Chapter II: Part 2

At the same time the repeated incursions of the Northern nations ever rendered a general invasion more imminent, and the disaster, which men had foreseen from afar, appeared ever nearer its accomplishment. Already the first irruption of the Cimbri and Teutones, when not merely an army for the sake of booty, or to plant a military colony, but a whole tribe with wives and children had migrated into the Roman territory, threw Rome into consternation during the civil wars, when she was at the very height of her military prowess. Cæsar had spared no exertion to reduce Gaul to complete subjection, and this country had ever since adopted more and more the language and customs of Rome. He experienced from no people such vigorous resistance, as from the Germanic tribes; and to protect against these nations the safety of the empire, by strongly fortifying the banks of the Rhine and Danube, constituted afterwards the first concern of the Roman Emperors. What a shock Augustus received from the defeat of Varus, by the German Arminius in his native woods! Even under the martial Trajan, who was almost the last conqueror in the line of Roman Emperors, men began to entertain serious apprehensions of the invasion of the Germanic tribes. The first great irruption was that of the Alemanni, who, under Marcus Aurelius burst into the Rhætian provinces, while similar movements occurred in Noricum and eastward towards Pannonia. However, Marcus Aurelius, by an energetic and successful resistance, repelled this first attempt, and thus was the means of deterring the barbarians for a long time from similar enterprises; and a hundred years elapsed before Aurelian drove them again from Italy, over the Alps as far as the Lech. Among the German nations, the Goths, who from the Scandinavian Isles had penetrated far into the interior of Germany, particularly towards the eastern, as afterwards towards the western, parts of that country, were pre-eminent in power. They could not be prevented from obtaining a firm footing in the North-eastern provinces, by the Black Sea. The Emperor Decius perished in the war against this people; and the Romans were obliged to surrender to them by a formal treaty, the further Dacia. Constantine, indeed, was victorious in the war he waged against them; but he preferred to conclude an advantageous peace, to gain their friendship, and enlist their youth in the service of the Roman armies. Of the later reigns that of Diocletian displayed the greatest energy; but his cruel persecution of the Christians was, even to judge from the mere external state of society, as little adapted to the spirit of the age as it was reprehensible in itself, and hence his design remained unaccomplished. Although, after his abdication, Diocletian showed himself a thorough Roman in private life, yet, while he swayed the sceptre, he deemed it expedient to surround the throne with all the pomp and forms of Asiatic homage. The division of the empire among several sovereigns appeared then, as afterwards, under Constantine and his successors, an unavoidable and necessary evil; or, in other words, the several parts and members of the vast body of the Roman Empire, which approached nearer and nearer to its dissolution, began to fall to pieces, and that division itself accelerated again the destruction of the state, as it became the occasion of internal discord, and universal convulsion in the Roman world. The revolution accomplished by Constantine, indeed, might have become a real, and by far the most comprehensive, regeneration of the Roman state, as it substituted for its originally defective, and now completely rotten, foundation of Paganism, a new principle of life, a higher and more potent energy of divine truth and eternal justice. But Christianity had not yet near become the universal religion of the people, and Empire of Rome--otherwise the great re-action, which took place under Julian, had not been possible. The peasantry, in particular, continued for a long time yet attached to the old idolatry; and hence the name of Pagans was derived.[3] Even Constantine, though he publicly declared himself a convert to Christianity, still did not dare to receive baptism immediately, and thus enter fully into the great community of Christians. The administration of the Roman state was so completely interwoven with Pagan rites and Pagan doctrines, that, from an act of this public nature, dangerous collisions might have at first easily ensued. On the whole, the old Roman maxims and principles of state-policy continued to prevail, even for a long time after the reign of Constantine; and the period had not yet arrived when Christianity was to work a fundamental reform throughout the whole political world,--and a Christian government, if I may so speak, was to be established and organized on that eternal basis, and to strike deep root and grow into the faith and life of the people, and into their habits and their feelings; but this great revolution was reserved for another and a later period.

[1] In confirmation of this pithy sentence of
Schlegel's, I may cite a remarkable passage from the
celebrated Lessing, which, as coming from an Infidel,
may perhaps have more weight with the Unitarian. "If
Christ," he says, "is not truly God, then Mohammedanism
was an undoubted improvement on the Christian religion:
Mahomet, on such a supposition, would indisputably have
been a greater man than Christ, as he would have been
far more veracious, more circumspect, and more zealous
for the honour of God, since Christ, by his
expressions, would have given dangerous occasion for
idolatry; while, on the other hand, not a single
expression of the kind can be laid to the charge of
Mahomet."--_Lessing's Beiträge zur Geschichte und
Litteratur._ Vol. II. p. 410.--_Trans._

[2] By this expression, Schlegel does not mean to
question the supernatural agency that produced those
obstacles.--_Trans_

[3] From the Latin word _Pagus_, a rural district.

END OF LECTURE X.

LECTURE XI.

Of the ancient Germans, and of the invasion of the Northern
tribes.--The march of Nature in the historical development of
Nations.--Further diffusion and internal consolidation of
Christianity.--Great corruption of the world.--Rise of
Mahometanism.

The idolatry of the ancient Germans, like the less poetical, less artificial, and less elaborate Paganism of all primitive nations, consisted in a simple adoration of Nature, such as existed among the Persians, with whom they had a very close affinity in race and in language. Thus the objects of their worship were the stars, the sun and the moon, the celestial spirits, the various powers and elements of Nature, and in particular the mother earth, under the name of the goddess Hertha. In the German and English names for the days of the week, the names of the gods, Thun, Wodan, Thor, and Freya, are still preserved; and these in the Germanic mythology correspond to the planets, most clearly visible from our globe--Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, and Venus; as it is also from these the Romanic languages have taken the names of the weekdays. It does not appear, indeed, that there existed in Germany quite so powerful, influential, and well-organized a body of priests, as the Druids composed in Gaul; and we can only discover the existence of certain secret rites and mysteries of a very primitive simplicity; as, for instance, the human sacrifice which was offered to the lake Hertha, in the Isle of Rugen, when a young man and maiden were thrown into its solitary waters. It was in the obscurity of woods, under the sacred oak, or by the Linden, the tree of Northern enchantment, and on the mountaintops, they celebrated their rites, festivals, and entertainments, or arranged the Runic sticks to search into futurity; and as, among the Greeks, the Delphic oracle in moments of general danger was consulted, and gave its advice on the most important concerns of the nation; so the prophetesses and sybils of the North, like the Velleda mentioned by the Romans, exerted a very decisive influence on the public councils. Old poetical traditions of gods, heroes, giants, and spirits (in many respects like those of Persia), formed the keystone of the sacred recollections and national existence of the Germanic nations.

Their original descent from Asia remained ever strong and lively in their remembrance, and allusions to it were interwoven into the whole body of their traditionary poetry; and as in the Persian traditions, the Arii are celebrated as the most generous and heroic nation of the primitive ages, so the Asae occupy the most distinguished place in the Northern mythology. In the Scandinavian North, which remained Pagan for many centuries after Germany had become Christian, there are still extant many monuments and songs of a similar purport and strain; and of these, indeed, abundant vestiges are to be found every-where. These old historical traditions and this hereditary poetry had often a very powerful influence on real life, and on the martial enterprises and achievements of the tribes; and as in the heroic ages of the Greeks, according to the Homeric description, so in those times the bard, proclaiming the history of gods and heroes, and attending on the person of the prince or general of the army, was by no means an unimportant personage.

A monarchy of such wide extent, as the ancient kingdom of Persia, did not exist in Germany. The constitution, if we can apply such a term to the wild freedom of those early ages, was more like that of Greece in the heroic times, when she was governed by her noble families, and her territory was divided into a number of petty kingdoms, which only rarely united in a great league for a common enterprise. This primitive Germanic constitution was a very simple and free aristocracy of Nature. The tribe that composed the nation was an union or confederacy of freemen and nobles under an hereditary tribe-prince, or chosen leader; and it was only at a later period that among some of the Germanic nations, this confederacy gave way to a regular regal government. Every freeman, and every man having a right to bear arms, was a member of the Hermannia, which was afterwards called the arriere-ban; and it was this ancient Hermannia that gave rise to the Roman name for Germany. The land was cultivated by bondsmen and slaves, who had been either purchased, or taken prisoners in war, or were the conquered remnant of the ancient inhabitants of the country, or even men who for some crime had forfeited their freedom and nobility. When the Romans became better acquainted with the Germanic nations, the latter had partly become an agricultural people; and they observed that very primitive custom of letting their fields lie alternately in fallow--a custom which has been so long retained in the North of Germany, under the name of _dreyfelder-wirthschaft_. Private property in land itself was not yet marked out nor enclosed within any exact limits--there was still much common land, and this was naturally an inducement for the different tribes, whenever they had a favourable opportunity, to change their abode and migrate. But this infant agriculture was still held subordinate to the occupations of the chace and of the pastoral life, which furnished the principal means of subsistence. The different forests that still exist in Germany are merely the remaining fragments of the one, vast, boundless Hercynian forest, that once extended through the whole interior of the country. From the quantity of wood that yet remained, the soil of Germany was much more marshy, and its atmosphere incomparably colder, than at the present day. The buffalo and the elk, which at present are so very rarely to be met with in Germany, were then animals indigenous to our country.

That this condition of the soil, and this unsettled mode of life, in a growing population are circumstances quite sufficient to account for a partial, though (without other co-operating causes) not perhaps for the general, emigration of a whole tribe, must be evident to every person. Internal factions and wars are quite adequate causes for the emigration of a whole tribe, or, at least, of a considerable portion. In the early ages it was customary, when the population became too numerous, for the younger brothers, or a certain number of youths chosen by lot, to quit their country under the guidance of a leader of their choice, or of one marked out by Fame, and, proceeding on an expedition of adventure, conquer other homes for themselves, and seek out their fortunes towards the east, or towards the west, or beneath the fairer sky of a southern region. Even in a more advanced, nay in the most advanced, stage of civilization, every state and nation is necessitated by nature, if I may so speak, to disburthen itself of a redundant population, and to extend itself in new settlements--in one word, to found colonies, and to possess colonies. This is the standing law,--the fundamental rule of health in the progressive development of nations; and where this necessity does not exist in an equal degree, we must consider it only a case of exception, and we shall be sure to find that some special cause precludes the operation of this principle for a time: for, sooner or later, nature will force us to this expedient. The commercial colonies of the Phoenicians and Greeks were in part founded, and certainly at least defended, extended and consolidated by force of arms; and it is only by similar means, that in modern times, Mexico and Peru have become colonies of Spain.

But in those early ages, and among those northern, warlike children of nature, this natural necessity of emigration could take no other course, nor have any other object but a military settlement. Such was the result of the first irruption of the northern nations, mentioned in history--the expedition of the Gauls into Thrace, which was soon succeeded by a second of a similar kind under Brennus; when that Gallic general marched at the head of his troops into Macedon and Greece, and became master of the rich temple of Apollo at Delphi, and of all its accumulated treasures. A remnant of these troops finally fixed their abode in Asia Minor, and established a Gallic settlement in a province which from them received the name of _Galatia_. In this first great expedition, or irruption of the northern nations, the names of almost all the tribes and their leaders are Celtic; still some few German names are found amongst them; and this may be easily accounted for, when we recollect that the Gauls, who were then widely spread, and inhabited even the North of Italy, were undoubtedly in possession of most of the Alpine countries, and thus may easily have engaged in their service some German tribes. Who knows but what some marvellous tradition, and fabulous account of the lovely climate and delicious fruits of the Southern regions, together with recollections of their original descent from the Southern nations of Asia, may have contributed to bring the Cimbri and Teutones from the islands of Scandinavia to the plains of Italy? Had the Romans not dreaded the dangerous precedent, and had they but allotted lands to these nations, they might easily have kept terms of peace with them, and enlisted their most valiant youth in the service of their legions; as, indeed, under the later emperors, the flower of their troops was selected from the Gothic tribes.

But the case was widely different when the relations of peace and war, the proximity of frontiers, and the occupation of the German territory, brought the Romans in closer contact with the Germanic nations; as, for instance, in the campaigns which Cæsar conducted against the chief of the Suevi, Ariovistus; Tiberius against Maroboduus, king of the Marcomanni; and the general of Augustus against the Saxon prince, Hermann. Here both parties diligently studied and observed each other's excellencies and defects, and mixed in the most various intercourse. Thus Hermann's father lived among the Romans; his brother bore a Roman name; and his nephew was educated at Rome. Maroboduus himself repaired thither, desirous like a prudent foe, to examine with his own eyes the capital of Roman greatness and power. Among the German tribes and their leaders, factions were sometimes formed even against Hermann and Maroboduus; and at a later period, these divisions had no inconsiderable influence on the relations of the Germanic nations with the Romans, and on their foreign enterprizes. The Roman frontier on the banks of the Rhine and the Danube, fortified by a long line of castles, fortresses, and cities, lay for the most part within the German territory, and was inhabited by some German tribes, or German settlers that had been attracted thither. Here the nations of Germany saw their brethren of a kindred race, living indeed under the controul of Roman laws, which those, who still retained their freedom, sought to repel by force of arms; but on the other hand, they observed the high cultivation of a country, blest with all the advantages of civilization, and adorned with so many of the arts of life, with the culture of the vine, and a variety of the most exquisite fruits. And when, in the course of the almost incessant wars waged on the frontier, they either encountered a feeble resistance, or observed some defect in the mode of Roman defence, the desire to prosecute their fortune, and penetrate into those beautiful countries, must have considerably augmented. As, three centuries ago, the fabulous accounts of treasures of gold, and rich ores of silver, to be found in America, drew hosts of Spanish and other European adventurers over the Atlantic to the shores of the newly-discovered continent; so the charms of a southern sky, the rich fruits, the vineyards, the blooming gardens of a warm, lovely and highly cultivated region, wrought powerfully on the imaginations of the Northerns, and were often the motive of their expeditions and armed migrations.

The first irruptions of the Alemanni in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, and subsequent to it, appear to have arisen immediately and naturally, (as I have said,) out of the perpetual wars waged on the frontier, on the first advantage which those barbarians obtained over the Romans, and on the first defect or weakness which they espied in the defensive operations of their enemies. That the warfare on the frontier was perpetuated almost without intermission, it is the more natural to suppose, since the Germanic nations by two armed confederacies of their tribes, had on their side opposed to the fortifications of the Roman boundaries a living frontier-wall. The name of the Marcomanni served to designate not a particular tribe, but an armed confederation for the defence of the whole nation; and the same remark holds good of the Alemanni. In the descriptions which the Romans have given of Germany, they were occasionally led, by their ignorance of the language, to mistake a league for a people, and to apply to a tribe the denomination intended to denote a district or a custom. But in these accounts it is very easy to trace the three or four leading nations of Germany, that figure afterwards in its history, and which, on the dissolution of the Roman empire, possessed themselves of its provinces, spread through the different Romanic countries, and in the course of time became the founders of the modern European states.

These three principal nations of Germany (and such they were considered by the Romans,) were the Suevi, the Saxons, and the Goths, who may be best distinguished by the course of the rivers, which flowed through the countries they inhabited. The whole of that extensive country, afterwards called Ancient Saxony, and which lay along the course and embouchures of the Elbe, the Eyder, the Ems and the Weser, including the whole sea-coast with Jutland and Denmark, all the Rhenish Netherlands with the Batavian shores, was inhabited by the Saxons; a people (for it was only later their name was explained from a peculiar national weapon, or species of sword,) attached to the soil, and who were of all the Germanic tribes the least prone to emigration; for, as mariners, they kept to the sea-coasts, and the banks of rivers. It was only at the period when the tide of emigration had reached its highest point that the Saxons, issuing from their native seat, not only possessed themselves of, but as it were, peopled anew, the great British Isle; and it is very possible that this not widely dispersed, but closely connected low-German race, then out-numbered all the other nations of Germany. It was on the banks of the Upper Rhine and the Upper Danube that lay the original seat of the Suevi, a race perhaps more mixed, who occur in history under the name of the Alemanni, and were distinguished for a restless spirit of adventure and migratory enterprize. The name of the Franks, a people occupying so important a place in later history, denoted originally rather a league than a particular nation; and as their geographical seat lay between those of the Suevi and the Saxons, they were akin in character and by descent to both those nations. In their manners and mode of government they resembled the Alemanni; while in race and language they were originally more nearly allied to the Saxons. If the Franks are to be considered a distinct nation, it is the ancient Catti or Hessians (who have ever been included among that people) that we must regard as the main stock of the whole race.

But the second great primitive and leading race among the Germanic nations were the Goths, a people whose territory spread from the Scandinavian Peninsula, and the shores of the Baltic, along the whole course of the Vistula, as far as the Black Sea. Their language, as it exists in the yet extant Gothic bible of Ulphilas, is what we would now call the high Dutch dialect; though its form is more ancient, and is distinguished for a certain purity of structure, not without its peculiar charm. This Gothic dialect is, in tone and form, less akin to the Saxon and Scandinavian languages, except in so far as the branches of a stem, the nearer we approach the roots, reveal more clearly their common origin. In the Scandinavian North, the territories of these two principal Germanic races, the Goths and the Saxons, were contiguous; and, proceeding from this common source, the two nations branched out into separate and various streams. Of a similar, or at least of a kindred, race to the Goths, were the Burgundians and Vandals, who afterwards founded the kingdoms of that name in Gaul and Spain. Hereditary monarchy attained to a more settled form among the Goths than among any other of the Germanic nations; and, divided between two different dynasties, the Ostro-Goths were subject to the heroic family of the Amali, and the Visi-Goths to that of the Balti. The Roman historians of that age often speak of their martial courage and magnanimity, as well as of their lofty and commanding stature.

The real emigration of the Northern tribes originated solely and immediately with the Goths; and, in the first period, was not produced by any commotion among the Asiatic nations, as was afterwards the case. As early as the third century, the Goths took possession of the countries situated on the Northern coast of the Euxine, and penetrated into Greece as far as Athens. The Emperor Decius fell in the war against them, and in the peace which they concluded with Aurelian, they retained the further Dacia which had been previously surrendered. They now became allies of the Romans, who were happy enough to cultivate the relations of peace with them, and to recruit their legions with the Gothic youth. A hundred years later, the Goths on the death of their king Hermanric, were disturbed in their settlements near the Black Sea by the Huns: a people who, according to the Chinese annals, originally inhabited the Northern frontier of China towards the Eastern parts of the Middle Asia, and who afterwards, bearing down westward, took up their abode for a long time on the Eastern shores of the Caspian, till at last they forced their way into the Caucasian regions, and the territory of the Goths on the borders of the Black Sea.

It was only now, when the minds of the German tribes of the West were at the same time rising to a higher and higher pitch of excitement, and the old Empire of Rome was on every side crumbling into ruins, that the tide of Northern emigration burst out in all its full and fearful violence. In the first irruptions, the names of the different tribes, as well as of their leaders, were almost all without exception German; but now we meet with many foreign names, which discover not only the Asiatic Huns, but the Sclavonian, and even perhaps, occasionally, the Finnish tribes, that were undoubtedly then intermingled with the Goths in the vast empire of the latter. For fifty years after the first invasion, the Huns remained at peace in their new settlements between the Theiss and the Danube, nor did they disturb the Roman Empire till the time of Attila. The Goths offered to defend the frontier against these barbarians, and received in return the province to the south of the Danube.

The Goths readily embraced Christianity; but they received it in the Arian form; for at the time when religious instructors and the Gothic bishop Ulphilas were sent from Constantinople, the Arian party had the ascendancy in that capital. This circumstance had afterwards the most fatal influence on the destinies of the Roman Empire; for one of the chief causes of its downfal was this new contest in religious matters. It was on this very account the second conquest of Rome by the Vandal King Genseric was attended with far more devastation than the first under the Visi-Goth King Alaric; for the former persecuted the Catholic church with all the animosity of an Arian. The Goths were not animated by feelings of hostility towards the Romans; but were rather disposed to admire the excellence and superiority of their civilization. When the Emperor Valens perished in the Gothic war, which Roman treachery had occasioned, Theodosius contrived to conclude an advantageous peace with this people, when they stood at the very gates of Constantinople, took forty thousand of their troops into his pay, and renewed the armed confederacy of the Goths which Constantine had formed. When the Gothic prince Athanaric had contemplated with astonishment the pomp and splendour of Constantinople, and had conceived sentiments of respect for the personal character of Theodosius; the Goths, moved by the representations of their prince, declared to Theodosius that as long as he lived, they wished to have no other king but himself. But the case was altered under the sons of Theodosius; and, to defend themselves from this people, these princes knew no other expedient than to let loose on Italy these barbarians, and to divert and point the storm of invasion towards that quarter. This policy produced the expedition of the Visi-Goth King Alaric to Rome, and the first conquest of the eternal and seven-hilled city.

The disputes between Rome and the new Byzantine court did not a little contribute to the downfal of the Roman Empire; and the dexterity, or rather craftiness, which the politicians of Constantinople displayed on this, as on many other occasions, was often attended with consequences the most ruinous to Italy. As the universal empire of Rome had grown out of civil war, so it was undermined and ruined more by internal discord and corruption, than by the power of the Goths; a nation with whom the Romans might easily have contracted relations of amity, and induced to fraternize, and become by degrees one people with themselves; and indeed, at various periods, the policy of the better Emperors had prepared the way for such an union. As, of all the Germanic nations, the Goths were the most powerful; and as their assistance would have enabled the Romans to resist all the other tribes; such an alliance, as I here speak of, would have accomplished by pacific means the purpose of the great Northern migration, namely, the union of the sound, vigorous, native spirit of the Germans with the civilization of the Romans (then indeed sunk to the lowest state of debasement), and whose polity and public life Christianity itself was unable totally to regenerate. And thus a long intermediate period of conflict and confusion would have been rendered unnecessary.

During the troubles which followed the first conquest of Rome by Alaric, the Romans invoked from Africa the aid of Genseric, King of the Vandals,--a prince who both as a warrior, and as a ruler, was far more cruel than Alaric, and who every where spread terror on his march. Jealous and suspicious of the Goths, he invited into Italy Attila, with all the nations which his martial prowess had subjected or attached to his authority, and occasioned the expedition of the latter into the West, where, in the great battle on the banks of the Marna, the Goths constituted the main portion of both the contending armies. The Huns and some other of the invading nations were still Pagans; and the history of that age amply demonstrated that wars are ever more destructive in proportion as the armies are more numerous, the throng of armed multitudes more dense, and the nations composing them more various and dissimilar. Still the general oppression, anarchy, desolation, and misery, in those times, are not to be traced solely to wars and battles; for, during the most flourishing and civilized ages of ancient Rome, wars were almost perpetually waged, and were generally more, and certainly not less, bloody and destructive than the present. The Bishop of Rome contrived to avert the torrent of hostilities from his capital, and the city was spared. On the death of Attila, the Huns ceased to be formidable; for the power of that prince, which depended far less on their numbers, than on his own military prowess and glory, perished at once with him.

Odoacer, Prince of the Heruli and Rugians, (nations also Gothic) was called to the Empire of Rome from the banks of the Danube. From his conquest dates the downfal of the Western Empire, and the last Roman youth who was yet dignified with the name of emperor, was called Romulus, 1228 years after the first Romulus,--the founder of the eternal city--a city which after it had lost its outward and political power, became the centre of a vast sacerdotal dominion, and again occupied in succeeding times a mighty and important place in history. When the sway of the Heruli became an object of detestation in Rome and Italy, the Greek Emperor Zeno, in a formal document, conferred on the Ostro-Goth King Theodoric, who had been educated at Constantinople, the dominion of Italy; and the latter, after his victory over Odoacer, assumed the Roman purple, in lieu of the Gothic dress. He was highly esteemed in Rome, and by all the Germanic nations; his name, like that of Charlemagne after him, was celebrated in the heroic songs of the Germans, while political writers and historical critics commend alike his talents and his virtues. His rule was generous and noble; he loved and honoured the arts and sciences which his age still possessed, and the last of Roman writers, Cassiodorius and Boethius, were the ornaments of his reign. Factions which arose on the death of this great prince, and a crime perpetrated on the relics of his house,[4] afforded the active Emperor of the East, Justinian, an opportunity to re-establish the Greek sway in Italy, by means of his successful General, Belisarius. Military commanders like Belisarius, and some worthier and more enterprizing princes on the throne of Byzantium, as well as that systematic course of policy I have before described, maintained the Byzantine Empire; while Rome itself was ruined, and Italy fell under the dominion of the Lombards, who succeeded the Goths, and were succeeded in their turn by the Franks--under whom the Roman Empire of Germany was re-established, and Rome became, and continued, united with that empire during the middle ages, though for the most part only in name.

This rapid but faithful sketch of the migration of the Northern nations seemed necessary to enable us to form a right opinion on this subject. For this period, which laid the mighty foundation on which the whole Teutonico--Romanic structure of the institutions, laws, manners, languages, opinions, and even the peculiar imaginative character of modern European nations, has been raised, has not always been fully understood, or justly appreciated by many writers, either led away by a partial enthusiasm for the antique, or enthralled by modern opinions and prejudices--writers who wish to trace in all parts of creation, and even in universal history, the same dead uniformity and monotony of plan. It is by no means common to meet with an Historical inquirer, possessing a flexibility of fancy, a justness of feeling, and a soundness and correctness of judgment, capable of transporting him into the remote ages of history, and the mythic antiquity of nations. But in the present instance, and throughout the whole of this chaotic epoch, when the old fictions of the Titanic wars appear to be actually realized, and when the marvellous of events and sentiments is to be found in the obscure and meagre chronicles of that age, which often unite fragments of popular mythology and Pagan tradition, with real historic incidents; it is perhaps still more difficult to form an accurate judgment, and to discriminate between the elements of truth and falsehood. As we cannot figure to ourselves such a state of anarchy, we are unable to comprehend it. We should bear in mind how often in nature the fairest bloom of vegetation, and the richest fullness of organic life, spring out of a state of confusion and chaos, when the elemental powers, after a long strife and conflict, settle at last into a state of harmonious equipoise, unite and fructify, and in some creative moment, when the struggle of labour is over, give birth to new and more beautiful forms of existence. Ancient Egypt was indebted for its fertility to the periodic inundations of the Nile, which, had they not been provided against by mounds and dams, would have occasioned the utmost desolation. Nay, doth not this earth we inhabit, and which nourishes us, with all that fair and blooming vegetation spread over its surface, with all that boundless wealth and variety of animal life, and with all the civility and refinement of man's existence, whose abode it constitutes; doth not this earth, I say, teeming as it doth with fertility and life, rest on the gigantic remains of a primitive world submerged by the old floods, and which was often torn, convulsed and rent asunder by the eruptions of subterraneous fire? Well, the migration of the Northern nations brought about a sort of chaotic struggle between the various elements of society--it was a new Ogygean inundation of nations in the historical ages--but it laid the fruitful soil--the historical foundation of a new moral and intellectual form of life. This vast flux and reflux of nations, rolling in incessant waves from the East to the West, and from the North to the South, and back again to the East and to the North, this emission of immense armies issuing in all directions from a common centre, and returning again to that centre from every side--all this vast movement must be looked upon as a strife and contention between the elemental powers of human society. The first effect, indeed, of such a strife of nature's elements let loose is to destroy, or at least, to impair all existing organic forms; and it must be confessed, this wild and protracted state of confusion and anarchy does not present the most pleasing and auspicious aspect to the eye of the historical observer. With respect to the latter circumstance, we must recollect that the extremely slow progress, and often unexpected delays, in the advancement of human society, correspond not always, and indeed rarely, to our wishes and expectations; while, on the other hand, there are epochs in history, when we are amazed by the sudden out-burst of the most extraordinary events, and when a great splendour of moral and intellectual life surprises us of a sudden, like a bright morning in Spring. In other words, there is a strong, wise and Fatherly hand which guides and conducts the destinies of individuals, as well as the march of society, and the course of ages; or as the Scripture, with touching simplicity, saith, "the Father hath reserved times unto himself;" and Time in his march keepeth not pace with the rapidity of our desires, nor moveth according to our views and hopes. But whatever may be, if I may so speak, the fearful tardiness, wherewith the views of Providence over the destinies of the human race are accomplished;--a tardiness, whereof man has to bear the greatest blame; or whatever may be, if I may so say, the long delays of divine justice--the procrastination of the period of grace;--it cannot be doubted that the general result of the great Northern migration was most salutary, and that that mixture of the Germanic tribes with the degenerate population of Rome--that alliance between the healthy, vigorous, and native intellectual energy of Germany, and the rapidly decaying civilization of Rome, were productive of the mightiest and most beneficial consequences. Whoever doubts the truth of this observation, may cure his scepticism by comparing the splendour, activity and variety in the political and intellectual existence of the modern European states, that have sprung out of this union of the Germanic and Romanic nations, with the dull monotony, the thorough moral and intellectual stupor which prevailed in the later Byzantine Empire.

But I have more than once observed that, independently of that progressive power of reason, inherent in all the forms and departments of human activity; and independently of the operations of Divine Providence, which form that high mysterious chain of unity which links together the different periods of man's social progress; independently, I say, of all these, there is a law of nature--a high, and secret principle of nature, presiding over the life and growth of human society--which, if kept in due subordination to the higher principle of Providence, will not be found incompatible with it. The prevalence of this law of nature may be clearly traced in the history of mankind, and even in that of particular nations, when their social progress is not impeded or interrupted by violent or irregular causes. And in following the current of events in History, the historical observer can accurately distinguish the different periods of national developement--the first period of artless, yet marvellous, childhood--the next of the first bloom and flush of youth--later, the maturer vigour and activity of manhood--and at last the symptoms of approaching age, a state of general decay, and second childishness. This energy of nature, which, together with the other, higher and divine principle of human destiny, is inherent in mankind, displays itself even in the sphere of intellect, and particularly in the flourishing eras of art and science. It is even still more, or at least quite as, perceptible in those creative moments already described, of a new, though perhaps, at first, a chaotic epoch of human society: so far, at least, as those plastic, eventful moments are not the mere offspring and counterfeit production of revolutionary violence--but have issued from the very well-spring of nature. When the latter is the case, it will be found that the whole tendency of these periods of extraordinary ferment in society is conducive to the extension of the divine principle, and to the promotion of the views of Providence, as was eminently the case in the era of the great Northern migrations; an era, when a catastrophe, at first the most appalling, led to the further triumph of Christianity, which conferred on those robust, Northern children of nature the high consecration of an empire, which thereby, in its ulterior progress, far outshone the Roman, or any other old Pagan domination. But unquestionably the two conflicting elements in that eventful period, which contained the first germs of all modern civilization--the free-born energy of Germanic nature, and the Romanic refinement, science, and language, were happily blended and harmonized by the Christian religion only, which on that account must be regarded as the all-connecting bond--the one all-animating principle of social life in modern ages. But without that new element of vital power furnished by the Northern emigrations, Christianity alone would not have regenerated the degraded people of Rome, nor have restored its intellectual energy, then sunk to too low a state of debasement. Above all, the primitive, innate, and deeply rooted corruption of the Roman government was beyond the power of remedy, and could only be removed by time.

The evils of the age were indeed, universal; for, even in the bosom of Christianity, discord had broken out; and where even faith was preserved in its purity, there, to use the expression of Holy Writ, "much of first love was gone." But for this, the influence of Christianity on the Roman empire, and the Roman world, would have been far more extensive; and a miraculous cure would have been wrought on the moral distempers of society, as on the physical diseases of individuals. And as holy hermits were often able to command the elements of nature and the savage beasts of the desert; so a divine power, by its mild, conciliating, prompt and effective influence would in the first moment have allayed the wild jar and strife of the social elements. But these effects were accomplished only by slow degrees, by the soothing influence of time, and by the gradual infusion of the spirit of Christianity into the human mind.

The progressive corruption and ever growing disorders of the Roman world were productive of consequences in some degree important to Christianity, particularly in relation to after-ages. To forsake and renounce that world of cruelty and vice, that kingdom of dissimulation, that age of confusion and barbarism, and to seek by preference an abode and asylum in the wilderness, in the neighbourhood of lions and other savage animals of the desert, required no extraordinary impulse of Christian feeling, and scarcely more than a high effort of human courage. And thus in that convulsed period of the Roman Empire, and under the accurst domination of its last tyrants, Christian anchorets peopled the solitudes of Thebais,--those solitudes where the old pyramids and other monuments of hoar antiquity still speak in mute signs to the traveller, their grave and earnest language. Self-contemplation did not shut up these Christian anchorites within a narrow and egotistical sphere of thought, as is the case with the Indian recluse, who, to outward appearance, leads the same mode of life. As the primitive Christians evinced the power of faith and charity by deeds and in sufferings, in words and in works of manifold kinds; so prayer was to these solitaries the inward porch of a new and invisible world--a real business of life, and a bond of the closest and tenderest connection, whereby, though separated from the world, they remained, even at the remotest distance, intimately united with all who, like themselves, were firmly united to God.

Thus it was that the Primitive Christians displayed the power of divine Hope, and ardent Charity, not only in their heroic constancy under assaults, persecutions, sufferings and torments of all, even the most exquisite, kinds; but in their renunciation of society and of all earthly enjoyments, in their contempt and abandonment of a world, which seemed in truth eternally distracted and irretrievably undone. In the eremitical life, a simple handicraft was ordinarily coupled with the duty of spiritual contemplation. These first Christian Anchorites of Egypt were the original and model of all later monastic institutes; although, conformably to the living and quite practical spirit of Christianity, these institutes have generally admitted into their rules other useful and salutary exercises adapted either to the general circumstances of the age, or to the wants of individuals--such as the education of youth--the cultivation of the sciences--the relief of the poor--the care of the infirm--and the practice of other works of charity. The Anchorites, who lead a purely contemplative life, constitute a comparatively small and rare exception in the Christian church; and they are tolerated only because the ways of human nature are so infinitely diversified, and often so strange and so singular.

To resist their internal foes, to withstand the assaults of the fiend--the spirit of discord and corruption, and to preserve inviolate the purity of morals, as well as of faith, the Primitive Christians as much needed the divine assistance, as to enable them to endure outwardly the torments of martyrdom, or to renounce in holy solitude the pleasures of the world. In this respect three different kinds of heresy, which were so many trials the Christian religion had to sustain, are well worthy of our attention. From the very birth of Christianity, the Gnostics gave loose to the ardour of an Oriental fancy, indulged in a variety of Theosophistic speculations, and with their systems of Divine Emanations, Eradiations, Incarnations, and Persons, formed an almost mythological concatenation of ideas; so that had it been possible for this sect to become predominant, and for Christianity to swerve into such a labyrinth of doctrines, our divine religion would have degenerated into a system of metaphysical fictions, not unlike the philosophic mythology and poetical creed of India. Happily these sects of Gnostics were not numerous, nor in general of long duration; and they were extremely divided among themselves; for a truly inventive fancy ever strikes out a path of enquiry for itself. But, when considered in an intellectual point of view, these sectaries, amid all their strange and whimsical errors, must ever command the attention of mankind. It would seem from all appearance, (and indeed the nature of things would sufficiently warrant the inference) that many of these sects combined with their own peculiar notions, the opinions of other oriental sects, totally alien from Christianity. As the march of error is infinitely progressive, and as, from its very nature, false opinion is sure to branch out into a variety of ramifications, it is often difficult to determine with exactness whether some of these Gnostic sects, that spread through Central Asia, and were lost in a multitude of others, were or not of a Christian origin. Of all the sects belonging to the Gnostic family, the Manichæans alone appear to have had a longer existence; and during the middle ages, they secretly germinated in Europe.

The second corruption of Christianity was from Arianism, which corresponds to what in modern times is termed Rationalism; though the former appeared in another and more Christian form. That the dispute with Arianism was no mere verbal dispute--that it involved a capital article of faith--a question of life or death for Christianity--a question whether the real Foundation--the essential Corner-stone--and Beginning of our faith were really, truly, and in very deed divine, and from God, and equal with God, or merely in a certain sense like to God--(an opinion which the Platonic, or any other system of philosophy might have included among its tenets)--that the dispute with Arianism was no mere verbal dispute, must be evident to every upright, ingenuous, and unprejudiced mind. No sect has ever been so widely diffused, nor has ever taken such deep root; and, by the arts and evasions of a prodigious subitlty it maintained its principles under the mask of apparent submission. It was now that for the first time, the importance and power of a general council became apparent, in order to oppose to the many-shaped, subtle, and intangible spirit of error, a brief, but clear, and definite formulary of that faith which animated the bosom, and was rooted in the conviction, of every Christian. This destructive rationalism of the early ages of Christianity was at last repressed, and became finally extinct; though the last ramifications of this sect have continued down to our times among the Eutychians of Armenia, and the Nestorians of Ethiopia.

How much the unhappy disputes of Arianism contributed in this period of general decline, towards the downfal of the Roman Empire, I have already had occasion to notice. But that passion for dispute, which, if not innate in man, has at least become his second nature, and is, as it were, the original sin of human intellect, displays itself in a more striking degree in certain sects, that did not question any article of faith, but merely some subordinate matters of opinion, or the rights of ecclesiastical authority, and who conducted their disputes with the most unyielding obstinacy--such a passion, I say, displays itself more strikingly in these sects than in others, that called in question points of faith, and who, so far as they were conscientious in their errors, appear entitled to our respect and forbearance. Among the former class of disputants, must be ranked some of the smaller, less diffused, and obscurer sects of the first ages of the church, like the Montanists and Donatists;--sects, whose influence was on that account by no means unimportant, and who occupy no insignificant place in the history of their times; for their errors constitute the third form of deviation from universal Christianity. In the same category must we place the great schism of a later period, which severed the Greek from the Western church; for this unhappy separation, as is well known, had no relation to any important dogma of Christianity.

As the general councils of that period prove the self-preserving and self-sustaining power of Christianity, so the energy of Christian faith and Christian intellect displays its life, activity and scientific progress in the numberless and manifold productions of those first doctors of the church, so highly revered by all succeeding ages. The style and language of these works must be estimated by the standard of their age; and it would be absurd to expect them to possess, in a like degree, the attic simplicity of a Xenophon, or the full and elaborate periods of a Livy. But with this single exception, these writings display the most varied talents for oratory and philosophy, united with extensive learning, the purest feelings of religious love, and the most correct views in religion. And, to cite but one or two examples out of the multitude of ecclesiastical writers, St. Augustine, by the extent of his historical information, by a philosophy zealous in its enquiries after truth, but still irresolute, presents the image of a Christian Cicero, in a language somewhat altered indeed, but distinguished for a similar employment of rhetoric. Nor was this great man destitute of political discernment and penetration; and he certainly possessed a much more decided talent for speculative enquiry, than the old Roman who flourished in the last age of the Republic. There was next that learned and holy recluse, St. Jerome, who was as well versed in classical literature as in the oriental languages, and who was gifted with a depth of critical discernment, and an original power of thought and expression, equalled by very few orators and thinkers in any age.

The dread of a false Gnosis was at that period, as often in subsequent ages, an obstacle to the progress of a profound Christian philosophy. The leaning of the great ecclesiastical writer, Origen, particularly in his youth, to some opinions of the Gnostics, excited long after his death many doubts and controversies respecting some points of his belief, and tended at least to impair the reverence with which his philosophical genius was otherwise regarded. This was particularly the case when the Arians made use of some doubtful opinions of this great man for the support of their system; as indeed it often happens that an elevated system of philosophy if not completed in its parts, or at least that the individual errors it may contain are seized upon by the dull, innovating spirit of a superficial, and half-doubting faith, and debased to a quite alien and inferior sphere of speculation.