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PART I.

of the pagans

their credit.

CENT. V. II. To destroy the credit of the gospel, and to excite the hatred of the multitude against the christThe attempts ians, the pagans took occasion, from the calamities to destroy and tumults which distracted the empire, to renew the obsolete complaint of their ancestors against Christianity, as the source of these complicated woes. They alleged, that before the coming of Christ, the world was blessed with peace and prosperity; but that since the progress of his religion every where, the gods, filled with indignation to see their worship neglected and their altars abandoned, had visited the earth with those plagues and deso. lations, which increased every day. This feeble objection was entirely removed by Augustin, in his book concerning the city of God; a work extremely rich and ample in point of matter, and filled with the most profound and diversified erudition. It also drew a complete confutation from the learned pen of Orosius, who in a history written expressly for that purpose, showed, with the utmost evidence, that not only the same calamities now com. plained of, but also plagues of a much more dreadful kind, had afflicted mankind before the christian religion appeared in the world.

The persecutions they suffered.

The calamities of the times produced still more pernicious effects upon the religious sentiments of the Gauls. They introduced among that people the most desperate notions, and led many of them to reject the belief of a superintending Providence, and to exclude the Deity from the government of the universe. Against these frenetic infidels, Salvian wrote his book concerning the divine government.

II. Hitherto we have given only a general view of the sufferings of the christians; it is however proper, that we enter into a more distinct and particular account of that matter.

In Gaul, and the neighbouring provinces, the Goths and Vandals, whose cruel and sacrilegious

PART I.

soldiery respected neither the majesty of religion CENT. V. nor the rights of humanity, committed acts of barbarity and violence against a multitude of christians.

In Britain, a long series of tumults and divisions involved the christians in many troubles. When the affairs of the Romans declined in that country, the Britons were tormented by the Picts and Scots, nations remarkable for their violence and ferocity. Hence, after many sufferings and disasters, they chose, in the year 445, Vortigern for their king. This prince, finding himself too weak to make head against the enemies of his country, called the Anglo Saxons from Germany to his aid in the year 449. The consequences of this measure were pernicious; and it soon appeared that this people, who came as auxiliaries into Britain, oppressed it with calamities more grievous than those which it had suffered from its enemies. For the Saxons aimed at nothing less than to subdue the ancient inhabitants of the country, and to reduce the whole island under their dominion. Hence a most bloody and obstinate war arose between the Britons and Saxons, which, after having been carried on, during the space of an hundred and thirty years, with various success, ended in the defeat of the Britons, who were forced to yield to the Anglo Saxons, and to seek a retreat in Batavia and Cambria. During these commotions, the state of the British church was deplorable beyond expression; it was almost totally overwhelmed and extinguished by the Anglo Saxons, who adhered to the worship of the gods, and put an immense number of christians to the most cruel deaths."

Iv. In Persia, the christians suffered grievously In Persia. by the imprudent zeal of Abdas, bishop of Suza, who pulled down the pyreum, which was a tem

w See, beside Bede and Gilda, Jac. Usser. Antiquitat. Ecclesiæ Britannice, cap. xii. p. 415. Rapin Thoyras, Histoire d'Angleterre, tom. i, livr. ii. p. 91.

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PART I.

CENT. V. ple dedicated to fire. For when this obstinate prelate was ordered by the king, Isdegerdes, to rebuild that temple, he refused to comply; for which he was put to death in the year 414, and the churches of the christians were levelled to the ground. This persecution was not however of long duration, but seems to have been extinguished soon after its commencement.

Vararenes, the son of the monarch already men tioned, treated the christians in a manner yet more barbarous and inhuman in the year 421, to which he was led partly by the instigation of the magi, and partly by his keen aversion to the Romans, with whom he was at war. For as often as the Persians and the Romans were at variance, so often did the christians, who dwelt in Persia, feel new and redoubled effects of their monarch's wrath; and this from a prevailing notion, not perhaps entirely groundless, that they favoured the Romans, and rendered real services to their republic. In this persecution, a prodigious number of christians perished in the most exquisite tortures, and by various kinds of punishments." But they were, at length, delivered from these cruel oppressions by the peace that was made in the year 427, between Vararenes and the Roman empire.

It was not from the pagans only that the christians were exposed to suffering and persecution; they were moreover harassed and oppressed in a variety of ways by the Jews, who lived in great opulence, and enjoyed a high degree of favour and credit in several parts of the east. Among these

* Theodoret, Hist. Eccles. lib. v. cap. xxix. p. 245. Bayle's Dictionary, at the article Abdas. Barbeyrac, De la morale des Peres, p. 320. y Jos. Sim. Assemani Biblioth. Oriental. Vatican. tom. i. p. 182, 248.

z Socrates, Hist. Eccles. lib. vii, cap. xx. p. 358.

a Socrates, Hist. Eccles. lib. vii. cap. xiii. p. 349, cap. xvi. p. 353. Codex Theodos. tom. vi. p. 265.

PART 1.

none treated them with greater rigour and arro- CENT. V. gance than Gamaliel, the patriarch of that nation, a man of the greatest power and influence, whose authority and violence were, on that account, restrained in the year 415, by an express and particular edict of Theodosius the younger.b

. It does not appear from any records of history now remaining, that any writings against Christ and his followers were published in this century, unless we consider as such the histories of Olympiodorus and Zosimus, of whom the latter loses no opportunity of reviling the christians, and loading them with the most unjust and bitter reproach

es.

But though the number of books written against Christianity was so small, yet we are not to suppose that its adversaries had laid aside the spirit of opposition. The schools of the philosophers and rhetoricians were yet open in Greece, Syria, and Egypt; and there is no doubt but that these subtle teachers laboured assiduously to corrupt the minds of the youth, and to instil into them at least, some of the principles of the ancient superstition. The history of these times, and the writings of several christians who lived in this century, exhibit evident proofs of these clandestine methods of opposing the progress of the gospel,

b Codex Theodos. tom. vi. p. 262.

Photius, Biblioth. Cod. lxxx. p. 178.

Zacharias Mitylen, De opificio Dei, p. 165, 200, edit. Barthii.

Christianity

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PART II.

INTERNAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

CHAPTER I.

CONCERNING THE STATE OF LEARNING AND PHILOSOPHY.

PART 11.

letters among

CENT. V. LTHOUGH in this century the illiterate and ignorant were advanced to eminent and important staThe state of tions, both ecclesiastical and civil, yet we must not the christians. conclude from thence, that the sciences were held in universal contempt. The value of learning, and the excellence of the finer arts, were yet generally acknowledged among the thinking part of mankind. Hence public schools were erected in almost all the great cities, such as Constantinople, Rome, Marseilles, Edessa, Nisibis, Carthage, Lyons, and Treves; and public instructors of capacity and genius were set apart for the education of the youth, and maintained at the expense of the emperors. Several bishops and monks contributed also to the advancement of knowledge, by imparting to others their small stock of learning and science. But the infelicity of the times, the incursions of the barbarous nations, and the scarcity of great geniuses, rendered the fruits of these excellent establishments much less than their generous founders and promoters expected.

In the west. IL. In the western provinces, and especially in Gaul, there were indeed some men eminently dis.

tinguished by their learning and talents, and every

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