Romans declined in that country, the Britons were tormented by the Picts and Scots, nations remarkable for their violence and ferocity. Hence, after many sufferings and disasters, they chose, in the year 445, Vortigern for their king. This prince, finding himself too weak to make head against the enemies of his country, called the Anglo Saxons from Germany to his aid in the year 449. The consequences of this measure were pernicious; and it soon appeared that this people, who came as auxiliaries into Britain, oppressed it with calamities more grievous than those which it had suffered from its enemies. For the Saxons aimed at nothing less than to subdue the ancient inhabitants of the country, and to reduce the whole island under their dominion. Hence a most bloody and obstinate war arose between the Britons and Saxons, which, after having been carried on, during the space of a hundred and thirty years, with various success, ended in the defeat of the Britons, who were forced to yield to the Anglo Saxons, and to seek a retreat in Batavia and Cambria. During these commotions, the state of the British church was deplorable beyond expression; it was almost totally overwhelmed and extinguished by the Anglo Saxons, who adhered to the worship of the gods, and put an immense number of Christians to the most cruel deaths."

In Persia.

IV. In Persia, the Christians suffered grievously by the imprudent zeal of Abdas, bishop of Suza, who pulled down the pyraum, which was a temple dedicated to fire. For when this obstinate prelate was ordered by the king, Isdegerdes, to rebuild that temple, he refused to comply; for which he was put to death in the year 414, and the churches of the Christians were levelled to the ground. This persecution was not, however, of long duration, but seems to have been extinguished soon after its commencement.

Vararenes, the son of the monarch already mentioned, treated the Christians in a manner yet more barbarous and inhuman in the year 421, to which he was led partly by the instigation of the magi, and partly by his keen aversion to the Romans, with whom he was at war. For as often as the Persians and the Romans were at variance, so often did the Christians, who dwelt in Persia, feel new and re

w See beside Bede and Gilda, Jac. Usser. Antiquitat. Ecclesia Britannica, cap. xii. p. 415. Rapin Thoyras, Histoire d'Angleterre, tom. i. livr. ii. p. 91.

doubled effects of their monarch's wrath, and this from a prevailing notion, not perhaps entirely groundless, that they favoured the Romans, and rendered real services to their republic. In this persecution, a prodigious number of Christians perished in the most exquisite tortures, and by various kinds of punishments. But they were, at length, delivered from these cruel oppressions by the peace that was made in the year 427, between Vararenes and the Roman empire.'

Christianity opposed by

secret ene

mies.

It was not from the pagans only that the Christians were exposed to suffering and persecution; they were moreover harassed and oppressed in a variety of ways by the Jews, who lived in great opulence, and enjoyed a high degree of favour and credit in several parts of the east." Among these none treated them with greater rigour and arrogance than Gamaliel, the patriarch of that nation, a man of the greatest power and influence, whose authority and violence were, on that account, restrained in the year 415, by an express and particular edict of Theodosius the younger." v. It does not appear from any records of history now remaining, that any writings against Christ and his followers were published in this century, unless we consider as such the histories of Olympiodorus and Zosimus, of whom the latter loses no opportunity of reviling the Christians, and loading them with the most unjust and bitter reproaches. But though the number of books written against Christianity was so small, yet we are not to suppose that its adversaries had laid aside the spirit of opposition. The schools of the philosophers and rhetoricians were yet open in Greece, Syria, and Egypt; and there is no doubt but that these subtle teachers laboured assiduously to corrupt the minds of the youth, and to instil into them at least some of the principles of the ancient superstition." The history of these times, and the writings of several Christians who lived in this century, exhibit evident proofs of these clandestine methods of opposing the progress of the gospel.

Theodoret, Hist. Eccles. lib. v. cap. xxix. p. 245. Bayle's Dictionary, at the article Abdas Barbeyrac, De la Morale des Peres, p. 320.

y Jos. Sim. Assemanni Biblioth. Oriental. Vatican. tom. i. p. 182, 248.

z Socrates, Hist. Eccles. lib. vii. cap. xx. p. 358.

a Socrates, Hist. Eccles. lib. vii. cap. xiii. p. 349, cap. xvi. p. 353. Codex Theodos. tom. vi. p. 265.

b Codex Theodos. tom. vi. p. 262.

e Photius, Biblioth. Cod. Ixxx. p. 178.

d Zacharias Mitylen, De Opificio Dei, p. 165, 200, edit. Barthii.

PART II.

INTERNAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

The state of

the Chris

tians

CHAPTER I.

CONCERNING THE STATE OF LEARNING AND PHILOSOPHY.

I. THOUGH in this century the illiterate and ignorant were advanced to eminent and important stations, both letters among ecclesiastical and civil, yet we must not conclude from thence, that the sciences were held in universal contempt. The value of learning, and the excellence of the finer arts, were yet generally acknowledged among the thinking part of mankind. Hence public schools were erected in almost all the great cities, such as Constantinople, Rome, Marseilles, Edessa, Nisibis, Carthage, Lyons, and Treves; and public instructers of capacity and genius were set apart for the education of the youth, and maintained at the expense of the emperors. Several bishops and monks contributed also to the advancement of knowledge, by imparting to others their small stock of learning and science. But the infelicity of the times, the incursions of the barbarous nations, and the scarcity of great geniuses, rendered the fruits of these excellent establishments much less than their generous founders and promoters expected. II. In the western provinces, and especially in Gaul, there were indeed some men eminently distinguished by their learning and talents, and every way proper to serve as models to the lower orders in the republic of letters. Of this we have abundant proof from the writings of Macrobius, Salvian, Vincentius, bishop of Liris, Ennodius, Sidonius Appollinaris, Claudian, Mamertus, Dracontius, and others, who, though in some respects inferior to the more celebrated authors of antiquity, are yet far from being destitute of elegance, and discover in their productions a most laborious application to literary researches of various kinds. But the barbarous nations, which either spread desolation, or formed settlements in the Roman territories, choked the growth of those genial seeds,

In the west.

which the hand of science had sowed in more auspicious times. These savag invaders, possessed of no other ambition than that of conquest, and looking upon military courage as the only source of true virtue and solid glory, beheld of consequerce the arts and sciences with the utmost contempt. Wherever therefore they extended their conquests, ignorance and darkness followed their steps, and the culture of the sciences was confined to the priests and monks alone. And even among these, learning degenerated from its primitive lustre, and put on the most unseemly and fantastic form. Amidst the seduction of corrupt examples, the alarms of perpetual danger, and the horrors and devastations of war, the sacerdotal and monastic orders lost gradually all taste for solid science, in the place of which they substituted a lifeless spectre, an enormous phantom of barbarous erudition. They indeed kept public schools, and instructed the youth in what they called the seven liberal arts; but these, as we learn from Augustin's account of them consisted only of a certain number of dry, subtile, and useless precepts; and were consequently more adapted to load and perplex the memory, than to improve and strengthen the judgment. So that, toward the conclusion of this century, the sciences were almost totally extinguished; at least, what remained of them was no more than a shadowy form, without either solidity or consistence.

The state

phy in the

west.

III. The few that applied themselves to the study of philosophy in this age, had not as yet embraced the doctrine or method of Aristotle. They looked of philos upon the system of this eminent philosopher, as a labyrinth beset with thorns and thistles; and yet, had they been able to read and understand his works, it is probable that many of them would have become his followers. The doctrine of Plato had a more established reputation, which it had enjoyed for several ages, and was considered not only as less subtile and difficult than that of the Stagirite, but also as more conformable to the genius and spirit of the Christian religion. Besides, the most valuable of Plato's works were translated into Latin by Victorinus, and were thus adapted to general use. And Sidonius Appollinaris

Id These seven liberal arts were grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy. See Cent. viii. Part ii. ch. ii. in this volume.

e The passages of different writers, that prove what is here advanced, are collected by Launoius, in his book, De varia Aristotelis fortuna in Academia Parisiensi.

f See Augustini Confessionum, lib. i. cap. ii. § i. p. 105, 106, tom. i, opp.

g See his Epistles, book iv. ep. iii. xi. book ix. ep. ix.

informs us, that all those among the Latins, who had any inclination to the study of truth, fell into the Platonic notions, and followed that sage as their philosophical guide. IV. The fate of learning was less deplorable among the Greeks and Orientals, than in the western proIn the East. vinces; and not only the several branches of polite literature, but also the more solid and profound sciences, were cultivated by them with tolerable success. Hence we find

among them more writers of genius and learning than in other countries. Those, who inclined to the study of law, resorted generally to Berytus, famous for its learned academy," or to Alexandria,' which latter city was frequented by the students of physic and chymistry. The professors of eloquence, poetry, philosophy, and the other liberal arts, taught the youth in public schools, which were erected in almost every city. Those however of Alexandria, Constantinople, and Edessa, were looked upon as superior to all others, both in point of erudition and method."

Modern Platonics.

v. The doctrine and sect of the modern Platonics retained as yet, among the Syrians and Alexandrians, a considerable part of their ancient splendour. Olympiodorus, Hero, and other philosophers of the first rank, added a lustre to the Alexandrian school. That of Athens was rendered famous by the talents and erudition of Theophrastus, Plutarch, and his successor Syrian. These were the instructers of the renowned Proclus, who far surpassed the Platonic philosophers of this century, and acquired such a high degree of the public esteem, as enabled him to give new life to the doctrine of Plato, and restore it to its former credit in Greece." Marinus, of Neapolis, Ammonius the son of Hermias, Isidorus and Damascius, the disciples of Proclus, followed, with an ardent emulation, the traces of their master, and formed successors that resembled them in all respects. But the imperial laws, and the daily progress of the Christian religion gradually diminished the lustre and authority of these philosophers."

h See Hasæi Lib. de Academia Jureconsultorum Berytensi; as also Mitylenæus, De opificio Dei, p. 164.

i Zach. Mitylenæus, De opificio Dei, p. 179.

k Æneas Gazæus in Theophrasto, p. 6, 7, 16, &c.

I Marinus, vita Procli, cap. ix. p. 19, edit. Fabricii.

m The life of Proclus, written by Marinus, was published in 4to. at Hamburg, in the year 1700, by John Albert Fabricius, and was enriched, by this famous editor, with a great number of learned observations.

n See Eneas Gazæus in Theophrasto, p. 6, 7, 8, 13, edit. Barthii.