delineation of his character. That any human being should be faultless, or equally great in all the various relations of life, is an expectation that can never be realized; and we ought to be grateful to the biographer who marks the distinguishing characteristics of the individual whose life he narrates. This observation is particularly necessary now, as the biographers of eminent ecclesiastics in our day seem to think they are bound to put forward the subjects of their memoirs as perfect beings, and all the peculiarities of character, all the shades which give reality to the picture, are lost in one unbroken expanse of panegyric. The character of Archbishop Ussher, as given by Bishop Burnet, is as near perfection as human nature could reach ; it would have appeared perfect, had he not unfortunately been placed in a situation which exposed his defects, if defects they can be called, when they arose "from the gentleness of his nature," from "the innocence of the dove." Were the undeviating line of panegyric to be followed, and Dr. Parr's representation of his fitness for governing to be admitted, the state of the Irish Church when Lord Strafford assumed the reins of government would be an enigma incapable of solution, and the successful exertions of Bishop Bramhall, in recovering the property, and correcting the abuses of the Church, would be utterly unintelligible. Even the very dispute which has occasioned these remarks can only be accounted for by the retiring meekness of the Archbishop, which shrank from the contest, in which the bolder spirit of Bishop Bedell fearlessly engaged. The anxiety of the two great prelates to uphold the religion they professed was equal; their detestation of injustice, oppression, and sacrilege alike strong; their diffe. 'Archbishop Laud felt this strongly, and he says, in one of his letters to the Lord Deputy: "I find your Lordship hath a good opinion of my Lord Primate's learning and honesty, and I verily think he will not deceive your expectation in either; but you are pleased to ask me a question whether that be all that goes to a good Bishop and a good governor ? I must needs answer, no; but if that which is further required be wanting in him, I am the more sorry."-Strafford's Letters, vol. i. pag. 156. I believe it will be found that a devoted student has never made an efficient bishop. Learning is one of the qualifications necessary, but only one. rences could only arise from the different views they took of the proper modes to effect a remedy, and those different views depended upon the different constitution of their minds, upon the firmness of the one contrasted with the mildness of the other. In the year 1631, the Primates published in Dublin his History of Gotteschalcush. He had been collecting materials for a history of the Pelagian controversy, when the publication of Vossius's history made him give up the pursuit: however meeting sometime after with several incidents relating to Gotteschalcus, which he had not before known, he determined to publish a life of that unfortunate monk, and he dedicated it to Vossius, as the facts there collected might be of use to him in preparing a new edition of his work. The Life, like many of his other works, is given almost entirely in the language of others, the different extracts being merely connected together by a sentence or two. He prefixes to the life a brief account of the revival of the Pelagian heresy in Ireland during the seventh century, a fact which is proved by a letter1 addressed, during the vacancy * Mr. Tyrrell mentions, in the particulars of the Archbishop's life sent by him to Dr. Smith, that it was by the advice of Archbishop Ussher, Lord Pembroke, Chancellor of the University of Oxford, purchased the valuable collection of manuscripts from the library of Signor Barocci, and presented them to the University of Oxford; yet Bishop Laud says, in a letter to Archbishop Ussher (see Works, vol. xv. pag. 527), “it gives me much content that I was the means of it." In the year 1628 the Archbishop made the first mention of them in a letter to an unnamed Lord: " That famous library of Giacomo Barocci, a gentleman of Venice, consisting of 242 Greek manuscript volumes, is now brought into England by Mr. Fetherstone the stationer;" and he requests his Lordship to interfere with the King to have them purchased. In the following year Sir Henry Bourchier informs the Archbishop, that this great treasure had been purchased for the University of Oxford by the Earl of Pembroke, at the price of £700.-See Works, vol. xv. pag. 436. b In a letter to Dr. Ward he speaks of it as "the first Latin book that ever was printed in Ireland;" but in this his Grace was certainly mistaken. At least two were printed before; Sir James Ware printed his work, ". Archiepiscoporum Casseliensum et Tuamensium Vitæ," in 1626, and "De Præsulibus Lageniæ," in 1628. This letter was afterwards published by the Archbishop in his "Sylloge Epistolarum Hibernicarum."-See Epist. IX., Works, vol. iv. pag. 427. cus. of the papacy, by the clergy of Rome to Tomianus Archbishop of Armagh, and other bishops and clergy, and he gives a statement of the attempts made by Bede to eradicate the heresy from England. In the next century, the controversy about Pelagianism and predestination was agitated in Spain, and in the ninth century broke out with still greater violence in Germany, having been excited by Gotteschalcus', a monk at Orbais, in the bishopric of Soissons. Gotteschalcus appears to have been involved in difficulties from his very youth. He had been placed an infant in the monastery of Fulda, and when he grew up, he wished not to take the monastic vows. The matter was referred to the council of Mentz in 829, and decided in favor of GotteschalBut Rabanus, the abbot of Fulda, appealed against the sentence to Louis le Débonnaire, who compelled Orgarius Archbishop of Mentz, to reverse the decision. Upon this Gotteschalcus would not return to Fulda, but took the vows at Orbais. His ordination also engaged him in contest with the Bishop of Soissons, for the see of Rheims being vacant, he was ordained by Rigboldus a Chorepiscopus, without the consent of the Bishop of Soissons, in whose diocese the monastery was situated. This disagreement sent him to travel. He went to Rome, and when returning commenced his mission for propagating his peculiar opinions. Within a very short space of time he had the ablest writers in Europe engaged in the controversy; in defence of him appeared Remigius Archbishop of Lyons, Prudentius Trecassinus, Ratramnus of Corbey; and on the the other side Hincmar Archbishop of Rheims, Amalarius Archbishop of Lyons, Rabanus Maurus Archbishop of Mentz, and Johannes Scotus. The proceedings with regard to Gotteschalcus afford a melancholy example of the disunion which existed among the Christian Churches. He appears first to have commenced his public disputations in the presence of Nothingus Bishop of Verona, who soon communicated the opinions to Rabanus. Rabanus immediately ¿ This name Ussher interprets to be the Servant of God, from Gott, God, and schalch, a servant. pronounced them heretical. Gotteschalcus with great intrepidity proceeded to Mentz, and again met his old opponent, now raised from the abbot of Fulda to the Archbishop of Mentz. The Archbishop assembled a Council in the year 848, to which Gotteschalcus presented a written statement of his opinions upon the subject of predestination. The Council condemned the doctrines, but did not venture to punish Gotteschalcus, as he belonged to the archdiocese of Rheims. Rabanus sent his prisoner to Hincmar, with a letter which certainly does not do him any credit; he commences it: "Notum est dilectioni vestræ, quod quidam gyrovagus monachus, nomine Gothescalc, qui se asserit sacerdotem in vestra parochia ordinatum, de Italia venit ad nos Moguntiam." Whatever his errors might have been, Rabanus ought not to have spoken in such terms of the individual, whom he had compelled to adopt the monastic life. Nor can we feel any respect for the conduct of Hincmar and his associates. A synod was summoned at Quiercy, where the doctrines of Gotteschalcus were again considered, and he himself sentenced to be degraded from his office of a priest, and to be flogged until he should throw into the flames a book in which he had made collections from Scripture to support his opinions, and then that he should be confined in the monastery of Hautvilliers. The cruelty and injustice of this punishment is well described by Remigius: "Quapropter illud prorsus omnes non solum dolent, sed etiam horrent: quia inaudito irreligiositatis et crudelitatis exemplo, tamdiu ille miserabilis flagris et cædibus trucidatus est, donec (sicut narraverunt nobis, qui præsentes aderant) accenso coram se igni libellum, in quo sententias Scripturarum sive sanctorum Patrum sibi collegerat, quas in concilio offerret, coactus est jam pene emoriens suis manibus in flammam projicere atque incendio concremare, cum omnes retro hæretici verbis et disputationibus victi atque convicti sint, et sic pravitas, quæ videbatur hominis fuerit coercenda, ut nulla divinis rebus inferretur injuria. Maxime cum illi sensus, qui ipso continebantur libello (excepto uno quod extremum ponitur) non essent sui sed ecclesiastici; nec igitur damnandi, sed pia et paci Hincmar himself ap fica fuerint inquisitione tractandi." pears to have felt this impropriety, for he endeavoured to persuade his victim to retract his opinions, but in vain. Twenty years after he renewed these efforts, when the wretched prisoner was sinking into the grave, and sent a formulary which he was to sign before he could be received into the communion of the Catholic Church. The firmness of mind had not sunk under the decay of bodily strength. Gotteschalcus firmly refused to sign the document, and Hincmar denied Christian burial to his remains. So far there appears but one united effort on the part of the Church to extinguish the errors of Gotteschalcus. But the Primate has, with consummate skill, brought forward the opinions of the opposing disputants, and has also marshalled against the decrees of the Councils of Mentz and Chiersi, the canons of the Councils of Valence, Langres, and Toul, and also the censure of the Church at Lyons. Although the Archbishop has given the extracts with great fairness, yet it is quite evident that he leans very decidedly in favor of Gotteschalcus, and considers him as only putting forward the doctrines of Augustine, he speaks of "Gotteschalci pariter ac Augustini sententiam de prædestinatione orthodoxam," and refers to the Confessions' as establishing * Works, vol. iv. pag. 192. I Milner, in his Church History, wishes to throw a doubt upon the genuineness of the Confessions, because, at the close of one of them, Gotteschalcus appeals to the judgment of God, and demands that the trial should proceed by boiling water, oil, pitch, and fire, a degree of enthusiastic presumption which was most culpable. The historian forgets the manners of the age, and that this practice had been sanctioned by the decrees of councils and the laws of monarchs. Most appropriately on this subject, the Archbishop quotes a passage from Johannes Mariana: "Visum est controversiam ignis judicio permittere: sic ejus seculi mores erant rudes et agrestes, neque satis expensi ad Christianæ pietatis exemplum." To prove that this custom was derived from the Heathens, he quotes the following passage from the Antigone of Sophocles : “Ημεν δ' ἔτοιμοι καὶ μύδρους αἴρειν χεροῖν, Τὸ μήτε δρᾶσαι, μήτε τῳ ξυνειδέναι Τὸ πρᾶγμα βουλεύσαντι, μήτ' εἰργασμένῳ," and refers to Spelman's Glossary, in voce "judicium Dei," for further |