CENT. hence into Egypt, he received consecration, as the IV. first bishop of the Axumitæ, or Ethiopians, PART I. from Athanasius. And this is the reason why the Ethiopian church has, even to our times, been considered as the daughter of the Alexandrian, from which it also receives its bishop [p].

And Georgians.

And Goths.

The light of the gospel was introduced into Iberia, a province of Asia, now called Georgia, in the following manner: A certain woman was carried into that country as a captive, during the reign of Constantine the Great, and by the grandeur of her miracles, and the remarkable sanctity of her life and manners, she made such an impression upon the king and queen, that they abandoned their false gods, embraced the faith of the gospel, and sent to Constantinople, for proper persons to give them and their people a more satisfactory and complete knowledge of the Christian religion [q].

XXI. A considerable part of the Goths, who had inhabited Thrace, Masia, and Dacia, had received the knowledge, and embraced the doctrines of Christianity before this century; and Theophilus, their bishop, was present at the council of Nice. Constantine the Great, after having vanquished them and the Samaritans, engaged great numbers of them to become Christians [r]. But still a large body continued in their attachment to their ancient superstition, until the time of the emperor Valens. This

prince

[P] Athanasius, Apolog. ad Constantium, tom. i. opp. par. II. p. 315. edit. Benedict. Socrates et Sozomen. Hist. Eccles. book i. chap. xix. of the former, book ii. chap. xxiv. of the latter. Theodoret. Hist. Eccles. lib. i. cap. xxiii. p. 54. Ludolf. Comment. ad Hist. Æthiopic. p. 281. Hier. Lobo, Voyage ďAbyssinie, tom. ii. p. 13. Justus Fontaninus, Hist. Litter. Aquileia, p. 174.

[9] Rufinus Hist. Eccles. lib. i. cap. x. Sozomen. Hist. Eccles. lib. ii. cap. v. Lequien, Oriens. Chris. tom. i. p. 1333. [r] Socrat. Hist. Eccles. lib. i. cap. xviii.

IV. PART I.

prince permitted them, indeed, to pass the Da- CENT. nube, and to inhabit Dacia, Masia, and Thrace; but it was on condition, that they should live in subjection to the Roman laws, and embrace the profession of Christianity [c], which condition was accepted by their king Fritigern. The celebrated Ulphilas, bishop of those Goths, who dwelt in Masia, lived in this century, and distinguished himself much by his genius and piety. Among other eminent services which he rendered to his country, he invented a set of letters for their peculiar use, and translated the scriptures into the Gothic language [t].

XXII. There remained still, in the European Among the provinces, an incredible number of persons, who Gauls. adhered to the worship of the gods; and though the Christian bishops continued their pious efforts to gain them over to the gospel, yet the success was, by no means, proportionable to their diligence and zeal, and the work of conversion went on but slowly. In Gaul, the great and venerable Martin, bishop of Tours, set about this important work with tolerable success. For, in his various voyages among the Gauls, he converted many, every where, by the energy of his discourses, and by the power of his miracles, if we may rely upon the testimony of Sulpitius Severus in this matter. He destroyed also the temples of the gods, pulled down their statues [u], and

Z 2

[s] Socrat. Hist. Eccles. lib. iv. cap. xxxiii. Lequien, Oriens Chris. tom. i. p. 1240, Eric. Benzelius, Præf. ad Quator Evangelia Gothica, qua Ulphilæ tribuuntur, cap. v. p. xviii. published at Oxford, in the year 1750, in 4to.

[t] Jo. Jac. Mascovii Historia Germanorum, tom. i. p. 317. tom. ii. not. p. 49. Acta SS. Martii, tom. iii. p. 619. Benzelius, loc. citat. cap. viii. p. 30.

[u] See Sulpit. Severus, Dial. i. De Vita Martini, cap. xiii. p. 20. cap. xv. p. 22. cap. xvii. p. 23. Dial. ii. p. 106. edit, Hier. a Prato, Verona, 1741.

IV.

The causes

changes.

CENT. and on all these accounts merited the high and honourable title of Apostle of the Gauls. PART I. XXIII. There is no doubt, but that the victories of Constantine the Great, the fear of punishof so many ment, and the desire of pleasing this mighty conqueror, and his imperial successors, were the weighty arguments that moved whole nations, as well as particular persons, to embrace Christianity. None, however, that have any acquaintance with the transactions of this period of time, will attribute the whole progress of Christianity to these causes. For it is undeniably manifest, that the indefatigable zeal of the bishops and other pious men, the innocence and sanctity which shone forth with such lustre in the lives of many Christians, the translations that were published of the sacred writings, and the intrinsic beauty and excellence of the Christian religion, made as strong and deep impressions upon some, as worldly views and selfish considerations did upon others.

As to the miracles attributed to Antony, Paul the Hermit, and Martin, I give them up without the least difficulty, and join with those who treat these pretended prodigies with the contempt they deserve [w]. I am also willing to grant, that many events have been rashly esteemed miraculous, which were the result of the ordinary laws of nature; and also, that several pious frauds have been imprudently made use of, to give new degrees of weight and dignity to the Christian cause. But I cannot, on the other hand, assent to the opinions of those who maintain, that, in this century, miracles had entirely ceased;

[n] Hier. a Prato, in his Preface to Sulpitius Severus, (p. xiii.) disputes warmly in favour of the miracles of Martin, and also of the other prodigies of this century.

IV. PART I.

ceased; and that, at this period, the Christian CENT. church was not favoured with any extraordinary or supernatural mark of a divine power engaged in its cause [x].

tions in

XXIV. The Christians, who lived under the Persecu Roman government, were not afflicted with any ions in severe calamities from the time of Constantine the Great, except those which they suffered during the troubles and commotions raised by Licinius, and under the transitory reign of Julian. Their tranquillity, however, was, at different times, disturbed in several places. Among others, Athanaric, king of the Goths, persecuted, for some time, with bitterness, that part of the Gothic nation which had embraced Christianity [y]. In the remoter provinces, the Pagans often defended their ancient superstitions by the force of arms, and massacred the Christians, who, in the propagation of their religion, were not always sufficiently attentive either to the rules of prudence, or the dictates of humanity [*]. The Christians who lived beyond the limits of the Roman empire, had a harder fate; Sapor II. king of Persia, vented his rage against those of his dominions, in three dreadful persecutions. The first of these happened in the 18th year of the reign of that prince; the second, in the 30; and the third, in the 31st year of the same reign. This last was the most cruel and destructive of the Z 3 three;

[x] See Eusebius' book against Hierocles, chap. iv. p. 431. edit. Olearii; as also Henr. Dodwell. Diss. ii. in Irenæum. sect. 55. p. 195. See Dr. Middleton's Free Inquiry into the Miraculous Powers which are said to have subsisted in the Christian Church, &c. in which a very different opinion is maintained. See, however, on the other side the answers of Church and Dodwell to Middleton's Inquiry.

[y] See Theodor. Ruinarti Acta Martyr. sincera, and there Acta S. Saba, p. 598.

[*] See Ambrosius, De officiis, lib. i. cap. xlii. sect. 17.

IV.

PART I.

CENT. three; it carried off an incredible number of Christians, and continued during the space of forty years, having commenced in the year 330, and ceased only in 370. It was not, however, the religion of the Christians, but the ill-grounded suspicion of their treasonable designs against the state, that drew upon them this terrible calamity. For the Magi and the Jews persuaded the Persian monarch, that all the Christians were devoted to the interests of the Roman emperor, and that Symeon archbishop of Seleucia, and Ctesiphon, sent to Constantinople intelligence of all that passed in Persia [a].

[a] See Sozomen. Hist. Eccles. lib. ii. cap. i. xiii. There is a particular and express account of this persecution in the Bibliothec. Oriental. Clement. Vatican. tom. i. p. 6. 16. 181. tom. iii. p. 52. with which it will be proper to compare the Preface of the learned Asseman, to his Acta martyrum oriental et occidental. published in two volumes in folio, at Rome, in the year 1748; as this author has published the Persian Martyrology in Syriac, with a Latin translation, and enriched this valuable work with many excellent observations.