The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Human and Divine Nature of Christ....Enmity of the Patriarchs of Alexandria and Constantinople.... St, Syril and Nestorius.... Third General Council of Ephesus..., Heresy of Eutyches....Fourth General Council of Chalcedon.... Civil and Ecclesiastical Discord.... Intolerance of Justinian.... The Three Chapters.... The Monothelite Controversy.... State of the Oriental Sects:..... The Nestorians....II. The Jacobites.... III. The Maronites....IV. The Armenians....V. The Copts and Abyssinians.

Christ.

AFTER the extinction of paganism, the Christians in CHAP. peace and piety might have enjoyed their solitary triumph. XLVII. But the principle of discord was alive in their bosom, and the incarthey were more solicitous to explore the nature, than to prac-nation of tise the laws, of their founder. I have already observed, that the disputes of the TRINITY were succeeded by those of the INCARNATION; alike scandalous to the church, alike pernicious to the state, still more minute in their origin, still more durable in their effects. It is my design to comprise in the present chapter, a religious war of two hundred and fifty years, to represent the ecclesiastical and political schism of the Oriental sects, and to introduce their clamorous or sanguinary contests, by a modest inquiry into the doctrines of the primitive church.

1 By what means shall I authenticate this previous inquiry, which I have studied to circumscribe and compress ?... If I persist in supporting each fact or reflection by its proper and special evidence, every line would demand a string VOL. VI.

1. A pure

CHAP. I. A laudable regard for the honour of the first proselytes, XLVII. has countenanced the belief, the hope, the wish, that the

Ebionites, or at least the Nazarenes, were distinguished man to the only by their obstinate perseverance in the practice of the Ebionites. Mosaic rites. Their churches have disappeared, their books

are obliterated; their obscure freedom might allow a latitude of faith, and the softness of their infant creed would be variously moulded by the zeal or prudence of three hundred years. Yet the most charitable criticism must refuse these sectaries any knowledge of the pure and proper divinity of Christ. Educated in the school of Jewish prophecy and prejudice, they had never been taught to elevate their hopes above an human and temporal Messiah. If they had

of testimonies, and every note would swell to a critical dissertation. But the numberless passages of antiquity which I have seen with my own eyes, are compiled, digested, and illustrated, by Petuvius and Le Clerc, by Beausobre and Mosheim. I shall be content to fortify my narrative by the names and characiers of these respectable guides; and in the contemplation of a minute or remote object, I am not ashamed to borrow the aid of the strongest glasses : 1. The Dogmata Theologica of Petavius, are a work of incredible labour and compass; the volumes which relate solely to the incarnation (two folios, fifth and sixth, of 837 pages), are divided into xvi books...the first of history, the remainder of controversy and doctrine. The Jesuit's learning is copious and correct; his latinity is pure, his method clear, his argument profound and well connected: but he is the slave of the fathers, the scourge of heretics, and the ereny of truth and candour, as often as theyare inimical to the Catholic cause. 2. The Arminian Le Clerc, who has composed in a quarto volume (Amsterdam, 1716) the ecclesiastical history of the two first centuries, was free both in his temper a d situation ; his sense is clear, but his thoughts are narrow ; he reduces the reason or félly of ages to the standard of his private judgment, and his impartiality is sometimes quickened, and sometimes tainted, by his oppo. sition to the fathers. See the heretics (Corinthians, Ixxx. Ebionites, ciii. Carpocratians, cxx. Valentinians, cxxi. Basilidians, cxxiii. Marcionites, cxli, &c.) under their proper dates. 3. The Histoire Critique du Manicheisme (Amsterdam, 1734, 1739, in two vols. in quarto, with a posthumous dissertation sur les Nazarenes, Lausanne, 1745) of M. de Beausobre, is a freasure of ancient philosophy and theology. The learned historian spins with incom. parable art the systematic thread of opinion, and transforms himself by turns into the person of a saint, a sage, or an heretic. Yet his refinement is some. times excessive: he betraysan amiable partiality in favour of the weaker side, and, while he guards against calumny, he does not allow sufficient scope for superstition and fanaticisin. A copious table of contents will direct the reader to any point that he wishes to examine. 4. Less profound than Petavius, less independent than Le Clerc, less ingenious than Beausobre, the historian Mosheim is full, rational, correct, and moderate. In his learned work, De Rebus Christianis ante Constantinuin (Helmstadt, 1753, in quarto), see the Naza. renes and Ebionites, p. 172...179. 328...332. The Gnostics in general, p. 179, &c. Cerinthus, p. 196...202. Basilides, p. 352...361. Carpocrates, p. 363... 367. Valentinus, p. 371...389. Marcion, p. 404...410. The Manichæans, p. 829...837, &c.

2 Και γαρ παντες ημεις τον Χρισον ανθρωπον εξ ανθρωπων προσδοXwme EN TEXTrofai, says the Jewish Tryphon (Justin. Dialog. p. 207.) in the name of his countrymen ; and the modern Jews, the few who divert their thoughts from money to rel gion, still hold the same language, and allege the literal sense of the prophets.

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The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume 6