The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Эдвард Гиббон
Vitâ suâ, p. 21, 22 [l. 1331 sqq.]. For the sake of posterity, the bishop of Constantinople records a stupendous prodigy. In the month of November, it was a cloudy morning, but the sun broke forth when the procession entered the church.
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Of the three ecclesiastical historians, Theodoret alone (l. v. c. 2) has mentioned this important commission of Sapor, which Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 728) judiciously removes from the reign of Gratian to that of Theodosius.
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I do not reckon Philostorgius, though he mentions (l. ix. c. 19) the explusion of Damophilus. The Eunomian historian has been carefully strained through an orthodox sieve.
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Le Clerc has given a curious extract (Bibliothèque Universelle, tom. xviii. p. 91-105) of the theological sermons which Gregory Nazianzen pronounced at Constantinople against the Arians, Eunomians, Macedonians, &c. He tells the Macedonians, who deified the Father and the Son, without the Holy Ghost, that they might as well be styled Tritheists as Ditheists. Gregory himself was almost a Tritheist; and his monarchy of heaven resembles a well-regulated aristocracy.
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The first general council of Constantinople now triumphs in the Vatican: but the popes had long hesitated, and their hesitation perplexes, and almost staggers, the humble Tillemont (Mém. Ecclés. tom. ix. p. 499, 500). [It had no good claim to be ecumenical, for the 150 bishops present were entirely from the eastern provinces of the Empire. It put forward no new doctrines, but simply reasserted the Nicene Creed. See Gwatkin, Studies of Arianism, p. 262.]
Ref. 046
Before the death of Meletius, six or eight of his most popular ecclesiastics, among whom was Flavian, had abjured, for the sake of peace, the bishopric of Antioch (Sozomen, l. vii. c. 3, 11. Socrates, l. v. c. 5). Tillemont thinks it his duty to disbelieve the story; but he owns that there are many circumstances in the life of Flavian which seem inconsistent with the praises of Chrysostom and the character of a saint (Mém. Ecclés. tom. x. p. 541). [Gregory of Nyssa pronounced the funeral oration on Meletius.]
Ref. 047
Consult Gregory Nazianzen, de Vitâ suâ, tom. ii. p. 25-28 [1509 sqq.]. His general and particular opinion of the clergy and their assemblies may be seen in verse and prose (tom. i. orat. i. p. 33 [= or. ii. Migne], epist. lv. [= ep. cxxx. Migne, iii. p. 225] p. 814, tom. ii. carmen x. [leg. xi.] p. 81 [Migne, ib. p. 1227]). Such passages are faintly marked by Tillemont, and fairly produced by Le Clerc.
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See Gregory, tom. ii. de Vitâ suâ, p. 28-31 [1680 sqq.]. The fourteenth [22nd], twenty-seventh [36th], and thirty-second [42nd] orations were pronounced in the several stages of this business. The peroration of the last (tom. i. p. 528), in which he takes a solemn leave of men and angels, the city and the emperor, the East and the West, &c., is pathetic, and almost sublime.
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The whimsical ordination of Nectarius is attested by Sozomen (l. vii. c. 8); but Tillemont observes (Mém. Ecclés. tom. ix. p. 719), Après tout, ce narré de Sozomène est si honteux pour tous ceux qu’il y mêle, et surtout pour Théodose, qu’il vaut mieux travailler à le détruire, qu’à le soutenir; an admirable canon of criticism.
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I can only be understood to mean that such was his natural temper; when it was not hardened, or inflamed, by religious zeal. From his retirement [at Arianzus, a farm close to the village of Karbala (now Καλβαρή, Turk. Gelvere), 2½ hours south of Nazianzus, containing “a church full of relics of S. Gregory.” Ramsay, Asia Minor, 285], he exhorts Nectarius to prosecute the heretics of Constantinople.
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See the Theodosian Code, l. xvi. tit. v. leg. 6-23, with Godefroy’s commentary on each law, and his general summary, or Paratitlon, tom. vi. p. 104-110.
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They always kept their Easter, like the Jewish Passover, on the fourteenth day of the first moon after the vernal equinox; and thus pertinaciously opposed to the Roman church and Nicene synod, which had fixed Easter to a Sunday. Bingham’s Antiquities, l. xx. c. 5, vol. ii. p. 309, fol. edit.
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Sozomen, l. vii. c. 12.
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See the Sacred History of Sulpicius Severus (l. ii. p. 437-452, edit. Ludg. Bat. 1647 [c. 46-51]), a correct and original writer. Dr. Lardner (Credibility, &c., part ii. vol. ix. p. 256-350) has laboured this article, with pure learning, good sense, and moderation. Tillemont (Mém. Ecclés. tom. viii. p. 491-527) has raked together all the dirt of the fathers; an useful scavenger! [It has been debated how far Priscillian is to be regarded as a heretic. J. H. Lübkert, De haeresi Priscillianistarum, 1840, followed by Bernays, held that he was condemned, not as a heretic, but as a lawbreaker. Since then some remains of his own writings (eleven Tractates) were discovered (1885) in a Würzburg MS. of ⅚ cent., and edited (1889) by G. Schepss. His religious position has been investigated by F. Paret, Priscillianus ein Reformator des vierten Jahrhunderts, 1891. It seems clear that Priscillian’s point of view was undogmatic; and he was certainly heretical in so far as he made use of apocryphal books. See too Schepss, Priscillian, 1886. Cp. Jerome’s notice, de vir. ill. c. 21, and Orosius, Commonitorium de errore Priscillianistarum et Origenistarum, published by Schepss at end of his ed. of Priscillian.]
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Sulpicius Severus mentions the arch-heretic with esteem and pity. Felix profecto, si non pravo studio corrupisset optimum ingenium; prorsus multa in eo animi et corporis bona cerneres (Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p. 439 [c. 46]). Even Jerom (tom. i. in Script. Eccles. p. 302) speaks with temper of Priscillian and Latronian. [They suffered in 385, Prosper, Epit. Chron.; but Idatius gives 387.]
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The bishopric (in Old Castile) is now worth 20,000 ducats a year (Busching’s Geography, vol. ii. p. 308) and is therefore much less likely to produce the author of a new heresy.
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Exprobabatur mulieri viduæ nimia religio, et diligentius culta divinitas (Pacat. in Panegyr. Vet. xii. 29). Such was the idea of a humane, though ignorant, polytheist.
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One of them was sent in Syllinam insulam quæ ultra Britanniam est. What must have been the ancient condition of the rocks of Scilly (Cambden’s Britannia, vol. ii. p. 1519)?
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The scandalous calumnies of Augustin, Pope Leo, &c., which Tillemont swallows like a child, and Lardner refutes like a man, may suggest some candid suspicions in favour of the older Gnostics.
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Ambros. tom. ii. epist. xxiv. p. 891.
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In the Sacred History, and the Life of St. Martin, Sulpicius Severus uses some caution; but he declares himself more freely in the Dialogues (iii. 15). Martin was reproved, however, by his own conscience, and by an angel; nor could he afterwards perform miracles with so much ease.
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The Catholic Presbyter (Sulp. Sever. l. ii. p. 448 [c. 50]) and the Pagan Orator (Pacat. in Panegyr. Vet. xii. 29) reprobate, with equal indignation, the character and conduct of Ithacius.
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The life of St. Martin, and the Dialogues concerning his miracles, contain facts adapted to the grossest barbarism, in a style not unworthy of the Augustan age. So natural is the alliance between good taste and good sense that I am always astonished by this contrast.
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The