disciple of Julian, Theodosius had been the
pupil of Severus: the claims of the former were supported by the
consent of the monks and senators, the city and the province; the
latter depended on the priority of his ordination, the favor of
the empress Theodora, and the arms of the eunuch Narses, which
might have been used in more honorable warfare. The exile of the
popular candidate to Carthage and Sardinia inflamed the ferment
of Alexandria; and after a schism of one hundred and seventy
years, the Gaianites still revered the memory and doctrine of
their founder. The strength of numbers and of discipline was
tried in a desperate and bloody conflict; the streets were filled
with the dead bodies of citizens and soldiers; the pious women,
ascending the roofs of their houses, showered down every sharp or
ponderous utensil on the heads of the enemy; and the final
victory of Narses was owing to the flames, with which he wasted
the third capital of the Roman world. But the lieutenant of
Justinian had not conquered in the cause of a heretic; Theodosius
himself was speedily, though gently, removed; and Paul of Tanis,
an orthodox monk, was raised to the throne of Athanasius. The
powers of government were strained in his support; he might
appoint or displace the dukes and tribunes of Egypt; the
allowance of bread, which Diocletian had granted, was suppressed,
the churches were shut, and a nation of schismatics was deprived
at once of their spiritual and carnal food. In his turn, the
tyrant was excommunicated by the zeal and revenge of the people:
and none except his servile Melchites would salute him as a man,
a Christian, or a bishop. Yet such is the blindness of ambition,
that, when Paul was expelled on a charge of murder, he solicited,
with a bribe of seven hundred pounds of gold, his restoration to
the same station of hatred and ignominy. His successor
Apollinaris entered the hostile city in military array, alike
qualified for prayer or for battle. His troops, under arms, were
distributed through the streets; the gates of the cathedral were
guarded, and a chosen band was stationed in the choir, to defend
the person of their chief. He stood erect on his throne, and,
throwing aside the upper garment of a warrior, suddenly appeared
before the eyes of the multitude in the robes of patriarch of
Alexandria. Astonishment held them mute; but no sooner had
Apollinaris begun to read the tome of St. Leo, than a volley of
curses, and invectives, and stones, assaulted the odious minister
of the emperor and the synod. A charge was instantly sounded by
the successor of the apostles; the soldiers waded to their knees
in blood; and two hundred thousand Christians are said to have
fallen by the sword: an incredible account, even if it be
extended from the slaughter of a day to the eighteen years of the
reign of Apollinaris. Two succeeding patriarchs, Eulogius 146 and
John, 147 labored in the conversion of heretics, with arms and
arguments more worthy of their evangelical profession. The
theological knowledge of Eulogius was displayed in many a volume,
which magnified the errors of Eutyches and Severus, and attempted
to reconcile the ambiguous language of St. Cyril with the
orthodox creed of Pope Leo and the fathers of Chalcedon. The
bounteous alms of John the eleemosynary were dictated by
superstition, or benevolence, or policy. Seven thousand five
hundred poor were maintained at his expense; on his accession he
found eight thousand pounds of gold in the treasury of the
church; he collected ten thousand from the liberality of the
faithful; yet the primate could boast in his testament, that he
left behind him no more than the third part of the smallest of
the silver coins. The churches of Alexandria were delivered to
the Catholics, the religion of the Monophysites was proscribed in
Egypt, and a law was revived which excluded the natives from the
honors and emoluments of the state.

144 (return) [ The history of the Alexandrian patriarchs, from
Dioscorus to Benjamin, is taken from Renaudot, (p. 114—164,) and
the second tome of the Annals of Eutychius.]

145 (return) [ Liberat. Brev. c. 20, 23. Victor. Chron. p. 329
330. Procop. Anecdot. c. 26, 27.]

146 (return) [ Eulogius, who had been a monk of Antioch, was more
conspicuous for subtilty than eloquence. He proves that the
enemies of the faith, the Gaianites and Theodosians, ought not to
be reconciled; that the same proposition may be orthodox in the
mouth of St. Cyril, heretical in that of Severus; that the
opposite assertions of St. Leo are equally true, &c. His writings
are no longer extant except in the Extracts of Photius, who had
perused them with care and satisfaction, ccviii. ccxxv. ccxxvi.
ccxxvii. ccxxx. cclxxx.]

147 (return) [ See the Life of John the eleemosynary by his
contemporary Leontius, bishop of Neapolis in Cyrus, whose Greek
text, either lost or hidden, is reflected in the Latin version of
Baronius, (A.D. 610, No.9, A.D. 620, No. 8.) Pagi (Critica, tom.
ii. p. 763) and Fabricius (l. v c. 11, tom. vii. p. 454) have
made some critical observations]