THE EIGHTH CENTURY. PART I. EXTERNAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH. CHAPTER I. CONCERNING THE PROSPEROUS EVENTS WHICH HAPPENED TO THE I. The gospel Heia and propagated in Tartary. L. WHILE the mahometans were infesting with CENT. VI. their arms, and adding to their conquests, the PART I most flourishing provinces of Asia, and obscuring, as far as their influence could extend, the lustre and glory of the rising church, the nestorians of Chaidea were carrying the lamp of Christianity among those barbarous nations, called Scythians by the ancients, and by the moderns, Tartars, who, independent on the Saracen yoke, had fixed their habitations within the limits of mount Imaus." It is now well known, that Timotheus, the nestorian pontiff, who had been raised to that dignity a The southern regions of Scythia, were divided by the ancients, to whom the northern were unknown, into three parts, namely, Scythia within, and Scythia beyond Imaus, and Sarmatia. It is of the first of these three that Dr. Mosheim speaks as enlightened at this time with the knowledge of the gospel; and it comprehended Turkestan and Mon. gal, the Usbek, or Zagata, Kalmue, and Nogaian Tartary, which were peopled by the Bactrians, Sogdians, Gandari, Sacs, and Massagetes, not to mention the land of Siberia, Samoiedes, and Nova Zembla, which were uninhabited in ancient times. PART 1. CENT. VIIL A. d. 778, converted to the christian faith, by the ministry of Subchal Jesu, whom he had consecrated bishop, first the Gelæ and Dailamites, by whom a part of Hyrcania was inhabited; and afterward, by the labours of other missionaries, the rest of the nations who had formed settlements in Hvrcania, Bactria, Margiana, and Sogdia. It is also certain, that Christianity enjoyed in these vast regions, notwithstanding the violent attacks of the mahometans to which it was sometimes exposed, the advantages of a firm and solid establishment for a long course of ages; while the bishops, by whose ministry it was propagated and supported, were all consecrated by the sole authority of the nestorian pontiff. converted by The Germans II. If we turn our eyes toward Europe, we find Boniface. many nations that were as yet unenlightened with the knowledge of the gospel. Almost all the Germans, if we except the Bavarians, who had embraced Christianity under Theodoric, or Thierry, the son of Clovis, and the eastern Franks, with a few other provinces, lay buried in the grossest darkness of pagan superstition. Many attempts were made, by pious and holy men, to infuse the truth into the minds of these savage Germans; and various efforts were used for the same purpose by kings and princes, whose interest it was to propagate a religion that was so adapted to mitigate and tame the ferocity of these warlike nations; but neither the attempts of pious zeal, nor the efforts of policy, were attended with success. This This great work was however effected in this century, by the ministry of Winfrid, a benedictine monk, born in England of illustrious parents, and afterward known by the name of Boniface. This famous ecclesi b Thomas Margensis, Historia Monastica, lib, iii. in Jos. Sim. Assemanni Biblioth. Orient. Vatic. tom. iii. pars i. p. 491. See also this latter work, tom. iii. pars ii. cap. ix. § 5, p. 478. PARTI. astic, attended by two companions of his pious la- CENT. VIIL bours, passed over into Friesland, A. D. 715, to preach the gospel to the people of that country, but this first attempt was unsuccessful; and a war breaking out between Radbod, the king of that country, and Charles Martel, our zealous missionary returned to England. He resumed however his pious undertaking in the year 719; and being solemnly empowered by the Roman pontiff, Gregory II. to preach the gospel not only in Friesland, but all over Germany, he performed the functions of a christian teacher among the Thuringians, Frieslanders, and Hessians, with considerable suc cess.c exploits of this mis sionary, and ment in the III. This eminent missionary was, in the year Other pious 723, consecrated bishop by Gregory II. who chang- famous ed the name of Winfrid into that of Boniface; his advance seconded also by the powerful protection, and en- church. couraged by the liberality of Charles Martel, mayor of the palace to Chilperic, king of France, he resumed his ministerial labours among the Hessians and Thuringians, and finished with glory the task he had undertaken, in which he received considerable assistance from a number of pious and learned men, who repaired to him from England and France. As the christian churches erected by Boniface were too numerous to be governed by one bishop, this prelate was advanced to the dignity of archbishop, in the year 738, by Gregory III. by whose authority, and the auspicious protection of Carloman and Pepin, the sons of Charles Martel, he founded, in Germany, the bishoprics of Wurtzbourg, Burabourg, Erfurt, and Aichstadt; An ample account of this eminent man is to be found in a learned dissertation of Gudenius, De S. Bonifacio Germanorum Apostolo, published in 4to. at Helmstad in the year 1722. See also Jo. Alb. Fabricii Biblioth. Latina medii ævi, tom, i, p. 709. Hist. Litter de la France, tom. iv. p. 92. Mabillon, in Annalibus Benedictinis, &c. PART 1. CENT. VIII. to which he added, in the year 744, the famous monastery of Fulda. His last promotion, and the last recompense of his assiduous labours in the propagation of the truth, was his advancement to the archiepiscopal see of Mentz, A. D. 746, by Zachary, bishop of Rome, by whom he was, at the same time, created primate of Germany and Belgium. In his old age, he returned again to Friesland, that he might finish his ministry in the same place where he had entered first upon its functions; but his piety was ill rewarded by that barbarous people, by whom he was murdered in the year 755, while fifty ecclesiastics, who accompanied him in this voyage, shared the same unhappy fate. The judgment concerning the apostle face. IV. Boniface, on account of his ministerial lawe are to form bours and holy exploits, was distinguished by the ship of Boni- honourable title of the Apostle of the Germans ; nor, if we consider impartially the eminent services he rendered to Christianity, will this title appear to have been undeservedly bestowed. But it is necessary to observe, that this eminent prelate was an apostle of modern fashion, and had, in many respects, departed from the excellent model exhibited in the conduct and ministry of the primitive and true apostles. Beside his zeal for the glory and authority of the Roman pontiff, which equalled, if it did not surpass, his zeal for the service of Christ, and the propagation of his religion,d many other things unworthy of a truly christian minister are laid to his charge. In combating the pagan superstitions, he did not always use those arms, with which the ancient heralds of the gospel d The French benedictine monks ingenuously confess that Boniface was an over zealous partisan of the Roman pontiff, and attributed more authority to him than was just and fitting. Their words, in their lis toire Litteraire de la France, tom. iv. p. 106, are as follows; "Il exprime son devouement pour le S. Siege en des termes qui ne sont pas assez proportiones a la dignite du caractere episcopal." PART I. gained such victories in behalf of the truth; but CENT. VIIL often employed violence and terror, and sometimes artifice and fraud, in order to multiply the number of christians. His epistles, moreover, discover an imperious and arrogant temper; a cunning and insidious turn of mind; an excessive zeal for increasing the honours and pretensions of the sacerdotal order; and a profound ignorance of many things of which the knowledge was absolutely necessary in an apostle, and particularly of the true nature and genius of the christian religion. preach the Germans. v. The famous prelate, of whom we have been Other apostles now speaking, was not the only christian minister gospel to the who attempted to deliver the German nations from the miserable bondage of pagan superstition; several others signalized their zeal in the same laudable and pious undertaking. Corbinian, a French benedictine monk, after having laboured with vast assiduity and fervour in planting the gospel among the Bavarians, and other countries, became bishop of Friesingen. Firmin, a Gaul by birth, preached the gospel under various kinds of suffering and opposition in Alsatia, Bavaria, and Helvetia, now Switzerland, and had inspection over a considerable number of monasteries. Lebuin, an Englishman, laboured with the most ardent zeal and assi duity to engage the fierce and warlike Saxons, and also the Frieslanders, Belgæ, and other nations, to receive the light of Christianity; but his ministry was attended with very little fruit." We pass over in silence several apostles of less fame; nor is it • Baronius, Annal. Eccles. tom. viii. ad An. deexvi. § 10. Car. Maichelbeck, Historiæ Frisingensis, tom. i. Herm. Bruschii Chronologia Monaster. German. p. 30. Anton. Pagi Critica in Annales Baronii, tom. ii. ad An. declix. § 9. Histoire Litteraire de la France, tom. iv. p. 124. & Hucbaldi Vita S. Lebuini in Laur. Surii Vitis Sanctor. d. 12. Nov. p. 277. Jo. Molleii Cimbria Litterata, tom. ii. p. 464. |