cus.

of the papacy, by the clergy of Rome to Tomianus Archbishop of Armagh, and other bishops and clergy, and he gives a statement of the attempts made by Bede to eradicate the heresy from England. In the next century, the controversy about Pelagianism and predestination was agitated in Spain, and in the ninth century broke out with still greater violence in Germany, having been excited by Gotteschalcus3, a monk at Orbais, in the bishopric of Soissons. Gotteschalcus appears to have been involved in difficulties from his very youth. He had been placed an infant in the monastery of Fulda, and when he grew up, he wished not to take the monastic vows. The matter was referred to the council of Mentz in 829, and decided in favor of GotteschalBut Rabanus, the abbot of Fulda, appealed against the sentence to Louis le Débonnaire, who compelled Orgarius Archbishop of Mentz, to reverse the decision. Upon this Gotteschalcus would not return to Fulda, but took the vows at Orbais. His ordination also engaged him in contest with the Bishop of Soissons, for the see of Rheims being vacant, he was ordained by Rigboldus a Chorepiscopus, without the consent of the Bishop of Soissons, in whose diocese the monastery was situated. This disagreement sent him to travel. He went to Rome, and when returning commenced his mission for propagating his peculiar opinions. Within a very short space of time he had the ablest writers in Europe engaged in the controversy; in defence of him appeared Remigius Archbishop of Lyons, Prudentius Trecassinus, Ratramnus of Corbey; and on the the other side Hincmar Archbishop of Rheims, Amalarius Archbishop of Lyons, Rabanus Maurus Archbishop of Mentz, and Johannes Scotus. The proceedings with regard to Gotteschalcus afford a melancholy example of the disunion which existed among the Christian Churches. He appears first to have commenced his public disputations in the presence of Nothingus Bishop of Verona, who soon communicated the opinions to Rabanus. Rabanus immediately

J This name Ussher interprets to be the Servant of God, from Gott, God, and schalch, a servant.

pronounced them heretical. Gotteschalcus with great intrepidity proceeded to Mentz, and again met his old opponent, now raised from the abbot of Fulda to the Archbishop of Mentz. The Archbishop assembled a Council in the year 848, to which Gotteschalcus presented a written statement of his opinions upon the subject of predestination. The Council condemned the doctrines, but did not venture to punish Gotteschalcus, as he belonged to the archdiocese of Rheims. Rabanus sent his prisoner to Hincmar, with a letter which certainly does not do him any credit; he commences it: "Notum est dilectioni vestræ, quod quidam gyrovagus monachus, nomine Gothescalc, qui se asserit sacerdotem in vestra parochia ordinatum, de Italia venit ad nos Moguntiam." Whatever his errors might have been, Rabanus ought not to have spoken in such terms of the individual, whom he had compelled to adopt the monastic life. Nor can we feel any respect for the conduct of Hincmar and his associates. A synod was summoned at Quiercy, where the doctrines of Gotteschalcus were again considered, and he himself sentenced to be degraded from his office of a priest, and to be flogged until he should throw into the flames a book in which he had made collections from Scripture to support his opinions, and then that he should be confined in the monastery of Hautvilliers.

The cruelty and injustice of this punishment is well described by Remigius: "Quapropter illud prorsus omnes non solum dolent, sed etiam horrent: quia inaudito irreligiositatis et crudelitatis exemplo, tamdiu ille miserabilis flagris et cædibus trucidatus est, donec (sicut narraverunt nobis, qui præsentes aderant) accenso coram se igni libellum, in quo sententias Scripturarum sive sanctorum Patrum sibi collegerat, quas in concilio offerret, coactus est jam pene emoriens suis manibus in flammam projicere atque incendio concremare, cum omnes retro hæretici verbis et disputationibus victi atque convicti sint, et sic pravitas, quæ videbatur hominis fuerit coercenda, ut nulla divinis rebus inferretur injuria. Maxime cum illi sensus, qui ipso continebantur libello (excepto uno quod extremum ponitur) non essent sui sed ecclesiastici; nec igitur damnandi, sed pia et paci

fica fuerint inquisitione tractandi." Hincmar himself appears to have felt this impropriety, for he endeavoured to persuade his victim to retract his opinions, but in vain. Twenty years after he renewed these efforts, when the wretched prisoner was sinking into the grave, and sent a formulary which he was to sign before he could be received into the communion of the Catholic Church. The firmness of mind had not sunk under the decay of bodily strength. Gotteschalcus firmly refused to sign the document, and Hincmar denied Christian burial to his remains.

So far there appears but one united effort on the part of the Church to extinguish the errors of Gotteschalcus. But the Primate has, with consummate skill, brought forward the opinions of the opposing disputants, and has also marshalled against the decrees of the Councils of Mentz and Chiersi, the canons of the Councils of Valence, Langres, and Toul, and also the censure of the Church at Lyons. Although the Archbishop has given the extracts with great fairness, yet it is quite evident that he leans very decidedly in favor of Gotteschalcus, and considers him as only putting forward the doctrines of Augustine, he speaks of "Gotteschalcik pariter ac Augustini sententiam de prædestinatione orthodoxam," and refers to the Confessions1 as establishing

* Works, vol. iv. pag. 192.

Milner, in his Church History, wishes to throw a doubt upon the genuineness of the Confessions, because, at the close of one of them, Gotteschalcus appeals to the judgment of God, and demands that the trial should proceed by boiling water, oil, pitch, and fire, a degree of enthusiastic presumption which was most culpable. The historian forgets the manners of the age, and that this practice had been sanctioned by the decrees of councils and the laws of monarchs. Most appropriately on this subject, the Archbishop quotes a passage from Johannes Mariana: "Visum est controversiam ignis judicio permittere: sic ejus seculi mores erant rudes et agrestes, neque satis expensi ad Christianæ pietatis exemplum." To prove that this custom was derived from the Heathens, he quotes the following passage from the Antigone of Sophocles :

«Ημεν δ ̓ ἔτοιμοι καὶ μύδρους αἴρειν χεροῖν,

Καὶ πῦρ διέρπειν, καὶ θεοὺς ὀρκωμοτεῖν

Τὸ μήτε δρᾶσαι, μήτε τῳ ξυνειδέναι

Τὸ πρᾶγμα βουλεύσαντι, μήτ' εἰργασμένῳ,”

and refers to Spelman's Glossary, in voce "judicium Dei," for further

the correctness of his opinions. It is not my intention to enter into a discussion, how far the opinions of Gotteschalcus, even if they agreed with those of Augustine, are the orthodox creed of the Church; but the most zealous defenders of this unfortunate writer must allow that he expressed himself most unguardedly, and enabled his opponents to make a strong case against him. There can be no doubt that he taught a twofold predestination, one to eternal life, the other to eternal death; that God does not will the salvation of all men, but only of the elect; and that Christ suffered death, not for the whole human race, but only for that portion of it to which God had decreed eternal salvation. His opponents state that he went much further, and that he wished to have it believed, that God not only predestinated certain persons to suffer punishment, but likewise to commit the sins by which they incurred that punishment. Archbishop Rabanus, in his letter to Archbishop Hincmar, says "that he had seduced many who had become less careful of their salvation, since they have learned from him to say, why should I labour for my salvation? If I am predestinated to damnation I cannot avoid it, and on the contrary if I am predestinated to salvation, whatever sins I may be guilty of, I shall certainly be saved." That Gotteschalcus must have been very unguarded in his language is evident from the fact, that many distinguished ecclesiastics at that time held the opinions, which his friends maintain were advocated by him, and yet never were censured by ecclesiastical authority. Archbishop Amolo, in his letter to Gotteschal

authorities. But Mr. Milner appears never to have heard of Ussher's Life of Gotteschalcus. He says he found great difficulty in procuring information on the subject, and extracted his account from Du Pin and Fleury. He complains of the Magdeburgian Centuriators as not affording their readers any proper materials on which to form a judgment, a fault into which he undoubtedly falls himself, for he gives his readers no information whatever. His ignorance of Ussher's work, or the subsequent one of Mauguin, is very extraordinary. He should certainly have referred to them, when he wished to make a defence for Gotteschalcus and his opinions. For the particulars which I have added to the Archbishop's Life of Gotteschalcus, I am indebted to Mabillon, and the lives of Gotteschalcus, Rabanus, and Hincmar, in Ceillier's "Auteurs Ecclesiastiques."

cus, seems to have expressed accurately his faults: "Displicet nobis valde, quia tam dure et indisciplinate et immaniter de divina prædestinatione sentis et loqueris in damnatione reproborum." The same unguarded style appeared in his arguments about the Trinity, when he asserted "Deitas sanctæ Trinitatis trina est." Hincmar wrote a book to refute this blasphemy. Archbishop Ussher refers to the confession of Gotteschalcus, as sufficient proof that he was not guilty of the heresy of the Tritheistsm, however objectionable the expressions might be, and quotes the following defence from Colvenerius: " Id quidem minus recte et improprie dicitur: cum trium personarum in Sancta Trinitate non sit nisi una numero Deitas. Sed eo sensu dici potest trina Deitas, quia est in tribus personis."

Mauguin has brought forward an extraordinary charge against the Archbishop, couched in the most disrespectful language. He accuses him of having published without leave the Confessions of Gotteschalcus, from a manuscript which Sirmond had lent him. His words are: "Cum1

Sirmondus illius copiam Usserio fecisset, ratus sola lectione contentum fore, ab eo fraude delusus est." Mauguin gives no authority for this accusation, and I cannot find any mention of it in Sirmond's writings. The character of the Archbishop is the best refutation of such a calumny: but we might find in the preface to the History additional proof that the writer was not claiming more merit for his work than he deserved: in the most unassuming manner he says: "Ex Lugdunensis Ecclesiæ scriptis et Flodoardo, majore ex parte eam contexens, de meo vero nihil adferens nisi ordinem." Dr. Smith states, that in his private letters he acknowledges the kindness of Sirmond, but that he did not publish the acknowledgment, being prohibited by the donor, lest he might be injured by the zealous Romanists. This defence seems founded rather on conjecture than on any evidence now extant. In a letter to Dr. Ward, the

m❝In confessione sua Deum naturaliter quidem unum, sed personaliter trinum clarissime prædicat.". Gotteschalci Hist., Works, vol. iv. pag. 17.

Mauguin, Gotteschalc. Controv. Histor. Dissertat. pag. 94.