CENT. X. of this ghostly power; for in the preceding ages PART II there is no example of his having exercised this X privilege alone. This specimen was given in the year 993, by John XV. who, with all the formalities of a solemn canonization, enrolled Udalric, bishop of Augsburgh, in the number of the saints, and thus conferred upon him a title to the worship and veneration of christians. We must not however conclude from hence, that after this period the privilege of canonizing new saints was vested solely in the Roman pontiffs; for there are several examples upon record, which prove that not only provincial councils, but also several of the first order among the bishops, advanced to the rank of saints such as they thought worthy of that high dignity, and continued thus to augment the celestial patrons of the church, without ever consulting the Roman pontiff, until the twelfth century.* Then Alexander III. abrogated this privilege of the bishops and councils, and placed canonization in the number of the more important acts of authority, which the sovereign pontiff alone, by a peculiar prerogative, was entitled to exercise. The merit of V. The expositors and commentators, who attaters of this tempted in this century to illustrate and explain the sacred writings, were too mean in their abilities and too unsuccessful in their undertakings to deserve almost any notice; for it is extremely uncertain, whether or no the works of Olympiodorus and Oecumenius are to be considered as the productions of this age. Among the Latins, Remi, or the commen century sidered. con * Franc. Pagi Breviar. Pontif. Roman. tom. ii. p. 259. y This absurd opinion has been maintained with warmth by Phil. Bonnanus, in his Numismata Pontif. Romanorum, tom. i. p. 41. See Franc. Pagi Breviar. Pontif. Roman. tom. ii. p. 260, tom. ii. p. 30. Arm. de la Chapelle, Biblioth. Angloise, tom. x. p. 105. Mabillon, Præfat. ad Sac. v. Benedict. p, 53. a These were called the Causæ Majores PART II. Remigius, bishop of Auxerre, continued the ex- CENT. X. position of the holy scriptures, which he had begun in the preceding century; but his work is highly defective in various respects; for he takes very little pains in explaining the literal sense of the words, and employs the whole force of his fantastic genius in unfolding their pretended mystical signification, which he looked upon as infinitely more interesting than their plain and literal meaning. Beside his explications are rarely the fruit of his own genius and invention, but are, generally speaking, mere compilations from ancient commentators. As to the moral observations of Odo upon the book of Job, they are transcribed from a work of Gregory the Great, which bears the same title. We mention no more; if however any are desirous of an ample account of those who were esteemed the principal commentators in this century, they will find it in a book wrote professedly upon this subject by Notkerus Balbulus. theology and century. VI. The science of theology was absolutely aban- The state of doned in this century; nor did either the Greek morals in this or Latin church furnish any writer who attempted to explain in a regular method the doctrines of Christianity. The Greeks were contented with the works of Damascenus, and the Latins with those of Augustin and Gregory, who were now considered as the greatest doctors that had adorned the church. Some added to these the writings of venerable Bede and Rabanus Maurus. The important science of morals was still more neglected than that of theology in this wretched age, and was reduced to a certain number of dry and insipid homilies, and to the lives of the saints, which Simeon among the Greeks, and Hubald, Odo, and Stephen, among the Latins, had drawn up with a seducing eloquence that covered the most imper с Moralia in Jobum с Bishop of Liege. PART II. CENT. X. tinent fictions. Such was the miserable state of morals and theology in this century; in which, as we may further observe, there did not appear any defence of the christian religion against its professed The controver sies between Latin church es. enemies. VII. The controversies between the Greek and the Greek and Latin churches were now carried on with less noise and impetuosity than in the preceding century, on account of the troubles and calamities of the times; yet they were not entirely reduced to silence. The writers therefore who affirm, that this unhappy schism was healed, and that the contending parties were really reconciled to each other for a certain space of time, have grossly mistaken the matter; though it be indeed true, that the tumults of the times produced now and then a cessation of these contests, and occasioned several truces, which insidiously concealed the bitterest enmity, and served often as a cover to the most treacherous designs. The Greeks were moreover divided among themselves, and disputed with great warmth concerning the lawfulness of repeated marriages, to which violent contest the case of Leo, sirnamed the Philosopher, gave rise. This emperor having buried successively three wives without having had by them any male issue, espoused a fourth, whose name was Zoe Carbinopsina, and who was born in the obscurity of a mean condition. As marriages repeated for the fourth time were held to be impure and unlawful by the Greek canons, Nicolas, the patriarch of Constantinople, suspended the d Mich. Lequien, Dissert. i. Damascenica de processione Spiritus Sancti, § xiii. p. 12. Fred. Spanheim, De perpetua dissensione Ecclesia Oriental. et Occidental. pars iv. § vii. p. 529, tom. ii. opp. • Leo Allatius, De perpetua consensione Ecclesiæ Orient. et Occident. lib. ii. cap. vii. viii. p. 600. f Fourth marriages, our author undoubtedly means, since second and third nuptials were allowed upon certain conditions. PART II. emperor, upon this occasion, from the communion CENT. x. of the church. Leo, incensed at this rigorous proceeding, deprived Nicolas of the patriarchal dignity, and raised Euthymius to that high office, who, though he readmitted the emperor to the bosom of the church, yet opposed the law which he had resolved to enact in order to render fourth marriages lawful. Upon this a schism, attended with the bitterest animosities, divided the clergy, one part of which declared for Nicolas, the other for Euthymius. Some time after this Leo died, and was succeeded in the empire by Alexander, who deposed Euthymius, and restored Nicolas to his eminent rank in the church. No sooner was this warm patriarch reinstated in his office, than he began to load the memory of the late emperor with the bitterest execrations and the most opprobrious invectives, and to maintain the unlawfulness of fourth marriages with the utmost obstinacy. In order to appease these tumults, which portended numberless calamities to the state, Constantine Porphyrogenneta, the son of Leo, called together an assembly of the clergy of Constantinople in the year 920, in which fourth marriages were absolutely prohibited, and marriages for the third time were permitted on certain conditions; and thus the public tranquillity was restored." Several other contests of like moment arose among the Greeks during this century; and they serve to convince us of the ignorance that prevailed among that people, and of their blind veneration and zeal for the opinions of their ancestors. These facts are faithfully collected from Cedrenus, Leunclavius De Jure Græco Rom. tom. i. p. 104, from Leo the Grammarian, Simeon the Treasurer, and other writers of the Byzantine history. CHAPTER IV. CONCERNING THE RITES AND CEREMONIES USED IN THE CHURCH PART II. CENT. X. LIN order to have some notion of the load of ceremonies under which the christian religion Ceremonies groaned during this superstitious age, we have only multiplied. to cast an eye upon the acts of the various councils which were assembled in England, Germany, France, and Italy. The number of ceremonies increased in proportion to that of the saints, which multiplied from day to day; for each new saintly patron had appropriated to his service a new festival, a new form of worship, a new round of relig ious rites; and the clergy, notwithstanding their gross stupidity in other matters, discovered, in the creation of new ceremonies, a marvellous fertility of invention, attended with the utmost dexterity and artifice. It is also to be observed, that a great part of these new rites derived their origin from the various errors which the barbarous nations had received from their ancestors, and still retained, even after their conversion to Christianity. The clergy, instead of extirpating these errors, either gave them a christian aspect, by inventing certain religious rites to cover their deformity, or by explaining them in a forced allegorical manner; and thus they were perpetuated in the church, and devoutly transmitted from age to age. We may also attribute a considerable number of the rites and institutions, that dishonoured religion in this century, to foolish notions both concerning the Supreme Being and departed saints; for they imagined that God was like the princes and great ones of the earth, who |