IX.

CENT. prefs teftimony of their adverfaries, that the di PART II. vine Saviour brought with him from heaven his human nature, and that MARY, after the birth of CHRIST, had other children by JOSEPH); they only fell into the fentiments of the Valentinians, and held that CHRIST paffed through the womb of the Virgin, as the pure ftream of limpid water paffes through a conduit, and that MARY did not preferve her virginity to the end of her days; all which affertions the Greeks rejected with the ut moft antipathy and abhorrence. 3. "They re"fused to celebrate the holy inftitution of the "Lord's fupper;" for as they looked upon many precepts and injunctions of the gospel to be of a merely figurative and parabolical nature, fo they understood by the bread and wine, which CHRIST is faid to have adminiftered to his difciples at his laft fupper, the divine difcourfes and exhortations of the Saviour, which are a fpiritual food and nourishment to the foul, and fill it with repose, fatisfaction, and delight [y]. 4. "They loaded.

the cross of CHRIST with contempt and re-. "proach;" by which we are only to understand, that they refused to follow the absurd and superftitious practice of the Greeks, who paid to the pretended wood of the cross a certain fort of religious homage. As the Paulicians believed that CHRIST was cloathed with an etherial, impaffible,. and celeftial body, they could by no means grant that he was really nailed to the cross, or that he expired, in effect, upon that ignominious tree; and hence naturally arofe that treatment of the

[] The Greeks do not charge the Paulicians with any error concerning baptifm; it is however certain, that the accounts of that facred inftitution, which are given in fcrip-. tare, were allegorically explained by this extravagant fect;. and PHOTIUS, in his First Book against the Manichæans, P, 29. exprefsly afferts, that the Paulicians treated baptifm as a mere allegorical ceremony, and by the baptifmal water understood the gospel.

crofs

66

IX.

cross of which the Greeks accufed them. 5. "They CENT. rejected, after the example of the greatest part PART II, "of the Gnoftics, the books of the Old Tefta

ment, and looked upon the writers of that fa"cred history as infpired by the creator of this "world, and not by the fupreme God. 6. They "excluded prefbyters and elders from all part in "the administration of the church.". By this, however, no more can be meant, than that they refufed to call their doctors by the name of Pref byters, a name which had its origin among the Jews, and was peculiar to that odious people who perfecuted JESUS CHRIST, and attempted, as the Paulicians fpeak, to put him to death [z].

have

[x] Thefe fix famous errors of the Paulicians taken from the Manichæan hiftory of PETRUS SICULUS, with whom PHOTIUS and CEDRENUS agree, although their accounts of these opinions be lefs perfpicuous and diftinct. The explanatory remarks that I have added, are the result of my own reflexions upon the Paulician fyftem, and the doctrine of the Greeks.

Bbz

[372

THE

TENTH CENTURY.

PART I.

The External HISTORY of the CHURCH.

X.

PART I.

the Chriftian religion.

CHAPTER I.

Concerning the profperous events which happened to the Church during this century.

"THE state

CENT. I.HE deplorable state of chriftianity in this century, arifing partly from that aftonishThe propa- ing ignorance that gave a loofe rein both to fugation of perftition and immorality, and partly from an unhappy concurrence of caufes of another kind, is unanimously lamented by the various writers, who have tranfmitted to us the hiftory of these miferable times. Yet amidst all this darkness fome gleams of light were perceived from time to time, and several occurrences happened, which deserve a place in the profperous annals of the church. The Neftorians in Chaldea extended their fpiritual conqu fts beyond mount Imaus, and introduced the Chriftian religion into Tartary, properly fo called, whofe inhabitants had hitherto lived in their natural ftate of ignorance and ferocity, uncivilized and favage. The fame fuccefsful miffionaries fpread, by degrees, the knowledge of the gospel among that moft powerful nation of the Turks, or Tartars, which went by the

name

X.

hame of Karit, and bordered on Kathay, or on CENT. the northern part of China [a]. The laborious PART I. induftry of this fect, and their zeal for the propagation of the Christian faith, deserve, no doubt, the highest encomiums; it must, however, be acknowledged, that the doctrine and worship, which they introduced among thefe Barbarians, were far from being, in all refpects, conformable to the precepts of the gofpel, or to the true fpirit and genius of the Chriftian religion.

II. The prince of that country, whom the Prefter Neftorians converted to the Chriftian faith, af- John, fumed, if we may give credit to the vulgar tradition, the name of JOHN after his baptifm, to which he added the furname of Prefbyter, from a principle of modefty. Hence it was, as fome learned men imagine, that the fucceffors of this monarch retained these names until the time of GENGIS KAN, who flourished in the fourteenth century, and were each of them called PRESTER JOHN [b]. But all this has a very fabulous air; at leaft it is advanced without any folid proof; nay, it appears evident, on the contrary, that the famous PRESTER JOHN, who made so much noise in the world, did not begin to reign in that part of Afia before the conclufion of the eleventh century. It is, however, certain beyond all contradiction, that the monarchs of the nation called Karit, which makes a large part of the empire of the Mogul, and is by fome denominated a province of the Turks, and by others a tribe of the Tartars, embraced Christianity in this century; and that a confiderable part of Tartary, or Afiatic Scythia, lived under the spiritual jurisdiction

[a] Jos.SIM. ASSE MANNI Bibliotheca Oriental. Vatic. tom. iii. part II. p. 482.-HERBELOT, Bibliotheque Oriental, p. 256. [b] See AssEMANNI Biblioth. Oriental. Vatic. tom. ii. part II. p. 282.

CENT. of bishops who were fent among them by the PART 1 Neftorian pontif [c].

X.

Rollo firft duke of

converted.

III. If we turn our eyes to the western world, we fhall find the gofpel making its way with more Normandy or less rapidity through the most rude and uncivilized nations. The famous arch-pirate ROLLO, fon of a Norwegian count, being banished from his native land [d], had, in the preceding century, put himself at the head of a refolute band of Normans, and feized upon one of the maritime provinces of France, from whence he infefted the whole country round about with perpetual incurfions and depredations. In the year 912, this valiant chief embraced, with his whole army, the Christian faith, and that upon the following occafion: CHARLES the Simple, who wanted both refolution and power to drive this warlike and intrepid invader out of his dominions, was obliged to have recourfe to the method of negociation. He accordingly offered to make over to ROLLO a confiderable part of his territories, upon condition that the latter would confent to a peace, efpoufe his daughter GISELA [e], and embrace Christianity. Thefe terms were accepted by RoLLo without the leaft hefitation; and his army,

[c] The late learned Mr. B. THEOPHILUS SIGEFRED BAYER, in his Preface to the Museum Sinicum, p. 145, informed us of his defign to give the world an accurate account of the Neftorian churches established in Tartary and China, drawn from fome curious ancient records and monuments, that have not been as yet made public. His work was to have been entitled Historia Ecclefiarum Sinicarum, et Septentrionalis Afie; but death prevented the execution of this interesting plan, and alfo of feveral others, which this. great man had formed, and which would have undoubtedly calt a new light upon the hiftory of the Afiatic Chriftians.

[d] HOLBERGI Hiftoria Danorum Navalis in Scriptis Societat. Scient. Hafnienf. part III. p. 357.

[e] Other writers more politely reprefent the offer of GISELA as one of the methods that CHARLES employed to obtain a peace with ROLLO.

follo ing