Columbia ®ni»e«ftp mt^eCtlpofi^fttjgorb LIBRARY LIVES OF THE MOST EMINENT FATHERS OF THE CHURCH THAT FLOURISHED IN THE FIRST FOUR CENTURIES; WITH AN HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE STATE OF PAGANISil UNDER THE FIRST CHRISTIAN EMPERORS. BY WILLIAM C AVE, D. D. A NEW EDITION, CAREFULLY REVISED, BY HENRY GARY, MA. WORCESTER COLLEGE, AND PERPETUAL CURATE OF ST. PAUL's, OXFORD. VOL. in. /COL.COLIv. TJBRARY. X > YORK, y' OXFORD, PRINTED BY J. VINCENT, FOR THOMAS T E G G, 73, C H E A P S I D E, LONDON. 1840. C O N T E N T S. PAGE The Life of Gregory of Nazianzum, Bishop of Constantinople. Section I. — His Acts from his Birth till his coining from Athens - - - 1 Section II. — His Acts from his Return to Athens till his being made Bishop of Sasima 8 Section III. — His Acts from his being made Bishop till his going to Constan- tinople ---------- ---19 Section IV. — His Acts from his coming to Constantinople till the meeting of the Great Council there ,--- 30 Section V. — The Acts and Proceedings of the Second General Council - - 46 Section VI. — Particular Transactions of the Council relating to Nazianzen. His Resignation and Departure 66 Section VII. — His Acts from his Resignation to his Death - - - - 74 The Life of St. Cyril, Bishop of Jenisalera 91 The Life of St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan. Section I, — His Acts from his Birth till the Synod at Aquileia - - - 118 Section II. — His Acts from the Meeting of the Synod at Aquileia till the Death ofGratian 129 Section III. — His Acts from the Death of Gratian till the end of the Contest between him and Sj-mmachus 1 37 Section IV. — His Acts from his Contest with SjTnmachus till his Second Embassy - - - - - - - - - ■ - -1C2 Section V. — His Acts from his Second Embassy till the Death of Valentinian - 1 76 Section VI. — His Acts from the Death of Valentinian till his o\^-n Death - 192 The Life of St. Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis in Cyprus 205 The Life of St. Chrj'sostom, Bishop of Constantinople. Section I. — His Acts from his Birth till his being made Bishop of Constan- tinople ----- 237 Section II. — His Acts from his being made Bishop till the Trial- of Antoninus, Bishop of Ephesius 257 Section III. — His Acts from the Trial of Antoninus till the Combination made against him by Antiochus and others 270 Section IV. — His Acts from the Combination of -\ntiochus, Severian, &c. till his being deposed by Theophilus 278 13952 iv CONTENTS. PAGE Section V. — His Acts from his Departure till the Order for his Second Banish- ment . - - 293 Section VI. — His Acts from the Signing of the Warrant till his being carried into rianishinent -.------... 306 Section VII. — Ilis Acts from his going into Banislnnent till the Death of Ar- sacius .----..----*.- 321 Section VIII. — His Acts from the Death of Arsacius till his own Death - - 332 Section IX. — The Character of his Person, Temper, and Endowments - - 343 Section X. — Passages relating to Chrysostom that happened after his Death - 352 The Life of Arnobius .--- 3G9 The Life of Lactantius --------... 373 The Life of Paul, Bishop of Constantinople ---.... 385 The Life of Julius, Bishop of Rome --^ ------- 394 The Life of Eusebius, Bishop of Emisa -------- 4OO The Life of Ephraim the Syrian, Deacon of Edessa ------ 404 The Life of Damasus, Bishop of Rome - - - - - - - -413 The Life of Amphilochius, Bishop of Iconium - 423 The Life of Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa 428 THE LIFE OF ST. GKEGORY OF NAZIANZUM, BISHOP OF CONSTANTINOPLE.' ^-'•^OI^L lAnRAm K.yOKK. SECTION I. HI9 ACTS FROM HTS BIRTH TILL HIS COMING FROM ATHENS. The deamess between him and Basil. The place and time of his birth. His father Gregory brought up in an odd sect of religion, called that of the Hypsistarians. What that sect was. His bigotry in that way ; converted, by what methods. His baptism ; his advancement to the see of Nazianzum, The ill condition of that place at his coming to it. His diligence in its reformation. The exquisite piety of his mother Nonna. The pregnancy of his parts, and agreeableness of his temper to the noblest studies. His foreign education, in what places. His voyage to Athens, and the infi- nite danger of that passage. His eflFectual intercession with heaven. His dangers communicated to his parents in a dream. The appearance of his mother to one of his acquaintance in the ship. His happy arrival at Athens. His joint studies with Basil, and their generous emulation. His divine dream concerning wisdom and chastity. His acquaintance -with Julian, afterwards emperor, and the censure he then passed upon him. St. Gregory of Nazianzum ought by no means to be parted from St. Basil, the great companion of his Ufe ; a pair of the dearest and most intimate friends that we meet with in the whole his- tory of the church ; knit and bound up in so firm a friendship, that, as himself tells us,* they had all things common : Kol "Vvxh M''* Avo7v deovcra (xcufiarav SidaTacriV and that it was but one and the same soul that united and acted both their bodies. He was born at Arianzum,^ (where his father had a country house,) an obscure village belonging to Nazian- zum, a town of the second Cappadocia, situate in that part of the country called Tiberina, a poor, barren, unhealthful, and un- ■ Carm. de vit. sua, vol. ii. p. 4. '' Greg. Presb. in vit. Naz. p. 3. Nicet. argum. in Naz. Orat. xv. Vid. Naz. Orat. xxv p. 435. Epist. vi. p. 770. VOL. III. B 2 THE LIKE OF pleasant place, and which perhaps had silently passed untakeu notice of in story, had not the interest it had in this great man given reputation to it. He oamo into the world just about the time of the Qfreat Nicene council, as if tho Divine Providence had designed him on purpose for an able cham{)ion to defend that faith, that then began to be so vigorously opposed by the Arian faction, and which the fathers of that synod took so much pains to assert and establish. His parents were persons of the better rank,*^ and no less eminent for their virtues. His father (whose name also was Gregory) was a good man, but had been unhap- pily educated in an odd sect of religion,*^ a kind of Samaritan mixture, made up of Judaism and Paganism, or rather some select rites of each : with the Gentiles, they did honour to fire and burning lights, but rejected idols and sacrifices; with the Jews, they observed the sabbath, and a strict abstinence from some kinds of meats, but disowned circumcision ; pretending to worship no other deity but the almighty, supreme, and most high God ; whence they took to themselves the name of Hyp- sistarians'; a sect not appearing among the tribes of ancient heretics, though something like to it may be found among the Euphemitae, mentioned by Epiphanius.* It had been, it seems, the religion of his ancestors, and that wherein himself had been a bigot in his younger years, the deserting whereof lost him the kindness of his friends, estranged his own mother from him,^ and cut him off of his estate : all which he entertained with greater cheerfulness than others are wont to do the greatest honours, knowing that though he had lost a mother upon earth, he had gained a Father in heaven ; and though despoiled of his goods, he had secured " in heaven a better and an enduring substance."*' The chief instrument of his conversion was his wife, who con- tinually plied him with prayers and importunate persuasions, which at length made impression. Indeed he was admirably prepared for such a change, by the piety of his temper and the purity of his life. He was in a manner a Christian even before his coming over to Christianity : such his strict care and govern- ment of himself, his humility and modesty, his temperance and *^ Greg. Presb. in vit Naz. p. 3. ^ Naz. Orat. xix. p. 289. Vid. Orat. x. p. 161. xi. p. 178. Carm. de vita sua, vol. ii. p. 2. Carm. i. de rebus suis, vol. ii p. 33. Greg. Presb. loc. citat. « Haeres. Ixxx. s. 1. f Naz. Orat. xix. p. 289. SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. .3 chastity, justice and integrity, uncorruptness and impartiality, in all the great offices of the commonwealth which he had un- dergone. Thus disposed, he stood fairer for a compliance with that religion, wherein he was told these graces would shine with a better lustre, and wherein they would receive their ut- most accomplishment and perfection. And an accident hap- pened, which, though not very considerable in itself, did yet turn the scale. He dreamed one night," what he had never done before, that he sung that passage in David''s Psalms, " I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord.'" ^ This way of singing seemed a little strange to him, but withal inspired him with a secret pleasure and delight. The good woman was not to be taught how to improve the pas- sage, which she explained and urged with all its advantages ; she magnified the mighty kindness and condescension of heaven, pressing him not to be wanting to his own salvation, nor any longer to resist the call of God, but immediately to break through whatever stood in the way to hinder him. He now yielded up himself to her importunity, and that nothing might be wanting, an opportunity presented itself to crown and complete it. II. It happened about this time, that Leontius bishop of Cse- sarea, with some other prelates of his province, set out in his journey to the council of Nice, and took Nazianzum in their way. To him he addressed himself, and acquainted him with his earnest desire to be made a Christian ; in order whereunto he was forthwith put under the rites preparatory to his initia- tion, in the management whereof the catechist committed a mis- take ; for instead of making him stand up during his attendance upon the catechetic lecture, (as was customary for the catechu- mens who were candidates for baptism,) he kneeled down all the while, a posture proper only to those who were to be consecrated to the priesthood. They that were present perceived the mis- take, but withal looked upon it as a good omen of his future advancement to the episcopal office. Soon after, he was bap- tized by the bishop of Nazianzum ; when, at his coming out of the laptisterium, an extraordinary light and splendour was seen to shine round about him, beholden by several, who at present took no notice of it to one another, each one thinking the vision had been communicated to him alone; but especially to the ? Naz. Orat. xix. p. 293. •» Ps. cxxii. 1. R 2 4 THE LIFE OF bishop it appoarofl with so surprising a brii«:htness, that he pub- licly cried out, and told the people, that lio had anointed this person to be his successor in that place by the iuiniediate desig- nation of the Holy Ohost : which accordingly came to pass ; for, upon the bishop's death, after some considerable vacancy, he was promoted to that see. He found the place in a bad condi- tion, and every thing strangely out of order. It had not been lono- erected into an episcopal station, his predecessor being the first bishop ; a man indeed of an incomparable life, but of great plainness and simplicity, destitute of those advantages which the bishops of those times were furnished with, and which the evident necessities of the church did require : and yet even he too soon snatched away, and the see a long time vacant after his death, so that it was miserably overrun with vice and error when our new prelate entered upon it ; who set himself to make a speedy reformation, and by his prudence and diligence formed the people to better manners, and at once brought them under the laws both of civility and religion. Such, and so excellent a person, was this great man's father ; nor was his mother Nonnii less eminent for her sex : a woman descended of a pious family, whose virtues she improved to that height, that (if we may be- lieve the account which her son every where gives of her) she became for piety the wonder of her age. Children she had then none, at least but one daughter, (if Gorgonia w^as her eldest,) and was eagerly desirous of a son,* in which behalf she oft solicited heaven, promising, as Hannah did in the like case, if God gave her one, she would entirely devote him to him. Her prayers, like the other's, prevailed above, and God, to gratify her present importunity, was pleased in a vision by night to communicate to her both the shape of the child she should bear, and the name by which he was to be called. And no sooner was she delivered, but, careful to perform her vow, she immediately consecrated and gave him up to God. III. A child he proved of ripe pregnant parts,'' by which, and the advantages of domestic institution, under the discipline and government of his parents, he soon outstripped his equals in learning, w^herein he made such quick advances, that his tender years were no hinderance to those improvements which in others ' Naz. Carm. de vit. sua, vol. ii. p. 2. Orat. xix. p. 292. Greg. Presb. in vit. Naz. p. 3. ^ Greg, Presb. ibid. Naz. de vit. sua, ut supra. SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 5 are the attainments of the maturest age. He was above the little sports and pleasures of youth, which he generously slighted as vain and useless, and obstructive to the progress of nobler studies, nature having formed him to a more grave and serious temper; so that as his reason grew up with his years, he de- lighted in reading such books as were at that time written in defence of the catholic cause, and in frequently conversing with wise and good men. The first step of his foreign education was to Caesarea, where he put himself under the best masters, and where, I doubt not, he first became acquainted with Basil. Hav- ing rifled the learning of that university, he went into Palestine, to Caesarea Philippi, where some of the most celebrated masters of that age resided, and where the great Eusebius then sat bishop ; where he studied under Thespesius the famous orator,^ and had among other fellow-pupils Euzoius, afterwards by the Arian faction made bishop of that place. Here he particularly applied himself to the study of rhetoric, minding the elegancy, not the vanity and affectation of that profession. Hence he removed to Alexandria, whose schools were famous next those at Athens. Having fiirnished himself with the advantages of that society of learning, the last stage he designed was Athens ; where he intended to lay the top stone. In order hereunto, he went aboard a ship belonging to ^gina,™ an island not far from Athens, (the mariners whereof were his familiar acquaintance,) but in a bad season, it being then about the middle of November, when the seas are most rough and stormy, and navigation, if ever, dangerous. And he found it so : for being arrived near Cyprus, a violent tempest suddenly arose, which shook and tossed the ship at random, a thick darkness wrapped them up, so that neither land, nor sea, nor sky could be descried, and this attended with dreadful thunder and lightning, as frightful and amazing as the darkness that covered them. And to add yet a deeper accent, hunger and famine conspired with the common calamity, their provisions of water and victuals being all lost or spoiled, though herein seasonably relieved by some Phoenician traders, who, though in the same danger, ventured near the ship, and supplied that want. The storm in the mean time increased into a greater rage and fierceness, and continued several days ; ^ Hieron. de Script, in Euzoio, c. 113. "* Praeter loca siipr. vid. Orat. xix. p. 306. et Cami. L de reb. suis, voL ii. p. 36, 37. 6 THE LIFE OF the ship ran adrift, all the skill of the master or the strength of the seamen being vain and useless. The case, in short, seemed desperate, and no probability to escape ; every man gave up himself for lost, and bitterly bewailed his unhappy fate, and the immediate hazard of his life ; while our Athenian passenger was taken up with considerations that more nearly concerned him. The apprehensions of death and another world, had sum- moned him to a review of his past life, and nothing so much troubled him, as the thoughts of his being unbaptized, and thereby unentitled to the privileges of the Christian state : a reflection that made him burst out into the most passionate sorrows ; he tore his clothes, threw himself upon the floor, mourned and cried out with so loud exclamations, that the very seamen, laying aside the sense of their common danger, came and sat by him, and wept with him for company. But re- collecting himself, he addressed his prayers to heaven, and laid before God those miraculous deliverances and preservations he had aflbrded his people in the most imminent dangers ; he pleaded the particular care which the Divine Goodness and Pro- vidence had heretofore taken of him ; that he was his, by a most solemn dedication ; and that now, a second time, he did devote and consecrate himself to him, which he would assuredly make good, were he pleased at this time to deliver him. His prayers were no sooner ended, but granted : the tempest ceased, and the ship went on securely in its right course, with this farther happy effect of so miraculous a preservation, that all the passengers forthwith declared themselves resolved to become Christians. And what is yet further memorable, this imminent danger at sea was at the same time communicated to his parents in a dream, who presently betook themselves to prayers and tears for his safety ; and himself, a little after, as soon as the abating of the storm suff'ered him to indulge his rest, dreamed that he led in triumph a certain fury, a malignant demon, that had been busy to contrive and promote his ruin. Nay, one of his intimate acquaintance, a young man then with him in the ship, did at midnight, when they were at the greatest crisis of their danger, behold his mother Nonna coming along upon the sea, and laying hold of the ship, drawing it safe to land, which was no sooner declared, but the weather cleared up, and the tempest vanished. The storm thus over, thev held on their course, and . SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 7 passing by Rhodes, came not long after to iEgina, (where the ship-master lived,) and so to Athens, where he was joyfully en- tertained ; and it was soon known what he was, his great abilities rendering him admired, not only by the scholars, but the chief professors of that place. IV. He had not been long at Athens," when Basil, who had lately studied at Constantinople, came thither. And now the acquaintance that was begun before, grew up here into an in- dissolvable friendship. They dwelt together under the same roof, did eat at the same table, joined in the same studies, wherein they were not soured by envy, but whetted on by a generous emulation ; nor was the contention so much which should outvie and outgo the other, as which should be forwardest in yielding to the other the glory of their eminent attainments. They equally drew in the same paths of virtue, and nothing so firmly united their affections, as a mighty zeal and sincere re- verence for religion. They were generally taken notice of for their prudent and grave demeanour, their temperance and ab- stemiousness, their modesty and chastity, their integrity and contempt of the world, scorning those little arts by which others unworthily enriched and advanced themselves ; the firmness and constancy of their minds, which they maintained under the heaviest calamities, and eminently kept up in that terrible earthquake that overrun Greece, when the courage of so many others sunk and failed. I forbear particular instances of the fi'iendship and studies of these two great men during their residence at Athens, having remarked enough to that purpose in St. Basil's Life. While he thus pursued his philosophic studies, he had a not unacceptable "dream, that seemed to carry some- thing more than human in it. He dreamed, that sitting at his book,° he espied two lovely and beautiful ladies standing by him in white garments, one on his right hand, the other on his left. The man (who had taken up unalterable resolutions for a chaste single life) beheld them with a rigid fro^vn, asking who they were, and what their business. They, familiarly embracing him, answered, Do not be troubled, young man, we are very " Naz. Cann. de vit. sua, vol. ii. p. 4. Orat. xx. p. 330. Greg. Presb. in vit. Naz. p. 3. " Rufin. Prolog, in oper. Naz, inter Naz. oper. vol. i. p. 726. ex ipsius Naz. Cann. iv. de Anim. suae calam. vol. ii. p. 71, 72. 8 THE LIFE OF well known to you ; the one of us is called Wisdom, the other Chastity, and we are sent by God to dwell with you, who have already prepared in your soul so neat and pleasant an habitation for us, and with that vanished. And indeed armed with a pious and generous resolution, he maintained the innocency and integrity of his mind, amidst all the temptations, and those charms of company and conversation, which that place above most others did afford. Amongst others with whom he fell into acquaintance there, was Julian, p afterwards emperor, who was come thither under pretence of study, but chiefly to consult the impostors and magicians, (to whom he was passionately addicted,) concerning his future fortunes. His behaviour there was very odd and indecorous, so that from the usual distortings of his mouth, rolling and wandering of his eyes, the fierceness of his looks, the tossings of his head, and unequal motions of his shoulders, his uneven gait, and excessive laughter, his broken speech, rash and incoherent questions, and his bold and impious manner of disputing, Nazianzen was wont to foretell what course he would take, and to say to his friends, " See what a mischief the Roman empire nourishes in its bowels ;"" wishing withal, that herein he might prove a false prophet. Though, alas, the course of his after-life too truly verified that prediction. SECTION II. HIS ACTS FROM HIS RETURN FROM ATHENS TILL HIS BEING MADE BISHOP OF SASIMA. His public profession of rhetoric, and great fame at the time of his leaving Athens. His meeting with his brother Caesarius. The excellent learning of that young man, and his refusal of preferments and dignities oifered him to profess physic at Constantinople. Nazianzen's consultation about his future course of life. Or- dained presbyter by his father. His rescuing his father from the subtleties of the Arian impostures, and reconciling him to the monks. His oration upon that occasion. Julian's edict to prohibit Christians teaching of Gentile learning. This policy counter- mined by the excellent poems of Nazianzen and Apollinaris. His father's courage and resolution against Julian's officers. Nazianzen's two invectives against Julian published after his death. His retirement into the wilderness, and strict course of life there. His rctiuni home to assist the infirmities of his father. His apologetic de fuja sua. The death of Csesarius. A brief account of his learning, eminency, and V Naz. Orat. iv. p. 121, 122. Greg. Presb. in vit. Naz. p. 12. SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 9 preferments at court. His stout resisting Julian's solicitations. His return to court after the death of Julian. His miraculous escape in the terrible earthquake in Bithynia. His brother's letter to him upon that occasion. His funeral sermon preached by Nazianzen. His great charity, and Nazianzen's trouble in recovering his estate. Whether the Questions and Answers under his name be his. Basil had now quitted the university, and Nazianzen,^ by the unwearied importunity of the students, was prevailed with to stay behind, and pubHcly to profess the art of rhetoric ; which he did for a little while, managing the chair with great honour both to himself and the university. But the love of his own country, the age and infirmities of his parents, and the consider- able part he had spent of his own life, (being at this time thirty years of age,) made him earnestly desirous to return. So taking leave privately of his friends, he left Athens, and took his journey by land to Constantinople,^ where he met with his brother Ccie- sarius, just then arrived from Alexandria ; where he had so ac- complished himself in all the polite learning of that age, and especially in physic, (to the study whereof he had particularly applied himself,) that he had not been long in the imperial city, when his fame had so far recommended him to the notice and good opinion of all, that public honours were decreed him, matches propounded from noble families, the dignity of a senator offered him, and a committee ordered to wait upon the emperor, to en- treat him, that (though the city wanted at that time no learned men in any faculty) yet this might be added to all its other glory, that Csesarius might become its physician and inhabitant. These were indeed great temptations to a young gentleman : but the au- thority and influence of his brother Nazianzen weighed down all other considerations, at whose persuasions he modestly declined the honourable proposals and importunities of the city, which was by no means willing to part with him, and accompanied him into his own country, welcome to all, but especially to their parents, being made much dearer to them by so long an absence from them. The first thing considerable Nazianzen did after his re- turn, was to make good what he h'ad so solemnly vowed, to con- secrate himself to God by baptism. This done, his next consult was, in what course of life he should fix himself. He found himself strongly inclined to a solitary and monastic life, the * Greg. Presb. in \-it. Naz. p. 8. Naz. Carm. de vita sua, vol. ii. p. 5. ^ Naz, Orat. x. p. 164. 10 THE LIFE OF pleasures of retirement and contemplation being infinitely grate- ful to him. On the other hand, he was inflamed with a desire fully to inform himself in the knowledge of the holy scriptures, and the divine mysteries of the Christian faith, wherein he could not hope for those advantages from a solitary life, which he might expect from society and conversation. He resolved there- fore upon a middle course, neither wholly to desert the world, nor yet to engage in the business and the bustle of it ; he could reap the benefits of contemplation at home, as well as the de- voutest ascetic in the wilderness, and yet at the same time (what he accounted no small part of piety) be helpful and as- sisting to his aged parents. He looked upon it as a great part of that divine philosophy he had attained to, to be able to pro- mote the ends of virtue, without the help of a cell or a monastery, desiring rather to be, than to seem religious, it not being the place but the life makes the monk. And his father, to render him more useful both to himself and to the church, surprised him into ecclesiastic orders against his will. For though he had a singular reverence for the ministerial and episcopal order, yet was he resolved not to engage in it. Wherein yet his father overruled him, and ordained him presb3'ter, which he took the more patiently, considering the necessities of the church at that time, and how readv heretics were to infest the orthodox, as he tells Basil in a letter upon this occasion.*^ And indeed he had sad experience of their subtle insinuations in his own father. For the Arian party, managed by Acacius in the convention at Constantinople, held presently after that of Seleucia, anno 359, had, with as much artifice as they could, refined their doctrine; thev pretended, out of a mighty reverence to the scriptures, they could not admit any terms into the exposition of the faith which were not found there, and that therefore the word " con- substantiaF' being laid aside, they thought good to express the article thus : that " the Son was in all things like the Father, ac- cording to the scriptures." This smooth pretence imposed upon several of the Eastern bishops, and among the rest upon Gregory of Nazianzum,'* who received the confession, and admitted the persons to communion. Hereupon the monks of Cappadocia (of *= Epist. xi. p. 776. •1 Greg. Presb. in vit. Naz. p. 10. Naz. Orat. xix. p. 297. Vid. argum. in Orat. xii. vol ii. p. 632. SAINT GEEGORY NAZIANZEN. 11 all others the most zealous assertors of the catholic doctrine) flew off, denying him communion ; a great part also of the people, moved by their example, falling off from him. The breach was wide, and every day likely to become wider, had not Nazianzen bestirred himself to make it up. He first convinced his father of the error which his incautiousness and simplicity had run him into, which he found him as ready to recant, and to give public satisfaction to the people ; then he dealt with the other party, whom he soon prevailed with to be reconciled. And that he might bind all with a faster cement, he made upon this oc- casion his first oration concerning peace ;* wherein having ele- gantly described the monastic state, and given thanks to God for the late reunion, he persuades to a firm and lasting agree- ment, the advantages whereof he discourses at large, and the intolerable mischiefs and disorders that division brings upon the world. II. Julian was now got into the throne, and was become a declared enemy to Christians ; and among the several methods whereby he attempted to suppress and stifle Christianity, this was one. He published a law,^ prohibiting Christians not only to teach school, but (as the ancients tell us) to be taught the books and learning of the Gentiles. It vexed him to see how shamefully he and his party Avent down the wind, and especially that Basil and Nazianzen had so filled the world with the re- nown of their eloquence and learning ; and he had little hopes his beloved paganism would gain ground, while its adversaries were so able to beat them at their own weapons, which there- fore he was resolved to wrest out of their hands. But herein the wise was caught in his own craftiness, God raising up those, who, by their admirable works, abundantly supplied the want of any Gentile learning : among which of chief note were the two Apollinares in Syria ; the father, an excellent poet and gram- marian, in imitation of Homer wrote the whole story, and entire antiquities of the Jewish nation till the reign of Saul, in heroic verse, which he divided into twenty-four books, and denominated each according to the letters of the Greek alphabet. The rest of the sacred story he represented in other kinds of verse; either « Oral xii. p. 190. ' Naz. Orat. iii. p. 51. 96. Socrat. I. iii. c. 16. Sozom. 1. v. c. 18. Niceph. 1. x. c. 25. 12 THE LIFE OF comic like Menander, or tragic like Euripides, or lyric in the way of Pindar, indeed, conij)reliended the whole sy-'^tem of the liberal sciences in various sorts of poetry, still taking his argu- ment out of the holy scriptures. While his son, the younger Apollinaris, (besides his book virep a\rj6eia<^^ which he dedicated to the enii)er()r, wherein he dexterously defended the cause of Christianity, and refuted the falsehood and follies of the pagan religion,) reduced the history of the gospels and St. PauFs epistles into the form of dialogues, after the manner and in the style of Plato, and that with so much art and accuracy, that they were capable of vieing with the most elaborate and cele- brated compositions of the ancients. Upon the same occasion we are told, that Nazianzen composed a good part of his poems, comprehending all sorts of divine, grave, and serious subjects in all kinds of poetry.^ By which means, the Christian youth of those times were completely furnished, and found no want of those heathen authors that were taken from them. Nor did Julian proceed against the Christians merely by stratagems and arts of subtlety, but by acts of force and cruelty. He lay at this time at Csesarea, where he made them feel the effects of his severity, and thence he sent parties of soldiers up and down the country to rout the bishops, and take possession of their churches. One party of them came to Nazianzum,^ where the commander peremptorily required the church (which the elder Gregory had not long since built) to be delivered to him. But the good old man stoutly o23posed him, daily assembling the people there to public prayers ; who were so affected with the common case, that the officer for his own safety was forced to surcease his demand, and quietly to retire. Not long after this, Julian was slain, and " in that very day his thoughts perished :" after whose death Nazianzen published two invective orations against him, in which he strains all the sinews of his wit and eloquence to the highest peg, to describe the pernicious projects, desperate acts, and miserable death of that unfortunate prince. Wherein, though the subjects he treats of deserved a great share of that satirical and sarcastic rhetoric he bestows upon it, yet must it be confessed, that some things must be placed to the accounts of heat and animosity, and the liberty which orators B Greg. Presb. in vit, Naz. p. 12. 33. Zonar. Annal. 1. xiii. c. 12. •• Naz. Orat xix, p. 307. SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 13 are wont to take, especially in declamations against an invete- rate enemy, and one too that had particularly designed his head, had he returned safe from the Persian expedition. But it is time now to step back a little, to resume the story which we have left behind. III. Though Nazianzen, to comply with the importunity of his father and the exigences of the church, had suffered himself to be engaged in holy orders, yet he looked upon it as a kind of force and tyranny put upon him,' which he knew not well how to digest ; and it caused his natural inclinations to privacy and retirement with so much a greater impetus to return upon him.'' He had been of late strongly invited and importuned by his dear friend Basil,' to come to him into his Pontic solitudes, and though he desired nothing more, yet he knew not as yet how to desert his parents. But his brother Csesarius being now returned from court, with a purpose to fix at home, gave him opportunity to withdraw, who thereupon presently betook himself to his old companion ; with whom he spent some years in that solitary recess, where he perfectly learned to despise the world, to cor- rect the extravagancies of nature, to regulate his passions, and to subdue the lower appetites to the laws of reason and sobriety. He lay upon the ground, fed sparingly upon the meanest diet, wore nothing but what was coarse and vile ; he watched, wept, and fasted ; worked hard all day, and fared hard at night, which he spent many times entire in hymns or contemplations ; so far from yielding to the courtship of any pleasure, that he suffered it not so much as to address itself unto his thoughts. Nor was he yet so entirely taken up in these severe exercises of mortifi- cation, as wholly to neglect his studies, which he daily improved, especially that of the holy scriptures, which the oftener he read the better he liked, so that in a short time he began to disrelish those profane authors which before-time had stolen away so many of his hours, and had entertained him with so much de- light. IV. He thus employed himself, when the necessity of affairs at home forcibly ravished him from his sweet retirements. His father stooped under the infirmities of age, and was no longer able to attend his charge with that care and diligence he was ' Carm. de vit. sua, vol. ii. p. 6. •' Orat. i. p. 4. xix. p. 312. • Vid. Naz. Epist. ir. v. p. 769. 14 THE LIFE OF wont to do : llie Arians, by their interest at court, carried all before them in every place; turning out and putting in at plea- sure, and by their agents and emissaries in all parts perverting men of simple and honest minds. To be helpful to him in these circumstances, his father had oft solicited him to return ; and besides his own, had used the intercession of friends to persuade him, till at length he yielded, and came back. He returned about Easter, and took the occasion of making an oration to the people ;'" as afterwards, to vindicate himself from those ill in- terpretations which some men had made of his flight into the wilderness, he published a large apologetic," wherein he shews it was not fear of danger, nor making light of an ecclesiastic office, nor discontent that better preferment was not offered him, that had caused him to retire ; but a great love to solitude, a sense of his* nniitness for an ecclesiastic charge, and a dread of the importance and difficulties of the office : whereupon he pro- ceeds elegantly to describe the sacerdotal office, and what are the genuine qualifications of a true and well-accomplished prelate, with severe reflections upon the irregular ordinations, and mis- carriages of many in those times. That as to his return, he was swayed in it by a double motive : his desire to gratify the church of Nazianzum, who were importunate for his coming among them ; and the reverence he bore to his parents, whose commands he could no longer resist, and whose necessities called for his as- sistance. Thus he became coadjutor to his father, the cares of whose old age he relieved by his unwearied pains and diligence, in preaching, opposing, and convincing gainsayers, and all other parts of the ministerial function ; though some, who had been forward to recall him from his solitudes, shewed a great cold- ness and indifferency to his ministry, when he was come among them, whereof he complains with some resentment in an oration preached on purpose upon that occasion." V. He had not long entered upon this charge, when a sad accident did greatly afflict their family ; the death, I mean, of his brother Csesarius, who departed this life a little after the terrible earthquake that happened in Bithynia, Octob. 11th, anno 368 : a gentleman, whose parts, learning, and virtues, made him equal to any, superior to most of that time. After a pious "' Orat. xli. p. 673. Vid. Nicet. argum. v. comm. in banc Orat. " Orat. i. seu Apologet. post fugam. ° Orat. ii. p. 46. SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 15 education under his parents, he was sent to Alexandria,P where he soon went beyond his companions with great success ; travel- ling through the whole circle of the sciences, though he particu- larly betook himself to the study of physic, and became so emi- nent in that profession, that in his return (as we noted before) he was invited to stay at Constantinople upon the most honourable terms ; as before, his quick parts, vast learning, strict temj)erance and sobriety had endeared him to all at Alexandria. He re- turned with his brother into his own country, to which he conse- crated the first-fi'uits of his profession, not more to his own credit than the advantage of the places where he lived. Here he continued some years, when, to the dissatisfaction of his friends, he removed to Constantinople under the reign of Julian ; who loved a man of learning wherever he met him, but was par- ticularly taken with Csesarius. He had scarce given a specimen^ of his learning, and excellency in his art, when he was made chief physician to the emperor; and the highest honours and offices at court not thought too great for him, being at last made treasurer to the emperor. It was no small grief and trouble to his parents (nay, and what others reproached them with) that he had thus disposed of himself. What, the son of a Christian bishop thrust himself into the service and family of an apostate emperor ; one that openly defied, and plainly subverted Christi- anity ? Was it for him to engage in honours and offices, to hunt after power and grandeur, to amass wealth and treasure, at a time when he should think it the richest, noblest, and safest course, with a generous courage to oppose the growing impieties of the age, and to get as far as he could out of the reach of the villanies and mischiefs of an evil time ? How could bishops ever hope to prevail with others, not to suffer themselves to be carried down the stream, or to keep themselves from being in- fected with the superstition and idolatry of the times, if they could not first persuade their own children I With what face could they reprove others for their faults, that swept not before their own door, and removed the objections that lay at home? All which his brother represented in a letter to him,^ beseeching him to lay down his offices, and retire, as the only way to secure himself, and to refresh, comfort, and preserve the lives of his aged parents, at all times ready to tumble into their graves, but P Naz. Orat. x. p. 163. i Epist. xvii. p. 779. ]6 THE LIFE OF now wliolly unable to bear up under the weight of so great a trouble. That if all this swayed nothiug, he would only put him in mind, that one of these two things must be his portion : either, that continuing a sincere Christian, he must be unequally yoked with a shameful and impious tribe, and live unworthy of himself, and the great hopes that had been conceived of him ; or if he did go on to pursue honour and applause, it would betray him to temj^tation and a snare, and what would prove bitterness in the latter end. The counsel had its desired effect ; Csesarius grew weary of his attendance at court, and resolved to part with all, rather than "make shipwreck of faith and a good con- science."' Julian had attempted his constancy,"" with arguments suited both to his hopes and fears ; but these were easily thrown off. Next he sought to run him down by force of reason, and a warm and brisk dispute passed between them. But Csesarius stood his ground, and came off conqueror ; and having answered all his sophisms, and rejected all his offers, in conclusion plainly told him, that he both was a Christian, and was resolved to be so. And though, notwithstanding all this, the emperor was un- willing to j)art with him, yet being then preparing for his ex- pedition against Persia, Csesarius took the opportunity to return. About two years after he went back to court, when Valens, not yet tainted with Arianism, was advanced to the Eastern empire, by whom he was restored to his former office of comes rerum pri- vatarum, or treasurer of the imperial rents ; in which capacity a rescript to him is yet extant in the Theodosian Code. Indeed, both Valentinian and Yalens were at strife, which of them should have him ; though Valentinian was willing to resign him up, as fittest to serve the Eastern emperor. Nor was his present em- ployment any more than an earnest of what higher dignities were designed for him. In the execution of this office he went into Bithynia, where he was when that fatal earthquake hap- pened;^ which, as in other places it left such lamentable foot- steps of its rage and fury, so particularly overturned the great and famous city of Nice, with the far major part of its in- habitants ; and Csesarius himself had perished in the common ruins, had not the Divine Providence miraculously interposed for his deliverance, by preserving him and some few more under ■■ Naz. Orat. x. p. 167. • Vid. etiam Naz. Carm. i. de reb. suis, vol. ii. p. 34. SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 17 hollow parts of the ruinated houses, so that he escaped without any considerable damage. This accident Nazianzen immediately laid hold of, writing to his brother wisely to improve what had happened to him,Hhat even the fears of danger might be managed to very useful purposes, and to the bringing of us nearer unto God ; that we should not so much resent the evils that befall us, as be thankful to God that we are delivered from them ; and in all circumstances of life, whether private or public, devote our- selves to him, who is the author of our preservation, and whose service we ought not to neglect for a few little trifling advan- tages which places of honour and profit might bring in ; an ad- monition that perhaps might not be overwelcome to him : that he heartily wished himself with him, to bear part in the joy of his deliverance, and more fully to discourse him about these matters ; but if that could not be, that at least he might, out of hand, enjoy his company at home, where they might jointly solemnize the memory of so signal a preservation. Csesarius un- derstood his meaning, and, it seems, followed his advice : for soon after, he came home, fell sick, and died, and his funeral was attended with psalmodies, and lighted torches carried before it ; wherein his own mother bore her part : his funeral oration was made by his brother, wherein he especially commends him for his ingenuous temper, his sobriety, and the strictness of his conversation ; his care to keep himself, in the midst of all his greatness, from being corrupted with the snares of the world, and the vices that attend princes' courts ; his fidelity and con- stancy to his religion, and his incomparable charity to the poor ; whom by his last will he made the sole heirs of his estate," com- prising all in a few words, worthy to be written in letters of gold, TOL ifia Trdvra /SovXofjbat yeveaOac rcov Trrcw^a)!/, " My will is, that all that I have be given to the poor."' His estate was con- siderable, (though he had lost no small part of it in the fatal earthquake,) but no sooner was he dead, but some greedy officers laid hands upon it, pretending it due to them, and that they must be accountable for it to the exchequer ; nay, and Nazianzen, who had possessed himself of some small part of it, and disposed it to the use of his will, was brought into trouble about it ; inso- much, that he was forced to address himself to Sophronius the t Epist. xvi. p. 778. " Naz. Orat. x. p. 173. Basil. Epist. xxxii. s, 1. VOL. III. C 18 THE LIFE OF governor,^ and entreat him to do right to his deceased friend, one whom both living and dying he had loved and honoured ; and that he would pity and relieve those who were innocently betrayed into so troublesome an office. The contest, it seems, was not presently ended, it depending after Nazianzen was made bishop, as appears from St. BasiPs letter to Sophronius about this very thing ; " to whom he truly states the case, and begs of him to use his interest with the treasurer, that the business might be, brought to an issue; and that he would find out a way, whereby the good man might be freed from the vexatious suit wherein he was entangled. But to pass by that, so great and exemplary were Csesarius's virtues, that he was invested after his death with the honour of a saint, and his name has found a place in the Martyrologies of the church.^ Suidas says,^ he wrote several books, and especially against the Gentiles ; and at this day there are four books of Dialogues concerning divine and spiritual matters extant under his name : ** and for his, it is plain, they went in the days of Photius, when they consisted of two hundred and twenty Questions and Answers, though they contain somewhat less than two hundred at this day.'' The style is clear, but poetical, and the matters themselves accurately enough discussed. But it is very evident, that the author of these dialogues lived somewhat later than our Caesarius, as is manifest from several passages and quotations in them ; nor did he tarry, much less publicly teach, twenty years at Constan- tinople, as is expressly affirmed in the title of them. Not to say, that the argument of them being purely theological, and of the subtlest questions and speculations in religion, was foreign to a man of his profession, and unsuitable to his practice and course of life, and who was not baptized neither till a little be- fore his death : and what is more, his brother, in the large and particular accounts he gives of him, has not the least hint to this purpose ; no, nor that ever he committed any thing to writing, which if he had, it is not reasonable to think he would have passed it by. ^ Naz. Epist, xviii. p. 781. * Epist, xxxii. s. ]. y Vid. Mart, Rom. Feb. xxv. » In v. Kaia-dpios. » Ext. Gr. Lat. in Bibl. patrum, Gr. Lat. vol. i. p. 545. ed. 1624. ^ Vid. Bill, argum. in Naz. Orat. c. Cod. CCX. col, 540. SAINT GREGORY xNAZIANZEN. 19 SECTION III. HIS ACTS FROM HIS BEING MADE BISHOP TILL HIS GOING TO CONSTANTINOPLE. Basil's importunate soliciting him to become bishop of Sasiqja, and why. His obstinate refusal of that offer. The sharp contests between these dear friends upon that account. Overruled by the persuasions and authority of his father, he is ordained bishop of that place. His apologetic oration upon that occasion. His oration to entertain Gre- gory Nyssen. Anthimus of Tyana's endeavour to gain him over to his side. Na- zianzen's utter refusal to desert Basil. His neglecting to go to Sasima. The great inconveniences of that place. His withdrawing to an hospital, and being remanded thence to the assistance of his father, submitted to, upon what condition. His oration made upon that occasion. The mutiny of the people of Nazianzen against the im- perial assessor. All things pacified by Nazianzen's oration. The death of his sister Gorgonia. Her transcendent virtues, pious life, and happy death. The death of his father. His great age, and many infirmities. His exemplary virtues briefly enumerated. The sermon preached by Nazianzen at his funeral. This followed by the death of his mother Nonna. The holy life, the admirable graces and accomplishments of that pioua and excellent woman. His retirement from Nazianzum, and presiding over a society of devout virgins at Seleucia. Summoned to the synod at Antioch. By them obliged to go to Constantinople, to Bupport the sinking cause of catholic truth, miserably op- pressed by the Arian factions. His brother being dead, Nazianzen continued at home, perform- ing all dutiful offices to his parents, when he was unhappily- drawn into new troubles ; which he oft bewails as the greatest inquietude of his life. Valens the emperor (out of spite, as some conjecture, to St. Basil) had divided Cappadocia into two pro- vinces, and had constituted Tyana the metropolis of the second Cappadocia, by which means Anthimus, bishop of that see, set up for a metropolitan, and laid claim to the churches within that province, formerly dependent upon the see of Ceesarea. Basil resented the injury, but knew not how to remedy it, nor to make up the loss, but by erecting some new bishoprics ; which he did, and among the rest Sasima, (ra ^dcrcfia,) a town lying within the verge of the second Cappadocia. A trusty friend in this station, he reckoned, would mightily secure his interest, and keep a fair decorum between him and Anthimus, the town lying between Csesarea and Tyana ; and none could he think of so fit for this aifair as his dear friend Gregory. To him therefore he proposes it by letter,*^ which the other rejected with contempt, ' Naz. Orat. xx. p. 356. Epist. xxxi. et xxxii p. 795. Carm. de vit. sua, vol. ii. p. 7. Greg. Presb. in vit. Naz. p. 14. i."2 20 THE LIFE OF as a thing destructive of his beloved privacy, which made him decline all public preferment in the church, but this especially, a place so mean and contemptible in itself, and upon all accounts so inconvenient for him. Basil, nettled with his obstinate re- fusal, treated him it seems with some severity, calling him a rustic and a clown, and a man that understood not his interest, and that was resolved to forfeit and disoblige his friends. The other replied, with stomach enough, that he knew not wherein he had deserved this usage ; that it was hard for a man first to be abused, and then charged for complaining of it ; that perhaps the best account that could be given of it was, that his archi- episcopal dignity had swelled him with pride and loftiness ; otherwise, abating the eminency of his place, he knew not wherein he was inferior to him, a thing which he himself at all other times was forward enough to allow; that the world talked loud of him for this unkind attempt, and that he was weary with making apologies to defend him from those sharp censures that were passed upon him ; that those who spoke softest, said, it was not according to those strict laws of friendship that were between them ; that it was an instance of great contempt and disrespect, after he had made so much use of his assistance, (he means, I suppose, his endeavours in promoting Basil to the see of Caesarea,) he should now cast him away as a dishonourable instrument, good for nothing, and deal with him like the sup- porters of a new-built arch, which, when the structure is able to stand alone, are taken down, and thrown aside as useless and unprofitable ; that he begged of him to let him enjoy his ease and privacy, and not to reproach him with sloth and idleness, because he refused his offer of Sasima, and had no mind to a bishopric, while others were contending for them with zeal and fierceness; a quiet life being to him above all other business, wherein, if he had more to follow him, the church would have far less trouble, and the faith, which now by every party was made an instrument of faction, would be preserved much more entire and sound : that therefore he should do well to let him alone, and not attempt to rob the new metropolis of so glorious a prize as Sasima, and in the mean time discover (what he ought to keep secret) the unwarrantable design he had in it : that how- ever he disposed his affairs, yet, as to himself, he had gained these two points from his friendship, never henceforth to trust SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 21 friends, nor to esteem any thing more excellent and valuable than God, To such heats and jars may the dearest, and the firmest friendship be sometimes exposed. II. Basil, though meeting with all this opposition, would not however give over the attempt. His own interest failing, he knew no better way to overpower Nazianzen, than by gaining over his father to his party. He did so, and by his persuasions and commands he was at last j^revailed with to comply, and accordingly was ordained bishop of Sasima ; at what time he made an apologetic oration,'^ directed peculiarly to his father and St. Basil, and let them know what it was had made him so unwilling to undertake that charge, at the consideration whereof he was as much amazed as children are wont to be at a great flash of lightning ; that the thing being done, it was but rea- sonable they should be his guides and tutors, to instruct him in the true art of feeding and governing his flock ; withal modestly reflecting upon Basil, that he who, while they were fellow-pupils, had treated him with so much humanity, should now put such hard things upon him ; that he had indeed got the better of him, and carried the day, but it was not by argument, but by force ; that he should prosperously go on in his pastoral government, and shew him the way both by his precepts and examples, whose happy conduct he was resolved to follow. Upon the same argu- ment and occasion, and to the same persons, (though whether at the same time I know not,) he discoursed in another oration,* modestly complaining of the injury that had been done him, in drawling him out of the shades of his beloved solitude, and thrusting him upon the stage of a public life, a thing he little expected from persons of such intimate familiarity and friend- ship. The next day came Gregory Nyssen, Basil's brother, (who probably should have been present at the ordination,) whose arrival (it being then a festival-commemoration of the martyrs) he welcomed with an oration, *^ wherein, passing by his own case, as not proper for that occasion, he principally presses them to imitate the piety, purity, zeal, and constancy of the martyrs, to cleanse ourselves, and oiFer up soul and body as a living, holy, and rational sacrifice ; this was the way truly to celebrate the festival, and render it acceptable to Christ ; this the way to honour the martvrs, and not to meet to eat and drink, to in- "* Orat. vii. p. 142. " Orat v. p. 134. f Orat. vi. p. 136. 22 THE LIFE OF dulge luxury and deba\icliery, things fitter for a Pagan festival than a Christian solemnity. Anthimus of Tyana quickly heard of the ordination, whereupon, accompanied with some bishops of his province, he came to Nazianzum,'' under pretence indeed of making a visit to the elder Gregory, but the design was to try if he could bring over Nazlanzen to his party. He set upon him with all the methods of insinuation, sometimes congratulating, otherwhiles entreating ; sometimes threatening, and then ex- postulating ; now commending, and anon reproaching ; telling him that he ought to look upon him only as his ecclesiastical superior, and upon the new metropolis as the greatest and most honourable. Nazianzen vindicated the honour of the see of Ceesarea, as the most ancient and true metropolis of all those parts, nor could he be prevailed with to stir one foot. So that Anthimus departed in discontent, foaming, and charging him with Basilism, or an undue partiality to Basil, alluding to the charge of the Athenian ambassadors, who accused each other of Philippism, that is, of a traitorous correspondence with that Macedonian prince. After this, he summoned him to a synod, which the other refused, as an injury to the metropolitic rights ; then he wrote to him to intercede, that Basil and they might meet, to consult about and debate this matter. This he embraced as an equitable proposal, referring it to Basil to appoint time and place, or whether at all he would meet about it. But I believe it came to nothing. For Nazianzen, highly dissatisfied with what he had done, never so much as once honoured his see with his presence,*" nor performed any one ministerial or episcopal act in it : the truth is, it was a place that had little in it to invite him. It was a paltry inconsiderable town,' close and narrow, situate upon three great roads ; the common stage, where all the public horses and carriages were lodged ; the air unwholesome, the soil barren, and destitute of water ; the people inconstant and vagrants, the place perpetually full of noise and smoke and dust and filth. So that he could not but look upon his sending hither, as a condemnation to a prison or a dungeon. And it highly aggravated the unkindness, that, when Basil had above fifty sees in his province, he should pick out this, and create it on purpose for so dear a friend. And yet, after all, if he would ? Naz. Epist. XXX. p. 7.97. ** Carm. de vit. sua, vol. ii. p. 9. • Id. ibid. p. 7. Greg. Presb. in ^^t. Naz. p. 14. SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 23 have gone thither, he could not, for upon his refusal of submis- sion, his denying to desert Basil, and betray the ancient rights of his metropolitan, Anthimus had seized upon it, so that there could be no hopes for him to reside there with any tolerable comfort, or so much as with safety to his life. III. In these circumstances he knew not well which way to turn him, but judged it the best way for the present to retire ; ^ and so withdrew to an hospital, seated in a solitary place, where he passed his time in pious exercises, and the strictness of a phi- losophic life. But neither here could he find any rest. His father"'s commands followed him close, who earnestly desired (if possible) to fix him in his episcopal station at Sasima ; but that being peremptorily refused, he pressed him to come home, and under him to take upon him the charge of Nazianzum, his great years having disabled him, and in the judgment of all given him a writ of ease. He knew he had a temper to deal with, mightily averse to the incumbrances of a public life, and therefore re- commended the motion to him, with all the arts of endearment and soft insinuation. Taking him gently by the beard, " Son," said he, " your own father is become your petitioner, an aged father to a youthful son ; a master to one that is a servant by nature and a double obligation. It is not riches or great things I ask, I require no more than that, like Aaron and Samuel, you would undertake to minister before the Lord. Despise not the desires of him who was the instrument of your being ; and let it appear you have an indulgent father : the thing I request is fair and reasonable ; and though it were not, yet remember it is your father requests it, one who has spent so great part of his life in the ministeries of religion. Gratify me therefore in this, or else I vow that somebody else shall close mine eyes, and commit my body to the ground, which I intend to inflict as the punishment of your disobedience. It is but a little time that I have to live ; assist me in it, and then I shall leave you to your own counsels." To this pathetical address Nazianzen replied, " Sir, how trouble- some soever the commands are which you are pleased to lay upon me, yet for your sake I submit, and I am content to take upon me the administration of your cure at Nazianzum, only upon this condition, that whenever you shall be translated into heaven, I may be perfectly free from all obligation to that charge." Upon '' Vid. ubi supr. 24 THE LIFE OF these terms they at!:ree(], and he became his coadjutor In the episcojnil office. Whence the error of St. Jerome,' Rnfinus,'" Socrates," and troops that follow their authority, is very obvious, when they make him to liave been bishop of Nazianzum, while himself most expressly tells us," that he was not ; and that out of reverence to his aged father, and the mighty importunity of friends, he only engaged in it as a substitute for his father's life, with open protestation, that he would be obliged no longer, nor succeed him in it. At the entrance upon his charge he made an oration,'' wherein he addresses himself first to his father, with whom he expostulates why he had made choice of so weak a crutch to support his age and cares, and, indeed, why any at all t His body, though infirm and weak, was yet acted by a soul brisk and vigorous, and now wholly free from the inordinate motions of the sensual appetite ; that it concerned him however to have made such a choice, wherein he might not seem to have been led more by considerations of consanguinity and relation, than the common good. Next he turns to the people, whom he acquaints with the force that had been used towards him, and how much he had yielded to the age of his father, and the importunity of his friends, and therefore begged their assistance, according to their several capacities : that he was distracted between two dif- ferent principles ; his inclination to solitude made him cast an eye to the mountains and the wilderness, and long for those happy opportunities of retiring from the regions of sense, of turning inward, and conversing with God and his own mind ; on the other hand, the sacerdotal consecration that had passed upon him, obliged him to appear in public, and to consult the hap- piness of others, to reclaim men from vice, and repair the divine image in them, and to form and build up a peculiar people unto God ; that no man ought merely to consult himself, but to pro- mote the good of others, though with some disadvantage to him- self, a practice wherein our Lord has set us the most generous example : that he would, as much as might be, reconcile these two courses, neither desert this ministry, nor yet take upon him a burden too heavy for him, and which his strength would not serve him to go through with ; that therefore for the present Ite would undertake the charge, to comply with his father's age and 1 In Greg. Naz. c. 117. "" Lib. ii. c. 9. " Lib. iv. c. 11. 26. o Epist. xlii. p. 804. Orat. viii. p. 148. p Orat. viii. p. 145. SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 25 infirmities, but after that he would be free, nor should any man prevail with, or compel him against his inclination ; and though the succeeding in a paternal charge wanted not some considerable advantages to recommend it, yet that the best and safest course was both for governors and people to be mutually willing to em- brace each other, the laws of religion and the church command- ing the episcopacy, or oversight of the flock, to be undertaken willingly, and not by constraint to have It forced upon them. IV. One of the first things he did, after his coming amongst them, (if I conjecture the time aright,) was his making their peace with the offended governor. The people of Nazianzum, either burdened with some unreasonable taxes, or vexed with some Intolerable edict, had, it seems, broken out into evident symptoms of tumult and discontent. Whereat the governor, (whom one of the ancient scholiasts supposes to have been Julian, the assessor of the imperial taxes, "^ who had been Nazi- anzen's schoolfellow,'' and was his intimate acquaintance,) highly offended, flew out into passion, and threatened to make them feel the justice of his provoked severity. To pacify his anger, and to allay the storm, Nazianzen gets up into the pulpit, and makes an oration to them ;^ wherein, after he had endeavoured to support the minds of the people under their npprehenslons of danger, and advised them how to behave them. ?^''^s, alther to be secure or insolent in prosperity, nor yet despondent in cala- mitous times, but especially to submit to God, the supreme go- vernor of the world, and to princes, as those that are sent by him to preserve the public order and discipline of mankind, obedience to government being one of the 'great laws of the Christian religion ; he next directs his speech to the magistrates, whom he beseeches to own and stoop to his spiritual authority ; and then, lastly, to the governor, whom he puts in mind of his pious education, his baptism, and strict profession of the catholic faith, persuading him, by many excellent arguments, to use his power with mercy and moderation, and to improve that autho- rity for Christ which he had received from him ; a subject which he manages with so much eloquence and strength of reason, that, were there nothing else, this alone were enough to shew him to have been one of the master-orators of that age. V. About this time died his sister Gorgonia, whose funeral ^ Vid. Billii arg. in Orat. xvii. ^ vid. Orat. ix. p. 158. * Orat. xvii. p. 265. 26 THE LIFE OF sermon lie preached.* She was the wife of Vitalian, a gentleman in those parts, by whom she had several children. A woman of transcendent virtues ; pious towards God, whose house she fre- quented, whose ministers she reverenced ; charitable to the poor, whose necessities she relieved, and her house open to all that wanted; prudent and exemplary in her relations; one who knew how to reconcile the advantages of celibacy with the con- veniencies of a married life, and to reap the fruits of both ; grave, but not austere ; neither merry nor morose ; a great enemy to all modes of artificial beauty ; chaste in her garb, temperate in her diet, much conversant in watching and absti- nence, spending whole nights in singing psalms, or in reading the scriptures, or in divine meditations or fervent prayers, wherein she was so frequent, that her knees were grown hard, like those of camels ; so modest and bashful, that in extremities of sick- ness she would not endure a physician to come near her, being unwilling that in those circumstances any man should either see or touch her. She was seized with a very malignant fever, which, attended with some other complications, rendered her case desperate beyond the hopes of her friends, or the skill of physicians. In this condition she ventured upon a strange, un- accountable way of cure. Finding some intermission of her fits, she got up, and, in a stormy night, went to church, where she kneeled down before the altar, or communion-table, and poured out her prayers to Christ ; and laying her head upon the table, protested she would not take it thence, till she had recovered her health ; withal pouring out such abundance of tears, that she moistened the pieces of the holy eucharist (ra avTirvira tov TijJblov aay/jLaro^ fcal aifiaro^^ " the antitypes or figures of Christ's precious body and blood,'"* as Nazianzen there calls them") which she had about her ; whereupon of a sudden she found herself perfectly restored to health : which yet did not abate her vi- gorous desires to depart, and to be with Christ; and God granted her request, and was pleased, by an extraordinary vision, to re- present to her the particular day of her dissolution ; which being come, she called for her husband, children, and friends about her, and having discoursed incomparably to them, what properly concerned their several duties, she fell into a trance, so that they all concluded her to be dead ; but her lips being perceived still » Orat. xi. p. 176. " Ibid, p. 187. SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 27 to move, she was found, by those who laid their ears close to her, to be repeating of a psalm, which she had then brought to the conclusion, " I will lay me down in peace to sleep, and will take my rest f and with that finished her psalm and her life together. VI. Her death was followed not long after with that of her father, the aged bishop of Nazianzum, then near an hundred years old,"*" after he had sat forty-five years bishop of that place. His great age betrayed him to many infirmities, and those attended with painful and acute distempers, which grew upon him as he approached nearer to death, and wherein he seldom had any intermissions, but while engaged in the public ministra- tions, all which time he had perfect ease ; whether the intense- ness and fervency of his devotion overpowered the sense of pain, or God mercifully restrained and tied it up, while he was en- gaged in so good a work. He was renowned for his strictness and sobriety, his justice and integrity, even before his conversion to Christianity, as afterwards he became a serious professor, and a most incomparable prelate ; and though wanting those previous advantages of education which others had,^ yet he quickly made up all by an indefatigable industry, whereby he arrived to an exquisite understanding of the scriptures, and those controversies that exercised the church in those times. A constant friend to, and zealous defender of the catholic doctrine : he found his see miserably overrun with vice and error, both which, with infinite diligence, he rooted up ; and that God might be worshipped in a decent manner, he built from the ground a very neat and beau- tiful, a stately and magnificent church,-'' elegantly adorned with columns and porticos, and with all sorts of curious sculpture and architecture, wherein, though he took in the contributions of the people, yet the main of it was done at his own charge. In his garb and diet he was wont to observe a just decorum, equally distant from sordidness and curiosity ; and though none con- tented themselves with meaner food and clothes, yet he managed it in such a way, as seemed least liable to vanity and affectation. In his conversation he was courteous and affable, none more gentle and easy to pardon injuries ; and though nature had formed him inclinable to passion and quick resentments, yet he ^ Orat. xix. p. 313, ^ Ibid. p. 206. et Caxm. iv. de anim. suae calamit. vol. ii. p. 71. y Hujusce templi descriptionem habes, Orat, xix. p. 313. 28 THE LIFE OF never gave way to it, but where zeal against obstinate offenders made it necessary : to the poor he was kind and charitable, and indeed a common father ; and, what crowned all, was a man plain and honest, a true " Nathanael, in whom there was no guile."" Amongst other prelates present at the funeral was St. Basil, to whom Nazianzen, in the beginning of the oration which he then made, particularly addressed himself with many sin- gular commendations, as in the conclusion of it he directed his <liscourse to his mother Nonna,^ to support her mind under so great a loss; that she was not to wonder at what had happened; all things in this world are obnoxious to change and mutability, subject to decay and die, the happiness of the other world only being immutable and eternal, to provide for which is the great business of life, and that therefore there could be no reason to mourn for those that had made so happy an exchange, unless we can be so uncharitable as to rob another of his happiness, merely for our own conveniency ; if the burden was heavy, it was but a little way she had to bear it, she herself being like shortly to follow after ; and though they were great comforts she had lost, yet it was to be remembered how long she had enjoyed them; that it ^^as but fit she should submit to what was best ; and she, who with so much wisdom and courage had borne the death of her children in their most flourishing years, ought much more to bear the fall of a tottering carcase, quite worn out with age and weakness. And indeed the consolations were proper and seasonable ; for the good woman, thus deprived of the main staff of her life, and herself ready to drop into the grave, (being near of equal years with her husband,) died (as may probably be con- jectured) soon after. A woman of incomparable piety, which she inherited as an hereditary blessing from her ancestors,^ and which she imparted first to her husband, and then to her chil- dren ; a faithful wife, and an excellent mother. Those little arts of fineness and bravery, whereof other women are so much enamoured, she slighted, accounting the truest beauty to lie in a divine temper of mind, and no nobility to be comparable to the virtues of a good life. She carefully administered the affairs of her family, as if she had had nothing else to mind, and yet attended the duties of religion, as if that alone had been her business. The ministers of religion she was wont to entertain y Greg. Naz. Orat. xix. p. 315. ^ Orat. x. p. 161. xix. p. 290, 291, etc. SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 29 with a profound reverence, beholding them as the messengers of heaven, and stewards of holy things : her time she spent in fasting and watching, in prayers and singing psalms day and night ; in the public congregation she was taken up with silent admirations, and her soul possessed with so awful a reverence of the majesty of those divine solemnities, that she would never turn her back upon the holy table, nor spit upon the pavement of that place, where God was so devoutly worshipped ; she shunned the converse of the Gentile ladies, even those of them that were nearly related to her, whom she would not salute with the ordinary expressions of familiarity, nor eat with those that defiled themselves with pagan idolatrous worship. In the midst of those many and severe troubles that came upon her, she main- tained an even temper of mind ; whatever accident befell her, praise was always the first word in her mouth ; not a tear in her eye, nor a mourning habit to be seen upon her, upon any of the church's festivals. And yet, at the same time, none more com- passionate of the miseries of others, and more ready to assist them ; singularly kind to her indigent relations, and no less charitable to the poor ; a public guardian to widows and orphans, to provide for whose necessities she reckoned was the only true and durable riches, and the best wav at once to secure and improve an estate. VII. By these heavy breaches in the family, one following close at the heels of the other, Naziauzenwas suflScientlv weaned from the place of his nati\-ity, and looking upon himself as now fully released from the obligation of his promise, resolved im- mediately to throw up his charge. In vain he attempted to procure a successor to be placed at Nazianzum ; whereupon he retired, and went to Seleucia,* famous for the temple of St. Thecla the virgin-martyr ; where, in a monastery of devout virgins dedicated to that saint, he continued a long time, hoping that in the mean while the see of Nazianzum would have been disposed of. He returned much about the time of St. Basil's death, whom, to his great trouble, he could not attend in his last hours, being himself at that time detained by sickness, though afterwards he honoured his memory with an elegant encomiastic,^ where, in lively colours, he described that great * Canru de vit. sua, vol. ii. p. 9. Greg. Presb. in vit. Naz. p. 16. *» Orat. XX. p. 316. 30 THE LIFE OF man''s virtues and course of life. But the church of Nazianzum re- mained still a widow, and so continued several years, the greater affairs of the church swallowing up the care of that. About this time, Nazianzen was summoned to the synod at Antioch, holden anno 878, to heal the schism that had so long raged in 4tliat church, and to consult about the distracted state of the Eastern churches, miserably harassed by the late prevalency of the Arian party. In this council, some were deputed to go into one part, and some into another ; and among the rest, Nazianzen, as one whose polite parts and leaftiing could not but render him acceptable to the court, and capable of coping with the ablest adversary, was overruled quite contrary to his own inclination (as he expressly tells us) to go to Constantinople,*^ (the main- spring that gave life and motion to the mischievous attempts of the several parties,) there to encourage and assist the orthodox, and to undertake the defence of the catholic cause. SECTION IV. HIS ACTS FROM HIS COMING TO CONSTANTINOPLE TILL THE MEETING OF THE GREAT COUNCIL THERE. His abode at Constantinople, where. His numerous congregation of Catholics. His oratory erected into a church ; called Anastasia, and why. The mighty opposition he met with from several sectaries. His fame hereby increased. Two of his most noted scholars, St. Jerome and Evagrius Ponticus. This Evagrius, who. Nazianzen desired by the Catholics at Constantinople for their bishop. The beginning of his troubles upon that account. Maximus the Cynic of Alexandria, who. His notorious juggling and impostures. His insinuating himself into Nazianzen's favour. His ambitious designs to obtain the bishopric of Constantinople. Three Egyptian bishops privately sent thither for that purpose, who secretly ordain Maximus. A great tumult hereupon in the city. Nazianzen's oration to them at that time. Maximus forced to fly the city ; makes his interest among the Western bishops, who appear in his behalf; solicits his cause at court, but in vain ; flies to Alexandria, and is expelled thence. The fresh rage and malice of the Arians against Nazianzen. His particular answers to the frivolous cavils and scurrilous reflections which they cast upon him. His mildness and clemency blamed by his friends and followers. The declaration of his resolution to leave that place. This highly resented by his auditors. His promise not presently to forsake them. Theodosius's edict for confirmation of the catholic faith, and suppressing heretical conventicles. His arrival at Constantinople, and publication of another law more express to the same purpose. The date of that law not corrupted. His expelling Demophilus the Arian bishop out of the city. The churches delivered « Carm. de vit. sua, vol. ii. p. 10. Vid. Naz. querel. ad Episcop. ibid. p. 301, 302. SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 31 to the Catholics. Nazianzen highly in favour with the emperor. Preparations for the solemnity of his instalment, and what happened at that time. His modest declining that solemnity. The manner of his private life. His sickness, and singular clemency towards an assassin that crowded into his bedchamber with a design to kill him. Coming to Constantinople, he took up his lodging with one of his own relations ; ** whom Baronius not improbably supposes to be Nicobulus,® who had married Alypiana, one of his sister Gorgonia''s daughters. Here he found the catholic interest at the lowest ebb ; the Arians, during the favourable government of the emperor Valens, had possessed themselves of all the churches, and carried things with so high a hand, that scarce any durst openly appear to own the truth. He first preached in his lodg- ings to those that repaired thither, (Valens's edict having lately given liberty to the Catholics,) and the congregation soon grew numerous ; and the house, by the bounty of his kinsman, was freely bestowed, and immediately erected and consecrated into a church, which Nazianzen entitled the church of Anastasia, or the Resurrection, because the catholic faith, which in that city had hitherto been oppressed and stifled, here seemed to have its resurrection/ Though Sozomen gives another reason of the name : ^ that while they were one day at their public worship, a woman great with child fell down from a gallery into the church, and was taken up dead. But the congregation imme- diately joining in prayer to God for her, she revived, and ap- peared as one miraculously raised from the dead. But the former account is most to be relied on, as being given by him who had most cause to know, I mean Nazianzen himself. In this church he assembled daily, and preached boldly, not with more success to his ministry, not with greater satisfaction to his people, than with trouble and vexation to his enemies. The Arians and Apollinarians, an upstart sect, (whose growing errors he also vigorously opposed,) had their eyes upon him, and were sufficiently apprehensive, how much their cause was like to be baffled by so able a champion's entering the lists against them. Hereupon they fall to their ancient artifices of reproach and slander, traducing him to the people as an infamous heretic, particularly that he maintained that there were three Gods,*^ •* Orat. xxviii. p. 484. « Ad Ann. 378. ' Vid. Carm. ix. de insomn. Anast. p. 78. Orat. xxxii. p. 527. ^ Lib. vii. c. 5. ^ Cann. de vit. sua, vol ii. p. 10, 11, etc. Greg. Presb. in vit. Naz. p. 18, 19. 32 THE LIFE OF because he had asserted that in the Holy Trinity there were three hypostases^ or persons subsisting, which the vulgar (custom not having as yet fixed the notion of the word) took for distinct substances. Having thus prepared the minds of the people, they next instigate them to open violence, who thereupon treated him as he went along the streets with showers of stones ; and not content with this, they dragged him as a malefactor before the magistrate, charging him with tumult and sedition. The rage and the clamour was great against him, but he com- forted himself at that instant to remember, that though they had the stronger party, yet he and his had the better cause:' they had the churches, he had God ; they had the people to back them, he had angels to guard him ; they had boldness and confidence, he the faith on his side ; they could threaten, while he could pray ; they beat him, and he endure it ; they had wealth and treasure, he the true catholic doctrine : he had, it is true, but a little flock, but it was securely lodged ; a narrow fold, but it was free from wolves, and the assaults of thieves and robbers ; but which he doubted not daily to see enlarged, and that by the accession of those who at present were wolves, who he hoped would become not shee^:) only, but some of them pastors of the flock. The accusation being examined, was found false and groundless, and he accordingly dismissed without further trouble. II. The oppositions he met with did but so much the more increase his fame and the number of his auditors, and drew to him admirers and followers out of foreign parts ; among which, two were especially remarkable : St. Hierom, who having quitted the West, had some years since taken up his abode in the deserts of Syria, and being ordained presbyter by Paulinus of Antioch, came to Constantinople, and put himself under the tutorage and discipline of Gregory Nazianzen, an happiness wherein he glories at every turn •} the other was Evagrlus Pontlcus, a presbyter's son, born In Iberia,' near the Euxine sea ; a man of a subtle wit, quick and ready apprehension, learned and eloquent, of a staid and grave temper, moved neither with Injuries nor commenda- » Orat. XXV. p. 440. ^ Epist. xxxiv. ad Nepot. vol. iv. par. ii. p. 262. Catal. scriptt. eccl. in Greg. Naz. Adv. Jov. 1. i. vol. iv. par. ii. p. 1.57. et alibi. ' Socrat. 1. iv. c. 23. Sozom. 1. vi. c. 30. Niceph. 1. xi. c. 42. SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 33 tions. He stuclleJ philosophy and the holy scriptures under Nazianzen, who made him archdeacon of Constantinople, as be- fore he had been ordained reader by St. Basil."" He was a hand- some man, and loved neatness and elegancy in his habit, which rendered his company acceptable to the ladies ; insomuch, that a great man growing jealous of him, laid a design against his life ; whereof being plainly warned in a dream, he the next day left the city, and fled first to Jerusalem, and then into Egypt : where, in the famous monastery of mount Nitria, he engaged in the strictest profession of the monastic life, and obstinately de- clined a bishopric, when afterwards pressed to it by Theophilus bishop of Alexandria. He was a great patron of the Origenian dogmata^ and wrote many books, which they that are curious may find reckoned up by Socrates and Nicephorus. HI. The number of the orthodox was by this time grown con- siderable at Constantinople ; who earnestly desired that a catholic bishop might be placed over them, and Nazianzen was the man designed, concurrent with the people^s desires, wherein were the votes of almost all the orthodox bishops of the East ; especially his old friend Meletius of Antioch, who stickled hard for it ; and Peter, St. Athanasius's successor at Alexandria, who by letters congratulated the choice, and gave suffrage for his confirmation in that see : though the troubles that ensued, rendered it un- easy to him, and soon made him resolve to quit the place. They began thus. There was at Alexandria one Maximus, by birth an Egyptian," by profession a Cynic philosopher, but withal a Christian ; who pretended to be descended of a noble family, and that too honoured with the blood of martyrdom ; and that him- self, upon the persecution that arose after Athanasius's death, had for his constancy to the truth been banished to Oasis, one of the most uncomfortable solitudes in Egypt. He went habited, according to the custom of his order, in a pallium^ with his hair growing to its full length, and a staff in his hand, carrying a semblance of the greatest strictness and gravity ; and, as the men of that sect w^ere wont, used bluntly to address himself to great men,° and freely to expostulate with them in matters of right and wrong ; and took a liberty to reprove the vices of the age, ™ Vid, Pallad. Hist. Laus. c. 86. ubi de eo plura. " Carm. de vit. sua, voL n. p. 12, etc. Greg. Presb. in vit. Naz. p. 20, etc. ° Naz. Orat. xxiii. p. 413. VOL. III. D 34 THE LIFE OF and to censure and correct tlie mlscarriaofes and indecencies of any persons of wliat rank soever. ]5y tliese smooth and demure pretences lie cast a mist before the eyes of tlie ])eople, and con- cealt'cl his iVaiid and treachery, liis gluttony and covetousness, his pride and ambition, and the rest of those vices whereof he was really guilty. However, he had gained a considerable reputa- tion in the world, and held correspondence with men of chiefest note in foreign parts, as appears by St. JiasiPs two letters to him.P And having- thus acquired a stock of credit, he came to Con- stantinople, where the first thing he did was to insinuate him- self into Nazianzen"'s acquaintance, who welcomed his arrival with an oration ; wherein he expatiated himself in his praises for the nobility of his birth, "> his relation to martyrs, his own personal sufferings, his masculine temper, and the admirable course and institution of his life: all which," afterwards, when he came to discover him, and was forced in another oration to set him out in his own colours, he tacitly retracted, either himself, or some other for him, that he might not seem to contradict himself, ex- punging the name of Maximus,' and inserting that of Hero the philosopher, the title that it bears at this day. Nay, so far had the subtle impostor made his way, that the good man took him into his house, and to his own table, instructed him in the mysteries of the faith, baptized him, and after some time admitted him to the lower orders of the church, and indeed communicated to him his most intimate counsels and transactions. And now the wretch thought himself sufficiently qualified to set up for himself: he saw Nazianzen was like to be fixed in that see, and he had not so mean an opinion of himself, as not to think he deserved it as well as' his master. To this end he confederated with one of Nazianzen's presbyters, who, without any other provocation than that he himself had not been the person nominated to the bishopric, though in truth he governed all under Nazianzen, took part with Maximus, who accordingly laid their heads together to contrive and carry on the design. And now an interest is made for him at Alexandria : and Peter, who so lately stood for Nazianzen, and had by letters conveyed him his vote and suffrage, tacked about, and espoused Maximus's design ; and three bishops (for so many I guess they were) are despatched V Bas. Ep. ix. cclxxvii, q Oral, xxiii. p. 409. ' Hieron. de script, in Greg. Naz, c. 117. SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 35 to Constantinople to eifect the matter, who set out not long after the fleet that carried the public tribute of corn that was annually transported to Constantinople; the masters of which ships were Ammon, Apammon, Harpocras, Steppas, Rliodon, Anubis, and Hermannubis, whom Baronius, by a great mistake, makes to have been the bishops, and thereupon enters into a needless discourse of the episcopi frumentarii^ and the corn-tribute : whenas (besides that Nazianzen styles them " contemptible sea- men"') it is plain, the bishops went not on board till after the fleet was set out, the masters whereof were to go before,'' to pre- pare the way, and to promote the design : at whose arrival Nazianzen entertained them with an oration in commendation of their city,* that had been an impregnable fortress of the true doctrine of the church ; of Athanasius their late, and Peter their present bishop, both stout champions of the faith ; and that they themselves coming to the imperial city, had so readily joined themselves to the catholic party. And perhaps at this time it was that he made his particular encomiastic in praise of the great Athanasius," whose virtues he fully describes, with a memorable account of his life and actions. IV. Maximus found his design mightily strengthened by this accession of his countrymen, and yet to bind the Egyptian bishops firmer to him, he corrupted them with extraordinary bribes ;^' having to that end, by crafty insinuations, and a pre- tended secm'ity given, borrowed large sums of money of a certain presbyter, newly arrived at Constantinople from Thassus, an island in the ^gean sea, to buy pillars of Proconnesian marble, and other materials for the building a church in that island. And now the work went on apace, to which Nazianzen's absence contributed a fit opportunity ; who, the day before, had, upon an indisposition, retired out of the city to take the air. That very night the Egyptian bishops privately broke into his church, and placed Maximus upon the episcopal throne. But morning coming on, and the report of it being spread about the city, both clergy and laity, magistrates and people, citizens and strangers, yea, the very Arians themselves flocked together, and in a great fury drove them out of the church, before they could finish what they » Naz. Carm. de vit. sua, vpl ii. p. U. * Orat. xxiv. p. 424. " Orat. xxi. p. 373. "■ Carm. de vit. sua, vol. ii. p. 14. Greg. Presb. in vit Naz. p. 21. D 2 36 THE LIFE OF had begun ; so that, being forced out thence, they went into a player's house hard by, Avhere, attended with a few lewd ex- connnunicate persons, they cut off his hair, and consecrated him bishop of that place; which was no sooner done, but the people stormed more than before, loading him with all manner of re- vilings, and blaming Nazianzen himself for treating the wretch with so much kindness and humanity, and nourishing such a pernicious viper in his bosom. The news hereof coming to him, (whose candour and simplicity had rendered him secure, and un- suspicious of such perfidious dealing,) he hastened into the city, where he made an oration to the people;" whom he lets know, how great a trouble it had been to him to leave them, which yet made him return with so much the more cheerfulness and re- joicing ; and having told them, how much a little absence did accent and increase mutual affection, he reflects upon the great villany of Maximus and his party, in their late transactions, de- scribes the temper of a true Christian philosopher, and by the characters which he there lays down, weighs himself and his own life and actions. As to his being censured for his over- kindness and indulgence to the man, he ingenuously pleaded for himself,^' that he had been betrayed by the easiness of his temper, always apt to make the best of things, and imposed upon by subtle artifices and feigned pretences ; that there could be no fence against an hypocrite, whose tongue and heart went different ways ; that we judge of men merely by their words and actions, it is God only inspects the thoughts, and sees how it is within ; that we are commanded to " be kind to all, especially them of the household of faith ;'" that if he be blameworthy for his well-meant friendship and indulgence to the man, how great a villain must the other be, that made so ill a use of it, and so perfidiously improved it to his ruin. V. Though the minds of the people were pretty well quieted with his discourse, (whose case was rather to be pitied than blamed,) yet did they ferment into a greater rage against Maximus, who perceiving upon what uneasy and unsafe terms he stood, fled the city, and now began to think of the best waya to shore up his tottering cause. And first, if he went not in person, he wrote at least to the bishops of Italy then assembled * Orat. xxviii. p, 472. y Carm. de vit. sua, vol. ii. p. 15. Greg. Presb. in vit. Naz. p. 22. SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 37 in synod at Aquileia,^ whom he certified of his ordination, and that it was ratified by the communicatory letters of Peter bishop of Alexandria, (which he sent therewith to be read in council ;) that his ordination indeed had been managed in a private house, but that was because the Arians possessed all the churches, and that he was forced to give way by reason of the violence which both clergy and people had offered to him. The synod, un- acquainted with the true circumstances of the case, approved his ordination and right to the place, apprehending Nazianzen to have been uncanonically promoted, as for the same reason they afterwards denied communion to Nectarius, his successor ; and therefore wrote to the emperor, to beseech him to take care in it, and either to restore Maximus to the see of Constantinople, or to summon a general council at Rome, where the matter might be fully canvassed and determined. Nor did Maximus stay here, but went to solicit his cause at court, then lying at Thessalonica,* begging of the emperor, to restore him by his im- perial edict. But the emperor rejected his petition, and com- manded him to be gone, threatening to take a course with him, if he did not desist. The ambitious man, vexed with this repulse at court, swelled with rage and madness, and not knowing well what course to steer, went home to Alexandria, where having bribed some to be of his party, he rudely accosted the aged bishop, (who had sufficiently appeared in his behalf,) pressing him to improve his interest for the recovery of the bishopric ; plainly telling him, that unless he procured him the see of Con- stantinople, he would eject him, and take possession of his throne : a fair warning to look about them, insomuch, that the governor of Alexandria, fearing what might be the eifects of so wild an ambition, and such extravagant boldness, immediately banished him the city. And what became of him afterwards, we nowhere find. VI. Perfect ease and tranquillity is not the portion of this world. Nazianzen, though delivered from the molestations of Maximus and his party, yet found the wind blow hard from another quarter. The Arians, notwithstanding the death of Valens, and the edict he had published for permitting the or- thodox bishops to return to their sees ; yet finding no restraint ' Vid. Epist. Ambr. et Epp. ItaL ad Theod. Imper. Cone, vol. iii. p. 399. ed. reg. * Carm. de vit. sua, vol. ii. p. 16. Greg. Presb. in vit. Naz. p. 22. 38 THE LIFE OF laid upon them, still openly played their game, and offered all manner of affronts and indignities to the Catholics : insomuch, that Eusebius, the venerable bishop of Samosata, in his return from banishment, was knocked on the head at Dolicha, with a tile thrown by a woman from the top of a house, as he passed along the streets. But their great spite was at Nazianzen, whom not daring to attempt by open force, they laboured to murder his reputation ; and because malice itself was not able to object any thing material, they pelted him with little trifling cavils; as that he was born in a poor and obscure place, descended of mean and ignoble parents ; that he was of a rude uncourtly temper, blunt of speech, and of an austere and unpleasant con- versation, as there were others that charged him with a too tame and easy disposition, that let things run which way they pleased. These were things that weighed little with wise men, but they were the best they had to object. However, not to be wanting to himself, especially at this time, he wiped off these aspersions in a public oration,** wherein he more particularly ad- dressed himself to the Arian party. " As for the mean place of his nativity, (he tells them,"") it might be his unhappiness, but not his fault. No man accuses the dolphin that he is not a land-animal, or the ox that he does not live in the water. Must he be run down because he did not build the place of his nativity, and furnish it with such splendid ornaments of walls, theatres, circuses, palaces, porticos, forums, such a frequent po- pulacy, and a noble senate, as they had at Constantinople ? He was poor, he granted, and had no estate or revenues, kept no sumptuous table, nor wore costly garments; things which he did not think reasonable to make the matter of his glory. If he was born in an obscure corner, so was Samuel, and Saul, and David, and Moses, and other great worthies upon record in scripture. Was he a stranger and foreigner I So was Abraham ; so were the apostles, when they were sent to convert the world. As for his birth and extract, they mistook the true notion of nobility ; all men, with respect to this lower world, are de- scended of the same mean original : the true country and kin- dred of great and good men is the ' Jerusalem that is above ;' it is the soul, polished by virtue, and reformed into the divine likeness, that challenges the true nobility ; which he that de- ^ Orat. XXV. p. 431. c Ibid. p. 435, etc. SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 39 faces antl defiles by sin, and superinduces the image of the ser- pent, that is the man that is base-born and vile ; civil dignities and distinctions are but the scenes and fantastic pageantries of thitj frail transient Hfe ; things that may be gained by money, and lost by poverty, denied or granted at the pleasure of the prince. In these things you may pride yourselves, and boast of the stories, and the tombs, and the monuments of vour an- cestors ; my study is to purify myself from all fraud and vice, the only way either to preserve or to regain nobility." The mo- roseness and rusticity which they objected, and his avoiding the pleasures and intercourses of common conversation, was not pride or an affected singularity, but a serious retiring within himself, to take the more frequent and impartial account of himself and his own actions. That they had made mildness and moderation a part of his crimes,"* and had charged it upon him as a piece of madness and folly, he thanked them for it ; for what was all this to what Christ had suffered ? And yet his whole life and death was filled with nothing more than instances of meekness and tenderness, of mercy and forgiveness. And if he who was God, scrupled not to do, and to undergo so much, and to lay down his life for us, shall we think much to forgive a few petty injuries and offences to our fellow-creatures I And, indeed, that such had been his own carriage among them, he solemnly ap- peals to themselves, tacitly reproaching them with their own cruel severities. " What rabble (says he**) have I ever exaspe- rated against them to revenge my quarrel I What soldiers have I hired I What fierce and violent commanders have I procured, as some in the world have done, and those pagans too, who by that means caused their own idolatrous impiety to triumph over the Christian faith ? What miserable wretches have I besieged, while in prayer they were lifting up their hands to heaven? When did I ever drown the voice of those who were singing psalms with the noise of ti'umpets, or mingle the mystical blood of Christ with the blood of the slain, or stifle the tears of the penitents with the cries which slaughter and cruelty extorted from them I What churches have I turned into tombs and charnel-houses ? What consecrated vessels have I delivered into impious hands, to be profaned to unholy uses? What altars have I exposed to the obscene songs and immodest gestures of «> Orat. XXV. p. 439. « Ibid. p. 432, etc. 40 THE LIFE OF wanton youth I Where, among us, has a pagan orator stepped up into the episcopal throne, and made biting invectives against Ciirlstianitv ? Which of us ever ravished or abused the holy virgins, or turned wild beasts upon the bodies of the saints, or indicted others for burying what the mercy of the most savage creatures luid spared I Did we ever tear off the flesh of aged bishops with iron pincers, and afterwards martyr t^em ? Or send presbyters to sea in a rotten ship, and then set it and them on fire ? But what need I rub up old sores, when so many fresh instances are at hand, when men like wild boars have violently broken through all bounds and limits. Witness the yesterday^s sacrifice of that Abrahamical old man, who, being newly re- turned from banisliment, ye knocked on the head at noon-day in the middle of the streets, whose murderers yet, at our inter- cession, were spared and pardoned. Since I came among you, whose covetous practices have I imitated ? what instances of in- solent zeal have I been guilty of, and such as the times well enough would bear?*^ What churches or revenues have we con- tended with you for, though you over-abounded, and we are • destitute of both ? What imperial edict have we slighted, much less reviled ? What governors have we courted to ruin you ? Or whose cruelties have we so much as discovered? Even then I cried out with Stephen, ' Lord, lay not this sin to their charge,"* and it is still my prayer : ' Being reviled, we bless ; being per- secuted, we suffer it ; being defamed, we entreat.' And if it be a fault, that, being cruelly treated, I patiently bear it, forgive me this wrong ; it is but what I have been used to.'"* VIL The truth is, so great was his clemency and indulgence, that the Catholics themselves began to complain of it, that they had suffered the hardest things," and yet he, all the time he had been their bishop, had taken no care to remedy it, nor to improve his power with great men, and his interest at court, to put a stop to it, or to return it upon the heads of their enemies. And, what was yet worse than complaints, by the insinuations of the presbyter that had combined with Maximus, some of the catholic party were really made against him. So that, oppressed with these and other troubles that daily grew upon him, he took up a resolution to leave the charge'^ he had there taken upon ^ Orat. XXV. p. 439. s Orat. xxxii. p. 525. ^ Carm. de vit. sua, vol. ii. p. 17, 18, etc. Greg. Presb. in vit. Naz. p. 23. SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 41 him, and in the close of his farewell discourse affectionately- persuaded the people to persevere in that orthodox faith that he had preached to them, and to he mindful of the labours and sufferings which he had undergone for that cause among them. The words were no sooner out of his mouth, but the whole au- ditory were surprised with equal resentment and admiration ; and persons of all ages, sexes, and qualities came about him, and passionately besought him not to desert his flock, and thereby betray them to the wolves, who with open mouth stood ready to devour them. The good man was miserably distracted with the tears and entreaties of his people, and knew not well either how to grant or to deny their importunities. The day was well-nigh spent in these kind contentions, when the people solemnly pro- tested, that not one of them would stir out of the church, but were resolved to die upon the spot, unless he granted their de- sires ; one of the company telling him openly, (Avhich was no small motive to prevail with him,) " Sir, with your departure you banish the catholic faith out of this city.*" Overcome with importunity, he consented to stay with them until (which was rumoured and expected) the Eastern prelates were summoned to town, who might release him by choosing a more worthy person into that place : and with that the people rested satis- fied : and in this condition things stood till the new emperor'^s arrival at Constantinople. VIII. Theodosius being lately assumed into a partnership of the empire, was come into Greece in order to his wars with the northern nations. At Thessalonica he fell sick, and sent for Acholius, bishop of that see, in order to his being baptized ;' of whom he inquired, what faith it was that he professed? The bishop told him, they entirely preserved the faith delivered by the apostles, and confirmed by the council of Nice ; and that the Arian imj^ieties did not infect those parts. Whereupon he re- ceived from his hands the holy rites. For indeed he was a great patron of the catholic cause, and a passionate admirer both of the peace and purity of the church. In order whereunto he di- rected an edict to the people of Constantinople,'^ dated Feb. 27, anno 380, commanding that all his subjects within his dominions should hold no other but the riofht orthodox faith concerninof the Holy Trinity, according as it was professed and taught in ' Socrat. 1. V. c. fi. " Cod. Theodos. lib. xvi. Tit. i. 1. 2. Sozom. 1. vii. c. 4. 42 THE LIFE OF the churches of Rome and Alexandria ; and that all such pro- fessors should be styled Catliolic Christians, and all others called and accounted heretics ; and that their conventicles should not be honoured with the title of churches, and they themselves be- come liable to civil as well as divine punishments. Towards the latter end of this year, viz. on the 24th of November, he came to Constantinople, and finding that to be the common nest and refiig-e of the several heretical parties, published another edict on the 10th of January,' which being so great an evidence of this emperor's piety and zeal for the church, will deserve the reader'^s perusal. " Theodoslus, Gratian, and Valentinian, Emperors, to Eu- tropius the Praetorian Prefect. " Let no place be allowed to heretics for the holding their religious assemblies, no occasion permitted for the exercising of their madness and obstinacy. Be it known to all, that although this sort of men may have fraudulently procured some special rescript in their favour, such rescript shall be of no force. Let all such heretical assemblies be prohibited and dispersed. Let the name of the one only and most high God be celebrated in all places ; and the Nicene faith, delivered long since by our an- cestors, and confirmed by the testimony and assertion of our divine religion, be had in perpetual observance : let the defile- ment of the Photinian blemish, the venom of the Arian sacri- legiousness, the falsehood and perfidiousness of Eunomius, and the abominable prodigies of sects, together with the monstrous names of their authors, be banished even from common hearing. J3ut he only is to be accounted an assertor of the Nicene faith, and a true professor of catholic religion, who confesses God Al- mighty, and Jesus Christ the Son of God, one in name, God of God, Light of Light, who does not by any denial [of his divinity] offer violence to the Holy Spirit, by whom we receive what we hope for from the hands of our heavenly Father ; and who, ac- cording to the tenor of the sound and orthodox faith, maintains the undivided substance of the most perfect Trinity, which by a Greek term right believers call ova-ia. These are the doctrines wdiich we approve, and which are to be entertained with venera- tion. Whoever adhere not to these, let them cease by crafty ' Cod. Theodos. lib. xvi. Tit. v. 1. fi. SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 43 affectations to entitle themselves to the name of the true reli- gion, a name that belongs not to them, and let them be publicly known by their own infamous appellations ; and since we pro- hibit all sorts of heretics to hold their unlawful assemblies within towns or cities, let them be utterly removed out of all churches. And if hereupon the faction shall forcibly attempt any thing, we command that with all rigour they be banished out of all cities, that so the catholic churches throughout the world may be re- stored to all orthodox bishops that hold the Nicene faith. Given at Constantinople, the 4th of the Ides of January, Eucherius and Syagrius being consuls." That is, January the 10th, anno 381. A learned commentator upon this law,'" thinks the date of the month mistaken for June or July, and that it was published about the latter end of the council holden here this vear, in confirmation of the faith agreed upon in that synod. But there is no reason to suspect the date, which is the same both In this and the Justinian code ; and whereas he observes a great con- formity both of words and things in it, with the creed and first canon of that council, it cannot be doubted, but that, in draw- ing It up, he consulted with Nazianzen, and perhaps some other catholic bishops, who directed both phrase and matter to the sense of the church, and to the necessities of that time, and which, it is like, were imitated and made use of by the fathers of that venerable synod, who met some months after. But how- ever that was, the emperor, at his first arrival, in pursuance of the design which he had some time before taken up of rooting out heresy, and resettling the peace of the church, sent to De- mophllus," the Arlan bishop of Constantinople, commanding bim either to subscribe the Nicene creed, and reduce the people to unity and concord, or to quit the churches, and depart the city. Demophllus, knowing it was to no purpose for him to contend, assembled the people, and acquainted them with the emperor's order. " Brethren, (said he,) it Is written in the gospel, ' If the}- shall persecute you In this city, flee Into another;' since then the emperor drives us out of our churches, take notice that to- morrow we will hold our assemblies without the city.'' And with that he departed out of the city, and with him Lucius, whom, upon Atlianaslus's death, the Arians had made bishop of ° Jac. Gotbofred. in loc. ° Socrat. 1. v. c. 7. Sozom, 1. ^•ii. c. 5. 44 THE LIFE OF Alexandria, who at this time lived here in banishment. Thus were the Arians dispossessed of their churches at Constantinople, after that they had held them (ever since Eusebius of Nicoraedia was translated to that see, anno 339) for forty years together. Theodosiiis having made his entry, presently called for Nazianzen, M'hom he treated with great kindness and humanity," and among other things told him, that God had sent him to give him pos- session of the church, which he was ready to deliver up into his hands, as the reward of his labours. But the Arians, however pretending to submission, were yet resolved not so tamely to part with their hold. They filled all places with peevish and passionate complaints ; the emperor they plied with petitions ; as on the other hand they vomited out nothing but exclamations and threatenings against Nazianzen and his party, and to make good their words, had prepared an armed multitude to make resistance. So that the next da}', which was to be the solemnity of the in- stalment, the emperor was forced, with a strong military guard, to conduct the poor bishop through the streets, which were not only beset with enemies, designed either by public tumults or private assassinations to do mischief, but crowded with multi- tudes of spectators on every side. As they passed along to the church, a black cloud suddenly arose, which wrapped them up all in darkness, and threatened them instantly with a most dreadful storm. This the Arians presently caught hold of, and cried out, it was a miraculous testimony from heaven against the pro- ceedings of that day, and indeed it struck no little damp and terror into the Catholics. But no sooner were they got within the church, nnd the emperor and the bishop entered into the choir, and an hymn begun to the praise of the great Creator, but in a moment the cloud dissipated, and the sun burst out with so amazing a brightness, that few were able to behold it ; which greatly animated the catholic, and confused the foolish and pre- sumptuous presages of the Arian party. And now the cry was from all parts of the church, and from all sorts of persons, be- seeching the emperor, as the greatest kindness he could do the city, to place Nazianzen on the episcopal throne. The good man, partly through weakness and infirmity, and partly through afi'rightment, (a desperate fellow having drawn his sword at him, though immediately forced to put it up again,) was not able, as o Carm. de vit. sua, vol. ii. p. 20, 21, etc. Greg. Presb. in vit. Naz. p. 26. SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 45 at other times, to make an oration to the people, and therefore commanded one of the presbyters to stand up, and modestly acquaint them, in his name, that he desired them to surcease their suit ; that this was a day of thanksgiving, and to he entirely de- voted to the praise of that God who had heaped such blessings upon them, and that what was of further concernment should be transacted in due time and place. IX. The modesty of the answer was not unacceptable, and so the assembly broke up, and the man became equally dear to the people and the prince, who mightily delighted in his conversa- tion, and (asNazianzen intimates p) sometimes placed him at his own table, who yet seldom cared to come to court ; the manners of that place not suiting with the strictness and severity of his temper, which knew not how either to bribe or flatter, or to make use of those little arts that render men grateful to courtiers. He spent his time in prayer and fasting, in preaching and visiting the sick, retiring sometimes out of the city, partly to repair his health, and partly to enjoy the advantages of soli- tude. The revenues of his church, though very large, he never meddled with ; and albeit he had fair opportunities thence to have enriched himself, he took not one penny of it to increase his private estate, but committed the management of it wholly to the stewards and treasurers of the church, not so much as taking an account of the plate that belonged to it. His thoughts were employed about higher and better things, and his time and strength so entirely swallowed up with the cares and troubles of his charge, that his body could bear up no longer. Sickness confined him to his bed, and that presented him with an oppor- tunity of exercising an instance of the greatest charity. It happened that great numbers of people, highly satisfied with what had lately passed, crowded into his room, to pay in his presence their acknowledgments to Almighty God for so great mercies, and to pray for the health and prosperity of the emperor, and withal to pay their thanks to him, whom they owned to have been the instrument that procured these blessings ; which done, they departed. The rest being gone, there stayed behind a young man with a pale look, long hair, in squalid and tattered clothes, who, standing at the bed''s feet, made all the dumb signs of the bitterest sorrow and lamentation. Nazianzen, P Cann. x. toI. ii. p. 80. 46 THE LIFE OF startled a little at the man ami his behaviour, asked him who he was, whence he came, and what he wanted l To which he returned no answer, but expressed so much the greater passion and resentment, howling, wringing his hands, and beating his breast, insomuch that the bishop himself was moved to tears. Being at length plucked from that place by force, one who stood by told the bishop : " This, sir, is the assassin, whom some had suborned to murder you, and had effectually done it, had not the Divine Providence interposed to hinder him ; for this his con- science has fallen foul upon him, and he is here come ingenuously to confess his fault, and to beg your pardon.**"' Whereto the good bishop replied, " Friend, God Almighty be propitious to you, his gracious preservation of me obliges me freely to forgive you ; the desperate attempt you designed has made you mine ; nor do I require any other reparation, than that henceforth you desert your party, and sincerely give up yourself to God." The news of this accident being spread abroad, mightily advanced his reputation, and rendered him dearer to the city than he was before. SECTION V. THE ACTS AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. A general council summoned to meet at Constantinople. The number of fathers in that synod. Things transacted in the council. Their care about the see of Constantinople. Maximus's title and ordination vacated. Nazianzen established in that see. The regularity of his translation thither, cleared. Matters of faith discussed. The Nicene confession ratified. A creed drawn up to explain the other. The FiLioauE, when added to this creed. The controversy hereabout between the Greek and the Latin church. An account of the several sects and heresies anathematized by the synod. The Sabellians. Sabellius, who, and what his principles. Marcellians : the author and tenets of that sect. Photinians, Photinus, Avho, and what his chief dogmata. Eunomians. This sect founded by Aetius. A short view of his life and actions. His designs carried on by his disciple Eunomius : the most material passages of whose life are briefly noted. The opinions, principles, and usages of this sect : not accounted Christians by the synod. Macedonians. The council principally called with respect to them. A more particular account concerning Macedonius, and the original and progress of this heresy through the reigns of the several emperors. His followers the same in effect with the Semi-Arians. In what places they most abounded. Their cunning deportment, and hypocritical insinuations. Treated with by the synod about their reunion to the church ; but without effect. The synodal decree against heretics ratified b)' the emperor. Canons made by this council. Two more particularly^ noted ; one, concerning the bounds of the greater churches in the East. This heedlessly con- SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 47 founded by most witli a law of the emperor Theodosius, concerning the bounds of ecclesiastical communion. What Socrates means by Patriarchs, constituted in this council. The other canon giving precedence to the see of Constantinople, next that of Rome. This the foundation of the after-greatness of that bishopric. The fuller con- sideration of this referred to another place. Theodosius being highly solicitous about the peace of the church, at this time torn in pieces with so many several sects and parties, had some time since given hopes of convening a synod to heal those breaches. This he now made good,"! and to that end writs are issued out to summon the prelates of the East, who met at Constantinople in May, Ann. Chr. 381, to the num- ber of one hundred and fifty, all Catholics, besides thirty-six of the Macedonian party, who were summoned also in hopes of union. And though they were only the bishops of the Eastern empire that assembled in this synod, yet has the council passed the approbation of the catholic church, and in all ages obtained the style, honour, and authority of a general council. The things transacted in the synod may be reduced to three heads : the present case of the see at Constantinople, matters of faith, and rules concerning order and the polity of the church. The first thing they took in hand, was to settle the present state of the see of Constantinople, distracted at this time between Gregory Nazianzen, the present occupant, and Maximus, the philosopher, who challenged it as his right. The cause being fully heard and debated, the fathers proceeded to give sentence in the case, and unanimously damned not only Maximus's claim, but his very ordination, by this synodal decree.'" " Concerning Maximus the Cynic, and his insolence and ir- regularity committed at Constantinople, the synod has decreed, that Maximus neither is, nor ever was a bishop, nor any of those truly ordained whom he advanced to any order of the clergy ; and that whatever was done in his ordination, or has been since done by him, is null and void." Having thus vacated his title, they next confirmed Nazianzen in the see,^ placing him upon the episcopal throne; which though with tears and passionate entreaties he endeavoured to decline, yet was he at last prevailed with to accept, upon this considera- tion, that he should hereby have a fairer opportunity to reconcile 1 Socrat. 1. y. c. 8. Sozom. 1. vii. c. 7. *" Cone. Constantinop. Can. 4. * Carm. de vit. sua, vol. ii. p. 24. Greg. Presb. in vit. Naz. p. 29. Vid. p. 27. 48 THE LIFE OF and unite dissenting parties, a thing which above all others he did most desire. It was indeed objected against him by some, that he had been bishop of Sasima and Nazianzum, and that translations of bishops from one see to another were prohibited by the ecclesiastic laws, as indeed the fifteenth canon of Nice is express in that case. But to this, Meletius, the aged and ve- nerable bishop of Antioch, replied,^ that he very well understood the mind of those that made that canon, which was designed only to prevent pride and ambition, which had no place in this case. Besides, custom had made nothing more familiar than such translations, and therefore Nazianzen styles those canons vofiovf; Toi'9 irakaL reOvrjfcora^,^ " laws dead a great while since,**^ common practice and the conveniency of the church having rendered them obsolete and out of use ; and though they should still retain their force and vigour, j'et they reached not him, who had never been bishop of Nazianzum, but only coadjutor to his father in that church ; and for Sasima, though unwillingly ordained to it, he had never come near it, nor exercised one ministerial act in it. II. This affair being over, they next entered upon the dis- cussing matters of faith. And first they ratified the Nicene creed,^ which they commanded to be kept inviolate. But because in that the article concerning the Holy Ghost was but barely mentioned, which was now become one of the prime controversies of the age, and for the determination whereof the council had been principally summoned, it pleased the fathers to draw up an explanatory creed, (composed, we are told,'' by Gregory Nyssen,) which they published in this ensuing form.^ " We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible ; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of his Father before all worlds ; Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made ; who for us men, and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man, and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered, and was buried, and the third day he rose again according to the • Theodor. L v. c. 8. " Carm. de vit. sua, vol. ii. p. 29. * Can. 1. ^ Niceph. 1, xii. c. 1 3. in fin. y Ext. in Cone. Chalced. Act. ii. SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 49 scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father. And he shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end. We believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord, and giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spake by the prophets. We believe one holy catholic and apostolic church. We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.'' The reader will easily observe that this is one of the three famous creeds which our church has adopted into her solemn liturgy, and which commonly passes under the name of the Nicene creed at this day. Whenas it is plain, it is not the Nicene creed, (which we have represented in another place,) but an explanation of it, especially in the article about the Holy Ghost, and was composed (as the council of Chalcedon assures us) by this synod at Constantinople : though it be no new thing for this creed to pass under the name of that of Nice, P. Lombard and others speaking of it under that title. ^ It is obvious, like- wise, that herein is wanting, what our creed asserts concerning the Holy Ghost''s proceeding both from the Father and the Son, this being added afterwards. The precise time when this so much controverted addition was made, is not easy to be adjusted. In a provincial synod (whether the eighth or tenth it matters not) holden at Toledo, anno 653, we find the creed with this addition set down in the first canon of that council." But this was only the particular act of that synod, nor did the creed, thus enlarged, generally obtain in the Spanish churches for a long time after. About the beginning of the next age but one, the question about the procession being started by one John a monk of Jerusalem,'' began to be disputed in France, and a synod about this matter convened at Aix, anno 809, by which several bishops were despatched to Rome,"" to treat with pope Leo the Third, about this controversy, who earnestly pressed him that the addition of Filioque might be inserted into the creed. After * Lib, i. Distinct, xi. Durand. Ration. 1. iv. c. 25. n. 9. * Cone. vol. XV. p. 305. ed. reg. *• Annal. incert. Auct. a Pith. ed. p. 20. vit. Car. M. per Monach. Egolisra. ib. p. 274. <^ Ext. Relat. ap. Baron, ad Ann. 809. n. 68. VOL. III. E 50 THE LIFE OF long- debate, tlio po|)o declared lie liked the doctrine well enough, but could not allow that the thing should be added to the creed ; nay, to prevent all mistake or fraud, he caused the creed without that addition to be engraven both in Greek and Latin upon two silver tables, and to be hung up behind St. Peter's altar, there to remain as a standing monument. About four years after this, the fathers in the synod at Aries '' published a, confession of their faith with this clause, " proceeding from the Father and the Son :'' which yet was no more than their private confession. It seems not to have gained any public place in the creed, till the time of pope Nicolaus the First, who entered upon that see anno 858 ; and to have been discovered when the quarrel broke out between him and Photius, patriarch of Con- stantinople. For so we find Photius severely charging it upon the Latins,^ as KaKwv Kopcovt^;, " the height and crown of all their impieties ;" that with an unmeasurable boldness they had taken upon them to adulterate the holy creed, ratified by the decrees of general councils, voOots Xoyiajjuol'^, /cal TrapeyypaTr- Toi<^ Xo7ot9, '' with false senses, and new invented terms r"" w toc>v Tov iTOvripov fjiTj^avrj/jLCLTcov, " Oh, the inventions of the Devil :" and then tells us what he meant by all this, that these addition- makers made the Holy Ghost to proceed not only from the Father, but from the Son also : and so goes on to exclaim against the fact, and to argue against the doctrine. And this he speaks of as newly done, and brought by some Western bishops, (whom, amongst other hard words, he calls the new fore- runners and ministers of the anti-christian apostacy,) who had been sent to scatter this and some other doctrines among the Bulgarians, but two years before converted to the faith of Christ. And henceforward, the difference between the Greeks and Latins widened every day ; the thing being so much resented by the Eastern churches, that they thereupon broke off communion with the Western, and it became one of the unhappy occasions of continuing the breach to this day. I cannot pass by the un- charitable censures of the writers of the Roman church,^ who say, that for their obstinate refusal to comply with this addition, God presently after suffered them, their churches, wives, chil- * Cone. vol. XX. p. 331. ed. reg. «= Epist. Encycl. (N. 11.) ad Orient. Patriarch, f Bellarm. de Christ. 1. ii. c. 30. et in Chronol, ad calc. lib. de Script, cccles. Grets. Defens. Bell, aliique plures. SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 51 dren, and estates, to fall under the miserable slavery of the Turkish yoke, and at last Constantinople (the seat of this church and empire) to be taken by Mahomet the Second, on the very festival of Whitsuntide, the time peculiarly dedicated to the honour of the Holy Ghost. So partial are men to their own cause, so ready to make heaven look asquint upon their enemies, and the actions of Divine Providence minister to the designs of their own spite and malice. III. The fathers, according to the custom used in synods, pro- ceeded next to the anathematisms,^ in general condemning all heresies contrary to the Nicene faith, but more especially the Sabellian, Marcellian, Photinian, Eunomian, Apollinarian, and Macedonian heresies ; concerning each of which we shall give some short account, as what will reflect no small light upon the story of those times. The Sabellian was set on foot by Sabellius a Libyan,^ bishop of Ptolemais in Pentapolis, who began to broach it about the declining part of the foregoing seculum^ under the reign of the emperor Gallienus. He had been scholar to Noetus of Ephesus, from whom he sucked the main ingredients of his poisonous principles, which having digested, he vomited up in these impious assertions, that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are but one and the same person, distinguished only by three several names ; as in man there is body, soul, and spirit : the Father answerable to the body, the Son to the soul, and the Holy Ghost to the spirit : or as the sun, which is but one, but has three powers, light, heat, and its circular form ; the Father the subsisting form, the Holy Ghost the heat, and the Son the light ; who, as a beam, was in time shed upon the world, by whom all things were wrought, and then again taken up into heaven, as a beam into the body of the sun : that by virtue of this oneness of persons, the Father might be said to suffer, whence they are sometimes styled Patripassians, though that was a name of some more ancient heretics, that commenced with the very apostolic age. Besides the scriptures, they traded much in apocryphal writings, especially a book which they called the Egyptian gospel, out of which they borrowed much of their mystical nonsense and blasphemy. Marcellus (who is next) was B Can. 1. •> Epiph. Hseres. Ixii. c. 1. Theod. Hser. fab. 1. ii. c. 9. Euseb. Hist. EccL 1. vii. c. 6. August, de Haeres. c. 41. vol. viii. p. 11. k2 52 THE LIFE OF bishop of Ancyra in Galatia, concoming whom and the rise of his dopmala, we have elsewhere given an acconnt.' The main point of his heresy Lay in this :J tliat Christ began to be the Son of (loil at his incarnation ; tliat his kingdom shall continue till the day of judgment and the end of the world, and then cease; and the Word that came forth be again resolved into the Father, and be no more. And in opposition to this, the council parti- cularly levelled that clause in the creed, " whose kingdom shall have no end/' Nicetas Choniates explains his opinions thus : ^ that the Son was a kind of branch springing forth from the Father, and this he called eKTacn^ or the extension of the Father's divinity into the Son, whom he styled God the Word, M'hieh after the consummation of all things should be drawn back aofain into the Father out of whom it had shot forth. The Holy Ghost he styled irapeKraa-tv rf}^ iKTuaeco<;, "• the extension of the extension,"*' which came upon the apostles : in fine, that the Holy Trinity was extended or contracted according to the difterence of the dispensation. Disciple to Marcellus was Pho- tinus, born at Sirmium, and afterwards advanced to be bishop of that see : a man of acute parts, and a voluble tongue ; he trod in part in his master's steps, and revived the long-since condemned errors of Paulus Samosetanus, confounding the Holy Trinity, and denying our Lord's eternal existence ; he affirmed the Word to be not essential, but prolatitious, and that God made use of it in the production of things, w? opyavov rt fxrj^avLKov,^ '' as a kind of mechanic instrument :" that Christ that received this Word was but a mere man, and received the beginning of his existence from the Virgin Mary. For these blasphemous opi- nions he was often sentenced and deposed ; and died about the year 375. IV. The next that follows in the list of the council is the Eunomian heresy. The first author and founder of this sect was Aetius."" He was born at Antioch in Coelosyria, and being left poor by his father, who was a soldier, maintained himself « Life of Euscb. §. xix. p. 128, 129. i Vid. Epist, Orient, apud Socrat. 1. ii. c. 19. Cyril. liieros. Catech. xv. s. 14. Euseb. contr. Marcell. 1. i. p. 6. Theod. Haer. fab. 1. ii. c. 10. '' Thes. Orth. fid. 1. iv. Haeres. 29. ' Bals. in Can. 1. Cone. C. P. ni Philost. 1. iii. c. 1.5. 17. 1. v. c. 1, 2. 1. vi. c. 7. 1. vii. c. G. 1. viii. c. 4. 1. ix. c. 6. Nicet. Thes. Orth. Fid. I. v. c. 30. SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 53 niid his mother at the goldsmith's trade : hut having a genius for higher things, he appHed himself to the study of philosophy, and especially logic, wherein he hecame excellent. Divinity he studied first under Paulinus hishop of Antioch, then under Atha- nasius of Anazarhus, next under Antonius at Tarsus, then lastly under Leontius a preshyter of Antioch. Being expelled Antioch, he fled to Alexandria, where, under Sopolis, a famous doctor, he studied physic, which he practised gratis, maintaining himself in the mean time hy working at night at his goldsmith's trade. He was made deacon hv Leontius of Antioch : and for his heterodox notions, especially in asserting the Anomaean doctrine, deposed hy the synod at Constantinople, and hanished hy Con- stantius, anno 360 ; recalled, honoured, and rewarded hr Julian, and made hishop during his reign. Under Valens he left Con- stantinople, and sailed to Leshos ; and at !Mitylene settled him- self in a farm, which Julian had hestowed upon him. But upon Procopius's usurping the empire, he was forced to return to Con- stantinople, where he died (as is prohahle) the year after. Scholar and amanuensis to him was Eunomius, who hecame more famous than his master, and from him the sect took its denomination. He was horn at Dacora," a small village near Csesarea in Cappa- docia. Awakened with the fame of Aetius, he went to Antioch, where, hy the means of Secundus, a Libyan hishop, he was re- commended to Aetius, then at Alexandria, who took him into his family, read lectures to him, and made him his secretary. Having sufficiently furnished himself with his master's instruc- tions, he was made deacon hy Eudoxius, bishop of Antioch ; and being sent to court to solicit the cause of his party, was inter- cepted by means of Basil of Ancyra, and banished to ^lidaium, a town in Phrvoia. For the main he ran the same fortune with his master, and was banished with him by the synod at Con- stantinople. He was by Eudoxius ordained bishop of Cyzicum, which he would not accept of, till Eudoxius had sworn to him, to recall the sentence of deposition passed against Aetius. Nor did he continue long at his see, the people there not enduring his impious doctrine. In the reign of Valens, the party at Con- stantinople falling out, he went over to Chalcedon, where he had gardens of his own, and there settled, entertaining all that came to him, being upon all occasions consulted as the oracle of his " Philost. 1. X. c. 6. 1. iii. c. 20, 1. iv, c. o. 1. v. c. 3. 1. ix. c. 4. 1. x. c. 6. I. xi. c 5. 54 THE LIFE OF sect : upon a charge of liigli-treason, in being privy to Procopius's usurpation, he was banished into Mauritania, but was recalled at Marsa in lllyricum. By Theodosius (into whose family some of his gang had crept, whereat that good emperor was highly offended) he was banished to Halmyris, a place situate upon the banks of the Danube, which being soon after taken by the Barbarians, he was transported to Caisarea in Cappadocia. But liis company was distasteful to that people, his lewd principles being known ; and he having writ against, and reflected upon their beloved bishop St. Basil, for whom they had a dear regard. So he was suffered to dwell at his own estate at Dacora, not far from that city, where he lived some years, dying about anno 394 ; whose body, when his followers would have removed, to have buried it with his master Aetius at Constantinople, Eu- tropius the eunuch, at that time patricius and lord chamberlain, would not suffer it, but commanded Csesarius, the praetorian pre- fect, to translate and bury it at Tyana, and commit the guardian- ship of it to the monks of that place. He procured likewise an edict for the burning of his books, and all those of his party, as containing the sum of all impious doctrine, making it capital for any to conceal them. Such were the men, that appeared in the head of the most spiteful and inveterate enemies to the divinity of the Son of God. As to the principles which Eu- nomius derived from Aetius, and afterwards improved, we may in the general observe, that he corrupted the Arian dogmata, (poison itself may be made worse,) which he advanced to a pitch beyond any other branch that sprang from that bitter root, so that at last his followers refused to admit the Arian baptism and ordination ; in particular, he held that the Son was made by the Father," and was to be placed only in the most eminent rank of creatures ; that he was a servant, and obnoxious to change and alteration, and altogether unlike in nature and substance to the Father ; and that as the Son is the servant and minister of the Father, so is the Spirit the work and minister of the Son. And though in the account of his faith,P which he presented to the emperor Theodosius, he endeavours to smooth over his opinions, and to conceal them under odd expressions, (confessing that the <» Theodor. L iv. c. 3. Bals. et Zonar. in Can. 1. Cone. C. P. Philost. 1. vi. c. 2- Sozom. 1. vi. c. 26. P Ext. ap. Vales. Annot. in Socrat. p. 61. Vid. Socrat. 1. v, c. 10. SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 55 Son is only like the Father after an extraordinary manner of similitnde, and in a proper and peculiar signification ; that is, as he explains himself, as he is the image and seal of his Father'*s power and operation, the seal of all his words and counsels,) yet does he therein expressly assert, that he is ovk dKTt(Trb<; koI dvap'^of;, not uncreated, nor without beginning, but that he is the beginning of the ways and works of God ; that he received glory from the Father, but did not partake or share with him in his essence, kingdom, and glory ; and that the Father alone is God over all. Besides all this, he is charged with asserting,"^ that Joseph did in a conjugal way correspond "s^-ith the blessed Virgin after her being delivered of our Saviour ; which indeed was the peculiar tenet of the Antidicomarianitse in the Eastern, as it was of the Helvidians in the Western church. He is further said by the Greek canonists to have denied that there was really any such place as hell, or the torments of the damned ; and af- firmed, that these were only fables invented to fright the world. Bnt this, I must confess, is not charged upon him by any author of his own time. In opposition to other sects that dissented from him, he baptized those whom he proselyted to his party in a way by himself, using only single immersion, (because, he said, he baptized into Christ's death, which he underwent for us, not twice or thrice, but once only,) and turning the heads of the persons to the bottom of the water, with their heels mounted up into the air. Whether he borrowed any of his principles from Eudoxius, who was successively bishop of Germanicia, Antioch, and Constantinople, and by whom he had been pre- ferred to the see of Cyzicum, or whether Eudoxius learnt them of him, is uncertain ; it is evident, that in the main they held the same opinions, and therefore the council here condemns them as the same sort of heretics, under the title of Eunomians or Eudoxians; and indeed looked upon them as such deep-dyed heretics, as wholly to have forfeited the name of Christians : and therefore, whereas in their last canon they allow other heretics to come over to the catholic party upon their bare subscription, and renunciation of all kind of heresy, and confirmation by unction, the Eunomians, with some few others, are to be treated as Pagans, and not to be admitted to baptism, but by the same 1 Philost. loc. cit. r>C) THE LIFE OF methods and degreivs tliat catechiiinens were, who first came over from Gentllism to Christianity. ft/ V. The fifth rank of heretics are the Apollinarists : they were the followers of Apollinaris, sometime bishop of Laodicea : a man (as we observed before) of incomparable parts and learning, but rash and opinlonative, and who, by being" unduly excommuni- cated, was first tempted to start aside from the catholic faith. His master-error was,*^ that our Lord assumed a body without a human soul, his divinity immediately supplying the room of that ; which he afterwards mollified, by granting that he had a soul, but without any mind or understanding. But what were his opinions, none can tell us better than Nazianzen, who in an oration, or rather letter, to Nectarius's successor in the see of Constantinople,^ out of a book of Apollinaris, gives him this account : that he affirmed, that the flesh which the Son of God took upon him to carry through the work of our restoration, was not ascititious, but what he had from the beginning, which he thought warranted from that of our Saviour, " No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man, which is in heaven :" whence he inferred, that he was the Son of man before his comino- down from heaven, and that when he came, he brought his flesh alonof with him, which he had in heaven, essentially united to him before all time : that in this sense he was " the second man that is from heaven ;" and that in that capacity, rov vovv firj e^ecv^ " he had no mind,"*"* but that his deity supplied the place of his under- standing ; that in his humanity he had both soul and body, but that the mind was supplied by the divinity of the Word ; that beyond all this he maintained, that God the only begotten Sou, who is Lord of life, and the destroyer of death, was himself mortal, and truly suff"ered in his godhead ; and that during his three days"* continuance in the state of the dead, his divinity died also with his body, and was by the Father restored to life again. These were some of his monstrous and extravagant opinions, which our learned bishop does at large confute, with all his arguments and objections, in his two epistles to Cledonius,* "written about this very time, while he was yet bishop of Con- •• Rufin. 1. ii. c. 20. » Orat. xlvi. p. 721. Vid. Orat. xiv. p. 221. • Orat. li. p. 737. Hi. p. 745, SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 57 stantinople. There remains now but one sort of heretics censured by the council, viz. that of the Macedonians, whom the canon calls Pneumatomaclii^ or opposers of the Holy Spirit. Now be- cause the synod was principally convened with respect to these, (as is affirmed on all hands,") I shall a little more particularly inquire into the rise and original of this sect. VI. When the Arian notions began first to prevail in the "world, they were chiefly levelled against the divinity of the Son of God, he being the only person that was struck at. And therefore in the Nicene creed, though all imaginable care was taken to secure the article of his Deity, by stating it in such terms as might countermine all the subtleties and sophistical evasions of its adversaries, yet is no more said in it concerning the Spirit, than "we believe in the Holy Ghost;" no doubt being as yet started concerning that matter.'' But afterwards, when the Arian party began to subdivide, and break into different tribes, and one error, like circles in the water, begat another, every bold fellow set up to be the head of a party, and started some new notion, as the distinctive character of his little sect. And having wire-drawn the article concerning the Son of God into infinite controversies and disputes, they fell next upon that of the Holy Ghost, whose divinity was first questioned, then denied, at last he was quite banished out of the Trinity, and peremptorily affirmed to be no other than a creature. The first that openly broached and asserted this opinion was Macedonius : he had been deacon under Alexander, the reverend bishop of Byzantium,^' (soon after called Constantinople,) who upon his death-bed nominated two competitors for the place : Paul, young, but wise and prudent ; and Macedonius, aged, but crafty, and of an affected gravity. Paul was chosen, and under him Mace- donius commenced presbyter ; who took in with the Arians. Upon PauPs banishment, Eusebius of Nicomedia was translated thither, upon whose decease Paul was fetched back,^ while the Arians ordained ^lacedonius for their bishop ; which was ma- naged with so much fury and disorder, that Hermogenes, com- mander of the army, was among others slain in the tumult : " Socrat. 1. T. c. 8. Sozom. 1. vii, c. 7. Phot., de Synod, Nilus lib. de S}Tiod. etc. Bals. et Zonar. in Cone. C. P. '^ Vid. Epiph. Hceres. Ixxiv. c. 14. Zonar. Annal. I. xiii c. 4. y Socrat. 1. il c. G. ^ Id. ibid. c. 12, 13. 58 THE LIFE OF whereupon Paul was again banislied, and the emperor refused to confirm Macedonius ; who yet not long after sent Philip the pnie- torian j)refect to remove Paul, (who was, it seems, returned to his see,) and to invest Macedonius in the episcopal throne i*^ which he did accordingly, but with a very unhappy accident. For the soldiers meeting with an extreme crowd, in a place where there was no room left to make way, and taking it for a premeditated, resistance and opposition, fell violently upon the pcoj)le, three thousand one hundred and fifty whereof were killed ; either slain outright by the soldiers, or trampled to death with the crowd. About the time of the Sardican council, Paul was restored,* (the necessity of Oonstantius''s affairs then requiring it,) and Mace- donius forced to keep his party together in an obscure private church. I3ut this held not long, for Paul being despatched out of the way, transported to, and strangled at Cucusus in Armenia, Macedonius presently leaped into the chair ; and being now rid of his competitor,' shewed himself what he was, prosecuting all that dissented from him with the most incredible cruelty, in- stances whereof are too many and too tragical to be here related. This course he held till the latter end of the reign of Constantius, when in the synod at Constantinople, immediately following that of Seleucia, he was by the pre valency of Acacius and his party at court (besides that the emperor hated him for his cruelties, and some other misdemeanours) deposed,^ and Eudoxius trans- lated from Antioch to that see. Enraged with this affront, he began more openly to declare his sentiments than he had done before. He had hitherto gone along with the deepest of the Arian faction, •" who held the dissimilitude opinion ; these he now deserted, and closed with the most moderate party, who asserted the o/jLOLOvcTLov, or that the Son was in all things of a "like sub- stance" with the Father. As for the Holy Ghost, he plainly denied it to have the same honour and privilege ; affirming it to be but a servant and minister, only a little more exalted than the angelical order. In defending and propagating these principles, his chief agents and assistants were Eustathius bishop of Sebastea, (who publicly cried out, that for his part he would not call the Holy Ghost either a God or a creature,) Eleusius of Cyzicum, and Marathonius, who of a treasurer to the army (where he had «i Socrat. 1. ii. c. 16. « Id. ibid. c. 23. ' Id. ibid. c. 27. et 38. 8 Id, ibid. c. 42. •> Id. ibid. c. 45. Sozom. 1. iv. c. 27. SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 59 sufRciently enriched himself) had been made by him presbyter of Constantinople, and afterwards bishop of Xicomedia ; a man so privy to all his inward counsels, that he was said by some to have been the first contriver of his opinions touching the Holy Ghost. By the help of these and some others, he held several synods of his party under the reign of Julian,* wherein he en- deavoured to draw his followers into a more close and distinct body, separate from all the other clans of the Arian tribe ; par- ticularly they anathematized the Acacians, rejecting the con- fession of Ariminum, and ratifying that which had been agreed upon in the synod of Seleucia. And when asked why, if they differed in opinion from the Acacians, they had hitherto com- municated with them I Sophronius, bishop of Pompeiopolis in Paphlagonia, answered in the name of the rest, that among the several dissenting parties in Christendom, they of the West were overrun with the consubstantial error; in the East, Aetius had corrupted the faith, by introducing the Anomsean doctrine, of the Son's being of an unlike nature with the Father. Both opinions were erroneous and impious ; the one rashly confounded the distinct persons of Father and Son ; the other separated their nature quite from each other. These were wide extremes, and therefore they judged it most agreeable both to truth and piety, to take the middle way between both, and to assert the Son to be like the Father, KaO^ vTroaraacv, ''in person;" and that therefore it was no wonder, if they had communicated with the Acacians, who had sometimes held the same thing. Some years after, viz. anno ^()5^ they procured leave from the emperor Valens to hold a synod at Lampsacum in the Hellespont,*^ where they again condemned the Ariminum confession, and confirmed that of Antioch and Seleucia, and restored those bishops to their sees who had been deposed by them of the dissimilitude faction. Eudoxius bishop of Constantinople was sufficiently nettled at these proceedings, and complained of them to the emperor : but he being entangled at that time with the rebellion and usurpa- tion of Procopius, was not at leisure to assist him ; till shortly after having suppressed that dangerous rebellion, he sent for Eleusius bishop of Cyzicum, who had been the prime dictator of the Macedonian party in the council of Lampsacum, to come to him to Nicomedia, where he had assembled a synod of Arian ' Socrat. L iii. c. 10. '' Socrat. L iv. c. 2. 4, 5, 6, 7. 60 THE LIFE OF bishops, and where he threatened and forced him to suhscrihe to their creed. But at his return home, he puhlicly retracted his subscription, protesting he did it for fear, and under force, however advising the people to procure another bishop to be placed over them, he himself having, though throngh compul- sion, denied the faith. The citizens heard his request, but loved the man too well to part with him upon any terms. But what they would not, Eudoxius of Constantinople did for him : who having obtained a warrant from the emperor, came to Cyzicum, deposed and banished Eleusius, and promoted Eunomius, Aetius's scribe and scholar, into his room ; who yet did not long enjoy that place. For the people being exasperated by him, mutinied, and drave him out of the city ; who thereupon fled to Constanti- nople, and lived with his dear friend Eudoxius. But I digress too far. Macedonius, after his being deposed, settled himself in a place over-against Constantinople, called Pyla? ; the time of his death is not known : Sozomen j^laces it under Constantius,* but Nicephorus says he lived a long time after his deposition,"" which indeed was not made till within less than two years be- fore Constantius\s death ; Eudoxius, his successor, entering upon that see, anno 360. VII. After his death his followers suffered not his opinions to die. In the article of Chrisfs divinity they held a middle course between the Catholics and hioh-flown Arians :° thouofli Nazi- anzen° and some others say, that they were sound in the doctrine concerning the Son of God, which yet I must confess I see no evidence to affirm : in the catholic doctrine they rejected the word ofioovcTLov, or " consubstantial," as unscriptural, and ana- thematized the Anomteans or Eunomians, who asserted him to be unlike the Father, joining herein with the Semiarians, in maintaining the Son to be oixoiovaio^;^ of a " like substance"" with his Father ; and accordingly, in the first canon of our present council, are styled Pneumatomachi. or Semiarians; as Semiarians, they allowed not Christ to be consubstantial ; as Pneumatomachi^ they denied the deity of the Holy Ghost. Their sect increased greatly,P not only at Constantinople, but in Thrace, Hellespont, Bithynia, and the neighbouring provinces : > Lib. iv. c. 28. «" Lib. ix. c. 46. " Epiph. Ilaeres. IxxiiL c. 24. et c. L Theodor. 1. ii. c. b". ° Orat. xHv. p. 710. p Sozom. 1. iv. c. 27. SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 61 and indeed the men were masters at the art of insinuation ; their behaviour was o-rave and mortified, their life severe and mona.s- tical,'' their address smooth and plausible, and accommodate to the humour of the persons that they had to deal with; and when at any time put to a pinch, by shifting and juggling/ and professing themselves Catholics, they knew how to secure their reputation and their interest. By these ways they successfully propagated their opinions, and were become so considerable in those parts, that Theodosius, for this and some other reasons,^ thought fit to convene a general council, to which he summoned the bishops of that party, hoping to reconcile them to the ca- tholic church, from the doctrine whereof they seemed not much to differ. And there was the more reason to think so, because they had more than once and again subscribed the Nicene creed; so they did at Antioch,* so at Rome," and in several synods of the West, and by that means procured the letters testimonial of pope Liberius, and several of the Western prelates, and were thereupon received by the catholic party, though upon every oc- casion they returned to their old principles ; as was evident, in that when Gratian the emperor published a law to licence all sects to act accordinof to their own wav,^' thouofh for some vears before they had freely comnumicated with the Catholics, they then flew off, and synodically assembling at Antioch, decreed against the consubstantial doctrine, and that none should hold communion with the professors of the Nicene faith. Thirty-six of their bishops came to the council, the heads whereof were Eleusius bishop of Cyzicum, and Marcianus of Lampsacum. The good emperor and the fathers of the synod took infinite pains with them to bring them over, putting them in mind of their promises and protestations made to Liberius, and others in their AVestern embassy, and that they had of late voluntarily commu- nicated with the Catholics ; and that it was indecent and impru- dent, that they, who had once embraced the faith, should now endeavour to subvert it. But the men were obstinate, not to be wrought upon, either by arguments or entreaties, and plainly told them, that whatever thev mio-ht have heretofore said to the contrary, they were resolved never to subscribe the consubstan- *i Vid. Naz. Orat. xliv. p. 711. *■ Vid. Socrat. 1. vii. c. 3. » Socrat. 1. V. c. 8. Sozom. 1. vii. c. 7. *■ Socrat. 1. iii. c. 25. " Id. 1. iv. c. 12. " Id. 1. V. c. 4. G2 THE LIFE OF tial faitli : witli ulilcli answer they left the synod, and went out of town, and wrote to their party in all places, that they should not af^ree to the Nicene creed. For which contumacy they were, together with others, condemned by the council ; and with these anathematisms they ended their determinations about matters of faith. I observe no more concerning this part of the council, than that no sooner was the synod broken up, but the good em- peror Theodosius, by a law bearing date the first of August,* ratified what they had decried against these heretics, command- ing that the Arians, Eunomians, and Aetians, should have no leave to build churches in any place ; and that if they did, such ground should be immediately confiscated, as also all places where they held their conventicles, or where their ministers should be entertained. Nay, to expose them yet further, he caused the images of Arius, Sabellius, ^lacedonius, and Euno- mius,^ to be cut in marble, and placed near the ground in the public forum, not far from the chamber of the senate, (the very place where Arius made his shameful and miserable end,) that so all that passed by might spit, or throw dirt upon them, or treat them with the most ignominious expressions of scorn and detestation ; and these images, my author assures us, were still standing in his time. VIII. The third thing that fell under the consideration of the synod, was the providing some rules relating to the external polity and discipline of the church : a thing usual in all great synods. And of the seven canons that the council passed, four of them are of this nature, whereof two most considerable, the second and third. By the second they fix and state the bounds and limits of the gi-eater Eastern churches, according to the constitution of the then Roman empire. There were under the government of the prsetorian prefect of the East five dio- ceses:^ the East especially so called, Egypt, Asiana, Pontica, and Thrace, each of which contained several provinces under it; the East fifteen, Egypt six, Asiana ten, Pontica eleven, and Thrace six. According to this form the fathers settled the juris- diction of the churches in the Eastern empire : that the bishop of Alexandria should govern Egypt, that is, all the churches ^ Cod. ""heodos. lib. xvi. Tit. v. 1. 8. > Codin. de Ong. Const, p. 23. Demons tr. Chron. Gr. L:it. a Comb. edit. p. 17. ' Vid. notit. Imper. Orient. SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 63 within the political diocese of Egypt ; . the bishops of the East those of the Eastern diocese, reserving all the privileges granted to the see of Antioch by the Nicene canon ; they of Asiana within Asiana, of Pontica within Pontica, of Thrace within that diocese ; that is, that the primates, or the bishops of the chief metropolis within these several dioceses, with the assistance of the bishops that were nnder them, should manage and direct all common affairs within those bounds, and which could not be conveniently managed by the bishops of every vsingle province. Socrates, speaking of this canon, says,^ that having divided the provinces, they constituted patriarchs. Whether by these he meant patriarchs properly so called, and whether they owed their original to the constitution of this council, is not easily de- terminable ; it is affirmed by some, and denied by others. It seems to be some prejudice to the affirmative, that the canon itself gives not the least hint of any such matter. Perhaps Va- lesius's conjecture is not improbable ;^ that by patriarchs, So- crates means some persons peculiarly deputed, if not by the synod, at least by the emperor, to exercise for the present an extraordinary ecclesiastic power within those several dioceses, for the settling of affairs of late much disturbed and out of order. Thus, besides Nectarius of Constantinople, who had Thrace, and Timotheus of Alexandria, who had Egypt, the patriarchate of the Pontican diocese (says Socrates) was committed to Helladius bishop of Csesarea, BasIFs successor, Gregory Nyssen, and Otreius of Meletina in Armenia; that of Asiana to Amphilochius of Iconium, and Optimus of Antioch in Pisidia ; that of the Eastern diocese to Pelagius of Laodicea, and to Diodorus of Tarsus : where we may observe, that he of Antioch, though the first bishop of that diocese, is not mentioned, probably because Me- letius, bishop of that see, was newly dead ; and though Flavian was immediately thrust up into his room, yet his election was hotly disputed and contested; upon which account, it is like, the emperor forbore to nominate him In the constitution which he published about this matter. However, that the see might not suff'er any prejudice, both the emperor and the canon make par- ticular provision, that the rights and privileges granted to the church of Antioch bv the canons of the council of Nice, should be reserved entire. And I am the more inclined to think this * Lib, V. c. 8. •* Vales. Annot, in Socrat. p. 60. 04 THE LIFE OF to have ])ecn SocratcH''s meaning, because Sozonien/ who wrote after hini, relates it tlius : tliat the persons mentioned were ap- pointed as standards of the catliolic communion within those several districts, by whom, as by proper judges, persons pro- fessing the catholic consubstantial doctrine were to be tried, and thereupon be admitted to their churches. This will be be- yond all disj)ute, if we consider, that upon the passing this canon, and the rising of the council, Theodosius put out an im- perial edict,'' commanding the churches in these several dioceses to be delivered to as many as confessed the true faith of the Holy Trinit}', and held communion with the persons above men- tioned. The truth is, this matter has been not a little obscured by Socrates and Sozomen, who, it is plain, have confounded the canon and the law of Theodosius, and patched up one out of both, wlienas they were widely different. The canon is general, and states the constant bounds of those Eastern jurisdictions ; that each of those five divisions should be of equal extent witli the civil diocese, and that the bishops of one diocese should not ordinarily Intermeddle in another. The edict, which was grounded upon and published immediately after the canon, was particuUir, and only temporary, nominating what persons within those five dioceses should manage and transact church affairs, for the present greatly out of order, and judge who were fit, after so many disturbances and irregularities as had lately over- run the church, to be admitted to communion. This being done, that edict was of no more force ; and is therefore omitted in the code of Justinian, the power it conveyed being personal, and ac- cordingly long since expired. In short, whatever becomes of the patriarchal controversy, whereof more perhaps in another place, the meaning of the canon is evidently this : that those five dio- ceses should be the ordinary division of the Eastern churches, and that the bishops of one diocese should not interfere with, nor ordain, or exercise any act of authority and jurisdiction In another ; and that this being observed, the affairs of every pro- vince should be decided by the synod of that province, according to the Xlcene constitutions. And it was but time to provide for this, there having been of late some uncanonlcal proceed- ings; thus Peter of Alexandria took upon him, by the three bishops he sent, to ordain Maximus of Constantinople, as Me- '^ Lib. vii. c. 9. ^ Cod. Thcodos. lib. xvi. Tit. i. 1. 3. SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 65 letius of Antioch, and some others, to translate Nazianzen to the same see. IX. The other canon concerns the dignity and precedence of the see of Constantinople, which, for the honour of the imperial court, they advance above all others but Rome. The canon is drawn up in these words :® " Let the bishop of Constantinople have the precedence or privilege of honour after the bishop of Rome, forasmuch as Con- stantinople is New Rome." This canon laid the first step of that ascent whereby the bishop of Constantinople mounted up to rival Rome, giving him the next plaee of honour ; which the council of Chalcedon ^ after- wards enlarged into an equality, establishing him ra tea irpea- fiela^ " equal privileges" with the see of Rome ; nay, gave him power as well as honour, subjecting to his see the three great dioceses of Pontica, Asiana, and Thrace, together with the bishops that were in the barbarous countries, that is, (say the scholiasts upon that canon,) the Alani and the Russi ; the one belonging to Pontica, the other to Thrace. Nay, some have so far stretched the meaning of our present canon as to tell us,S that the praepo- sition yuera, aftei\ implies not any inferior degree of privilege to Rome, but only a posteriority in point of time, which must be confessed to savour of a critical nicety. Though it cannot be denied, but that the fathers at Chalcedon so understood it, that by virtue of this canon the same honours and privileges were conferred upon the bishops of Neic^ as had been upon them of Old Rome, and as such they ratified it with their sanction. And as in the first ages of Christianity scarce any thing more ad- vanced the grandeur and reputation of the church of Rome, than its being the seat of the empire, its privileges being granted by the fathers upon that account, (as they of Chalcedon expressly affirm,) so they conceived it but reasonable, that Constantinople being now made the seat of the imperial throne, the church there should bear some proportion to the dignity of the civil state, and the bishops enjoy as much privilege as they did at Rome. And indeed the best way to let in light, both upon this and the preceding canon, and to find what privileges were granted to the see of Constantinople by this canon, as also by that of Chalcedon and some following councils, were to inquire, ^ Can. 3. ' Can. 28. ? Al. Arist. in h. 1. Vi^l. ctiam comm. Bals. ct Zonar. ibid. VOL. III. F (^6 THE LIFE OF what precedence and power the Roman bishops anciently had/ and what they usurped : to whicli purpose I had once thought to have ventured the reader's patience upon a digression con- cerning the ancient power and jurisdiction of the bishop of Rome, and the gradual encroachments of that see over other bishops, especially them of Constantinople. But because this would be too great an interruption in the course of the story, I have chosen rather to refer it to a discourse by itself, where the reader may peruse, or pass it by, at pleasure. SECTION VI. PARTICULAR TRANSACTIONS OF THE COUNCIL RELATING TO NAZIANZEN. HIS RESIGNATION AND DEPARTURE. DiBsensions arising in the synod ahout the see of Antioch. Nazianzen's proposal in favour of Paulinus ill resented, and combinations made against him. His free dis- course to them upon that occasion. The people troubled at the bare report of his readiness to resign. The confederacy against him increased by the arrival of the Egyptian bishops. Their opposition to him, whence. His admirable oration to them concerning peace. His address to the emperor for leave to resign his see. This very difficultly obtained. His eloquent oration to the synod at his taking leave. Some passages of that oration laid before the reader. The time of his departure, and universal sorrow for it. Nectarius elected to be his successor. The occasion of his name being proposed among the rest. The emperor pitches upon him, and persists in his resolution. The dissolution of the council. Hitherto things had gone on smoothly In the council, when they fell into disturbance and confusion, which began upon this occasion. Meletius, the good bishop of Antioch, died during the sitting of the council,* whose funeral (as became a person of his age and merits) was attended with an universal confluence of the city, and on several days honoured with orations by the most eloquent persons in the council. And now great heats arose among them about choosing a successor in his room, a strong party being made for Flavianus, presbyter of Antioch, for whom at last they carried it. Nazianzen, hoping to reconcile the differences, propounded a pious and peaceable expedient, (though his appearing in it, and thereby seeming to espouse the cause of the Western prelates, as was that of Paulinus against > Naz, Carm. de vit. sua, vol. ii. p. 25. Greg. Presb. in vit. Naz. p. 29, 3flL SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 67 k them of the East, conjured up a spirit, which all his art and interest could not lay, the opposite party in the synod fermenting into heat and passion, who hence took occasion to fall upon him, till nothing would satisfy them but the throwing up his place ; he propounded,) that Paulinus, whom Lucifer Calaritanus had ordained bishop of Antioch, might continue so for the short remainder of his life, after whose death (which could not be far off) all competitions ceasing, they might then choose whom they pleased, and so a period be put to the unhappy long-continued schism of that church. He told them further, that as to him- self, he had unwillingly entered upon the see of Constantinople, and though he had spent, and that not unsuccessfully, infinite pains and labours in that place, yet he expected no other reward but from above ; that after the importunities of the people, and their own free votes had forced the thing upon him, it seemed strange that any of them should go about to undo their own act, and endeavour to supplant and undermine him ; not that he cared for riches or honour, or prided himself in the title of bishop of the imperial city, but that he had a tender regard to the necessities of the people, and that it must needs cast an im- putation either of envy or levity upon themselves, to run counter to their own late determinations. However, if they had a mind to take that course, he was ready freely to resign his bishopric ; they might consult and resolve upon what they pleased ; solitude had never been unwelcome to him, and it was his comfort, that though they might separate him from his see, they could never part between him and God. Having ended his speech, he perceived the faction to grow strong against him, and the ancients ready to side with the younger and more heady part of the council ; so he left them, and retired to a remote part of the city, purposely to avoid the noise and crowd. But no sooner what had passed was rumoured abroad, but a crowd of people thronged about him, and passionately besought him to pity the miserable flock, which with so much care and pains he had hitherto fed and governed. What, would he now throw up the crop which he had sown, and had brought, from so small a handful, to so much maturity and plenty ? To whom would he leave his sheep ? He had hitherto spent his strength amongst them, let him give God and them the remainder of his life, and lay his bones amongst them. He could not but be greatly F 2 68 THE LIFE OF affected with their prayers and tears, yet suffered not himself to be moved from his resohition, which he every day found more reason to put into execution. II. For about this time arrived Timotheus bishop of Alex- andria, with his prelates and others out of Macedonia, who, mindful of the old quarrel, and meeting with this happy oppor- tunity, remonstrated against Nazianzen's being elected to that see, not out of any dislike to him, (as they privately told him,) but opposition to the rest who had settled him in it without their consent ; and to cover their spite wuth some specious pre- text, charged them with an irregular procedure in that affair, especially in allowing translations from one see to another, condemned by the canons of the church. Factions thus in- creasing, he endeavours, if possible, to compose them by an oration concerning peace,'' w^hich he purposely preached upon this occasion, wherein he lays before them, with all the advan- tages of his rhetoric, the great blessings and benefits of peace, the infinite mischiefs of divisions and animosities amongst Chris- tians, how contrary they are to the principles of our faith, and how dishonourable to God and to religion, and what advantages they give to the enemies of our faith. " What a disgrace is it, (said he,') and how unbecoming such sage and reverend prelates, that you, who press others to peace, should fiercely contend with mutual animosities ; no matter what becomes of me, so this great assembly may but be united. Let this be your prime care and business ; I am content to sacrifice my reputation, and to be accounted rude, blunt, or ignorant, so you may agree. Nay, though I have been far enough from raising the storm, yet, if it may save the ship, I am not better than the prophet Jonah ; throw me into the sea, and let these storms and tempests cease, I can be willing to be condemned to an hospital, or to suffer any thing you shall think fit to inflict, if by that means I may but give being to your concord, I do not desire any laws should be violated for my sake ; I herein give a law to myself, not to ac- count any thing hard or uneasy. I unwillingly accepted this throne, and I now willingly quit it. The craziness of my body minds me of it. Death is a debt which I owe, and it must once be paid, and it is in God's hand when he please to call for '' Orat. xiv. p. 213. ' Cam. de yit. sua, vol. ii. p. 29. Greg. Presb. in vit. Naz. p. 31. SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 69 it. Adieu, dear brethren, and preserve a just memory of my pains and labours/"* And because, where other artifices of malice failed, some of them had given out, that it was not the patronage and defence of truth, but pride and an ambitious affectation of that honourable see had brought him thither, he vindicated himself in a particular oration ;"" wherein he appealed to the people, whether he had not, with all earnestness and obstinacy, declined the place, till he had been with a violent and irresistible importunity seated upon that throne, which he knew not, etre rvpavvcKov Xeyetv etre ap-^iepanKov^ " whether to style a tyrannical, or an archiepiscopal dignity ;" that had he been guilty of so much vanity and folly, especially in his circum- stances, an infirm old man, broken with age and sickness, he should blush to look up to heaven, or to shew his face in that sacred assembly, and his former pains and labours, his coarse habit, and empty table, not much better furnished than that of the fowls of heaven ; his accustomed retirements and private life would rise up against him : but there could be little reason to charge him with invading another''s see, who had rejected one of his own. But, alas, where passion and anger, malice and interest govern, it makes men deaf to the fairest reasonings. These courses therefore not succeeding, he resolved to be no longer a bone of contention, and to that end went straight to court ; where, upon his knees, kissing the emperor''s hand, he told him, " I am come, sir, to beg a request of you, not riches or treasure for myself, or costly ornaments for the church, or honours or offices for my relations ; these are little things, fit for narrow and contracted minds, they are greater matters I design for myself; this only I beg, that I may have leave to be gone, and to give way to the envious and ill-minded ; if I like bishoprics any where, it is a great way oflf ; here I disgust my very friends, only because I value nothing but God ; I beseech you, amongst all the trophies and triumphs of your reign, let this be the greatest, your reducing them to unity and concord, whom if the fear of God will not, let your authority compel them to lay down their arms; this is the last request of him, whom your majesty knows you placed against his will upon this episcopal throne." The emperor and those that stood by, admired the temper of the man, and was at last drawn, not without some difficulty, to «" Orat. xxvii. p. 464. Vid. p. 4b'o, 467, 468. 70 THE LIFE OF consent to liis petition ; whose leave being obtained, he had now nothing to do, but to take his farewell. To which end, in the great church, before the one hundred and fifty fathers of the synod, and as many of the people as the church could hold, he made his last oration ; '^ the whole is admirably worth the reader's perusal, but to avoid tediousness, I shall select only such passages as are most material. After he had acquainted them in what a woful case he found the church at his first coming to Constantinople, what miserable devastations the late persecutions had every where made of the catholic church, and had given them an account what reformation he had wrought in his charge, and what doctrine he had preached to them, he comes to apologize for himself: " Have we (says he °) circum- vented this people through covetousness, or, as I see many do, sacrificed their interest to my own private gain ? Have we at any time disturbed the church ? ' Whose ox or whose ass have I taken,' as the price of your souls, and have not kept my ministry pure and uncorrupt ? If I have affected domination, or a sublime see, or have haunted princes'* courts, let that be my only portion ; or if it were, I would soon rid my hands of it. Let me have this as the reward of all my labours, to be delivered from my burden, and to enjoy my ease ; look upon my gray hairs, and have respect to me as a stranger ; substitute another in my room, who may undergo trouble for you, a man strict and eloquent, and who may at once be fit to gratify you, and able to go through with the affairs of the church, for such the ne- cessities of this time do call for. You see in what a case I am, my body worn out with age, labour, and sickness: little need have you of such a timorous and feeble old man as I am, dying daily through care and weakness, and who at this time am scarce able to speak to you. Believe your guide, whom you were never wont to disbelieve ; I am weary, while my mildness and moderation is charged upon me for a fault; I am weary, while I am forced to encounter with rumours and envy, and not only with enemies but friends, who wound more deeply and securely .... I beseech you,P by all that is dear and sacred, do me this kindness, to dismiss me with your prayers, let that be the reward of my conflicts and trials ; grant me a warrant for my discharge, as generals are wont to do to their old worn- » Orat. xxxiL p. 51U. . '' Ibid. p. 522. p Ibid. p. o2G, 527. SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 71 out soldiers ; and let it be, if you please, with an honourable ac- clamation at my exit; if not, do your pleasure, it is a thing which I will not contend about, it is enough that God beholds and will regard my cause. And as for a successor, God will provide himself a pastor, as once he did a lamb for a burnt- offering. I only beg this of you, that you would choose such a one, as may be the object rather of men^s envy than their pity, who may not be ready basely to comply with every one upon all occasions, but willing to venture the favour and the frowns of men in the doing of what is just and true. The one course may be sweet at present, but the other will turn to account another day." Having discoursed thus, he comes in the close to take a particular farewell, which he does in this elegant and pathetical apostrophe. " Farewell, Anastasia, whose very name speaks piety; thou that gavest a new life to the catholic doctrine, when buried under ignominy and contempt ; farewell, I say, thou seat of common victory, thou Shiloli, into which we brought and fixed the ark of God, after it had wandered up and down in the desert for forty years together. And thou great and venerable temple, the new inheritance, who owest the magnificence thou now en- joyest to the orthodox faith, and whom of a Jebus we made a Jerusalem. And all the rest of you churches, that approach to it in splendour and beauty, and that like chains compass about and connect the several parts of the city, which we, in the midst of all our weakness, enabled by divine assistance, as con- temptible as we were made, were wont to fill in our circular visitations. Farewell, apostles, the noble colony transplanted hither, the leaders of my conflicts and sufterings, though I must confess I have not so frequently celebrated your solemnities, perhaps because I carried your St. Paul's Satans about with me in the body, (a thing conducive to my advantage,) the reason why I now depart from you. Farewell, my episcopal chair, thou dangerous and envied throne ; farewell, thou assembly of bishops, persons venerable for your age and gravity, and all the rest of you that officiate at the holy table, and minister before God, who is nigh to them that draw nigh to him. Farewell, the choirs of Nazarites, the harmonious psalmodies, nocturnal sta- tions, the modest virgins, grave matrons, the crowds of widows and orphans, the eyes of the poor, always intent upon God and 72 THE LIFE OF ns. Farewell, hospitals, lovers of Christ, and helpers of mine in- firmities. Farewell, the affectionate frequenters of my sermons,*^ the crowds thronging to the church, the swift-handed notaries, and these rails so often pressed upon by my greedy auditors. Farewell, emperors, with your courts and courtiers, perhaps not more ftiithful to the emperor than to God. Clap your hands, and with your shrill voice cry out, exalt your orator. The busy and insolent tongue, (as you account it,) has been silent towards you, but shall not be always so, but shall fight against you with hand and pen, though for the present we have held our peace. Farewell, great city, thou lover of Christ and his religion ; for I will bear thee record, that thou 'hast a zeal, but not according to knowledge f parting has rendered us more mutually kind. Embrace the truth, and at length change for the better ; worship God oftener than you used to do ; it is no dishonour to alter for the better, but to persist in a bad course is pernicious and deadly. Farewell, East and West, for whom and by whom we are opposed and troubled, witness he that can make us quiet, if a few would but give way, and imitate my resignation : a thing that may be done without any considerable disadvantage ; for they lose not God, who desert their thrones, but secure to themselves a throne above, much more sublime and safe. But above and beyond all other things, I will cry, farewell, angels, the tutelar guardians of this church, and both of my company and departure, so long as my affairs are in the hands of God. Farewell, Trinity, my meditation and my ornament ; mayest thou be secured to them, and do thou secure and keep safe this my people, (mine, I call them, though we are now under another management of affairs,) and let me hear the news of it every day, how much thou art increased and advanced both by the doctrine and the life of thy professors. ' Little children, keep that which I have committed to you ;"* remember my being stoned. ' The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.' " We may imagine what impression so passionate an oration, from so dearly beloved a prelate, made upon the minds of the people. Rich and jDoor,"" the honourable and ignoble, strangers and citizens, were equally affected with it, and could not Avith patience hear of their j^astor's being ravished from them, inso- 1 De hac re vid. Orat. xxvii. in init. p. 464. ^ Carin. de vit. sua, vol. iL p. 30. - SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 78 much that he himself was forced to persuade them, and ply them with such considerations as were proper to sweeten and allay their grief. Nay, very many of the bishops themselves, detesting the rash and violent proceedings of the council, shaked their heads, and went away. The exact time of his resignation is not transmitted to us. If the date of his will (which we shall produce hereafter) be true, it must be some time after the last of December, anno 381, seeing he therein writes himself bishop of Constantinople. But this cannot be, the council itself not sit- ting so long by several months. So that there is a necessity, with Baronius,^ to assert, that instead of 'louvi'wv, ^lavovapLcov crept into the date bv the carelessness of transcribers, and that the will was made the day before the calends of June, that is, the last of May, during the sitting of the council. And that it must be so, we have this further evidence, it being plain by a law of Theo- dosius,* bearing date July the 30th of this year, that Nectarius was then bishop of Constantinople. Thus, after three years'* stay, (Gregorius presbyter by a prodigious error makes it twelve,") Nazianzen left Constantinople, and returned into his own country, where he reposed himself at Arianzum, his paternal estate, where we leave him for a little time, while we return to Constantinople, and see what passed there. III. The see thus vacated by resignation, the next thing to be done was the choosing of a successor ; and what to the reader will seem strange and admirable, in so great a number of grave venerable prelates there assembled, not one was picked out, but the election was cast upon a layman, which happened thus.'' There was at Constantinople at that time one Nectarius, a senator, a person of a comely presence and of a sober and un- blameable conversation, which, together with his gray hairs, (never more "a crown of honour, than when found in the way of righteousness,"*') procured him an universal reverence and re- gard. Being about this time to go for Tarsus, the place of his nativity, he came to Diodorus bishop of that see, then one of the council, to know what services he would command him into his own country, and whether he had any letters to send thither. Diodorus, who was just then taken up with the profound con- sideration of a fit person for tliat place, about which there was « Ad Ann. 389. t Cod. Theodos. lib. xvi. Tit. i. 1. 3. " In vit. Naz. p. 32. " Sozom. 1. vii. c. 8. 74 THE LIFE OF 60 ambitious a competition, beheld the man, secretly liked him, and resolved to put in for him. Without discovering any thing of his purpose, he carried him to the bishop of Antioch, to whom he propounded the matter, and begged his vote. The good bishop, considering how many excellent persons stood candi- dates, smiled at the motion, however wished Nectarius not sud- denly to depart the city. Upon the day of election, when every bishop wrote down in a scroll the names of those persons whom he thought fit to be presented to the emperor, the bishop of An- tioch set down his, and, to gratify his friend, put down Necta- rius at the bottom ; the roll being presented, the emperor once and again run over the names from top to bottom, and after all, to the amazement of the synod, pitched upon Nectarius, a person unknown to most of them, and upon inquiry found (what still increased their admiration) to be not only a layman, but un- baptized. Whereat yet the emperor''s judgment was no whit shaken, though several of the synod took exceptions at it; at last, by general consent, he was baptized, and passed through the ecclesiastic orders, and was consecrated to that see. Some few other things of no great moment were transacted in the synod; after which, having addressed themselves to the emperor,^ that by his imperial edict he would ratify the acts of the council, and as by his letters he had given beginning, so by the same way he would seal up the conclusion of it ; and having prayed to heaven for his long life, prosperous reign, and future happiness, they brake up, and departed into their own countries. SECTION VII. HIS ACTS FROM HIS RESIGNATION TO HIS DEATH. He is invited to the reassembling of the synod at Constantinople ; but refuses to come, and why. His excuse sent to the emperor. His refusal to take upon him the charge of Nazianzum. The slanders raised upon him upon that account. Another s3'nod at Constantinople. The activity of the catholic bishops against the prevalency of the Arians. The bold address of Amphilochius to the emperor. Theodosius ratifies the consubstantial doctrine, and rejects all sorts of heretics. Nazianzen's care and solici- tude for the peace of the church. The emplojonent and diversions of his retired life. His frequent infirmities. His last will and testament exemplified at large. This will when made. His age, and the time of his death. The description of his person and y Ext. Epibt. ad Cone. vol. iii. p. 35 i. ed, reg. SAINT GREGORY NAZ1AN2EN. 75 outward ehape. His image, whether set up, and worshipped in his church. His di- vine temper of mind. His great piety and love to God, contempt of the world, un- biassed carriage, mortification and self-denial, kindness and charity, concernment for the peace of the church, calmness and patience, and immoveable zeal for the catholic faith. His natural parts. Great fame for learning ; accuracy in theology. Honoured with the title of " the divine." His way of writing. The excellency and sublimity of his style. His imitation of Isocrates. Basil, he, and Apollinaris, compared. His too much indulging the vein of oratory, gave hint to the practice of invocating saints. His excellent skill in poetry. Why none of his works epitomized or mentioned by Photius. An account of his writings. The following year, many of these bishops reassembled at Con- stantinople,^ at what time they received letters from the prelates of the West, attended with others from the emperor, desiring them to come to a synod then summoned at Rome. They excused themselves from the journey for several reasons, which they re- presented by legates with letters,* directed to pope Damasus, St. Ambrose, and the rest of the bishops convened at Rome : wherein they also acquaint them with the sufferings and perse- cutions of the Eastern churches ; the faith they professed, and which the year before they had ratified in a general council ; and what provision they had made for the gi-eater churches, of Con- stantinople, Antioch, and Jerusalem. To add the greater re- putation to their meeting, they had among others caused Nazi anzen to be summoned to this second convention at Constanti- nople, but he plainly refused to come to this, or indeed any other synodical assembly ; experience (he tells them ^) had suf- ficiently taught him, how little good was to be expected from synods, which usually more widen than heal up differences; where very often they clash and quarrel, wrangle and make a noise, more like a flock of geese and cranes than an assembly of wise and grave prelates:^ at such meetings, strife and con- tention, pride and ambition are wont to bear the greatest sway ; and a man that interposes as a judge, shall sooner corrupt him- self, than correct and reform another. That for this reason he had retired within himself, and accounted the only safety to lie in privacy and solitude. Besides, he was at this time prisoner to an heavy sickness,^ which pressed so hard upon him, that * Theodor. 1. v. c. 8, ^ Ext. Ep. ibid. c. 9. ** Naz. Ep. Iv. p. 814. Vid. Ep. Ixviii. p. 828. et seq. Ep. Ixxxiv. p. 842, ' Vid. Naz. de divers, vit. gener. Carm. x. vol. ii. p. 82. ^ Vid. etiani Ep. Ixxvi. p. 830. 76 THE LIFE OF he was unablo to help himself, and expected every day to breathe out his last. This he desired his friend Procopius (to whom he wrote about this matter) to intimate to the emperor, and to beg his excuse, which he doubted not would be easily granted, the emperor having, not long since, upon this very account, granted him leave to retire. And indeed he was better em- ployed at home. At his return he found the see of Nazianzum still vacant,^ and by that means overrun with error, especially the late heresy of ApoUinaris. And though he was earnestly entreated to take that charge upon him, yet did he obstinately refuse it. This his enemies took advantage of, to traduce and scandalize him, some charging him with pride,*^ that he scorned the cure of so mean a place ; whereof he acquits himself by a solemn appeal to heaven, that it was only age and infirmity, and the desire of a quiet life, made him decline it : others re- ported,^ that he could not have it, though he would, and that Helladius, archbishop of Csesarea, had laid him aside, and against his will ordained another to that place ; the falsehood whereof he lays open in a letter to Gregory Nyssen, purposely written on that occasion. And indeed it was by his recommendation and effectual intercession that care was taken in it,*' and that the bishops of the province met, who ordained his good friend Eula- lius to that see. And whereas it was objected, that he having been bishop of Nazianzum, it was not lawful by the canons to create another during his life ; he answered, that it was noto- riously known, that though he had been made bishop of Sasima, yet he had never been of Nazianzum, where, out of reverence to his aged father, and at the mighty importunity of the people, he had only sojourned a little while, and taken upon him the vi- carious administration of that office. II. If we look back a little upon the late transactions at Con- stantinople, we shall find, that notwithstanding all the pains which the good emperor had been at to heal the church's wounds, yet the breaches continued, and grew wider than before. How- ever, he resolved to try once more to make them up, and to that end to convene another synod,' whither the heads of the several « Greg, Presb. in vit. Naz. p. 32. '' Naz. Carm. i. de reb. suis. Vid. Ep. ccxxii. p. 909. s Naz. Ep. xlii. p. 803. Vid. Ep. liv. p. 013. >» Vid. Ep. ccxxv. p. 912. * Socrat. 1. V. c. 10. Sozom. 1. vii. c. 12. Theodor. I. v. c. 16. SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 77 parties should be summoned ; and advising with Nectarius about it, he gave him order to prepare the most material points then in difference, that they might be debated with all possible accuracy, and the faith of the church reduced to one common standard by mutual consent. And the better to sweeten the humours of the several parties, he endeavoured to oblige them Ly acts of grace, receiving them with caresses, and conniving at the exercises of their religion. The catholic bishops were greatly troubled at this liberty indulged to heretics, not knowing how far those subtle agents might work upon the good nature of the emperor. Whereupon Amphilochius, bishop of Iconium, went to him, and in the name of the rest requested, that the Arian con- venticles might be suppressed, and they dismissed the city. But the address being rejected, the good bishop, to convince him * of his error by a more sensible demonstration, came a second time to court, and having paid the usual reverence to the emperor, took little or no notice of the young prince Arcadius, whom Theodosius had but a little before made his colleague in the empire. The emperor quickly discerned the slightingness of his carriage, and thinking it had proceeded from forgetfulness, called to him, and commanded him to pay the accustomed re- spects to his son. The bishop replied, the honour he had given him was enough. Whereat the emperor began to storm, and told him, he looked upon a contempt done to his son as offered to himself. " You see then, sir, (replied the bishop,) how little you can bear an affront offered to your son, and how angry you are with them that do it ; think now with yourself, and be assured, that God, the great King of the world, does much more resent and detest those that blaspheme his only begotten Son, as persons extremely ungrateful to their Saviour and best bene- factor." The emperor was quickly sensible of the rebuke, and needed no more application to dispose him to a compliance with the petition of the catholic bishops. However, that things might be carried in the fairest manner, the synod met in June, anno 383. But the emperor having altered his resolution, of having things canvassed in a way of public disputation, commanded the principals of every sect to present an account of their faith in writing, which they did accordingly. These being brought in, he took the papers, and retiring into his closet, earnestly begged of God his assistance and direction in the search of truth. This 78 THE LIFE OF done, lie read over the several confessions, and only approved and set his seal to that which contained the consubstantial doc- trine ; the rest he tore in pieces, the authors of them returning home with shame and sorrow : all which Theodosius, a few days after, ratified by two very strict constitutions against all sorts of heretics, *" especially the Eunomians, Arians, Macedonians, and some others particularly named ; prohibiting them, under severe penalties, to meet either in public or private, either in city or country, or so much as to ordain any bishops of their several parties. But these laws met with a very slack and gentle execution. III. Though Nazianzen refused to be present at this, or in- deed any other synodal convention, yet how much he was con- cerned for the happy issue and success of it, viz. the peace of the church, appears from two letters of his written upon this occa- sion : one to Posthumianus,^ the prretorian prefect, to whom also the emperor had directed the two laws we mentioned ; the other to-Saturninus,'" the same, probably, who was consul this year; assuring them, that though he had withdrawn himself from public aiFairs, it was not, as some imagined, from any discontent for the loss of the great place he had quitted, and that he could not abandon the common interests of religion ; that his retire- ment was a matter of choice more than necessity, and was to him a most welcome and happy opportunity, wherein he took as great a pleasure, as a man that has been tossed in a long storm at sea does in a safe and a quiet harbour. And indeed, being now freed from all external cares and troubles, he entirely gave up himself to solitude and contemplation, and to the exercises of a strict and devout life. At vacant hours he would refresh the wearinesses of old age with his poetic studies,"^ which he gene- rally spent upon divine subjects, and serious reflections upon the former passages of his life, an account whereof he drew up in iambics, whence we have derived no inconsiderable parts of our story. And thus he passed the remainder of his days, till death overtook him, which he had long expected. Indeed, his frequent infirmities (for though naturally of an healthful constitution, hard study and an over-rigid abstinence had greatly impaired his health, and subjected him to many severe distempers, whereof ^ Cod. Theodos. lib. xvi. Tit. t. 1. 11. et 12. ' Epist. Ixxi. p. 828. ■• Epist. Ixxii. ibid. " Greg. Presb. in vit. Naz. p. 33. SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 79 he complains at every turn, especially in his epistles, these, I say) had kept awake in him a constant sense of his mortality, and he entertained every sickness as a messenger of death. He had some years since made his will, a copy whereof is still ex- tant, said in the title to have heen transcribed from the original, subscribed with his and the witnesses' own hands. That it is genuine, there appears no just cause to doubt, the exceptions to it being weak and trifling, and the thing itself not much contro- verted by the most nice and critical censors of the fathers' writings,** which therefore we shall here insert as a monument of ancient piety, and a record of this good man's humility and charity. ** The most excellent Flavins Eucherius and Fl.Evagrius being consuls, the day before the calends of January, [that is, December the last.] " I, Gregory, bishop of the catholic church of Constantinople, being alive and considerate, of a sound judgment, and perfect imderstanding, have made this my last will and testament, which I will and command to be firm and valid in all courts and upon all occasions. For I have now declared my mind, and have consecrated my whole estate to the catholic church at Nazianzum, for the relief of the poor belonging to the said church. For which purpose, according to this determination, I have appointed three overseers for the poor, Marcellus deacon and monk, Gregory the deacon, and Eustathius the monk, who both of them were of my family. And having still the same affection towards the holy church of Nazianzum, I continue in the same purpose and resolution. Whensoever therefore I shall happen to depart this life, let the abovesaid Gregory deacon and monk, who was of my family, and whom heretofore I manumitted, be heir to all my estate moveable and immoveable, wheresoever it be, (all other heirs I renounce,) upon condition, that he restore my whole estate, moveable and immoveable, to the holy catholic church of Nazianzum, deducting nothing, but what in this my will, either by way of trust or legacy, I have privately bequeathed to some few persons ; but that all the rest be entirely reserved to the said church, as becomes one that has the fear of God before his eyes, and knows that I have ordained and disposed my whole <» Rivet. Crit. Sac. 1. iii. c. 22. 80 THE LIFE OF estate to the use of the poor of that church, and have appointed him heir for tliis very end, that by his means it may be kept safe and without fraud for the church aforesaid. " The servants whom I have manumitted, either out of my own good will, or according to the command of my parents of blessed memory, my will is, that they shall still enjoy their freedom, and all their own proper goods, without disturbance or molesta- tion. " Item, I will, that Gregory the deacon, my heir, together with Eustathius the monk, both of them heretofore of my family, shall possess my manor of Arianzum, which came to our family as part of Reginus''s estate. As for the breed-mares, and the sheep, which, when I was there, I commanded to be delivered to them, the full and absolute disposal whereof I committed to them, I will that they enjoy them undisturbed by the right of lordship and dominion. Moreover, it is especially my will, that Gregory the deacon, and my heir, who has so faithfully ministered to me, shall by a peculiar right of dominion have fifty pieces of gold. " To the venerable virgin E-ussiana, my kinswoman, I have commanded a certain yearly allowance to be paid for her liberal maintenance, which my will is, shall, according to the form of settlement, be duly and without delay paid her every year. And whereas hitherto I could determine nothing concerning her habitation, not knowing in what place she had most mind to settle ; now my will is, that wheresoever she shall choose, an house be provided for her, suitable to her quality, and to the modest and honest conversation of a virgin, which she shall have to her use without any molestation during her life, but after her decease it shall return to the church. I will also that she have two maidens, such as she shall choose, who shall stay with her while she lives ; and whom, if they desire it, she shall have power to make free, otherwise they also shall belong to the church. " Theophilus, my servant, who now waits upon me, I have manumitted, and will that a legacy of five nomismata be paid him. I also set at liberty his brother Eupraxius, to whom I bequeath five pieces of gold. I will likewise that Theodosius, my notary and amanuensis, have his freedom, and that a legacy of five pieces of gold be given him also. SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 81 " My will is, that pardon be begged of my dear niece Alypiana,^ (for the other two, Eugenia and Nonna, their conversation is such, as not to challenge any great regard from me,) that I could leave her nothing, having already settled all upon the poor, or rather herein performed the will of my blessed parents, who so designed it, to defeat whose intentions were neither just nor safe. Whatever remains of my brother Csesarius's wardrobe, either silk, linen, or woollen, or horse-trappings and ornaments, 1 will that they be bestowed upon my said niece''s children, and that neither she nor her sisters do, upon that or any other ac- count, create any trouble either to my heir or to the church. " As for my kinsman (6 ya/jL/3p6<; fiov) Meletius, let him know that he holds the farm at Apenzinsum, which was EuphemiusX by an unjust title. Concerning which, I have heretofore often written to Euphemius, charging him with carelessness and cowardice, if he did not recover it. And by these presents I testify to all magistrates and people, that Euphemius is greatly wronged, and that the farm ought to be restored to him. " I will, that the purchase of the farm at Canotala be delivered up to my son, the most reverend bishop Amphilochius. For it appears from my papers, and it is what every one knows, that the contract was discharged, and that I received the money, and long since gave him up the propriety and right of pos- session. " To Evagrius the deacon, who has been partaker with me in my many labours and suiferings, and who in so many instances has endeared his kindness to me, I return hearty thanks before God and men, and for greater things God reward them into his bosom. But that I may not leave him without some small testimony of my respect and love, my will is, that he have given him, one frieze coat, one tunic, two cloaks, and thirty pieces of gold. Item, I give to our dear brother and fellow-deacon Theodulus, one coarse frieze garment, two of our country-coats, and twenty pieces of gold according to the rate of our ^wn country. Item, To Elaphius the notary, a good man, and 1(lbo, while he attended my service, was very diligent and useful to me, I bequeath one frieze gannent, two coats, three cloaks, one single unlined garment, and twenty pieces of gold of the money of our own country, P T)]v dvyaripa, VOL. III. G 82 THE LIFE 'OF " This my testament I will shall stand firm and valid in all courts, and before all tribunals; or if it take not place as a testament, yet as my last will, or as a codicil, I require that it take place. And whoever shall attempt to overthrow it, shall give an account for it at the day of judgment, and receive his reward. " In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost ; I, Gregory, bishop of the catholic church at Constanti- nople, have reviewed this my will and testament, and having approved all things in it, have subscribed it with my own hand, and do will and command that it be of full force and power. " I, Amphilochius, bishop of the catholic church at Iconium, was present at the making the will of the most venerable bishop Gregory, and, being requested by him, have subscribed it with my own hand. " I, Optimus, bishop of the catholic church at Antioch, (in Pisidia,) was present Avhen the most reverend bishop Gregory made the above-written testament, and at his request have sub- scribed it with my own hand. " I, Theodosius, bishop of the catholic church at Ida, was pre- sent at the testament of the most venerable bishop Gregory, and at his request subscribed it with my own hand. " I, Theodosius, bishop of the catholic church at Apamea, was present, &c. " I, Hilary, bishop of the catholic church at Isauria, was pre- sent, &c. " I, Themistius, bishop of the catholic church at Adrianople, was present, &c. " I, Cledonius, presbyter of the catholic church at Iconium, was present, &c. *' I, John, reader and notary of the most holy church at Nazi- anzum, have transcribed and published the copy of the sacred will and testament of Gregory, the holy and famous divine, which was recorded and laid up in the venerable church com- mitted to my charge." IV. This will (as appears from the date of the consuls, and some other passages in the instrument itself) was made not long before his resignation of the see of Constantinople, probably upon occasion of that weak sickly condition he was then in. Though SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 83 whether the month mentioned in the date be not mistaken, and January put for June, we have before observed cause enough to suspect, and indeed to conchide in the affirmative. Several of the legacies bequeathed in it, immediately relate to the habits and customs of his own country of Cappadocia, and the places where his relations were and his estate lay, without the know- ledge whereof it is no easy matter readily to understand them. And it is no small justification of the truth and sincerity of this record, that he so oft elsewhere mentions his divesting himself of his estate, and settling it upon the poor. Eight years he lived after his making of this will, and died in his own country, and (probably) where he was born, at his own house at Arian- zum. St. Jerome, who finished his catalogue anno 392, says, that he died three years before that time, that is, anno 389 : at what time he was arrived, says Gregorius the presbyter, at a very great age. And it must needs be so, if it be true what Suidas reports, that he lived above ninety years, and died in the thirteenth of Theodosius, anno 391. But how this can be re- conciled with his being but thirty years old (which himself affirms) when he was at Athens, anno 354, I see not. It re- mains then according to this account, and the date of his death assigned by St. Jerome, that he was sixty-five years of age at the time of his death. V. As to his person, he (as Simeon Metaphrastes tells us ^) was of a middle stature, of a sweet and pleasant countenance, somewhat pale, but withal of a graceful and amiable look, his nose a little flat and low, his eyebrows grew upright, his right eye, which a scar had contracted, looked a little heavy, bis beard short but thick, and black in the upper part of it. He was in a great measure bald, what hair he had being milk-white. His image, made to the life, was after his death (though not till some ages after) set up in the church, where it was worshipped (they say) with great veneration, and became famous for work- ing miracles ; particularly that of Constantine the son of Leo Armenus the emperor, ^^ who, being struck dumb, by the help of it recovered his speech. But the best of it is, we are not to be taught at this time of day, what credit to give to reports of that nature, started in the middle and latter ages of the church, and what artifices were used after the time of the second Nicene P Inter teBtim. vet. opp. Naz. praefix. •I Cedren. conipend. hist, in vit. Micb. Balb. p. 497. 84 THE LIFE OF council to justify the doctrine, and to buoy up the reputation of image- worship. Nor does Cedrenus (whatever Baronius affirms in this case) say/ that Oonstantine worshipped the image, but that he prayed to God and St. Gregory, whose image was in that place. But, whatever he might do after his death, we are sure he did great things while he was alive. His soul was seasoned with an early sense of religion, and the seeds of piety, which his good mother sowed betimes, grew up, and produced answerable fruits, and the whole course of his life was but an accomplishment of that solemn vow which she made to God before he was born, that she would entirely resign him up to him. There was nothing too hard which he could not cheerfully suffer, no interest too dear which he could not freely part with for God ; and though he had excellencies and endowments that render a man great in the eye of the world, estate, honour, health, and learning, yet he professed this was the greatest ad- vantage he reaped by them,^ that he had something that he could contemn, and by which he could shew how infinitely he valued Christ before them. Never was any less a slave to the world, * whose frowns and charms he equally despised and shunned ; never any more truly observed the just measures of strictness and abstinence, of mortification and -self-denial. He was of a temper extremely averse to flattery and servilityj" and, of the two, chose rather to be censured for a clown than a courtier, sparing none, but smartly reproving his best friends when they did amiss. And therefore, when some of them expected thanks for the mighty zeal they had shewed for his advancement to the see of Constantinople, he treated them with so much sharpness for that unkind piece of friendship, that they afterwards flew off, and became his enemies. His charity was boundless, and he cared not within how narrow cir- cumstances he confined himself, so he might but enlarge those of the poor, whom he plentifully relieved all his life, and at his death settled a very considerable estate upon them. He loved his enemies, (whom his zeal, and the stiffness and bluntness of his temper, had raised up to him in no small numbers,) and treated them with all softness and gentleness, and could more easily forgive an injury than another man commit it. He j^as- «■ Ad Ann. 389. s Qrat. i. p. 32. * Vid. Orat. xxvii. p. 468. et Carm. i. de reb. suis, vol. ii. p. 32. " Orat. xxvii. p. 465. Vid. Ep. cxci. p. 889. SAINT GREGOEY NAZIANZEN. 85 sionately studied the peace of the church,^' and unity amongst Christians, which with all his interest and eloquence he endea- voured to promote wherever he came; and he glories in it as the ancient and honourable temper of his church at Nazianzum,^ that it was not rent in pieces by schisms and factions, and was therefore frequently called Noah's ark, because they had kept alive among themselves the seeds of true peace and piety, and had alone escaped that universal deluge of dissension and disorder that had overflowed the Christian world. Nothing troubled him so much as to see Christians clashing with one another, for whose reunion he professed he could willingly fall a common sacrifice ; and therefore, when he considered the admirable lives of the Macedonian party, in a mighty transport of zeal, he " wished himself accursed from Christ,'' * and ready to undergo the most direful sentence, so they might but close with the consubstantial faith, and be reunited to the catholic church. While engaged in the disputes (as he all along was) of that quarrelsome and contentious age, he managed himself with all imaginable calm- ness and patience, and overcame his adversaries not more by the goodness of his cause and the strength of his reasons,^' than by the sweetness and the mildness of his temper. He did not encounter them with fierce clamours and virulent revilings, like many, who, instead of reason and argument, vomit up nothing but bitter calumnies and reproaches, and hide a bad cause under noise and scufl^e ; just (says he) like the fish sepia, which being in danger to be taken by the fisherman, throws out abundance of black matter, which discolouring the water all about, it safely escapes under that covert. No, he made it appear it was the cause of Christ he contended for, while he closely imitated him, who was so meek and peaceable, and " en- dured the contradiction of sinners against himself." Though it cannot be denied, but that sometimes, especially in his invectives against Julian, his vein of oratory (which he indulges upon all occasions) meeting with a mighty zeal and concernment for re- ligion, transported him now and then to passionate aggravations, and to treat the memory of that great prince with less decency and respect, than what a calmer and more unprejudiced consider- ation of things would have obliged him to. But that was a case " Vid. Oral. xiv. p. 214. ^ Orat. xii. p. 196. xii. p. 297. , " Orat. xliv. p. 711. " Orat. xxxii. p. 518. 86 THE LIFE OF extraordinary, nor do I question but that, had he foreseen the ill consequences of such rash and warm transports, he would as readily have retracted them as he gave vent to them. How- ever, even in ordinary cases, his love to peace did not prejudice his zeal for truth,'' from which no considerations were strong enough to draw him; in defence of the catholic doctrine he prayed and preached, wrote and disputed upon all occasions, and was not scared either with the malice, or number, or great- ness of his enemies. He wanted neither fair proposals on the one hand, nor threatenings, and the most severe and rugged usage on the other, but he equally defied both, and made good what he so earnestly desire d,*" that he might be able, with all freedom and impartiality, to maintain that confession of faith which the ancient fathers had committed as a noble depositum to the church, to the last minute of his life. He was (to say no more than what one who best knew him says of him '') cr/ceOo? €KXoy7J<;, KoX (ftpeap ^a6u, crrofia XpLarov, " a chosen vessel, a profound treasure, and the mouth of Christ ;'' and justly de- served the character llufinus gives of him,*^ that he was in all things an incomparable person, eminent both for his doctrine and his life, the greatest light of the church, who taught what he practised, and practised what he taught. VI. These divine and excellent qualities were attended with the natural graces of a sublime wit, subtle apprehension, clear judgment, an easy and ready elocution; and all these set off with as great a stock and furniture of human learning, as the schools of the East, as Alexandria, or Athens itself was able to afford. At his being there he had grown up into so universal an esteem and reputation, that he was become the glory of the imiversity, and the talk of the town and country, and even in that eye of the world had the professor''s chair forced upon him. And after- wards, when he applied himself to the study of theology, and did, T?Jv <y\coTTav iv toI^ e^codev iraihevOelaav Xoyoif;, roLf; 6eL0L<^ i^evyevt^eLv, as himself speaks,*' " ennoble his tongue with divine learning, and eloquence, which he had enriched before with human ornaments,"" he attained to so great accuracy and perfec- tion in it, that his judgment was in a manner made the standard and rule of orthodoxy, he being the only person,^ whose faith ^ Vid. Oral. i. p. Hi. * Orat. vi. p. 141. '' Basil. Epist. viii. s. I. •^ Prolog, in opp. Nuz. ^ Orat. xxvii. p. 4 GO". *= Kufm. Prolog, in opp. Nuz. SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 87 even the dissenting parties among themselves could not call in question, having obtained this honour both with God and man, that whoever presumed to oppose his doctrine, was for that very reason judged an heretic, it being accounted a plain evidence of a man's unsoundness in the faith, who in any thing materially differed from him. So even and well-poised his judgment in the weightiest cases, so sublime his speculations in the abstrusest articles, so exact and* critical his determinations in the nicest controversies, so ready and apposite his citations out of the holy scriptures, so accurate and eloquent his sermons, that he seemed born for this as his peculiar province,^ and hence had the title of 6 0eoXo7O9, " the divine," by unanimous consent fixed upon him, a title besides himself never communicated to any but St. John the Evangelist ; a title which he has uncontrollably borne through all ages to this day. In all his discourses there breathes a singular vein of seriousness and devotion, and it is hard to say which a man ought to admire most, his eloquence or his piety. There is a strange smartness and briskness in his periods, his sentences are short and quick, and comprehend a vast deal of incomparable sense in a few words, and yet neither does the shortness of his periods prejudice the excellency of his argument, nor the sublimeness of his argument make his discourse obscure and unintelligible. Whatever the subject be he takes in hand, whether in the persuasive, encomiastic, or forensic way, he al- ways manages it to the utmost perfection of its kind, seldom or never descending below tho. accustomed majesty and sublimity of his discourses. It is this renders his tracts so incapable of being translated with any proportion of accuracy to the original ; and Erasmus, to whom the Western church is so much indebted for his emendations and versions of the ancient fathers, confesses,^ he was altogether affrighted and discouraged from attempting the translation of Nazianzen, from the acumen and smartness of his style, the grandeur and sublimity of his matter, and those somewhat obscure allusions that are frequently interspersed among his writings. In the vein and character of his speaking he much imitated Polemon of Laodicea,^ professor of rhetoric at Smyrna, and tutor to Aristides the famous orator ; and one who ^ Vid. Pliiloth. Patr. Const, encom. SS. Bas. Greg, et Chrys. in Bibl. patrum, Gr. Lat. vol. ii. p. 330. ed. Iti24. ^ Lib. xxvi. Epi&t. 33. '' Hieron. de Script, in Xaz. Suid. in t. rprjyop. 88 THE LIFE OF was long before them both, Lsocrates of Athens, whom he seems peculiarly to have propounded for his imitation. He was perhaps the only person (as a learned patriarch has observed ') that attained to the true temper of the Grecian eloquence, the fucus, and the af- fected and trifling- part whereof he slighted, digesting only what was pure and simple, grave and chaste, and thereby gave new laws to eloquence, and introduced a better idea and form of speak- ing than the world had generally known before. Philostorgius, (who lived partly at that time, and who, as he was able to judge, so cannot be suspected partial in his censure, being no great friend to any of the catholic side,) comparing together that triumvirate of learned Homoousiasts, Basil, Gregory, and Apol- linaris, who all flourished at the same time, makes no scruple to give sentence for Nazianzen. " Apollinaris, (says he,"*) being ad- vantaged by his skill in Hebrew, was fitter for commentaries upon the scripture ; Basil excelled in the panegyric way ; but with respect to both, Nazianzen must be allowed to have a more noble and excellent style, being more fluent and copious than Apollinaris. and more firm and solid than Basil.'^ I do not deny but St. Basil's style is more smooth and easy, more unforced and natural ; but, withal, Nazianzen'*s is more lofty and masculine, more sententious and periodical ; and upon the whole matter, considering the profoundness of his learning, the grandeur of his eloquence, the smartness of his wit, the gravity and substantial- ness of his sense, I doubt not to affirm, that as he lived in the most learned age of the church, so he was the best scholar of his age. Indeed it cannot be denied, but that now and then he too far indulges the vein of oratory, especially in his enco- miastics, wherein he sometimes takes a liberty of making ad- dresses to the dead,' which succeeding times, when superstition began to advance with a quicker pace, improved into formal invocations, and downright prayers to departed saints. But then it is to be considered, that as he does not assert this dog- matically, but expresses himself with doubtfulness and hesitancy, (el Tt9 ataOijac^;, " if there be any sense in departed souls of things here below,"'"') so it is done more oratorio, according to the liberty which orators are wont to take, who tie not up them- ' Philoth. loc. citat. '' Hist. Eccl. 1. viii. c. 11. et ap, Suid. in v. Tp-qySp. ' Vid. Orat iii. p. 50. xix. p. 208. 314. xx. p. 372. xxii. p. 397. xl p. 189. xviii. p. 286. SAINT GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 89 selves to strict nice rules, especially his great master Isocrates, who more than once uses such schemes of speech,"' and from him probably he borrowed them, as his own Greek scholiast long since noted in this very case." Besides his skill in theology, philology, philosophy, and rhetoric, he was, says Suidas, tcl e? TTiv iroLTjcnv Se^lof;, " eminent in poetry,"" wherein he wisely em- ployed his talent to the common use and benefit of Christians: witness his incomparable poems in all kinds of verse, and upon all serious and useful arguments, composed to the envy and ad- miration of the best men among the heathens : so that it was not untrulv said of him, that thouofh he had arrived to no con- siderable eminency in his other writings, yet his very poems, so much above those of the ancients, would have proclaimed him to have been a great and an extraordinary person. His works have in all ages met with a just esteem and veneration, and by all men of wisdom and judgment have been admired and magni- fied, and held inimitable, and especially his theological orations have been accounted (says Phllotheus ^) nectar or ambrosia, and in the holy language, divine "manna"*^ and "the bread of angels.'"* And it seems not a little strange to me, that the great and the learned Photius, whom nothing escaped that fell within the or- dinary road of learning, should have noted nothing out of the writings of this venerable father ; nor do I believe any other ac- count of it can be given, than that he did it in some part of that work that has miscarried, or at least in those private confer- ences wherein he was wont to recite to his brother, and some select friends, the summary recapitulation of what books he had read, (as he tells us in his letter to his brother Tarasius,^) the present hihliotheca being but an account of what authors he had recited at those meetings, when Tarasius was absent. Two con- siderable advantages Nazianzen has had beyond most of the an- cient fathers ; one, that few supposititious tracts have been en- titled to him, and those few not unworthy of his great name; the other, that not many of his books are lost, most (if not all) of what he wrote being (for any thing we know) still extant. Whereof in the last place we proceed to present the reader with this following account. *" Vid. Isocr. Evagor. in init. " In (Ttt^Xit^vt. a. p. 2. ** Patr. encora. etc. in bibl. patrum, Gr. Lat. vol. ii. p. 331. ed. 1624. P Ep. Praefix. Bibliotli. 90 THE LIFE OF ST. GllEGOKY NAZIANZEN. Ilia Works. Genuine. Apologcticus dc fuga sua. Oratio, post(Hiain factus est Presbyter. In Juliaiium Inipor. Invcctivie duae. Or.itio post reditum ex fuga. Onitio ad Grcgorium Nyssenum. Apologeticum cum Sasiraorum Episcopus factus est. Oratio, cum cura Eccles. Nazianz. ci com- missa est. Oratio de suis sermonibus, et ad Julianum cxrcquatorcm. Oratio funcbris in laudcm Caesarii fratris. Oratio funcbris in laud, sororis suae Gor- goniae. De pace Orationes tres. Oratio in plagara grandinis. Oratio de pauperum amore. Ad cives Nazianz. gravi timore perculsos, et prcefectum irascentem. Oratio in laudem Cj-priani Martyris. Onitio funcbris in laudem patris sui. Oratio funebris in laud. Basilii magni. Oratio in laudem magni Athanasii. Oratio in Machabaeorura laudem. Oratio in laudem Heronis, revera, ^laxirai Cynici. Oratio in jEgyptiorum adventum. Oratio ad Arianos, et de seipso. Oratio de moderatione in disputationibus servanda. Ad eos, qui ipsum Cathedram CP. affectare dicebant. Oratio, post reditum in urbem. Oratio de dogmate, et constitutioue Episco- porum. Oratio babita in clcctione Eulalii Doaren- sium Episcopi. In illud, "Cum consummassct Jesus ho» sennoncs," etc. Onitio in praesentia 150 Episcoporum lia- bita. De Theologia Orationes quinque. Onitio Panegyrica in Christi nativitatcm. Oratio Panegyrica in S. Lumina. In Sanctum Baptisma. In Pascba, et in tarditatem. Orat. secunda in pascha. In novam Dominicam. In Sanctam Pentecosten. Orat. seu Epistola ad Nectiirium CP. Epis- copum. In laudem Marty rum, ct adv. Arianos. Tractatus de fide. Latine. Ad Cledonium Presbyterum Orat. scu Epis- tolae duae ; Epistolae aliae 242. Testamentum. De vita sua cannine lambico. Poemata 64 varii argument! carmine Ile- roico. Alia 70 varii argumenti, et diverse metro- rum genere. De Episcopis, et de hominum ingratitudine querela. Latine. DoiiLtful. Orat. seu Epistola ad Evagrium monachura de Divinitatc. Significatio in Ezcchielem. Supposititious. Metaphrasis seu Translatio in Ecclesiastcm ; quam Grcgorii T7iaumaturr/i opus esse con- stat. Cbristus Patiens, Tragcedia ; quam ab Apolli- narc Laodiceno scriptam esse verisimite est. THE LIFE OF SAINT CYRIL, BISHOP OF JERUSALEM. His original uncertain. The first mention of him. The renown of Maximus bishop of Jerusalem. Cyril ordained presbyter of that church. Made catechist. His catechistic lectures, where read. The perplexed account of his succession to that see. The rela- tion of it by St. Jerome. Imputations of Arianism unjustly charged upon him. Cleared by Theodoret and the synod at Constantinople. Another Cyril, in those days bishop of Jerusalem, mistaken for ours. What contributed to the mistake. The time of his entrance upon that bishopric. The miraculous appearance of the sign of the cross in the heavens stretching over Jerusalem. Cyril's letter to the emperor, giving an account of that apparition. Some remarks upon that letter. His quarrel with Acacius, bishop of Caesarea, about the metropolitic rights. The great reputation of the church of Jerusalem. Recriminations passing between Cyril and Acacius. Acacius in a Palestine synod deposes Cyril. Strange confusion about the persons succeeding in that see during the Arian prevalency. The diiferent accounts given of this matter re- presented. A reconciliation of writers in this case impossible. Cyril mortally hated and undermined by Eutychius. The Arian intruders wholly omitted by Theodoret. Cyril's anti-remonstrance to Acacius's sentence, and appeal to the emperor. His re- tirement to Sylvanus bishop of Tarsus, and constant preaching there. His appearing at the s}Tiod at Seleucia, and referring his cause to the judgment of that council. His refusal to withdraw out of the synod as a person deposed. Acquitted and restored by the council. Acacius's complaint against him to the emperor. The crimes charged upon him, and aggravated by Acacius. He is again deposed, and banished. His re- turn to the see under the reign of Julian. Julian's great kindness and favour to the Jews, and resolution to repair their temple, and restore their worship, upon what ac- count. His letter to them to that purpose. His conference with their chiefs about this matter. "What he propounded to himself in this design. Preparations made for the undertaking. Expenses allowed, and overseers appointed by the emperor. The vanity of this attempt declared to them by Cyril. Their endeavours in building frus- trated by extraordinary storms, earthquakes, and fire from heaven. Black crosses im^ pressed upon the clothes of the Jews. Many converted by these miraculous appear- ances and attestations. The Jews finding St. John's Gospel in a cave, at the clearing the foundations, reported by Philostorgius. The truth of the other particulars abund^ antly attested. Julian's command for the building an amphitheatre at Jerusalem. The elegant reflections which St. Chrysostom makes upon this disappointment of the Jews. Cyril's flight, and return a little before the death of Valens. He prefers his nephew Gelasius to the see of Csesarca. Gelasius, who. Cyril's presiding with others in the second general council. His pubUc vindication by the testimony of that synod. 92 THE LIFE OF The time of lils death. The description of his person, Ilis character. The cate- chetic lectures, his only remaining works. The genuineness of them unjustly ques- tioned. Some exceptions against them considered. Abatements to be made for the plainness and rawness of them, and the inaccuracy of some expressions. The main design of them to explain the creed. What that creed was, then used in the church of Jerusalem. His writings. It has been no small unliappiness to the church, that the acts of so many great and illustrious persons have been either wholly buried in silence, or that very short and imperfect notices have been transmitted to us. Such among others has been the por- tion of this excellent bishop, concerning whom the records of the ancient church have preserved few memorable passages, and a great part of those, too, so intricate and confused, that I should not have thought it worth either my pains, or the reader's pa- tience, to pick them up, had I not hoped, by collecting the scat- tered parcels of his story, to reflect some light upon them, and to free his name from some gross imputations which ignorance or mistake have laid upon it. Who his parents were, or what his country, is not known, though there can be no incongruity to suppose him born in Palestine, and perhaps at Jerusalem, which I find positively asserted by a late writer,^ led thereunto, I believe, by no other authority than bare conjecture. The first time we meet with him is under Macarius, the venerable bishop of Jerusalem, a man of prime note in the council of Nice, highly honoured by Constantine the Great, and particularly employed by him in his magnificent structures at Jerusalem. By him Cyril is said to have received his first ordination,^ that is, probably, to the office of a deacon ; though, I must confess, the passage in Sozomen, (as now extant in the Greek,) as it is miserably trans- posed, so being tolerably restored, seems more naturally to refer to Maximus's than Cyril's ordination. ^lacarius dying, Maximus succeeded in that see about the year 331 : a man of great name and deserved reputation, having been a confessor under the Maximian persecution,'' where, according to the cruel usage of those times, he had lost his right eye, and been disabled in his right leg, the nerves of it being* cut asunder. Nor was he a more resolute defender of the Christian faith against the heathens, * Alegr. de vir. illustr. 0. Carmelit. ad Ann. 386. *> Sozora. 1. iv. c. 20. Vid. Vales. Annot. p. 126, ^ Theodor. 1. ii. c. 27. SAINT CYRIL. 93 than he was of the catholic truth against the Arians, for which he was not a little maligned and opposed by that busy and potent faction. By him Cyril was ordained presbyter,'^ and under him he exercised the office of catechist in that church : a place of great trust, and which he discharged with answerable care and diligence, preaching, in Lent especially, almost every day. And here it was that he read those catechetic lectures of his that are still extant, which St, Jerome says he composed in his younger years ;*^ and though he tells us not the just time, yet Cyril himself gives us an hint, by which Ave may make a very near conjecture. For, speaking concerning the rise of the Manichean heresy,*^ he says, it began just seventy years before, under the reign of Probus ; and that there were some then alive who had seen the heretic. Now supposing, what Eusebius plainly asserts,^ and justifies by the concurrent computation of the se- veral Eastern epochas, that Manes began to broach his heresy in the second year of the emperor Probus, that is, Ann.Chr. 277, the seventv years will fall in exactlv with anno 347, at what time he preached those lectures to the catechumens. 11. This exercise he probably continued till his promotion to the bishopric, which happened about three years after, upon Maximus's being deposed by the Arians, as some say ; upon his death, say others, and perhaps more truly. And here we must encounter with the most perplexed and intricate part of his story, I mean his succession to that see, together with the several vicissitudes and alterations that depend upon it, so brokenly and imperfectly represented by the writers of that and the fol- lowing age, that little certainty can be picked up about it. The account is confusedlv hinted by others, but most consistently delivered by St. Jerome ^ to this effect ; that upon Maximus's death, Acacius bishop of Csesarea, and some others of the Arians, offered Cyril the see of Jerusalem, upon condition that he shoidd renounce the ordination that he had received of Maximus, which he did accordingly, and served in that church in the capacity of a deacon, and for this was rewarded with that bishopric ; who thereupon subtlely circumvented Heraclius, whom Maximus upon his death-bed had made his successor, whom he divested «> Hieron. Chron. ad Ann. Chr. 349. « De script, in Cyril. ' Cyr. Catech. vi. c. 12. k Chron. ad Ann. 2293. h Chron. ad Ann. Chr. 349. 94 THE LIFE OF of his episcopal dignity, and reduced to the station of a pres- byter. To this others add, that in order to this design he was guilty of strange compliances with the Arians ; that he some- times varied in matters of faith,' and often in point of commu- nion ; that he was infected with the Macedonian heresy,'' which he afterwards recanted ; nay, that he was as zealous for the Arian impieties,' as his predecessor had been for the catholic truth. These are the most material parts of his charge, to which I must needs enter my dissent, and doubt not to affirm, that as they are fastened upon him, they are built upon igno- rance or mistake. Were there nothing else, it is enough that he is vindicated by the deposition of those who were as capable to know the true state of things as St. Jerome, or any of the rest. Theodoret,"^ speaking of his entering upon the see of Jeru- salem, says, " he was a most stout and vigorous defender of the apostolic doctrine ;"*"' and the fathers of the great council at Con- stantinople, in their synodical letter to pope Damasus," style him " the most reverend and most religious bishop Cyril ;"" and assure us, that he had been rightly and canonically ordained by the bishops of that province, and had in several places suffered many very hard things from the Arian party. Than which, what could have been spoken more plain and pertinent in his justifi- cation ? One such authentic and unquestionable testimony, given by so many, and such venerable persons, all catholic bishops, who lived at the same time, and could not be ignorant of his affairs, who had then his company with them, and his cause before them, weighs more with me than an hundred reports taken up at second hand, and at a peradventure, by persons at a distance, who neither accounted it their interest, nor made it their business nicely to inquire into things, whether they were true or false. Not that I think the things we have mentioned to have been purely fictitious, but rather to have been blended to- gether by a careless confounding of names and persons. Baro- nius,° from St. Jerome, tells us of four several Cyrils, about this time, successively bishops of Jerusalem ; but it is plain, the cardinal mistook St. Jerome, who speaks but of one and the same person succeeding four times during the interruptions made ' Rufin. L i. c. 23. •' Sozom, 1. vii. c. 7. VicL Socrat. 1. v. c. 8. ' Script, vit. Athan. Gr. Lat. ap. Athan. vol. ii. p. 535. ed. 1600. " Lib. ii. c. 26. " Ap. Theodor. L v. c. 9. " Ad Ann. 351. n. 2G. SAINT CYRIL. 95 by tlie prevalency of the Arian faction. However, Epiphanius comes ill seasonably to our relief, wlio, besides ours, tells us of another Cyril about the same time bishop of that see,P succeed- ing Herennlus, as he did our Cyril. And upon him, I doubt not, a great part, if not the whole, of the ill things we speak of must be discharged, the identity of names, conformity of times, and relation to the same place, laying an easy foundation of mistaking the one for the other. And perhaps it might not a little contribute to the mistake, not only that Acacius of Cse- sarea, being metropolitan of that province, Cyril could not ca- nonically be ordained without his consent, but that Cyril himself was sometimes forced, by the necessity of those times, to hold some kind of correspondence with Basil of Ancyra, and other heads of the Homolouslan or Semiarlan party, and that only in point of mutual assistance, not In joining with them in their sentiments and opinions, for of that not the least footstep ap- pears in story ; nay, in that famous confession of faith, offered by them to the synod at Seleucla,'^ (where he was present, and had a great trial to come on, and did most openly side with the Semlarians,) though it was subscribed by forty-three bishops, and several of them of Syria and Palestine, yet is not his name to be found amongst them, nor any intimation of his consenting with them. I add no more, than that St. Jerome himself,'" else- where speaking unquestionably of our Cyril, says no worse of him than this, that he was oft driven out of his church (under- stand him by the Arian Interest) and restored again ; and Nice- phorus,^ patriarch of Constantinople, In his catalogue of bishops, places him next to Maximus, and says, that he was banished by the Arians, and then mentions those that were set up in oppo- sition to him. III. Having thus cleared the way to his episcopal throne, which he entered anno 349, according to St. Jerome; 351, ac- cording to Baronlus's computation ; he had not sat long in it, when a memorable accident happened, that made a great noise at that time throughout the world. About the time of Con- stantlus's expedition against Magnentlus the usurper,* there appeared at Jerusalem in the heavens the sign of the cross, not V Haeres. Ixvi. c. 20. ^ Ext. ap. Epiph. Hjeres. Ixxiii. c. 25. ' De script, c. 112. * Chronograph, ap. ScaLchxon. t Sozom. L iv. c. 5. Philost. 1. iii. c. 26. Naz, Orat. iv. p. 112. Niceph. 1. ix. c. 32, P. Diac. Hist. Miscell, 1. xi. c. 7. Chron. Alex, ad Ann. Constant, xiv. 96 THE LIFE OF streaming forth like a comet, but in a solid and condensed body of light ; in splendour exceeding the brightness of the sun, and being encircled with a rainbow, which in form of a crown com- passed it round about. In length it reached from mount Calvary to mount Olivet, for the space of about fifteen stadia, or near two miles ; and its breadth proportionable to the length. The sight was very terrible and surprising, and at once filled men w^ith admiration and amazement ; insomuch that the beholders came out of their houses, threw aside their work, and ran with their wives and children into the great cathedral, unanimously offering up their prayers and praises to Christ, and readily acknowledging this a great indication of his divinity. Nor did it want its due eftect, both upon Jews and Gentiles, many of whom it brought over to the Christian faith. Philostorgius and some others re- port, that it was seen by both armies, (lying then in the plains of Pannonia,) to the great consternation of Magnentius and his party, and the no less encouragement of Constantius and his soldiers. But in this I must suspend my belief, both because Sozomen says the emperor heard of it but by report, and because the battle with and victory over Magnentius was not till the latter end of the year, many months after this apparition. It happened on the seventh day of May, about nine of the clock in the morning, it being then the Whitsun festival, the year after the consulship of Sergius and Nigronianus, (say the Fasti Con- sulares of Idatius, but mistake the day, w^hich they make to be Jan. 30,) that is, anno 351 ; with whom agree all those who place it at the time of the Magnentian expedition, and Gallus''s going unto Antioch. The news of this wonderful and extraordinary phenomenon by means of strangers, who at that time had re- paired thither out of devotion to those holy places, was soon conveyed into all parts ; but especially Cyril was careful to give notice of it to the emperor, to whom he presently despatched a letter, mentioned by Sozomen and others, wherein he gave him an account of the thing itself, with some remarks of his own upon it, the whole whereof we shall here insert.'^ "To the most divinely-favoured and religious prince, Constantius the August, Cyril bishop of Jerusalem sendeth greeting. IV. " These first fruits of my letters from Jerusalem, I send to your sacred majesty, being such as may become both you to " Ext. in calc. Cateches. p. 305. SAINT CYRIL. 97 receive, and me to give : letters, not stuffed vvitli flattering ex- pressions, but which give account of divine and heavenly visions, not which insinuate themselves by rhetorical persuasives, but contain holy evangelical predictions, justifying their truth by the event of things. Others indeed of such things, whence they de- rive their lustre, may bring golden crowns, curiously beset with precious stones, wherewith they oft adorn your honourable temples : but we crown you not with earthly presents, things that arising from, are confined within the verge of this lower world, but we carefully convey to your notice the divine efficacy of those heavenly appearances, which have happened at Jeru- salem in your reign. Not that by this means you may be brought out of a state of ignorance, and receive the first principles of the knowledge of God, (for such your imjjrovements in piety, that you seem able to instruct others in matters of religion,) but that you may be the firmlier established in those things which you are wont to discourse of; and that learning hence how much God has crowned your empire, derived to you as a paternal inherit- ance, with greater honours, and more divine and heavenly blessings, you may be the stronglier incited to offer up, at this time especially, the highest praises to the supreme Sovereign of the world, and be inspired with a greater vigour and courage against your enemies, being assured by these miraculous attesta- tions, that God takes a particular care of your empire and government. In the time of your father Constantine, a prince beloved of heaven, and of blessed memory, the wholesome wood of the cross was found at Jerusalem, the divine goodness granting it as a peculiar favour to him, who set himself to embrace the true religion, that he should make discovery of the most con- cealed holy places. But in your time, sir, who have so far out- gone in devotion and piety, God is pleased to grant prodigies, not any longer upon earth, but from heaven ; I mean, the blessei cross of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, the trophy of his victory and triumph over death, which shining with extraordinary beams of light, was seen lately at Jerusalem. For upon these holy and festival days of Pente- cost, May the seventh, about nine in the morning, a vast and miraculous cross, formed of light, appeared in the heavens, just over the holy Golgotha, extending itself to the sacred mount of Olives ; seen not by one or two, but clearly and evidently by the VOL. III. H OS THE LIFE OF whole city ; nor, ns sonic may suspect, passing by only in a transient glance of fancy, but ])lainly visible to us below for very many hours together, by its liustre out-dazzling the bright beams of the sun ; for otherwise being overcome, it must have been obscured by them, had it not darted out more powerful and refulgent rays of light to the eyes of the beholders, so that the whole city, struck with fear at the amazing accident, not without a mixture of joy and gladness, instantly repaired to the church, where you might see j)ersous of all ages, young and old, men and women, yea the newly-married leaving their bridal chambers to come thither; Christians, both inhabitants and strangers, yea and great numbers of Gentiles from other parts ; all of them with one mouth and one accord glorifying our Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, and the author of these miraculous operations ; being convinced, by real experience, that the most holy Christian religion 'lies not in the enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,' and was not merely revealed by men, but witnessed to by God from heaven. Wherefore we, the inhabitants of Je- rusalem, having beholden this miraculous prodigy with our eyes, with all thankfulness, as becomes us, do and will adore the great God, and his only begotten Son, and both have done, and still will in this holy place ofter up our continual prayers for your government, so dear to heaven. I thought it not good therefore to suppress these heavenly visions in silence, but have made it my care to convey them to you as good tidings, and in- stances of the Divine benignity ; that so, upon the good founda- tion of the faith already embraced, building a further knowledge of what has thus strangely and supernaturally come to pass, you may have a firmer assurance in our Lord Jesus Christ ; being confident, according to your wonted trust, you may, as one that has God himself for your assistant, advance the banner of the cross, the greatest ground of rejoicing, and cheerfully produce the sign that was shewed in heaven ; a representation, at whose appearance the heavens did greatly rejoice and triumph. This wonderful prodigy, most religious emperor, pursuant to the pre- dictions of the prophets, and to the words of Christ recorded in the Gospel, is now fulfilled, and will hereafter be yet further fulfilled. For when our Saviour, in St. Matthew's Gospel, com- municated to his blessed apostles the notices of future things. SAINT CYRIL. 99 nnd by them imparted them to others that conversed with them, he most evidently foretold it, saying, 'And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven.' This holy book of the Gospels, when, as you are wont, you take into your hands, you will find these predictions and testimonies written there ; to which I beseech you, sir, attend with the greater care and diligence, by reason of those other things there described, and foretold by our Saviour, and which it concerns us with all fear narrowly to observe, lest we suffer damage from those adverse powers that watch against us. These first-fruits of my discourses, sir, I\)fFer to you, being the first messages I send from Jerusalem ; to you I offer them, the sincere and most holy worshipper, to- gether -with us, of Christ, the only begotten Son of God, who upon his cross at Jerusalem did, according to the holy scriptures, w^ork out the salvation of all mankind, where he overcame death, and by his own precious blood expiated the sins of men, and gave spiritual life and immortality, and heavenly grace to all them that believed on him. Preserved by whose power and goodness, and daily blessed with greater and more eminent ad- vances in piety, and enriched with the royal stem of a numerous issue ; let God, the great King of the world, and the giver of all goodness, grant you a long, peaceable, and a prosperous reign, and watch over you, as a glory to Christians, and a blessing to the whole world ; let him strengthen and adorn you with all virtue, that you may still shew your accustomed love and kind- ness both to the holy churches and to the Roman empire, and enrich you with larger rewards of piety. God Almighty grant you to us, most august and religious emperor, for many periods of peaceable years, and continue you happy and prosperous, a constant praiser and professor of the holy and consubstantial Trinity ; to whom, as is most due, be all glory for ever and ever. Amen." From this letter, besides the account it gives of the prodigy, and the reflections he makes upon it, we may observe three things with respect to Cyril himself. First, that this epistle was written not long after his entrance upon the bishopric of Jerusalem, being the first-fruits of his addresses to the emperor after his promotion to it. And indeed it must be penned not many months after, if Baronius has rightly fixed the time of his H 2 100 THE LIFE OF consecration to that see, which he places anno 351, this letter being written about the month of May in that year. Secondly, that in the close of it he gives an evident intimation of his firm adherence to the Nicene faith, while he so earnestly prays that the emperor may ever own and honour rrjy ayiap koI o/jboovacov TpcdBa^ " the sacred and coessential Trinity/' A plain confuta- tion of those Arian compliances, which about this very time are charged upon him. And yet far stranger is the prejudice and partiality of some late writers,^ who from this very epistle infer, either that Cyril was not the author of it, or if so, that he was an Arian heretic. Thirdly, that notwithstanding his declaration against flattery, yet he prudently uses very soft words, and smooth insinuations to the emperor, the better to sweeten his exasperated humour against the Catholics, which, by the artifices of the Arians, seldom failed to have a keen edge set upon it. And this was a course which many w^ise and good men made use of in their addresses to that emperor, who passionately loved commendation, and was, above other men, a fond admirer of himself. But to return. V. Cyril w^as going securely on in the discharge of his pas- toral cares, w^hen great troubles and disturbances overtook him, the spring and first mover whereof was Acacius bishop of Csesarea," the main stickler for the Arian cause; who beheld Cyril not only as his adversary in point of opinion, but as a competitor in point of dignity. The truth is, Cyril, looking upon his own as an apostolic see, thought himself qualified to dispute with Acacius for the metropolitic rights. And herein it must be confessed he w^ent beyond his line ; for though all antiquity had paid a mighty reverence to the church of Je- rusalem, as a church immediately instituted by our blessed Saviour, and that in a place which he had honoured with his birth, life, sermons, and miracles, and had made the stage of his bloody death ; a see founded by the apostles, and from whence they issued out to propagate Christianity through the world, (in which respect it is styled " the mother of all churches"''' by the fathers of the second general council,^) a church frequented by persons of the highest rank in all ages, either out of curiosity or devotion ; though upon all these accounts it had a singular • Rivet. Crit. sac. I iil c. 11. » Sozom. L iv. c. 25. Theodor. 1. ii. c. 26. y Ap. Theodor. 1. v. c. 9. SAINT CYRIL. 101 reputation, and the bishops of it an honourable character fixed upon them, and this particularly ratified by the council of Nice,^ as a thing derived from custom and ancient tradition ; yet was not this honour granted to it by that council, but with a salvo to the rights of its own metropolis. Acacius, therefore, being a man of a daring and haughty spirit, could not brook the least competition, but fell upon Cyril with great heat and fury. And hence commenced that quarrel, which every day ripened into a wider breach. And now recriminations are passed on both sides, Cyril charging Acacius with Arianism,,while he him- self (says Sozomen) was suspected of joining with the Homoi- ousians, who held the Son to be of like substance with the Father ; though Nicephorus^ who follows Sozomen in this passage, says expressly, it was for that he addicted himself tol^ Tft> ofjLoovalw (jTOLy^ovaLvJ" to those that maintained the ofxo^ ovcTLov^ or " consubstantiar' doctrine. And this seems most probable ; for why should Acacius quarrel with Cyril, for siding with the Homoiousians, when he himself, at every turn, ap- peared in the head of that party, though upon every new oc- casion he again deserted them, and joined with the high-flown Arians I And that he might yet further expose him, Acacius charged him, that in a time of raging famine at Jerusalem, when the poor people flocked to him for relief, after all the monies were spent, he had sold the vessels, utensils, vestments, and consecrated hangings of the church ; and that one of the vest- ments had been found upon a Avoman's back that belonged to the play-house by the very person that gave it, who examining where she had it, was directed to the merchant that had sold it, who confessed he bought it of the bishop : which, whether true or false, served well enough for a pretence to expose the good man to popular odium, and to make their proceedings against him pass more smooth and current. VI. Upon these pretences (little and trifling causes thev were, says Theodoret^) Acacius, in a convention of Palestine bishops of his own party, deposed Cyril, and drove him from Jerusalem. Who they immediately substituted in his room, is not agreed on all hands ; some saying it was Eutychius, others Heraclius, others Herennius, or Erennis, or Arsenius, as it is diversely written. The truth is, there is a woful confusion and dis- ' Can. 7. * Lib. ix. c. 46. b Lib. ii. c. 26. 102 THE LIFE OF tiirbaiice in the succession of bishops in tliat see, from the time of Oyrirs first deposition, till his final restitution ; some creeping in as opportunity oU'ered, others being thrust in by the i)owcr and interest of the Arian party. We shall here, once for all, present tlic reader at one view with the difterent accounts given in by the writers of that and the following ages. According to St. Jerome.'^ Cyrillus. Eutychius. Cyrillus 2-1°. Irenaius. Cyrillus 3"°. Ililarius. Cyrillus 4'o. Acoording to UjnjJumius Cyrillus. Erennis. Cyrillus alius. Hilarionus. . <» According to Socrates." Cyrillus. Hcraclius. Ililarius. Cyrillus iterum. Accordiiuf to Sozomen.* Cyrillus. Ilercnnius. Hcraclius. Ililarius. Cyrillus itenim. According to NicepJioi-us Pair. Const. Cyrillus, Arsenius. Heraclius. Ililarius. In such confusion and variety it were a vain attempt to under- take a reconciliation, either to adjust the differences of the per- sons, or to fix the times of their several successions : a thing not possible in such a confusion of accounts, and where the records of the church have preserved little more than the bare names of the persons. The Eutychius (who in St. Jerome's account suc- ceeds next to Cyril) was doubtless the same with him mentioned by Epiphanius,^ and who was bishop of Eleutheropolis. He had been brought up under Maximus, CyriFs predecessor, and by him instructed in the right catholic faith. An eye he had upon tho see of Jerusalem, and looked upon Cyril as the only person standing in his way ; and though he did not openly discard the orthodox doctrine, yet he was content to conceal and dissemble it for a time, as a means to procure Acacius\s favour in his ad- vancement to that see. To him therefore he applied himself, c In Chron. ubi supr. «• Haeres. Ixvi. c. 20. ^ Lib. ii. c. 45. * Lib. iv. c. 30. ita ot Niceph. Call. 1. xi. c. 2. « Chronogr. p. 312. ap. Scalig. Isagog. clironol. ad talc, thcs, temp. Eusebii. '' Hseres. Ixxiii. c. 23, etc. SAINT CYRIL. 103 and took part with him in his proceedings against Cyril, whom he mortally envied and maligned, opposing not only him, but all that stood by him and assisted him : and how they succeeded in their attempts, we shall see hereafter. I shall observe no more about this matter, but that Theodoret,' enumerating the bishops that sat in the five great patriarchal sees from the time of Coustantine, in his list of them of Jerusalem wholly omits all these interloping bishops, and only puts down Cyril between Maximus, who went before him, and John, who succeeded him in that see. VI. Two whole years Acacius continued to cite Cyril to ap- pear ; ^ but he, well knowing what quarter he must expect from professed open enemies, refused the summons, wdiereupon the sentence was finally denounced against him. Immediately he published an anti-remonstrance, Avherein he appealed from their judgment to that of a greater and more solemn judicature ; and his appeal, it seems, was allowed by the emperor. And though Socrates says, he was the first and the only person that by such an appeal transgressed the custom of the ecclesiastic law, (meaning, I suppose, the Nicene canons, that require all episcopal causes to be determined by the metropolitan and the bishops of the province,) yet was it no more than what the necessity of those times drove him to, and what had been heretofore allowed and practised in important cases. Being by this means forced to quit Jerusalem, he went first to Antioch,^ but finding that church destitute of a bishop, he went thence to Tarsus, where he fixed his abode with Sylvanus, the venerable bishop of that place. Nor did he here indulge himself in ease and idleness, but preached constantly to the people. But malice, like the grave, is endless and insatiable ; Acacius no sooner understood where Cyril was, and of his kind reception, but he wrote presently to Sylvanus, and gave him an account of his being deposed, and thereby rendered incapable of communion. But he had too great a reverence for the man to entertain slight suggestions against him, and besides was unw^illing to disoblige the people, who liked his doctrine, and w^ere infinitely pleased with his eloquent sermons. So he continued in this station till the year 359, when Constantius summoned a synod at Seleucia. And now he thought he had a fit opportunity to bring his cause upon the public stage ; ' Lib, V. c. 40. in fin. '^ Socrat. 1. ii. c. 40. ' Thcodor. 1. ii. c. 26. 104 THE LIFE OF wherefore he appeared at the synod, and resolved to refer his case entirely to them. The main question at the opening of the council was, what should first come under debate, whether mat- ters of faith, or the causes of the bishops who had been deposed, particularly of Cyril and some others, whose cases had been pe- culiarly recommended by the emperor. But it was carried for the former, that doctrinal controversies should be handled in the first place ; and what the proceedings of the council were in that matter, we have elsewhere related. The issue was, that no com- posure being to be hoped for between the dissenting parties, Leonas, the imperial commissioner, who favoured the Acacian faction, after four several sessions, broke up and dissolved the synod. However, the catholic bishops, (who were but few,) to- gether with Basil of Ancyra, Sylvanus of Tarsus, and the rest that opposed Acacius and his party, continued sitting, and cited Acacius and his followers to the synod, to make good their charge against Cyril and others, but they refused to come. In- deed, Acacius, at the very beginning of the council, had refused to take his place, unless Cyril, as a person deposed, were ex- cluded the synod. And when some, out of an eager desire of peace, persuaded him to withdraw, assuring him, that as soon as they had discussed matters of faith they would proceed to the examination of his case, he refused, not knowing but his retiring might be interpreted an argument of his guilt, at least give his enemies too great an advantage against him. After several sum- monses to no purpose, the synod proceeded against the absent bishops : some they suspended from communion, till tliey had given satisfaction in the crimes charged upon them, among whom were Asterius, Eusebius, Eutychius, &c. ; others they deposed, especially Acacius, the head of the party, George of Alexandria, Uranius of Tyre, and many more ; nor is any doubt to be made (though the Acts of that synod mention it not) but they re- stored Cyril and the rest that had been deposed by the Acacian party. VII. Things being thus managed in the council at Seleucia, while legates were preparing to carry an account to the emperor at Constantinople, Acacius was got thither before them ;'° who, having made his interest at court, and represented the Seleucian synod under a character bad enough, procured a little convention »" Socrat. 1. ii. e. 41. Sozom. 1. iv. c. 24, 25. SAINT CYRIL. 105 of neighbour bishops to be summoned to Constantinople, wherein he proceeded against the chief of the Seleucian fathers, but especially against Cyril. It was laid to his charge, that he had holden communion with Eustathius and Elpidius, who had en- deavoured to subvert the decrees of the synod of Melitina, whereof he himself had been a principal member ; that after his being deposed by the Palestine bishops, he had communicated with Basil of Ancyra, and George of Laodicea ; that he had con- tested with Acacius of GVesarea about the power and rights of the metropolitanship, pretending Jerusalem to be an apostolic see. But that which most exasperated the emperor against him," was the story of his selling the dedicated vestments of the church, and their being by that means exposed to profane uses. For now the story was again dressed up, and set off with fresh aggravations; the emperor being tokl, that it was a rich cope, all wrought with gold, given by his father Constantine the Great, when he built that church, to Macarius the bishop, to be worn upon the greater festivals, when he celebrated the baptismal office ; that this cope Cyril had exposed to sale, and that it had been bought by a common player, who dancing in it upon the public theatre, had fallen down, and with the fall bruised himself, and died. " And now, sir, (said Acacius,) see how fit those men are to judge and pass sentence upon others, that have such an assessor to join with them.'' Having laid this load upon him, they proceeded next to censure and deprive him, and twelve others with him, whom they deposed and banished. Ten of the assembly refused to subscribe the decree for deposing these pre- lates, who for their obstinacy were presently suspended from all episcopal acts, either of ministry or jurisdiction, with further provision, that unless within six months they complied with the sentence and proceedings of the synod, they also should be de- posed, and the bishops of the respective provinces choose others in their room. Notice whereof they immediately despatched to all places, with command, that the synodal orders should be ob- served and put into execution. VIII. In this state of banishment, Cyril continued during the short remainder of Constantius's life, who died within less than two years after. Julian, who succeeded, among other acts of grace and favour, whereby he sought to recommend himself and n Theodor. 1. ii. c. 27. 106 THE LIFE OF his govcrnmont to tlic pcoplo, rcstoroti the bisliops that had been banished in the time of Iiis predecessor : ° an opportunity which Cyril, 1 doubt not, made use of to return to his own see. And indeed there we find him sitting in this emperor''s reign, and that upon an occasion as memorable as any perhaps that the history of the church presents us with ; which, because I presume it may not be unacceptable to the reader, I shall here relate at large. Among the various methods whereby Julian designed to stifle, and, if possible, extirpate Christianity, he resolved once more to set uj3 and advance the Jewish nation, not out of any kindness to them or their religion, but because he knew them to be of all others the most spiteful and inveterate enemies to Christians. He seemed to compassionate their hard fote, and unhappy circumstances, and promised them all encouragement and assistance in restoring of their worship, and retrieving the ancient splendour of their religion. To which purpose he sent them the following letter, p " Julian to the community of the Jews. " The heavy taxes that have been unv/arrantably laid upon you, and those vast sums of gold you have been forced to bring into the exchequer, have far exceeded those other oppressions and slaveries which in the times foregoing you have undergone : a great part of v/liich I have seen with mine own eyes, and have discovered more from the writs that have been directed and issued against you. And at this time another assessment is pre- pared for you, which I have stopped and prohibited, and out of a detestation of so unrighteous an act, have burned the warrants that lay ready among my records to be sent out against you ; so that none may henceforth be able so much as to alFright you with the report of such a piece of injustice. The cause of all which injuries is not so much to be attributed to my brother Constantius, of worthy memory, as to some men of barbarous principles and atheistical tempers, that stood about him, and were fed at his table ; whom I took with mine own hands, and threw them headlong into a deep *pit, where they irrecoverably perished, that so the least monument might not remain of them. For my part, being resolved to shew you all the favour and kindness I can, 1 have advised your brother Julus, the venerable ° Theodor, 1. iii. c. 4. *• Jul. Epiot. xxv. p. 152. SAINT CYRIL. 107 patriarch, to stop the tribute that is said to be imposed upon you ; and that no man henceforth, shall abuse your nation with such intolerable exactions, but that you may to all intents live peaceably and securely under my reign, and being free from farther trouble, may recommend the prosperity of my empire in your more vigorous and hearty prayers to God, the great Creator, and best of beings, who has been pleased, with his most holy right hand, to place the crown upon my head : a service which I cannot otherwise expect from you. For they who are op- pressed with solicitudes and cares, are wont to be persons of narrow and contracted minds, and cannot with that freedom lift up their hands to God in prayer, while those who are wholly freed from anxious cares, and enjoy a calm and composed state of soul, are fittest to intercede for the happiness of the empire, and to offer up their devotions to the great God, who alone is able to order and dispose my reign to the best advantage, and to the most excellent purposes, which I hope and pray he will do. This is that which you ought principally to attend, that so having successfully managed my Persian expedition, and the holy city of Jerusalem (which you have so long and so earnestly desired to see re-inhabited) being rebuilt by my endeavours, I may dwell in it, and together with you there offer up our joint prayers to the supreme Being of the world." IX. This done, he sent for the heads of the Jewish nation,^ of whom he inquired, vv'hy, since the lav/ of Moses obliged them to offer sacrifices, they had laid aside that custom. They told him, the sacrifices of their law were determined to a particular place, and might not be offered up any where but at Jerusalem, where their temple was ruined, and whence they themselves had been long since banished. Hereupon, he commanded them forth- with to go and repair the temple, to retrieve the customs of their ancestors, and to worship God according to the laws and rites of their religion. Herein he drove on a double desigTi : first to draw over the Jews to the pagan superstition, which he the rather hoped for, because both agreed in oblations and sacri- fices, and that he observed the main body of the Jews took up <i Socrat. 1. iii. c, 20. Sozom, 1. v. c. 2-2. Theodor. 1. iii. c. CO. Philost. 1. \-ii. c, 9. Rufm. 1. i. c. 37, 30, 39. Am. MorccU. 1. xxiii, c. 1. Nuz. Orat. iv, p. 111. Cliryscst. Hem. iv. in Mattb. 5. 1. vol. vii, p. 47. et Horn. xli. ia Act. s, 3, vol. ix* p. 312. 108 THE LIFE OF in the letter and outside of their law, and understood little of the spiritual and mystical sense ; and next he hoped to give a fatal wound to Christianity, and by restoring the temple and the Jewish worship, against which Christ had pronounced so flat a doom, to prove our Saviour a false prophet and impostor. The Jews, though they had had near two hundred years"* sad ex- perience of the truth of our Lord's prediction, yet received the warrant with a joy inexpressible, it being an opportunity which they had often wished, but could never hope for ; and were so elated with it, that they began insolently to scorn and triumph over Christians, threatening to make them feel as direful effects of their severity, as ever themselves had heretofore done from the Roman powers. No sooner was the news spread abroad, but contributions came in from all hands, yea, the very women sold their jewels and ornaments to advance the work; and what was wanting, the emperor commanded should be allowed out of his own exchequer, appointing Alypius of Antioch (who had some- time been proprefect of Britain) overseer of the work, with power to call in the governor of the province to his assistance. And now all things were in readiness, the most exquisite artists drawn together from all parts, stone, bricks, and timber pre- pared, and all other necessary materials and instruments, nay, they are said to have made spades, mattocks, and baskets of silver for the greater honour to the work. In short, no help was wanting, even the softer and the weaker sex laid their hands to the work, and carried out the rubbish in their laps ; yea, the very Gentiles refused not their assistance, merely out of opposition to the Christians. Cyril, the bishop, beheld all this, and calling to mind DanieFs prophecy concerning it, and how plainly it had been ratified by our Saviour, openly told them, that even now the time was come, that "not one stone should be left upon another" in that temple, but that the doom which our Lord had so peremptorily pronounced against it should be accom- plished. And the event justified his prediction. For, having digged and cleared the foundation, on the next day, towards night, a sudden storm arose, that carried away those vast heaps- of rubbish, which they had thrown into a neighbouring valley, and dispersed many thousand bushels of lime and sands which they had prepared for the building. This was followed with a dreadful earthquake, which cast up stones from the foundation, SAINT CYRIL. 109 and slew many, and overturned some adjoining honses that slew more, and those that escaped were drawn out with broken legs and arms, bruised and almost wounded to death. And when, notwithstanding all this, they still attempted to proceed, balls of fire broke as it were from under the foundation, and not only burnt their tools and instruments, but seized upon and consumed the workmen and spectators. The fright was great, and every man fled to save himself, and the main crowd drove towards a little church hard by, wherein they were wont to bestow their tools ; but when they came to it, they found it suddenly shut and barred against them, (though there was no person within,) and when they attempted to break open the doors, a fire rushed out upon them, that destroyed many, and miserably scorched the rest, running up and down the streets a great part of that day. At night, the clothes of all the Jews had black crosses with stars between them impressed upon them ; which when the infidels perceived in the morning, they endeavoured, but in vain, to wash them out, and thereupon partly afraid, partly ashamed, desisted and ran away. And though these strange and mira- culous interposals of the divine power and providence brought over some, who, being baptized, sought by prayers and praises to atone him, whom heretofore they had blasphemed and af- fronted, yet the greatest part continued still in their ancient obstinacy and unbelief. Of so little force are miracles themselves to convert a people, without the concurrent efficacy of the divine grace to recommend them. X. One thing more is related to this purpose. At the clearing the foundation, "■ a stone was taken up that covered the mouth of a deep four-square cave, cut out in the rock, into which one of the labourers being let down by a rope, found it full of water to the middle of the leg, and in the midst a pillar reaching a little above the water, whereon lay a book wrapped up in a fine and clean linen cloth. Being drawn up, the linen was ob- served to be fresh and unperished ; and the book being unfolded was found, to the admiration of all, but especially the amazement of Jews and Gentiles, to contain the Gospel of St. John, with the first words in the front written in great capital letters, ix the BEGINNING WAS THE WORD, AND THE WORD WAS WITH GOD, AND THE WORD WAS GOD. This last passagc, I must confess, stands •" Philost. 1. vii. c, 14; et ex eo Niceph. 1. x. c. 33. no THE LIFE OF upon tlio single authority of Philostorgliis, but ho ancient enougli, beinor born within five years after the thing was done. But whatever becomes of this, we are sure the rest of the story is reported by persons of unquestionable credit and integrity, some of whom lived at that time, and the rest not long after ; nay, the substance of it related by Ammianus Marcelhnus, Julianas own historian, and what is yet more, confessed by the great chronoloQfer of the Jewish nation.^ Let me add what Orosius reports,* that Julian (probably finding himself defeated in his main design) commanded an amphitheatre to be built at Jeru- salem, (out of the materials, it is like, prepared for the temple,) wherein, at his return from his Persian expedition, he might publicly expose the bishops, monks, and all the holy men of that place, and throw them to be devoured by wild beasts, prepared by art to greater degrees of rage and fierceness than nature had endued them with. But the divine goodness cut him off, and he fell into that pit which he had prepared for others. XL I cannot dismiss this story (wherein yet I have been too long already) without some of those reflections which St. Chrysostom makes upon it," who thus improves the argument against the Jews. Having pressed them home with DaniePs prophecy, concerning the final and irrevocable destruction of their city and temple, he tells them he would make it good from matter of fact. " And because, (says he,) had the Jews never attempted to rebuild the temple, they might pretend that they could have done it, had they set about it, they attempted it no less than three several times : once under Adrian the emperor, when they brought a greater desolation upon them- selves ; next, under Constantino the Great, who not only dis- persed them, but cut off their ears, and branded them with marks of rebellion upon their bodies ; a thing which the more aged among them might yet remember. But (adds he) that which I am now going to urge them with, is what is plain and evident to the younger sort of them, not being done under Adrian or Constantino, but in an emperor"*s reign in our own time, not above twenty years ago. For when Julian, who in impiety outwent all before him, out of a design to pervert them to his idolatrous worship, put them in mind of their ancient rites * Dav. Ganz. Germen. par. ii. p. 36. Vid. Hotting. Hist. EccL c. 4. §. 3. * Hist. 1, vii. c. 30. " Adv. Jud. Orat. v. s. 11. vol. i. p. 645, etc. SAINT CYRIL. Ill and sacrifices, thus nnd tlms was God worshipped by your an- cestors, they ingenuously confessed, tliey could not do it out of Jerusalem, without ofFerinof an immediate violence to their re- ligion ; 'give us our city, restore the temple, let us see the holy of holies, let us have an altar, and then you shall quickly see us offer sacriftces, as our forefathers did of old.^ The wretches neither blushing to accept these things from a pagan, nor con- sidering that they attempted what was impossible. Had man only destroyed them, man might have restored them ; but when it was God that laid waste their city, what human power was able to reverse the divine decree. ' For the Lord of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it ; and when his hand is stretched out, who shall turn it back V^' But grant, sirs, the emperor should have restored the temple, and rebuilt the altar, as you vainly hoped he could ; could he also have brought down fire from heaven, without which your sacrifices would have been impious and unacceptable. However, the blind and obstinate wretches persisted in their supplications to the emperor, to join with them in the restoration of the temple ; who accordingly furnished them with money, sent them men of authority for overseers, and skilful artists from all parts, and left no stone un- turned, that he might at once lay a foundation to seduce them over to idolatrous worship, and defeat the prediction of our Saviour. But he, who ' taketh the wise in their own craftiness,' soon let him see that the divine oracles are impregnable, and that nothing can undermine or overturn the decrees of God. For no sooner had they set upon this impious project, and began to carry out the rubbish, and clear the foundations, and things were now ready for the work, but a fire immediately broke out from under the foundations, that consumed the materials, to- gether with the workmen, and the Jews that beheld it ; which when Julian heard of, fearing to pull down vengeance upon his o^^ii head, he left off the attempt. And if you go now to Jeru- salem, you will see the foundations lying bare and naked ; and if you ask the reason, you will meet with no other account than what I have given. And hereof we are all witnesses ; for these things happened not long since, in our own time ; and consider what a firm and unshaken triumph they give to our cause. For they happened not in the reign of pious and christian emperors, > laal xiv. 27. 112 THE LIFE OF lest any sliouUl pretend that Christians came with armed violence, and hindered the re-edification of the temple; no, it was then when our religion was under hatches, when we stood in danger of our lives, when all liberty so much as of speaking was taken from us, when Paganism flourished, when Christians were forced to hide themselves in their own houses, and others to fly into deserts and wildernesses ; this was the time when these things happened, that so impudence itself might not have the least shadow of pretence. And after all this, dost thou yet doubt, O thou Jew, when thou seest the prediction of Christ, and the testimony of the prophets, and the event of things plainly demonstrating, and giving sentence against thee ! But it is no wonder, for such has ever been the genius and temper of thy nation, shameless and contumacious, and always ready to oppose the most clear and evident demonstrations.^' XII. Nothing further memorable concerning Cyril appears during Julian"'s reign, more than that the son of a Gentile flamen at Antioch,^ having embraced Christianity, for which he was treated by his father with all imaginable severity, made a hard shift to escape in woman"'s habit ; and being first sheltered by Meletius of Antioch, was by him conveyed by night into Pales- tine, to Cyril of Jerusalem, who securely harboured him while Julian lived, after whose death he became the means of con- verting his own father. How long Cyril sat quietly under the reign of Valens, when the Arian interest carried all before it, is uncertain. Probable it is, that towards the latter end of it he repossessed himself, and perhaps took hold of the edict which Valens published not long before his death, whereby he recalled the catholic bishops out of banishment ; and about that time we find him there. For Sozomen, speaking of Theodosius"'s entering upon the government of the Eastern empire, tells us," that the Arians at that time had possessed themselves of all the churches of the East, except Jerusalem; at which time, (says Socrates,^) Cyril did yet govern that church. About this time the see of Csesarea in Palestine being invaded by several competitors, Cyril advanced his nephew Gelasius to that see:^ a man (says Theodoret^) eminent both for his life and doctrine. This was that Gelasius ^ that translated Rufinus's two books of eccle- " Theodor. 1. iii. c. 14. * Lib. vii. c. 2. r Lib. v. c. 3. « Epiph. Ilasres. Ixxiii. c. 37. « Lib. v. c. 8. •> Phot. Cod. LXXXIX. SAINT CYRIL, 113 siastical history, written as a supplement to Ensebius, into Greek, with a large preface of his own. But when it is added, that he undertook this work at the request of his uncle, and es- pecially, what some report, that it was carried on by their joint endeavours, this is plainly impossible, Rufinus himself not writing that history till several years after CyriFs death. XIII. In the third year of his reign, Theodosius summoned the famous council at Constantinople, one of the chiefs or pre- sidents whereof {rjyefjLove^; and ^^ap^ol) was our Cyril. The acts of that synod we have related in the Life of Nazianzen ; that which is here proper to remark, is the care they took of the three great sees, Antioch, Constantinople, and Jerusalem. In the most ancient and holy apostolic church of Antioch, (as they call it,*") they placed Flavianus, as successor to Meletius, who died during the sitting of the council. At Constantinople they substituted Nectarius in the room of Nazianzen, who at the same time resigned that see. And then for the mother-church of Jerusalem, (so they style it,) they confirmed CyriFs right to that place, whom they honour with the title of a " most reverend and religious bishop." They knew he had been for many years opposed and persecuted, disgraced and deposed by the Arian faction, and therefore thought it but just to do him right, and, whatever malicious insinuations had been spread abroad to the contrary, to declare to all the world, that from the first he had been canonically ordained to that see, and had all along been a stout champion against the Arian cause. An account of all which, the year following, (when the greatest part of them again met in council at Constantinople,) they sent in a letter to pope Da- masus, that so the Western bishops might be acquainted with the true state of things, and see that in all these affairs they had proceeded according to the rules and canons of the church. I give no heed to the Arabian writers,"^ who tell us, that in this synod, the see of Jerusalem was erected into a patriarchate, and the fifth and last place in the patriarchal dignity allotted to him: a thing not done till many years after. Five years he lived after that council, dying in the eighth year of Theodosius,* « Vid. Theodor. 1. v. c. 9. ^ Eutych. AnnaL voL i. p. 314. Joseph. iEgypt. Prsef. in Cone. Const, vol. i. p. 702. Beveregii synod. fi Hieron. de script, c. 112. VOL. III. 1 114 THE LIFE OF anno 386, In a good old age, and in a time of great tranquillity and peace. For though the former part of his life was stormy and troublesome, yet God was pleased to grant him a calm and undisturbed repose during the last eight years of his life. It being sometimes true in a civil, no less than a spiritual sense, " Mark the perfect, and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace.*'"' XIV. In the Greek Meneeon ^ he is described to have been a man of a middle size, of a pale complexion, very hairy, some- what flat nosed, and of a full visage ; his eyebrows growing up- right, his cheeks well covered with white hair, his beard forked, and his whole mien and carriage importing an unpolished kind of rusticity. As to his outward life, he was a man that under- went great changes and varieties of fortune, passing through honour and dishonour, evil report and good report ; sometimes shining in a place of great dignity and eminency in the church, otherwhiles deposed and banished and followed with all the rage and fierceness of implacable enemies, and yet going off the stage at last in a bright and serene evening. A man of no inconsi- derable learning and eloquence, of an exquisite piety, of an un- wearied patience, and quick zeal and resolution against the ad- versaries of the catholic faith ; whose books, even those of the worst of heretics, he read in his younger years,^ on purpose that he might fortify and confirm the minds of his auditors against the pernicious insinuation of their false doctrines. And though he has been accused, or suspected at least, of leaning to the Arians, yet how unjustly we have shewn before. And, indeed, he not only acknowledges the ofioovatov, or " consubstantial " doctrine, (as we see in the close of his letter to the emperor,) but clearly condemns the Arian dogmata^ as the great apostacy of that age, and the forerunner of antichrist ; men being (says he) betrayed by itching ears, and by smooth words and soft insinuations seduced over into a departure from the truth. His writings (which the ancients called Cyrillia) were many, whereof few now remain but his Catechetic Lectures, the fruit of his younger years. The whole (besides the irpoKaTr)'^7)aL<;^ or pre- paratory lecture,) consists of twenty-three sermons, whereof eighteen were preached to the competentes^ or those who stood candidates for baptism : the other five are mystagogical, preached ' Noe/x^p. rfi Ky'. sub. lit. jx. % Catech. vi. s. 19. •* Catech. xv. ». 3. xi. s. 6. SAINT CYRIL. 115 to those who had lately been baptized,' wherein he fully and ac- curately explains to them the several parts, together with the particular rites and ceremonies (then used in the church) of the two great mysteries or sacraments of the gospel. To question whether they be his, (as some have done,) is foolish and trifling, when they are not only quoted by Damascene, but expressly mentioned by St. Jerome, and cited by Theodoret, the one con- temporary with him, the other flourishing but a few years after him ; besides that the date he fixes from the rise of the Mani- chaean heresy can agree to no other but himself. As for that passage, so much urged by some,'' where he says, that the cross (which was found in the time of Constantine, the year after the Nicene council) is extant with us,' H^^XP^ arjiJbepov, "even to this very day,'' as if this must import the author lived at a vast distance of time from the finding of it ; to this it might be enough to say, that there were at least twenty years between the discovery of the cross and this expression, time enough to justify such a speech at large. But Cyril speaks not concerning the discovery of our Saviour's cross, but that it had lasted se- veral ages, and was still in being among them," ready to be pro- duced as a monument of the truth of our Lord's dying at Jeru- salem : which is evidently his meaning in that place. And be- sides this, nothing can be plainer than that Cyril oft uses that phrase to imply no more, than now^ or at this time. Thus speaking of the emperors having submitted themselves to Chris- tianity, we see (says he") the princes of the world directed and taught by ecclesiastic persons, fJ^e^pi' crrj^epov^ *' at this day ;" which just before he had explained by Kara rrjv Trapovcrlav, "at this present time." And yet it was not then above forty years since Constantine first embraced the Christian faith. That now and then a passage should be less accurately expressed, is not to be wondered at by him that considers, that they were sermons preached in his younger days, and then too delivered without any curious art, any exquisite study or deliberation. In those lectures that he preached ad illuminatos, he admirably trains up persons for baptism, by instructing them in all the main grounds and principles of the Christian faith : wherein, like a wise and ^ Vid. Catech. xviii. s. 14. ^ Rivet. Crit sac. 1. iii. c. 8. ' Catech. x. ». 9. "* Ad eund. sensum vid. quae habet Catech. xiii. a. 19. xiv. 8. 12. " Catech. xvii. s. 6. I 2 116 THE LIFE OF good man, he accommodates himself to the genius and under- standing of his hearers,*' expressing himself in a plain and fa- miliar style, without any pompous strains of eloquence, any pro- found arguments or philosophic reasonings, delivering his mind in easy and simple terms, hacked with frequent texts out of the holy scriptures, studiously avoiding all elahorate compositions, and speaking for the most without any great premeditation ; whence they are styled Karir^rjo-ecf; a'^^^eBoadetaai, '^' extempore lectures.'"* But above all the preparatory parts of the Christian doctrine, he is careful to explain to them the several articles of the creed, into which they were to be baptized. He had in the fourth catechism given a short cursory explication of all the im- portant articles that concern the three persons in the Trinity, which he afterwards runs over again, and insists upon at large in his explication of the creed. And because perhaps it may be both a pleasure and an advantage to the reader to know what creed it was that was used of old in the church of Jerusalem, (where the Christian faith had been first planted, and by whom it had been preserved through several ages,) this being the ancient Oriental creed mentioned by Rufinus, neither exactly the same with that settled by the synod of Nice, nor with that afterwards^ agreed upon in the council of Constantinople, we shall here, for a conclusion, pick up and put together the several articles of it ac- cording to the order wherein he expounds it, only premising, that the Constantinopolitan creed seems entirely to have been made up out of this and the Nicene, there being several expres- sions in this, which were afterwards adopted into that creed. The Creed anciently used in the Church of Jerusalem. " I believe in one God,P the Father,^ Almighty, "^ Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible ;^ And in one Lord Jesus Christ,* the only begotten Son of God,*^ begotten of the Father before all worlds, true God, by whom all things are made ; who was incarnate," and made man,^ he was cruci- fied and buried, and the third day he rose again from the dead,^ and ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father ; and shall come again with glory to judge the quick *> Vid. CatecL iv. s. 2. p Ibid. vi. s. 1. 1 Ibid. vii. s. 1. •" Ibid. viii. s. 1. • Ibid. ix. 8. 1. ' Ibid. x. s. 1. " Ibid. xL s. 1. 5. 8. * Ibid. xiL 8. 1. 5. ^ Ibid. xiii. s. 1. * Ibid. xiv. s. 1. SAINT CYRIL. 117 and the dead/ whose kingdom shall have no end : And in the Holy Ghost, ^ the Comforter, who spake by the prophets; in one baptism for the remission of sins,^ and in one holy catholic church, and in the resurrection of the flesh, and the life ever- lasting/'' His Writings. Crenuine. Supposititious. Catecheses ad lUuminatos 18. Oratio de occursii DominL Catecheses Mystagogicae quinque. Epistola ad Augustinum de miraculis Hie- Epistola ad Constantium Imp. de Appari- ronymi, Lat. tione crucis. * Catech. xv. s, 1. 2, 14. '' Ibid. xvi. s. 1. «= Ibid, x^dii. s. ]. 11. _/ THE LIFE OF SAINT AMBROSE, BISHOP OF MILAN. SECTION I. HIS ACTS FROM HIS BIRTH TILL THE SYNOD AT AQUILEIA. The time and place of his nativ-ity, and nobility of his descent. A swarm of bee» settling about his mouth as he lay in the cradle. A sportive presage of his future bishopric. The care of his education. His pleading causes. His commission to be governor of Insubria, &c. with consular dignity. The greatness of the city of Milan. The death of Auxentius, bishop of that see. The providing a fit successor recom- mended by the emperor to the provincial bishops. Ambrose's exhortation upon that occasion. The choice unanimously cast upon him. His positive refusal, and artifice* used to decline it. His flight : forced to come in upon the emperor's proclamation. The general joy and satisfaction at his consecration. His ordination, how far justifiable according to the canons. Communicatory letters to him from all parts. St. Basil's friendly letter to him. His ordering his domestic affairs for the better discharge of his episcopal office. His theological studies under the assistance of Simplician. His diligence in reforming his diocese, and the exercises of his private life. The irruption of the northern nations into Italy. His flight into lUyricum, and visiting Rome. The cure of a paralytic woman said to be done there by his prayers. His book* de Fide, upon what occasion written. The trouble created him by the Arian empress Justina. His impartial advice, and resolute carriage towards the young emperor Valentinian. His consecrating Anemmius bishop of Sirmium, and what happened there. Euthymius's design to surprise him, requited with the same punishment upon himself. St. Ambrose, tlioiigli by descent a citizen of Rome, and of a noble family, was yet born in France, and in all probability at Aries, the metropolis of Gallia Narbonensis, that being the or- dinary residence of the praetorian prefect. Indeed, Aries was a place of great renown, and as it was at this time the court of the imperial lieutenant, so it was afterwards the seat-royal of a kingdom : a city of that splendour and magnificence, that it is styled by Ausonius,*" Gallida Roma^ " the Gallic Rome,'' as well " Clar. uib. Carm. viii. p. 239. inter Panegyritos. THE LIFE OF SAINT AMBROSE. UB for the greatness of the place, as for its being a Roman colony. Here then we presume to place his nativity, which happened about the year 333, at what time his father (whose name also was Ambrose) was prcefectus prwtorio Galliarum^ or the em- peror's lieutenant in France, and the other Western provinces under his jurisdiction, one of the highest places of trust and honour in the Roman empire. The youngest he was of three children, Marcellina and Satyrus being born before him. He was nursed in the prwtorium^ or governor''s palace ; and sleeping one day in his cradle in the open court, a swarm of bees settled about his face, and gently crept in and out of his open mouth without doing him the least harm ; which his father, who was then walking hard by, perceiving, charged the maid that at- tended him not to disturb or drive them away, who soon after mounted up aloft into the air, till they quite vanished out of sight. Surprised with the accident, he told those that were about him, (and it was a true presage,) this boy, if he lives, will prove a great man. How long his father lived after this is not known, it is probable he died during his government in those parts : after whose decease, his mother, with the whole family, returned to Rome ; and the place is still shewed where their house stood, turned at this day into a convent of Benedictine monks. Amongst the sportive passages of his childhood, this is not the least memorable, that when he espied his mother and sister kissing the bishop's hand, (according to the pious reverence which in those days they paid to the governors of the church,) he merrily offered them his hand to kiss, which he told them they ought to do, for that he was sure he should be a bishop. His education was suitable to his birth, liberal and ingenuous, and as he grew up, he made himself master of all the learning that Rome or Greece could afford : and for religion, he was formed to that, especially by the care and counsels of his sister Marcellina ; who, having devoted herself to a state of celibacy, spent her time in the exercises of piety and devotion, and by her converse and example trained him up to a life of virtue, and secured him from those snares and vices which a place of so many charms and temptations as Rome was must have betrayed him to. II. He was now grown up to years of maturity, and being *• Paiilin. vit. Ambr. oper. Ambr. Piief. p. 1. cd. 1567. 120 THE LIFE OF accomplished with all secular learning, thought it time to enter upon the public stage, and to that end betook himself to practise in the court of the praetorian prefect, where he pleaded causes with so much smartness and dexterity, that he was soon taken notice of by Anicius Probus, lately made praetorian prefect of Italy ; a person of great eminency and authority, who made choice of him to be of his council. To this Anicius Probus we find a rescript of the emperor Valentin ian,'^ dated at Triers, anno 869, in w^hich year, probably, he was advanced to that office : and being to send out governors into the several provinces of his jurisdiction, he had an especial eye upon Ambrose,'^ to whom he committed the provinces of Insubria, JE,my]ia. and Ligiiria, containing a good part of Gallia Cisalpina, investing him with consular power and dignity, and despatching him with this short instruction, intimating the mildness and clemency of his government, " Go thy way, (said he,) and govern more like a bishop than a judge,"*"* little dreaming of what happened after- wards. Thus commissioned, he entered upon his charge, taking up his residence at Milan, the capital city of the province, indeed the metropolis of the whole Italic diocese, the usual seat of the Western emperors, or their prime ministers ; being reckoned one of the four prime cities of Italy, and one of the ten greatest cities in Europe, a place renowned for the antiquity of its standing, (being built, they say, three hundred and thirty^ nine years before our Saviour's incarnation,) for the pleasantness of its situation, the largeness of its circuit, (Its very suburbs equalling many great cities,) the beauty and elegancy of its churches, neatness and stateliness of its buildings, the fame of its university, ingenuity and dexterity of its artificers, the tem- perature of its air, fertility of soil, plenty of provisions, richness of traffic, and populousness of its inhabitants ; upon all which, and many more accounts, it deservedly bears the title of Milano grande^ " Milan the great:"" but in nothing greater than in its honourable relation to that great person, of whom we write, in whom it prides itself, as in its noblest ornament. Five years he had continued in his government, which he managed with ad- mirable prudence and justice, when an unexpected accident made a great alteration in his fortunes, and engaged him in a quite different course of life. p Cod. Theodos. lib. i. Tit. vii. de Offic. Rect. prov. 1. 5. * Paulin. vit, Ambr. p, 2, SAINT AMBROSE. 121 III. Auxentius, bishop of Milan, the chief supporter of Arianism in the Western world, had been more than once svnodicallv de- posed : but being a man hardy and confident, still kept his ground ; and by his sly insinuation at court, sometimes plausibly colluding, otherwhiles peremptorily denying the things charged upon him, had baffled all attempts against him, till death at last put the sentence into full execution, the man dying anno 374 : M'hose death was no sooner spread abroad, but the bishops of the province met together about the election of a successor,^ whom the emperor sent for, and told them, that they, whose business it was to be peculiarly conversant in the divine volumes, best understood the qualifications of a fit person for that place ; that he should be one who might instruct his people, not only by his doctrine but his life, set forth himself as an exemplar of universal goodness and virtue, and make his conversation give ^stimony to the doctrine that he preached. " Choose such a one (said he) and place him upon the episcopal throne, and we ourselves will readily submit our crowns and sceptres to his counsels and di- rection, and, as men obnoxious to human frailties, will receive his reproofs and admonitions as the most wholesome physic."''* The bishops humbly besought his majesty, that, as one capable enough to judge, he would please to nominate the person. But he modestly declined it, telling them it was too great an affair for him to meddle in, and that they themselves were upon all accounts fitter to make a wiser and better choice. With that they took their leave, and went to the cathedral to consult about it. And now different interests began to shew themselves : though Auxentius was dead, his party was yet alive, and vio-orouslv contended for a man of their communion, and bio- words were spoken of what they would do, if they were re- jected ; the Catholics, on the other hand, labouring as hard for an orthodox bishop. Factions grew strong, and the whole city was divided, and things openly tended to a tumult and insur- rection : which Ambrose hearing, and being ready, according to the duty of his place, to prevent all public disorder, hastened immediately to the church, where, in a grave and pathetical oration, he exhorted the people to peace and concord, and to a quiet submission to the laws. His speech ended, the voice of a e Theodor. 1. iv. c. 6, 7. Vid. Socrat. 1. iv. c. 30. Sozom. L vl c. 24. Paulin. ub supr. Rufin. 1. ii. c. 11. 122 THE LIFE OF cliild was heard from amidst the crowd, " Ambrose is bi.^hop." The hiut was soon taken, and, as if it had been a voice from heaven, the whole company unanimously cried out, that Ambrose should be the man : and herein both Catholics and Arians did the more readily consent, in that neither party seemed to have got the better of the other. IV. Ambrose was infinitely surprised at the passage, and the joyful acclamations of the people, and peremptorily refused to comply with them. And to let them see how unfit he was to make a bishop, he put on a rough merciless humour : for going out of the church, he sat down on the bench of justice, and sending for some malefactors to be brought before him, com- manded them to be racked with great rigour and severity, hoping by this means to take off the edge of the people's iu- clInationHo wards him, who, yet nothing discouraged, cried out, " your sin be upon us." This artifice failing, he tried another, contriving it, that women of lewd and common fame should be seen publicly going into and about his house, which he doubted not would be looked upon as highly unbecoming a person de- signed for the episcopal office. But the people quickly smelt it out to be a piece of pageantry, and with redoubled importunity cried out, " your sin be upon us.'' No remedy was now left, but directly to run away. Accordingly, at midnight he stole out of the city, and designed for TIcInum, a neighbouring city, but missed his way ; and having wandered up and down all night, found himself in the morning again at Milan at the Roman gate. He is presently laid hold on, and a guard set about him, till the emperor's pleasure might be known in the case, without whose leave no public officer might be admitted to holy orders ; but in that they met with no opposition, for the emperor, knowing him to be a man of singular integrity, easily gave his consent. Ambrose in the meanwhile had again made his escape, and withdrawn himself to the country-house of one Laurentius, a great man, and his Intimate friend, with whom he had hid him- self. And now they were wholly at a loss how to retrieve him. But the emperor had given order to the vicarius or lieutenant of the civil diocese to see the thing effectually done; and he had pub- lished an edict, that none, under peril of his head and confisca- tion of his estate, should dare to conceal him. Laurentius here- upon was forced to break up his sanctuary, and brought him SAINT AMBROSE. 123 back to Milan ; and now seeing it was to no purpose any longer to resist the pleasure of the divine providence, he yielded to lay down the public rods and axes, and to take up the crosier, only demanding that he might be baptized by a catholic bishop, for as yet he was only a catechumen. So he was baptized ; and eight days after, with the universal acclamation of the people, solemnly consecrated to that see ; the emperor himself (who was present at the ordination) concluding the solemnity with this short gratulatory address to heaven, " I thank thee, O Lord Almighty, and our Saviour, that thou hast made choice of this person, to whom I had committed the power over men''s bodies, to be intrusted with the souls of men, and thereby hast declared my choice to be fit and just." And, indeed, the emperor highly honoured him, and hearkened to his admonitions with a just submission and reverence. And, therefore, when not long after he complained to him of the misdemeanours of some in authority, aggravating their faults with great freedom and impartiality, the good emperor answered, " I was heretofore no stranger to this liberty you take, and yet was so far from opposing, that I freely consented to your ordination : go on therefore as the divine law commands, and cure the distempers and maladies which we are apt to fall into/' V. How far his ordination was justifiable by the ecclesiastic laws of those times might be disputed. It is certain, it was not strictly regular according to the stated customs and canons of the church, which disallow tumultuary elections, especially of unbaptized laymen, and require gradual approaches,^ and due distances of time, both for baptism and ordination. But in this case, it is evident there were extraordinary appearances of God*'s immediate approbation, so that the bishops that were met about the ordination, judged it to proceed, etc tlvo<^ Oelov, " from a divine appointment," and the emperor and the whole city were satisfied it was diov re epyov, (as Socrates has it,) " God"'s own peculiar work ;" Oeia "^/J^o?, (as it is in Theodoret,) "a divine election." And thus the apostolic canons expressly prohibit any new bap- tized person to be made bishop,^ el fir] ttco Kara Oelav %a/3tv, " unless it be done according to the divine grace and favour ;" that is, say the scholiasts, el iirj ttov airoKoXvcpOelrj Trepl avrov, ' Vid. Cone. Nicaen. Can. ii. et Can. Apost. Can. Ixxx. » Loc. eit. abi vid. Bals. et Zonar. 124 THE LIFE OF " unless it be some way revealed that he ought to be the man.'*'' Besides, the canons in this case were sometimes suspended, either when the minds of the people could not be otherwise quieted, or when the person elected, being" of extraordinary quality, was supposed to be highly useful to the church, and that the neces- sity of aifairs would not admit the returns and formalities of customary ordination : two instances whereof the reader may re- member we have already noted ; the one that of Eusebius, St. Basil's predecessor in the see of Caesarea, the other of Nectarius bishop of Constantinople. The news of his consecration being dispersed abroad, especially by his own epistles, sent as the custom was to the most eminent prelates, communicatory letters arrived from all parts ; the Western bishops frankly testifying their approbation of his ordination. He wrote likewise into the East, and among others to St. Basil, who was highly pleased with his epistle, and returned an answer,^ wherein he con- gratulates his promotion to that see, and that God had made choice of so considerable a person ; a man selected out of the imperial city, and intrusted with the government of provinces ; a person eminent for his wisdom, and the nobility of his house ; for the exemplary virtue and integrity of his life, the powerfulness of his rhetoric, and his wise conduct of secular affairs ; and that he had brought him over to the care and oversight of Chrisfs flock ; concluding with this pious counsel : " Go on, therefore, O thou man of God ; and since thou hast not received or learnt the gospel of Christ from man, but that our Lord himself has taken thee from among the secular judges, and translated thee to an apostolic chair, fight the good fight, correct and reform the distempers of the people, if any be infected with the Arian contagion ; revive the ancient tracts and footsteps of the fathers, and, by frequent intercourse of letters, build up that foundation of love and kindness thou hast now laid between us ; that how far distant soever we be otherwise in our habitations, our minds and spirits may be near at hand to converse together.'' VL That he might with less distraction attend the cares of his pastoral charge, his first work was to divest himself of his estate : his money and goods he presently bestowed upon the poor,' his lands he settled upon the church, only making his sister Marcel lina tenant for life ; the care of his house and h Basil. Epist. cxcvii. ' Paulin. vit. Ambr. p. 8. SAINT AMBROSE. 125 family he committed entirely to his brother Satyrus, that so he might have nothing to hinder him from the immediate duties of his place. And because the course and manner of his life had hitherto kept him from conversing much with theologic studies, he contracted an intimate friendship with Simplician, a presbyter of Rome,''' a man of good learning, and a pious life, and who had accomplished himself, both by foreign travels and domestic studies : him he drew over to Milan, and to his tutorage he resigned himself; by which means he soon arrived to a very exact knowledge of the mysteries and controversies of the Christian faith : for which he ever after treated Simplician as a friend, revered him as a master, and loved him as a father. Nay, God himself seems to have rewarded the pains he took with this good man, so that though at this time he was of a great age, yet he lived to succeed St. Ambrose in the see of Milan. With infinite diligence did our new bishop apply him- self to the reformation of his diocese: he restored the discipline of the church, revived the almost decayed rites and solemnities of divine worship, composed differences among neighbours, purged men's minds from errors, and plucked up those Arian tares which for many years had been sown amongst them, so that his church now enjoyed a happy calm. And this opportunity he took of employing his vacant hours in writing : for a little more than two years after his entrance upon that see,' he wrote his three books de Virginibus, dedicated to his sister Marcellina, wherein he describes the excellency of that state of life, and lays down rules for the better conduct and management of it. About this time also, or not long after, he set upon his commen- taries upon Luke, and perhaps his three books of " Offices," composed in imitation of those written by the great Roman orator. VII. But these calm sunshine-days lasted not long. About the year 377, the Goths, Huns, Alani, Taifali, Sarmatse, and other barbarous northern nations, broke in upon several parts of the Roman empire, and in the issue fell foul upon one another. We find a tribe of them settling in Italy, in some parts not far from Milan."^ The approach of such fierce and merciless ene- ^ August. Confess. 1. yiii. c. 2. vol. i. p. 145. Ambr. Ep. Ixv. ad Simplic. 1 Vid. L iL de Virgin, c. 6. "* Am. Marcell. 1. xxxi. c. 9. \-idesis Idat. Fast. Cons. ap. vol. ii. Sirmondi opp. p. 339. 126 THE LIFE OF mies, set the whole country under a mighty consternation, to avoid whose fury, St. Ambrose and several others fled into Illyricum, there to shelter themselves in a miserable banishment, Nos qitoque, in Illyrico exules patria, Gothorum exilia fecerunt, as his own words are." This opportunity (if I conjecture right, for my author fixes no other date, than that it was some years after his ordination) he took to visit Rome, the seat of his ancestors, and the place of his education. Coming thither, he found his mother dead, and his sister with her virgin-companion, who for many years had joined with her in the same profession, co- habiting together, as he had left them, who kissing his hand at the first salutation, he smiled ; " see now, (said he,) you kiss a bishop''s hand, as I formerly told you," referring to a passage in his childhood, which we noted before. While he continued at Rome, he was invited by a noble matron, that dwelt in the Transtiberine region, to celebrate the holy eucharist in her house, (jDrobably the common confusions, and great power of the Gentiles at that time at Rome, had made the public congrega- tions less safe or convenient ;) which being noised in the neigh- bourhood, a woman that kept a public bath, but who then lay bed-rid of a palsy, caused herself to be conveyed thither in a chair, and importuned the holy bishop to intercede with heaven for her. And while he was praying over, and laying his hands upon her, she caught fast hold of his garments, which she em- braced and kissed ; which was no sooner done, but she found her strength return, and forthwith rose up and walked. Long he continued not in exile, before the providence of God made way for his return. For Frigerid, the emperor's general, having totally vanquished that swarm of barbarous people,^ slew Farno- bius, their commander, and a great part of the army, and the rest that escaped the sword he drove quite out of Italy. VIII. The Eastern empire was in the meanwhile miserably infested with these northern inroads, for whose relief, (Valens being then in the remote Eastern parts,) Gratian (son of the late deceased emperor Valentinian) raised an army, but hearing that some of the Germans had invaded France, was forced for the present to turn his forces against them. But before he marched, he wrote to St. Ambrose, to come to him, and more accurately to instruct him in the so much controverted articles " Comm. in Luc. 1. x. c. 21. Paulin. vit. Ambr. p. 0. • Am. Marcell. 1. xxxi. c. 9. SAINT AMBROSE. 127 of the Christian faith, and that both by word and writing : which he did, and upon that occasion wrote his books de Fide^ dedicated to the emperor, which he enlarged to five ; therein fully discussing the questions which the Arians had started concerning the Son of Grod, and the doctrine of the Trinity ; to which, as an appendage, he afterwards added (which the em- peror by letter particularly desired of him p) his three books de Spiritu Sancto^ to prove the divinity of the Holy Ghost. And now began those troubles that exercised him the greatest part of his life. Justina, the empress dowager, relict of the elder Yalentinian, had, by means of his uncle Cerealis, advanced her young son Valentian, Gratian''s half-brother, to be his colleague in the empire : a great patroness she was of the Arian party, "^ but had cunningly dissembled her inclinations that way during the life of her husband ; who being now dead, she began openly to season her son with those impious principles, and to instil into him a dislike of Ambrose, whom yet she resolved first to attempt by fair means, and to that end set her son upon him. The good bishop gravely put him in mind of the faith and reli- gion of his father, advising him to keep the portion that he had received inviolable : he shewed him the difference between the Arian and the Catholic doctrine ; that the one had been imme- diately derived from the mouth of our Lord and his apostles, the other quite contrary, being plainly repugnant to the divine re- velation. The young prince, impatient of contradiction, grew into choler, and commanded his guards to surround the church : which yet nothing dismayed the holy man, who smiled at it, as a vain scarecrow. Whereat the emperor being more exas- perated, openly commanded him to come out of the church. *' That (replied the bishop) I can never willingly consent to ; I will not betray the sheepfold to the wolves, nor deliver up the holy church to such impious intruders. If you have a mind to despatch me, you have swords and spears within, do it here. Such a death I am ready most willingly to undergo.'"' But of this more afterwards. IX. It happened about this time, anno 380, that the see of Sirmium was vacant. Justina, that had a quick eye upon all advantages, took care presently to make a party there for the promotion of an Arian bishop : to oppose whose designs, Ambrose P Ext. ap. Arabr. vol. ii. p. 751. i Theodor. 1. v. c. 13. 128 THE LIFE OF immediately hastened tliitber/ (and a learned man observes, and uroes it as an evidence that Illvricum was then under the jurisdiction of the see of Milan,"") and being sat down in the episcopal chair, a maid of the Arian party confidently came up to him, and taking hold of his garment, endeavoured to pull him down to a party of women, who stood ready to have murdered, and thrown him out of the church ; but he told her, though I be unworthy of so venerable an office, yet it becomes neither you nor your profession to lay violent hands upon the meanest bishop, for which you have reason to fear the judgment of God, lest some mischief do befall you. And so indeed it came to pass. For the next day she died, and was buried, whose funeral (to let the world see how easily he could return good for evil) he attended to her grave : an accident that struck a mighty terror into the whole party, and made them for that time desist. So, having peaceably ordained Anemmius to that see, he returned to Milan, where he found the evil spirit of Arian malice and revenge still haunting him. Justina laid snares for him in every place, and made as many against him as she could by any arts get over to her party. Some she corrupted with bribes, others she attempted by promising them places of honour and dignity, if they would seize him in the church, and forcibly carry him into banishment. This several attempted, but in vain, God still protecting him : nay, Euthymius, more zealous than the rest, had taken a house adjoining to the church, and thereinto pri- vately conveyed a chariot, into which he designed suddenly to clap him, and then hurry him away. But his mischief returned upon his own head. For the next year, on that very day that he intended to surprise Ambrose, he was himself put into the same chariot, and carried into banishment. So visibly, many times, is '' the Lord known by the judgment which he executeth, while the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands, while they sink down into the pit that they make, and in the net which they hide is their own foot taken."" However, either by misinformation or importunity they had so far prevailed upon the emperor Gratian, that he seized one of the churches which they had sued for,* but kept it in his hand, and upon better thoughts, without any solicitation, soon restored it to St. Am- brose back again. «■ Paulin. vit. Ambr. p. 2, 3. * Ph. Bert, pithan. p. ii. c. 4. * Ambr. de Sp. S. 1. i. c. 1. SAINT AMBROSE. 129 SECTION II. HIS ACTS FROM THE MEETING OP THE SYNOD AT AQUILEIA TILL THE DEATH OF GRATIAN. The Ariana petition the emperor for a public hearing. A sjTiod indicted at Aquileia. The time of meeting, and number of bishops. The proceedings of the synod against Palladius and Secundianus, two Arian bishops. The charge pressed by Ambrose, and the shuffling replies of Palladius. His exceptions against his judges, and the manner of procedure. His sentence passed by particular votes. The condemnation of Secundi- anus, as also of Attalus and Valens, two Arian presbyters. Synodal letters written to the emperors. The truth of the Acts of this council defended against Chiffletius. Another synod at Aquileia about the case of Ursicinus. Synodal epistles to Theodo- sius about the union of the Eastern and Western churches, the schism at Antioch, and the case of Nazianzen and Maximus at Constantinople. Ambrose's book De Incarnationis DominiccB Sacramento^ written upon what occasion. The rise of the Priscillian heresy. The author of it vigorously opposed by Ambrose. The quarrel between him and Macedonius, a great officer, upon that account. His undaunted in- terceding for the pardon of a condemned nobleman. The rebellion of Maximus, governor of the army in Britain. His murdering the emperor Gratian, and usurpation of the empire. St. Ambrose's embassy to him. The death of his brother Satyrus, and his funeral oration for him. Notwithstanding the vigorous endeavours of the empress Justina, the Arian cause lost ground in the West ; and being pressed hard upon by the Catholics, they appealed to a more public hearing, pretending they were misrepresented, and that they would stand or fall by the confession made some years since in the synod at Ariminum. In order hereunto, Palladius and Secundianus, two Arian bishops, and the only chief sticklers for the cause, petitioned Gratian," at his coming to Sirmium, for a general council, to be convened out of all parts of the Roman empire ; hoping, that if they could effect this, whatever they might want in the West, the Eastern prelates (among whom lay the strength of their party) would turn the scale ; and the emperor it seems had granted their request : which when St. Ambrose understood, he represented to him the inconvenience of the thing ; that a general council was wholly needless in this case, the adverse party being inconsiderable, and that himself, and some of the neighbour bishops, were abundantly enough for their confutation ; that it was unreasonable, for the sake of two " Vid Gratian. Epist. inter gesta Synod. Aquil. Cone. voL iii. p. 387. ed. reg. et Epist. Synod, ibid. p. 407. VOL. HI. K 180 THE LIFE OF rotten heretics, (as the council styles them,) to trouble the governors of the church through the whole empire, many of whom were, upon the account of distance, age, infirmity, or poverty, altogether unable to take so long a journey, or to be absent from their cures. Hereupon a synod out of Italy and the neighbouring provinces was indicted at Aquileia, where met of Italian, Dalmatian, and French bishops, with the legates from Africa and France, to the number of thirty-two : St. Ambrose, I conceive, as metropolitan, was president of the council ; to whom the Synodicon,^ without any warrant, joins Ascholius bishop of Thessalonica, his name neither appearing among the rest, nor so much as once mentioned in all the transactions of the synod. Several private and preliminary conferences the fathers had with the two Arian bishops; but no good being done, they met in a synodal assembly, Septemb. 5, anno 381 ; and the president having proposed that, for the clearer justifica- tion of their actions, the proceedings of the synod might be entered upon record, the emperor'*s letter was first read, whereby they were summoned, and constituted judges of the cause before them. Then was read an epistle of Arius, containing the chief points of his dogmata^ and Palladius required to declare what he thought concerning it. Palladius answered, that by the emperor's letters which they had read, it was evident, that they had been the cause why there had not been a full and general council ; that the bishops of their party (meaning the Orientalists) were absent, and therefore thev could not answer. Ambrose replied, that this was done in compliance with the custom of former times, whereby the Oriental bishops were wont to assemble in the East, and at the same time the Western in the West. However, to take away all pretence of cavilling, the prefect of Italy had sent a summons to them of the East, that if they pleased, they might convene with them ; but they keeping to their old course, had stayed at home. The other pleaded, that it was a fraud, and that they had herein circumvented and im- posed upon the emperor, and therefore he was not obliged to answer. But Ambrose setting aside the case of the Eastern prelates, pressed hard for a positive answer: you have heard (said he) Arius's epistle read, you are wont, when challenged, to deny yourself to be an Arian ; either now condemn him, or * A Papp. edit. p. 46. SAINT AMBROSE. 131 defend his cause. But the crafty heretic would not be drawn out of his old reserv^e : he told them, they were an incompetent judicatory ; that he had promised indeed to make good his cause, but in a lawful trial ; that he was come thither in ex- pectation to have found a general council, whose decision he would not anticipate by answering there, where those of his own party were wanting. After a great deal of wrangling about this matter, they debated the letter of Arius from point to point, wherein the main disputing part lay upon Ambrose, who took up, and retorted the broken answers which Palladius gave to the several interrogatories ; the fathers at the end of each de- nouncing an anathema against the maintainers of every point, as may be seen in the Acts of the council, extant at large. '^ In which it is not unpleasant to observe what artifices the man makes use of to save himself: sometimes he endeavours to escape by subtle and sly evasions, as when he owns our Lord to be the true Son of God ; but when pressed to it, would not ac- knowledge him to be true God ; and to be good, but would not say, he was a good God, refusing to express himself in any other terms than these, "a good Father begat a good Son." Some- times he pleaded, he could not answer, in that he had not notaries of his own to take what passed, pretending partiality on their side, and therefore required that his own notaries might be admitted : which being granted, he flew off from that. Other- whiles he required, that the people might be indifferently let in as spectators and judges of what passed on either side; which though it was not absolutely denied, yet St. Ambrose told him, that in those matters it was the place of bishops to judge the laity, and not the laity to judge the bishops. In short, throughout the whole procedure, whenever he was pinched with a question or an argument which he could not evade, he presently retired to his common refuge, that they were not a general council, and to such a one only he was obliged and resolved to answer: particularly he excepted against the president as an incompetent judge, charging him with impiety and injustice ; and when Sabinus, bishop of Placentia, asked him what impieties he had to object against Ambrose, he gave them no other reply than before, that he would answer in a full council, when all persons concerned were present. St. Ambrose answered, " I desire to * Cone. Tol. iii. p. 387, etc. ed. reg. K 2 132 THE LIFE OF be charged and convicted in tlie presence of my brethren ; if I, who strenuously assort the fiaith, seem impious to you, speak out and sav, what are those impious assertions I am guilty of." But the l)old man thought fit to let that accusation fall, which he was not able to make good. After near seven hours' dispute, (for so long the session lasted,) St. Ambrose passed sentence upon him, pronouncing him unworthy of the episcopal office, and that a catholic should be ordained to his see ; which was ratified by an universal anathema of the synod denounced against him : after which, at the president's motion, all the bishops did in order, one by one, give their particular votes for his condemnation. Next they proceeded to Secundianus, and having for some time disputed the case with him, could drive him to no other resolution, than that he confessed our Lord to be the true only begotten Son of God, but would not explicitly assert, that he was the true God ; whereupon the like sentence was passed upon him. With them also the synod censured and condemned Attains, a revolted presbyter, a man, it seems, of great age, having been present with Agrippinus his bishop in the Nicene council ; the determinations whereof he had together with his bishop subscribed, but afterwards recanted, and sheltered himself under Valens the intruding bishop of Petavio, a city in Pannonia ; who being for his misdemeanours publicly thrust out by the people, had betrayed the country to the Goths, in whose barbarous habit he dressed himself, and appeared in the head of them against the Roman army, and now went up and down the country, which he filled with unwarrantable ordinations; and though summoned to the council, and himself not far off, (having taken up his station at this time at Milan,) yet refused to ap- pear. Attains being urged with his subscription, refused to give any answer, and so suffered judgment to pass against him. All which being despatched, the council arose, having deputed legates to the emperors, and by them a letter,^ wherein they give them an account of what had been transacted in the synod ; praying in the close that they would cause the synodal sentence to be executed, and prohibit the followers of Photinus (who, notwithstanding the imperial edict to the contrary, still kept up their meetings at Sirmium) any longer to hold their unlawful conventicles. It must not here be forgotten, that a learned > Ext. in Cone, vol, iii. p. 407. ed. reg. SAINT AMBROSE. 133 man has not long since called the Acts of this council into question,^ which he conceives to be a pure fictitious scene, com- posed by Vigilius bishop of Tapsus, a city in the province of Byzacium in Africa. He grants there was such a synod, and such proceedings in it against Palladius, but that the genuine Acts of it are lost, or have not yet seen the light ; and that Vi- gilius, writing against the Arians, took up this way, and feigned this formal story purely out of his own head. His arguments, though many, are very weak and trifling, and do not deserve an operose conftitation, being such as may be levelled against almost any ancient writing ; nor is there any more just reason to question these, than the Acts of most ancient councils. The whole stress of his bold conjecture rests upon no firmer a bottom than this : that Vigilius affirms that he had written against Palladius, (who had answered St. Ambrose,) and immediately, without any other warrant, he concludes, that the proceedings of this synod were part of that book, and as such he has published them in his collection of Vigilius's works. Nor does he produce one syllable of any writer, either of those or the following ages, to justify what he says ; or any ancient copy, that ascribes these Acts to Vigilius. And if such a liberty may be taken, what can be safe ! Farewell all ancient monuments, when a confident conjecture may dispose of them, how, and to what use it please. And whereas he urges, that Vigilius wrote the Acts and Disputations of Arius and Athanasius before Probus, appointed by the emperor to be judge and moderator, and that in the way of a formal historical account, whenas all was but a feigned scheme ; it is granted he did so. But then withal it is evident, both that ancient manuscripts entitle that piece to Vigilius ; and, which is more, Vigilius himself elsewhere expressly owns that he did draw up those discourses,^ which he did not intend as a real history, but only as personated acts and disputations : of either of which there is not the least tittle in our case. But enough of this matter. II. About this time, either in this, or in some other synod presently after assembled at Aquileia, they debated the case of Ursicinus, who had lately made a miserable schism in the church of Rome, and besought the emperor Gratian not to ^ P. Fr. Chifflet. Vindic. Vigil. Taps. §. i. p. 33, etc. ^ Coiitr. Eutych, 1. v. c. 2, 134 THE LIFE OF hearken to his petitions,^ or be overcome with the importunities of that bold man. And perhaps in the same synod it was (wherein also St. Ambrose presided) that they wrote to the em- peror Theodosius/ to let him know in how fair a way things were towards an union between the Eastern and the -Western churches, and what advances they had made towards it, and that they had lately condemned the errors and the followers of Apollinaris. By a second letter (if at least it was in the same convention) they gave him thanks for restoring the catholic bishops to their sees,^ praying him to interpose in the business of Antioch, where though Paulinus was survivor to Metelius, yet another had been put in ; and this done by consent of Nectarius of Constantinople, whose succession to that see they conceived irregular, Nazianzen himself being placed in it to the exclusion of Maximus, (by whose false suggestions they had been so far imposed upon, as to espouse his cause, and to admit him to com- munion ;) and therefore they besought him, either that Maximus might be put into possession of that see, or that the cause might be debated and adjusted in a general council at Rome. In answer whereunto, the synod at Constantinople, reassembling the follow- ing year, sent them word that they could not assent to a general council in the West, but thought good to give them an account both of the faith they had agreed in, and the care they had taken in providing for the sees of Antioch, Constantinople, and Jeru- salem, which elsewhere we have more particularly related. III. Ambrose being returned to Milan, found his enemies a little more calm for the present, though what they could not effect by open attempts, they sought to do by secret snares, and by putting aifronts upon him. Amongst the rest, two gentlemen of the bed-chamber to the emperor Gratian,^ being of the Arian party, came to him, and gave him a subject to discourse upon, the mystery of our Lord's incarnation, promising that they would be at the church called Portiana the next day to hear him. The expectation was great, and the congregation full ; when the two courtiers, who designed nothing but a scene of ridicule and scorn, took their horses and rode out of town. But God, who will not be mocked, no not in his servants and mi- nisters, met with them ; they had not gone far, when their *» Ext. Epist. inter gesta synod, Aquil. ed. Hardouin. vol. i. p. 839. «: Ext. ibid. p. 814. '^ Ibid. p. 845. « Paulin. vit. Ambr. p. 4. SAINT AMBROSE. . 135 horses threw them, and both miserably perished. The congre- gation in the meanwhile grew impatient, and would stay no longer, so that the bishop was forced to go up into the pulpit, and discoui*se upon the argument that had been propounded to him, telling the auditory, that he was come thither to pay his debt, but he found not there his yesterday's creditors to receive it, and then went on to explain that mystery, which he published in a just discourse,*" de Incarnationis Dominicce Sacramento. Much about this time, Priscillian, a noble Spaniard, rich, learned, elo- quent, and witty, set up for an heretic, and formed a sect out of the very dregs of the Gnostic and Manichean errors and im- purities, with a few rites and principles borrowed from others ; for which he was, with some of his party, banished his own country,^ and fled to Kome ; where, endeavouring to vindicate himself, he was rejected by pope Damasus, who refused to see him. Then he came to Milan, where he found as cold entertain- ment from St. Ambrose. Being thus disappointed in his hopes of patronage from these two great men, he began to turn his projects, and try what he could do at court in procuring an edict for his restitution ; which he effected by bribing and corrupting Macedonius, master of the offices, (as he was called,) a place of great power and authority about the palace. St. Ambrose op- posed it, we may be sure, what lay in his power, for which Ma- cedonius bore him a grudge ever after, insomuch that when he came one day to the prcetorium, to intercede with him on the behalf of another, Macedonius, who had some intimation of his coming, commanded the gates to be shut up against him, so that being denied all entrance, left this message for him, "Tell him (said he) the time will come, when he himself shall fly to the church, and shall not be able to enter, though the doors be not shut against him :''' which came to pass after Gratian's death, when a warrant being sent to seize him, he fled for sanctuary to the church, but could not find his way into it, although the doors stood wide open, and so was apprehended. Nor was it all the contempt which great men at court cast upon him could dis- courage him from improving his interest there for all pious offices, whereof one instance especially shews both his courage and his charity. A pagan gentleman of some authority had f Ext. vol. ii. p. 703. s Sulp. Sever. Hist. sac. 1, ii. c, 48. ^ Paulin. vit. Ambr. p. 8. 136 THE LIFE OF spoken dispnragiiic^ly of the emperor Gratian,' as a son unworthy of so great a father ; for which he was arraigned and condemned to die : and being led forth to execution, St. Ambrose, pitying the man's case, went to court to intercede for his Ufe. The em- peror at that time was diverting himself with private hunting in the amphitheatre, so that he stood for some time amongst the guards at the gate. But none offering to go in and acquaint the emperor, he betook himself to the postern, whereat the wild beasts used to be let in, and crowding in along with the keepers, went directly to the emperor, whom he never left soliciting, to- gether with the courtiers that were about him, till he had pro- cured the man''s pardon, and saved his life. IV. Anno 383, a great revolution happened in the civil state. Maximus, a Spaniard by birth, say some, but a Briton, say others, (I conceive him of Spanish extract, but born in Britain, deriving his pedigree from Constantine the Great,) had been commander in Britain, colleague with Theodosius: and finding his companion advanced to the empire, and himself neglected, he made a party in the army, who proclaimed him emperor. Immediately he conveyed his forces over into France and Ger- many,'' where, by the assistance of the barbarous people, he quickly secured all these Western parts to his obedience. The news whereof arriving at court, Gratian advanced with an army to encounter him, and met him not far from Lyons in France. Five several days the fight continued more or less, till Gratian observing a part of his army to desert him, began to retire with three hundred horse. But the other party adding treachery to rebellion, stuck at nothing to secure their victory. For An- dragathius, Maximus's general of the horse, conveying himself into a close horse-litter, gave out that the empress was come thither to her husband. Gratian suspecting nothing, passed the Ulione to meet her, and was no sooner come near, but Andraga- thius suddenly leaped out of the litter and stabbed him : a prince of great virtues, and singular piety, but unhappily cut off in the very flower of his age. And now Maximus raged at pleasure ; and having treated all those of Gratian's party that fell into his hands with exquisite cruelty, prepared to march for ' Sozom. 1. vii. c. 25. •' Socrat. L V. c. 11. Sozom. 1. vii. c. 13. Hier. EpiUiph. Nepot. Ep. xxxv. voL iv. par. ii. p. 273. Vid. Zosim. Hist. 1. iv, c. 35. qui paulo alitor haljct. SAINT AMBROSE. 137 Italy. To prevent which, Valentiiiian despatched St. Ambrose upon an embassy to him, who by the gravity of his person, the authority of his office, his humble address, and eloquent insinua- tions, stopped his journey at that time, and kept him on the other side the Alps : a work of equal danger, difficulty, and success, considering the circumstances of affairs at that time ; though Paulinus, who was afterwards his secretary, by a strange mis- take confounds it with a second embassy some years after. This year he buried his dear brother Satyrus, a person eminent for his virtues and employments. He had lately been in Africa and Sicily, and though advised by his friends not to return home, where all things were running headlong into extreme confusion, he could not be persuaded, resolving not to desert his brother in such an evil time, and impatient of delay, put himself on board an old rotten ship, which yet brought him safe to shore ; where landing, he went home and died, much about the time that his brother was to take his journey for France ; who bewailed his death, and described his virtues, in a large and eloquent oration at his funeral,' comforting himself under so severe a stroke with the consideration, that he was " taken away from the evil to come,^"* and that his eyes did not see those calamities and devastations that were begun elsewhere, and then hung directly over Italy. SECTION III. HIS ACTS FROM THE DEATH OF GRATIAN TILL THE END OF THE CONTEST BETWEEN HIM AND SYMMACHUS. The confidence of the Gentiles at Rome upon the usurpation of Maximus. The party headed by S}Tnmachus, provost of the city. Their former petition in the name of the senate countermined by an anti-remonstrance. Symmachus employed again to petition the emperor for the restoring the altar of Victory. St. Ambrose's elegant and pas- sionate dissuasive sent to the emperor about this matter. A copy of the petition sent him by the emperor. Symmachus's address to the emperor in behalf of paganism and the altar of Victory, and St. Ambrose's excellent reply to that address exemplified at large. Symmachus accused to the emperor. Another petition of his in behalf of the Gentiles. Banished Rome, and why. His recantation, and readmission into favour. The confusions that threatened the Roman empire by the deatli of Gratian, and the prosperous usurpation of Maximus, 1 Ext. vol. ii. p. 1113. 138 THE LIFE OF who was attended with vast numbers of the barbarous people, and the timorous nature of Valentinian, a prince young and un- experienced in the world, and frighted at this time with the daily news of the invasion of Italy, gave some kind of new life to declining paganism, the Gentiles at Rome hoping now to re- cover the abolished rites of their religion. The party was headed by Q. Aurelius Symmachus, a person of more than ordinary note and eminency, an admirable scholar, expert statesman, and the most accomplished orator of that age ; he was some years after made consul, and was at this time provost of Rome, but withal a great bigot for paganism, passionately addicted to the Gentile rites. About two years since,"" an attempt had been made this way : some few of the senate, assuming to themselves the name of the whole, had petitioned the emperor in behalf of their re- ligion, which when the rest, who were Christians, understood, they immediately published an anti-remonstrance, wherein they declared, that this had been done without either their privity or consent, that they absolutely disowned any such request, pro- testing both publicly and privately, they would never come to the senate if this was granted ; a copy of which remonstrance pope Damasus sent to Ambrose. But finding now a more fa- vourable season, it was again set on foot, and Symmachus, as the most considerable person, employed in the name of the senate to prefer a petition and remonstrance to the emperor, (for though pro forma it was inscribed to all of them, yet was it presented only to Valentinian,) to beseech them to resettle their ancient religion. Particularly that the altar of victory (which stood, as some will have it, in the capitol, but in truth was ge- nerally placed in the senate-house, and, being moveable, was car- ried to any place where the senate assembled, and had been more than once quite taken away by preceding emperors) might be restored, the salary heretofore allowed to the vestal virgins, (whose number at this time at Rome was seven, all persons of noble and honourable extract, who, according to ancient usage, officiated in the worship of the gods for the public safety and prosperity of the city, as a pagan geographer that wrote under Constantius informs us,)" and lately taken from them, might be restored, together with the revenues in land formerly bequeathed •^ Ambr. Ep. xvii. vol. ii. p. 824, " Vet. orb. descript. Gr. Lat. a Gothofred. edit, p." 34. SAINT AMBROSE. 139 to the vestal college, and that it might be lawful for any to bestow what legacies he pleased upon them : a cause which he insinuated with great smoothness and subtlety, and managed with all the advantages that could be given it by the zeal of a pagan and the eloquence of an orator. No sooner did St. Am- brose hear of this, but he wrote to the emperor Valentinian to put a stop to it,*^ representing to him, that as the empire was under them, so they " themselves were accountable unto God, from whom they could not expect protection and security, unless they sincerely worshipped him, the only true God, the supreme Sovereign of the world, and gave no way to superstition and idolatry ; that his majesty having so openly declared his devo- tion for the Christian religion, it was a wonder how any could hope to make use of his authority to establish the Gentile rites, or his exchequer to defray the charges of their sacrifices, espe- cially they who had never been sparing of the blood of Chris- tians, who had pulled down their churches, and had denied them the common liberty of teaching children ; that the things they petitioned for had been long since taken away by the edicts of former emperors, and lately by his own brother Gratian of famous memory, whose pious constitutions he ought not to violate, and though they had been wanting herein, yet he himself ought to have done it ; that he should take care that no man should im- pose upon his tender unexperienced years, much less an idola- trous Gentile ; great men were to be regarded, but God to be preferred before all, whose cause here was nearly concerned, and to whom to give precedence could be no injury to any. Was it fit that Christians should be forced to come to the senate, and take their oaths before a profane impious altar? should this be allowed in his reign? What was this but to acknowledge an idol to be an almighty being ? Could men have the face to beg of him to command the altar to be erected, and to bear the charge of their profane sacrifices ? a thing not to be done without plain sacrilege and impiety. That therefore he besought him not to sign any such warrant, and, as a bishop, conjured him by the faith that he professed, wherein all the bishops had joined with him, but that it was looked upon as a thing incredible, that such a thing should ever have been moved in his consistory, or peti- tioned for by the senate ; as indeed it was not, but only by a " Epist. xvii. vol. ii. p. 824. UO THE LIFE OF . small inconsIdcraMe party, thai assumed to themselves that august venerable name, the far greater number being Christians. That he should do well herein to advise with his colleague and parent the emperor Theodosius, whom in all other cases he was wont to consult, and much more ought in this, no cause being greater and more important than that of religion : that were it a matter of civil cognizance, he should leave it to others to un- dertake ; but being that of religion, it was proper for him as a bishop to meddle in it ; to which end he desired his majesty to send him a copy of the petition, and he would return a full answer to it, that so his colleague, being perfectly informed of all things, might take order in the case : that if he acted con- trary to this advice, they that were bishops must declare that they knew not how to bear with it ; his majesty might come to church, if he pleased, but he would either find there no bishop to minister to him, or one that would oppose him, and let him know, that the church of God takes no gifts from him that restores and beautifies pagan temples, that Christ's altar rejects his offerings who erects altars to idols. What would he answer to his deceased brother, who must needs repent that ever he made him a co-partner in the empire, which by his care of reli- gion he had left secure and firm, and by this means would receive a more fatal blow, than that death' s-wound that had been given him by his enemies ? Nay, what would he answer his father, whose piety this course must needs reproach, who could never have believed so great a wickedness should be attempted, that Gentiles should sacrifice in that public court; that is, that Pagans should insult and triumph, while Christians were by, and against their wills forced to be present at those heathen solemnities? That therefore he humbly besought his majesty, that, reflecting how great an injury the passing such an edict would be, first to God, and then both to his father and his brother, he would take that course that should appear to be most acceptable to God, and most advantageous to himself/'' II. Upon the receipt of this letter, Valentinian sent him a copy of the petition, which he thoroughly canvassed, and fully answered in every part. And because, perhaps, it may be no unpleasant entertainment to the reader to see these two great persons entering the lists, and arguing the case at large, I shall here (though it be somewhat prolix) present him both with SAINT AMBROSE. 141 Symnmclms's address, and St. Ambrose's reply ; entreating the learned reader's pardon, if the translation be not exactly to his mind ; it being perhaps a far more difficult task, than at first sight it may appear, satisfactorily to render either the one or the other into English. The address runs in this form.^ " To my Lords the Emperors Valentinian, Theodosius, Ar- cadius ; Symmachus, Prefect of the City. " As soon as the most illustrious, and your ever loyal senate, had taken cognizance, that the vices of the times were subdued by the laws, and the infamy of the past ages expiated by the piety of our present princes, they, following so good an example, have thought fit to improve the present occasion to express their grief, and again to constitute me the messenger and manager of their complaints, who find themselves denied the privilege of access to their venerable prince by the arts of bad men, because they foresee, that, when he knows their grievances, he will do them justice. I therefore, in a double capacity, both as your deputy do promote the public good, and as the envoy of the citizens of Rome recommend their desires ; in this we are all agreed, because at length men are grown so wise as not to espouse the factions of courtiers, when they manage their private feuds. For to be respected, to be honoured, to be loved, is a more welcome piece of grandeur, than to be an emperor; for who can endure, that private quarrels should obstruct the hap- piness of the commonwealth I The senate justly prosecutes those men who prefer the satisfactions of their own ambition before the reputation of their prince ; while it is the employment of our time and industry to be a guard and security to your cle- mency. For when we keep and defend the constitutions of our progenitors, the laws, and sanctions, and, as it were, the fate of our country, what do we, but advance the glory of the times I Which is never greater, than when you, that are concerned, think nothing lawful that thwarts the practices of your fore- fathers. " And to that end, we humbly request that state of religion may be restored to us, which for so many ages hath been bene- ficial to the republic; and certainly, if we reckon up the princes of either persuasion, we shall find that your immediate predecessor P Symmach. 1. x. ep. 54. 142 THE LIFE OF was no enemy to those usages, but he, who went before him, a great admirer, and observer of the rites we plead for ; if there- fore the piety of the ancient emperors be insufficient to make an example, let the smooth and artificial carriage of those who immediately preceded you incline you. Who is there so much a friend to the Barbarians, as not to complain of the loss of the altar of Victory ? We are cautious with respect to posterity, and are willing to avoid whatever wears the portraiture of ill- luck ; let us therefore, if we despise the deity, at least pay respect to the name, for your majesties are already much, and for the future will be more indebted to Victory. Let those slight this deity, who have never experimented its favours ; but I could wish, that you would not desert a patronage that hath been so instrumental to the magnifying of your triumphs. Every man is a votary to that goddess ; for no man can deny, but that which he professes to pray for, ought to be honoured. But if the fatal omen will not affright you, yet at least the altar ought to be left untouched, as an ornament of the senate-house ; and let me beg you, that what religion we were brought up in when we were boys, we may, now we are old, leave to our posterity. Custom is a second nature, and we cannot but love what has been bred up with us. " You see, that the design of the august emperor Oonstantius, and that deservedly, proved abortive, and all such patterns are to be avoided by you, which you find by experience to be of no long continuance. By this means we contrive a way how to eternize your fame and majesty, that posterity may find nothing in your management of affairs fit to be reformed. [This altar being taken away] where shall we swear to observe your laws and statutes? What notion of religion shall affright the pro- fligate from perjury? It is true, God is every where, and the perfidious wretch can be in no place safe, but yet the awe of a deity, present with us in such a place, is a mighty instrument to deter men from vice. That one altar preserves the whole people in unity ; that one altar keeps every private person from breach of trust ; nor does any thing give greater authority and re- verence to our decrees, than that they are made by senators sworn at these altars. Shall therefore the habitation of the gods be profaned by perjuries ? And will our most venerable princes think this a likely and probable course, who are themselves SAINT AMBROSE. 143 secured in their persons and government by the oaths of their subjects ? *' JBut you will object, the most august emperor Constantius did the same. Let us rather imitate the rest of the actions of that prince, who would never have adventured on such an at- tempt, had any of his predecessors so mistook the measures of government ; for the miscarriages of former princes are lessons of correction to their successors, and that man easily amends, who is warned by the ill example of those that went before him. It happened, that that prince, your majesty's predecessor, in attempting so great an innovation, was not aware of the envy and discontent that attended the action. But will that defence serve your turn, if we wilfully imitate, what we remember hath been formerly disallowed ? Let your majesties take patterns from the other actions of that prince, which are fitter to be transcribed : he took away nothing from the privileges of the vestal virgins, he conferred the revenues of the priesthood on the nobility, and out of the exchequer allowed the expenses of the sacrifices and other religious observances ; and being attended in pomp by the senate through all the streets of that immortal city, cast his eyes pleasantly on the temples, read the names of the gods to whom they were dedicated, written over their gates, made inquiry into the original of their buildings, and admired the piety of the founders. And whereas himself was of another persuasion, yet he was never willing to abolish and extirpate this that was the religion of the empire ; for every man hath his peculiar rites and modes of worship. The supreme divinity that governs the world has assigned several tutelar guardians to every city : for as every man at his first conception has a dis- tinct soul, so has every nation a particular genius allotted to it. To these considerations we may add also the advantage of these rites, which does especially recommend these deities to men ; for whereas all the reason that asserts a divinity, is in a great measure in the dark, whence can we better derive our knowledge of the gods, than from the remembrance and instances of our former prosperity I Now if antiquity be sujfficient to render re- ligion venerable to us, we ought to preserve that faith which hath continued for so many ages, and to follow our parents, who herein happily trod in the steps of their progenitors. Let us imagine Rome itself now present, and thus pleading her cause- before them : 144 THE LIFE OF " ' 0 yon best of princes, you fathers of your country, re- verence my gray hairs, which the rites of religion have brought me to, and grant that I may serve heaven with the formerly- established ceremonies, for I do not repent me of them. Let me live according to my ancient customs, being a free city. It was this way of worship brought all the world under my laws, these rites kept Hannibal from my walls, and repelled the Gauls from the capitol ; and have I been heretofore so often rescued that I may, now I am grown old, be handled with severity? Shall I see what new institution this is ? Sure I am, to reclaim old age is an unseasonable, fruitless, and dishonourable under- taking. We therefore beg your leave, and in that, security for our country gods, and for our private deities. It is but just, that that divinity, which all men adore, should be esteemed but one. We cast our eyes on the same stars, the heaven is in common, and the same world encloses us. What matters it, by what methods men make inquiry after truth ? One path does not lead to the knowledge of so great a secret.** " But (it may be objected) these are the discourses of men who are at too much leisure. We now tender you our petitions ; we do not dispute, or contend. Consider what great benefit has accrued to your exchequer, by taking away the privileges and revenues of the vestal virgins ? Our most liberal and munificent emperors deny that, which the most frugal and parsimonious freely gave ; and which the vestals regard only as it is an honourable stipend and recompense of their chastity. For as their veil is an ornament to their heads, so it is one of the in- signia of their priesthood, that they are exempted from all sort of offices ; it is but the bare name of freedom from impositions which they desire, for their poverty secures them from all great payments. But perhaps it may be said, those men advance their reputation that lessen their revenue, because those virgins, who have dedicated themselves for the public safety, gain in 'merits what they lose in their revenues. But let such methods of filling your coffers never be practised : the treasury of good princes is not to be augmented by the ruins of the priests, but by the spoils of their enemies ; and will the greatest gain make compensation for the envy which will attend you ? " But because covetousness is a vice with which you are unac- quainted, this makes their case the more deplorable who have lost their former subsistence. For whatever is alienated under those SAINT AMBROSE. 145 princes, who have conquered the love of riches, and hate rapine and extortion, only turns to the detriment of him who is the loser, but gratifies no appetite of him that seizes it. The lands, which were given by the will of your dying progenitors to the vestals and their officers, are now detained by your exchequer; but let me beseech you, O you ministers of justice, that your city may enjoy the private legacies bequeathed to holy uses. Let men securely make their last wills, and be assured they have not to deal with covetous princes, but such who will ratify what they have bequeathed. Delight, I beseech you, to make the world thus happy. This one example creates great disquiets to all dying persons ; doth the religion of the Romans not come under the protection of the Roman laws ? By what name shall we call the alienation of the sacred patrimony, which no law, no accident ever made liable to confiscation ? Freed-men receive legacies, nay, servants are not denied the privilege of having what is bequeathed to them by will ; only the noble virgins, and the attendants on these ceremonies, upon which the fate of the empire does so much depend, are ejected out of their estates, which have devolved on them by inheritance. To what purpose is it to vow virginity for the safety of the republic, and to call in the assistances of heaven to eternize your empire, to assist your armies, and to second your troops with unseen but friendly powers, and to make ardent and effectual prayers for the safety of all your subjects, and at the same time to be denied those common privileges which belong to them equally with the rest of your people I It is better at this rate to serve men than the gods. We injure the commonwealth, which never yet got any thing by being ungrateful. Let no man think, I am now only an advocate for the cause of religion ; such attempts as these have been the source and original of all the calamities that have be- fallen the world. " Our parents testified the honour they had for the vestal virgins, and the priests of the gods by making laws for their competent maintenance and honest privileges ; and this dona- tion continued in its integrity till the days of our degenerate bankers, who have converted the revenues of sacred chastity into a stipend for the vilest jDorters : a fact presently attended with a public famine, and all the provinces were deceived in their ex- pectations of a plentiful harvest : the fault was not in the earth, VOL. III. L 146 THE LIFE OF nor do wc charge it upon the stars ; no rust did eat it, nor was it choked with darnel. It was the sacrilege that was then com- mitted, that made the year barren ; for who could expect to have bread, when the religious were robbed of their dues ? Verily, if there be any other example of a like calamity, let us impute their great famine only to chance, or to the various sea- sons of the 3^ear ; a dry wind was the cause of this barrenness ; and now men live upon the buds of trees, and the poorer sort of boors are again forced to eat acorns. Did our forefathers ever lie under such astonishing judgments, when the ministers of religion were maintained by an honourable allowance out of the public treasury ? When were men forced to shake the oak for meat, or to sustain themselves with the roots of herbs 1 When ever hap- pened it, that the wants of one place were unsupplied by the plenty of another, as long as the corn was in common distributed to the people and to the sacred virgins ? for the provisions made for the priests were a primary cause of the fertility of the country, and it was rather a kindness done to your land, than a piece of charity to the holy men. Do you make any doubt, whether that was anciently given to procure a general plenty, the taking away of which the present scarcity has sufficiently revenged l " But some men may say, there is no reason that the ex- penses of another religion should be borne by the public : let such a determination never find a place in the minds of our excellent princes, that what was given to a few persons to hold in common, should be accounted as if it belonged to the public revenue ; for whereas the whole commonwealth does consist of single persons, whatever proceeds from the republic becomes presently the pro- priety of individuals. You, we acknowledge, superintend and govern all things ; but, withal, you are the keepers of every man's liberties, and justice sways more with you than insolent licentiousness. Do but consult your own munificent thoughts, whether they can esteem those things to belong to the public which you have already appropriated to other uses. Whatever profits have been once devoted to the honour of the city, cease from thenceforwards to belong to the donors ; and what was in its original a largess, by custom and time becomes a debt. " That man therefore attempts to fill your sacred mind with a yain fear, who affirms, that you are conscious of being accessory, and consenting to the donation, unless you incur the envy of SAINT AMBROSE. 147 cancelling such grants. May all the nnknown tutelary deities of all sects and opinions be favourable to your clemency ; but, above all, may those powers which were so propitious to your ancestors become your guardians, may they defend you, and 3-ou adore them. We intercede for no other religion, but that which secured the empire to your majesty's sacred father, which gave that fortunate prince a legitimate issue to succeed him ; that blessed prince looks down from heaven, and beholds the tears of the priests, and looks upon the breach of their privileges, which he kept inviolable, as an affront put on himself. Afford also this assistance to your brother of blessed memory, as to rectify what he did by other men's counsels rather than his own ; and conceal that action of his, which he was ignorant was so displeasing to the senate ; for it appears now, that therefore the ambassadors we sent were debarred his presence, lest the public determina- tion might come to his knowledge. .. It is for the honour of the past transactions, that you make no scruple to abolish that which we will make appear was no act of that prince's.'" III. Such was the plea which this man of policy and elo- quence made for his religion ; and it was the best the cause would bear. Whereunto St. Ambrose, much advantaged by the goodness of his cause, returned this following answer. " Ambrose, Bishop, to the most blessed Prince and most gracious Emperor Valentinian the August. " Whereas the most excellent governor of the city, Sym- machus, hath made an address to your majesty, that the altar which hath been removed from the Roman senate-house might be restored to its pristine place and honour ; and you, 0 emperor, though of green years, yet of gray-headed piety, have disapproved the request of the Gentiles ; in the same moment that I heard of the petition, I offered this anti-remonstrance, in which although I have taken care to insert whatever might be necessary to answer his strictures, yet I demanded a copy of his narrative : I do therefore in this discourse answer all the reasons of his relation, not out of any distrust of your constancy in the faith, but out of a provident caution, and a strong persuasion, that you will impartially examine the merits of the cause ; presuming to beg this one favour of your majesty, that you would pass your L 2 148 THE LIFE OF judgment, not according to the flourish and eloquence of the ex- pressions, but the weight and moment of the arguments : for ' the tongue of the wise and learned man (as holy writ informs us) is as choice gold,"* which being enamelled with the ornaments of discourse, and embellished with the beautiful structures of elo- quence, as so many pleasing and well-mixed colours in a picture, by these methods charms the eyes, and so makes an entry into the mind, and by such representations engages the passions ; but the gold, if you narrowly inspect it, though in its extrinsic value it be money, in its intrinsic is but metal. Examine, I beseech you, and canvass the religion of the Gentiles; they boast of matters of great value and excellence, but in truth they defend what is enfeebled and worn out with old age, and incapable to prove truth on its side ; they talk of God, but they adore idols. "Three things the most excellent prefect of the city hath made use of in his relation, uj^on which he lays the greatest stress of his defence : that Rome, as he says, is an humble suppliant for the retrieval of her ancient rites ; that it is injustice to alienate the patrimony of the priests and the vestal virgins ; and that when the attempt was made, there happened a general famine. •In the first proposition, the venerable metropolis of the empire is introduced, covered with tears, and expressing her griefs in a passionate and persuasive oration, requiring the restoration, as he makes her speak, of her pristine ceremonies, for that this was the religion that expelled Hannibal from the walls, and recovered the capitol out of the hands of the Gauls : by which method of reasoning, while he strives to magnify the puissance of the Gentile deities, he betrays their impotence. Did not Hannibal a long time insult and trample on the Roman rites? and though your gods fought against him, did he not so successfully pursue victory, that he encamped his triumphant army under the very walls of the city? Why did they suifer themselves to be be- sieged, for whom their gods took up arms ? As for the Gauls, to what purpose is it to speak of them, whom the shattered relics of the Roman forces had never been able to have opposed, had not their enemies been betrayed by the noise of the affrighted geese? See what guardians are deputed to the charge and tuition of the Roman temples. Where was your adored Jupiter at that time ? Was it he who, in the shape of a goose, called SAINT AMBROSE. 149 Manllus to the rescue of the capitol ? But why should I deny that the heathen rites have given assistance to the Roman arms? for even Hannibal himself worshipped the same mock-deities. Let them therefore choose which they will own : if the heathen ceremonies were triumphant in the Roman conquest, they were overcome and baffled in the Carthaginians ; if the men of Car- thage by the assistance of their gods got the victory, what ad- vantages did the inhabitants of the Roman empire receive from the same tuition ? Let therefore that invidious complaint of the Roman people be stifled : that great city never issued out any such commission, but with greater reason addresses herself to her children in a far different harangue. " ' To what purpose do you tire me with your multiplied sacri- fices, and dye me with the blood of the innocent herd? The trophies and signs of victory are not legible in the fibres of a beast, but in the courages of the militia : I used other methods of discipline, when I put on laurel for the conquest of the world. It was the valour of Camillus that defeated that triumphant army which had taken possession of your walls and the fortifica- tions of the capitol, and retrieved those standards which the gods themselves could not defend ; and those whom religion was too weak to affright, his bravery destroyed. Why should I re- mark the achievements of Attilius Regulus, who conquered for the Romans by dying for them ? Scipio Africanus won his glory, not by lying prostrate before the altars in the capitol, but by charging the troops of Hannibal, and reaping triumphs with his sword. Tell me not that these were the observances of the ancients : I hate those ceremonies that were used by the Neros. Why should I mention those emperors whose reign was of no longer duration ^lan a month or two, and whose funerals im- mediately succeeded their assuming the royal purple ? Or is that a new thing, that the Barbarians have deserted their own habita- tions to make irruptions into the Roman territories ? Were those emperors Christians, when, by an unparalleled but miserable example, the father wore chains in Persia, while his son trampled on the liberties of the senate and people, and gave mankind a specimen, that the promises of victory which the Augurs made them were vain and fallacious ? Was there not at that time an altar of Victory l I am ashamed of my former failings ; and, not- withstanding my gray hairs, these reflections cover me with 150 THE LIFE OF blushes. I am not troubled to be, with the rest of the world, a convert in my old age ; and the reason is, because it is never too late to be wise, and to be good. Let those aged persons blush, who are past the hopes of amendment. It is not length of years, but piety of manners that gives an honourable character ; nor is it a disgrace to change at any time for the better. In this only was my condition like that of the Barbarians, that I had no knowledge of the true God.' " The manner of your sacrifice is to be sprinkled with the blood of slaughtered cattle ; and is it reasonable to expect the oracles of the living God from the entrails of a dead beast? Come and learn on earth the practice of an heavenly warfare ; we reside in this world, but there is the scene of our engage- ments. Let me learn the mysteries of heaven from that God who made me, not from man, who cannot give a rational ac- count of himself: who can give an account of God better than himself? And how should I credit you, who confess yourselves, that you understand not what you adore? For, says he, one day's journey will never bring a man to the acquaintance of such grand mysteries ; but what you are ignorant of, that we under- stand by divine revelation ; and what you seek for by conjectures and guesses, that we are assured of by the wisdom and veracity of our God. In these things, therefore, there is no agreement between you and us. You are suppliants to the emperors, that they would be favourable to your gods ; but we are petitioners to the Son of God, that he would be propitious to the emperor : you first make a god, and then adore it ; but we think it a great injury to the Deity, to imagine that that must be accounted a god which owes its being to a man. God is not willing to be worshipped in images cut in stone ; nay, your very philosophers make a sport of such ridiculous observances. But if you there- fore deny Christ to be God, because you cannot believe that God could die, (for you are ignorant that it was only his human nature that fell under the power of the grave, while his divinity was exempted, which hath now rescued all his followers that believe in him from death,) who can betray more imprudence than you, who, when you pay your devotions, affront the Deity, and derogate from his worth, while you pretend to treat him with honour, as you do in making a block your god, and paying divine honours to it ? a most disgraceful piece of v/orship. And SAINT AMBROSE. 151 nliile you refuse to believe that Christ could tlie, do you not by this very obstinacy do honour to him ? " But the ancient altars (as he goes on) ought to be restored to the images, the ornaments to the temples. Let them tender such a petition to an heathen prince ; a Christian emperor knows no honour due to any but the altar of Christ Jesus. Why do they compel the hands and mouths of holy men to administer to the promotion of their sacrilegious designs? Let the tongue of our prince be employed in resounding the praises of his Saviour, and celebrate him only, whose goodness he experiments, because ' the heart of the king is in the hand of God."* Did ever any of the heathen emperors erect an altar to Christ? While there- fore they petition for the restoration of what was formerly theirs, they give the Christian emperors an encouragement by their ex- ample to consider, what deference they ought to pay to the re- ligion which they profess, while the Gentiles postpone all things to their superstition. While we have begun, let us go on ; we (being excluded) glory in our sufferings, they are troubled at their losses ; and what they account an injury, we reckon among our trophies : they never did us greater honours or favours than when they passed their edicts, that all the servants of Christ should be scourged, should be banished, should be martyred ; what their infidelity thought a punishment, that religion turned into a blessing. View those men of invincible courage, and you will find our belief has been increased and propagated by injuries, poverty, and death itself; while they are persuaded, that unless their religion be maintained by the public, it can no longer con- tinue in being. " Let, says he, the vestal virgins enjoy their immunities. Let those discourse at that rate, who cannot be convinced that vir- ginity may be preserved without a recompense to encourage the undertaking ; let those give money to maintain chastity, who distrust the strength of their virtue. And yet what is the number of those virgins, who are thus hired to maintain their purity ? When you reckon all that are admitted vestals, you can scarce find seven who have taken the vows upon them ; and vet these are the multitude of votaries, who are known to be of this society by the peculiar dress of their heads, by the pompous- ness of their purple robes, by their numerous attendants on each side of their chairs, by their great privileges and their rich 152 THE LIFE OF revenues, and by a set number of years which they are obliged to consecrate to virginity : let them but seriously contemplate, and look on our professors ; they may see all ages, sexes, and qualities in love with modesty, chastity, and virginity. The curious fillettings of their hair is far from being an ornament of their heads; let them put on a coarse veil, that may become famous by its serviceableness to the interests of chastity : a virgin is "then best adorned, not when she strives to augment, but when she slights the charms of her beauty ; it is not the richness of their purple nor the delicacies of luxury, but frequent fastings and continued mortifications, that give a lustre to their performances, not their privileges, not their revenues : to con- clude, all the practices of our virgins are such, that you would think the design of advancing chastity is rather hindered and restrained, while the duties of it are exercised ; but on the con- trary, while the offices of chastity are performed, the study of it is promoted ; for chastity is truly advanced by that which to you seems to destroy it. She is not a virgin, who is swayed by profit, not by the dictates of virtue, to be so ; nor is that true purity, which must be purchased for such or such a time, by those that will offer most to maintain it. The first victory that true chastity makes, is to subdue the love of money ; for covetous- ness is the greatest enemy to, and most potent supplanter of modesty. " But let us take it for granted, that the virgins ought to be maintained at the charge of the public ; how shall the Christian votaries be taken care of, what exchequer shall be sufficient to provide for them? Or if they answer, that these endowments are the peculiar patrimony of the vestals ; are they not ashamed, who usurped the whole income under the heathen emperors, not to permit us to be sharers with them under those who are Chris- tians? They also make complaints that the priests, and other officers of religion, are not provided for at the public charge, and want that alimony which is their due ; and upon this subject what a noise, what a multitude of complaints disturb our ears ? While, on the contrary, by some late-made laws, the religious among us are denied the privilege of being enfeoffed in private patrimonies ; and no man complains, for we never reckon such- things as injuries, because we are never troubled at our loss. If any man, being a priest, plead his privilege, thereby to be exempt SAINT AMBROSE. 153 from secular offices, he must upon that account renounce his whole estate, both what was derived to him from his ancestors, and what was the product of his own industry. " Had the Gentiles such an occasion of complaint, with what aggravations would they inveigh against it, that a priest could not purchase the privacy and exemptions of his ministry with less than the loss of his whole patrimony, nor maintain his com- merce with heaven without the forfeiture of his earthly pos- sessions, while he that watches and prays for the public safety must embrace domestic poverty as his recompense, comfort him- self with the conscience of having gotten praise, but done no- thing that might prostitute the honour of his ministry I And now compare the cases ; you are willing to excuse civil officers, but the church shall have no power to excuse a priest. The officers of the heathen temples are not denied the benefit of last wills and testaments : the most profane, the most profligate, and the vilest of men, are allowed that privilege ; only the clergy are exempted from having a share in that common right, who are the only men that intercede with heaven by their sup- plications for the common good, and by all their actions promote it. They are made incapable of legacies and donatives, even of rich and charitable matrons ; and whereas they lie under no impeachment against their manners, their very office and em- plopiient is enough to subject them to this punishment : if a Christian widow should bequeath any thing to a heathen temple, that conveyance stands good in law ; but if she gives a legacy to the ministers of the true God, it is void and of no effect : which I mention not to vent my passion against the law, but that they may know, though we have cause, yet we make no complaints ;