order to multiply the number of Christians. His Epistles, moreover, discover an imperious and arrogant temper; a cunning and insidious turn of mind; an excessive zeal for increasing the honours and pretensions of the sacerdotal order; and a profound ignorance of many things of which the knowledge was absolutely necessary in an apostle, and particularly of the true nature and genius of the Christian religion.

preach the

gospel to the Germans.

v. The famous prelate, of whom we have been now Other apostles speaking, was not the only Christian minister who attempted to deliver the German nations from the miserable bondage of pagan superstition; several others signalized their zeal in the same laudable and pious undertaking. Corbinian, a French Benedictine monk, after having laboured with vast assiduity and fervour in planting the gospel among the Bavarians, and other countries, became bishop of Friesingen. Firmin, a Gaul by birth, preached the gospel under various kinds of suffering and opposition in Alsatia, Bavaria, and Helvetia, now Switzerland, and had inspection over a considerable number of monasteries. Lebuin, an Englishman, laboured with the most ardent zeal and assiduity to engage the fierce and warlike Saxons, and also the Frieslanders, Belgæ, and other nations, to receive the light of Christianity; but his ministry was attended with very little fruit. We pass over in silence several apostles of less fame; nor is it necessary to mention Willibrord, and others of superior reputation, who persisted now with great alacrity and constancy in the labours they had undertaken in the preceding century, in order to the propagation of divine truth.

of Charle

the Saxons.

VI. A war broke out at this time, between Charlemagne The expedition and the Saxons, which contributed much to the magne against propagation of Christianity, though not by the force of rational persuasion. The Saxons were at this time a numerous and formidable people, who inhabited a considerable part of Germany, and were engaged in perpetual quarrels with the Franks concerning their bounda ries and other matters of complaint. Hence Charlemagne

e Baronius, Annal. Eccles, tom. viii. ad. An, dccxvi. § 10. Frisingensis, tom. i.

Car. Maichelbeek, Historia

Anton. Pagi Critica in As

f Herm. Bruschii Chronologia Monaster. German. p. 30. nales Baronii, tom. ii. ad An. deelix. § 9. Histoire Literaire de la France, tom. iv. p.

124.

g Hucbaldi Vita S. Lebuini in Laur. Surii Vitis Sanctor. d. 12. Nov. p. 277. Jo. MolTeil Cimbria Literata, tom. ii. p. 464.

turned his arms against this powerful nation, a. D. 772, with a design, not only to subdue that spirit of revolt with which they had so often troubled the empire, but also to abolish their idolatrous worship, and engage them to embrace the Christian religion. He hoped, by their conversion, to vanquish their obstinacy, imagining that the divine precepts of the gospel would assuage their impetuous and restless passions, mitigate their ferocity, and induce them to submit more tamely to the government of the Franks. These projects were great in idea, but difficult in execution; accordingly, the first attempt to convert the Saxons, after having subdued them, was unsuccessful, because it was made without the aid of violence or threats by the bishops and monks whom the victor had left among that conquered people, whose obstinate attachment to idolatry no arguments nor exhortations could overcome. More forcible means were afterward used to draw them into the pale of the church, in the wars which Charlemagne carried on, in the years 775, 776, and 780, against that valiant people, whose love of liberty was excessive, and whose aversion to the restraints of sacerdotal authority was inexpressible." During these wars, their attachment to the superstition of their ancestors was so warmly combated by the allurements of reward, by the terror of punishment, and by the imperious language of victory, that they suffered themselves to be baptized, though with inward reluctance, by the missionaries which the emperor sent among them for that purpose.

h It will be proper here to transcribe, from the epistles of the famous Alcuin, once abbot of Canterbury, a remarkable passage, which will show us the reasons which contributed principaily to give the Saxons an aversion to Christianity, and at the same time expose the absurd and preposterous manner of teaching used by the missionaries, who were sent to convert them. This passage, in the civth epistle, and in the 1647th page of his works, is as follows; "Si tanta instantia leve Christi jugum et onus ejus leve durissimo Saxonum populo prædicaretur, quanta Decimarum redditi vel legalis pro parvissimis quibuslibet culpis edictis necessitas exigebatur, forte baptismatis sacramenta non abhorrerent. Sint tandem aliquando Doctores fidei apostolicis eruditi exemplis; sint prædicatores non prædatores." Here the reader may see a lively picture of the kind of apostles that flourished at this time; apostles who were more zealous in exacting tithes, and extending their authority, than in propagating the sublime truths and precepts of the gospel. And yet these very apostles are said to have wrought stupendous miracles.

i Alcuinus apud Wilhelmum Malmesbur. De gestis regum Anglorum, lib. i. cap. iv. p. 23, inter Rerum Anglicar. Scriptores, Francofurti, A. D. 1601. editos. In this work we find the following passage, which proves what we have said with respect to the unworthy methods that were used in converting the Saxons; "Antiqui Saxones et omnes Fresonum populi, instante Rege Carolo alios præmiis et alios minis solicitantes ad fidem Christi conversi sunt." See also two passages in the Capitularia Regum Francor. tom. i. p. 246, and 252. From the first of these passages we learn, that those of the Saxons who abandoned the pagan superstitions, were "restored to the liberty they had forfeited by the fate of arms, and freed from the obligation of paying tribute;" and

VOL. I.

61

These seditions, indeed, were soon after renewed, and fomented by Widekind and Albion, two of the most valiant among the Saxon chiefs, who attempted to abolish the Christian worship by the same violent methods which had contributed to its establishment. But the courage and liberality of Charlemagne, alternately employed to suppress this new rebellion, engaged these chiefs to make a public and solemn profession of Christianity in the year 785, and to promise an adherence to that divine religion for the rest of their days. To prevent, however, the Saxons from renouncing a religion which they had embraced with reluctance, several bishops were appointed to reside among them, schools also were erected, and monasteries founded, that the means of instruction might not be wanting. The same precautions were employed among the Huns in Pannonia, to maintain in the profession of Christianity that fierce people, whom Charlemagne had converted to the faith, when, exhausted and dejected by various defeats, they were no longer able to make head against his victorious arms, and choose rather to be Christians than slaves.' VII. Succeeding generations, filled with a grateful sense of the famous exploits which Charlemagne had ought toform performed in the service of Christianity, canonof the co-ized his memory, and turned this bloody warrior made by into an eminent saint. In the twelfth century Frederic I. emperor of the Romans, ordered Paschal II. whom he had raised to the pontificate, to enrol the name of this mighty conqueror among the tutelary saints of the church." And indeed Charlemagne merited this honour, according to the opinions which prevailed at that period of

The judg

ment we

versions

Charle

magne.

in the second, we find the following severe law, that "every Saxon, who contemptuously refused to receive the sacrament of baptism, and persisted in his adherence to paganism, was to be punished with death." While such rewards and punishments were employed in the cause of religion, there was no occasion for miracles to advance its progress, for these motives were sufficient to draw all mankind to an hypocritical and external profession of the gospel; but it is casy to imagine what sort of Christians the Saxons must have been, who were dragooned into the church in this abominable manner. Compare with the authors mentioned in this note, Launoius, De veteri more baptizandi Judæos et Infideles, cap. v. vi. p. 703, tom. ii. opp. pars ii. This author assures us that Adrian, the first Roman pontiff of that name, honoured with his approbation Charlemagne's method of converting the Saxons.

k Eginartus, De vila Caroli M. Adam Bremensis, lib. i. cap. viii. See also the writers of the history and exploits of Charlemagne, which are mentioned by Jo. Alb. Fabricius, in his Bibliotheca Latina Medii æri, tom. i. p. 950.

1 Vita S. Rudberti in Henric. Canisii Lectionibus Antiquis, tom. iii. pars ii. p. 340. Pauli Debreceni Historia Ecclesiæ Reformat. in Hungar et Transi'rania a Lampio edita, pars i. cap. ii. p. 10.

m Vid. Henr. Canisii, Lectiones Antiquæ, tom. iii. pars ii. p. 207. Walchii Dissert, de Caroli Magni Canonizutione,

time; for to have enriched the clergy with large and magnificent donations," and to have extended the boundaries of the church, no matter by what methods, was then considered as the highest merit, and as a sufficient pretension to the honour of saintship. But in the esteem of those who judge of the nature and characters of sanctity by the decisions of the gospel upon that head, the sainted emperor will appear utterly unworthy of that ghostly dignity. For, not to enter into a particular detail of his vices, whose number counterbalanced that of his virtues, it is undeniably evident, that his ardent and ill-conducted zeal for the conversion of the Huns, Frieslanders, and Saxons, was more animated by the suggestions of ambition, than by a principle of true piety; and that his main view in these religious exploits was to subdue the converted nations under his dominion, and to tame them to his yoke, which they supported with impatience, and shook off by frequent revolts. It is moreover well known, that this boasted saint made no scruple of seeking the alliance of the infidel Saracens, that he might be more effectually enabled to crush the Greeks, notwithstanding their profession of the Christian religion.

racles which

formed in this

VIII. The many and stupendous miracles, which are said to have been wrought by the Christian missiona- Aud of the miries, who were sent to convert the barbarous na- are said to tions, have lost, in our times, the credit they ob- have been pertained in former ages. The corrupt discipline that century. then prevailed, admitted of those fallacious stratagems which are very improperly called pious frauds: nor did the heralds of the gospel think it at all unlawful to terrify or allure to the profession of Christianity, by fictitious prodigies, those obdurate hearts, which they could not subdue by reason and argument. It is not, however, to be supposed that all those who acquired renown by their miracles, were chargeable with this fanatical species of artifice and fraud. For as, on the one hand, those ignorant and superstitious nations were disposed to look upon, as miraculous, every event which had an unusual aspect; so on the other, the Christian doctors themselves were so uninstructed and superficial, so little acquainted with the powers of nature and the relations and connexions of things in their

n Vid. Caroli Testamentum in Steph. Balusii Capitularibus Regum Francor. tom. i. p. Sce Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, tom. ix. cap. ii. p. 40.

487.

ordinary course, that uncommon events, however natural, were considered by them as miraculous interpositions of the Most High. This will appear obvious to such as, void of superstition and partiality, read the Acts of the saints who flourished in this and the following centuries.

CHAPTER II.

CONCERNING THE CALAMITOUS EVENTS THAT HAPPENED TO THE
CHURCH DURING THIS CENTURY.

become mas

I. THE eastern empire had now fallen from its former strength and grandeur, through the repeated The Saracens shocks of dreadful revolutions, and the consuming ters in the east. power of intestine calamities. The throne was now become the seat of terror, inquietude, and suspicion; nor was any reign attended with an uninterrupted tranquillity. In this century three emperors were dethroned, loaded with ignominy, and sent into banishment. Under Leo the Isaurian, and his son Canstantine, surnamed Copronymus, arose that fatal controversy about the worship of images, which proved a source of innumerable calamities and troubles, and weakened almost incredibly the force of the empire. These troubles and dissensions left the Saracens at liberty to ravage the provinces of Asia and Africa, to oppress the Greeks in the most barbarous manner, and to extend their territories and dominion on all sides, as also to oppose every where the progress of Christianity, and in some places to extirpate it entirely. But the troubles of the empire, and the calamities of the church, did not end here; for, about the middle of this century, they were assailed by new enemies, still more fierce and inhuman than those whose usurpations they had hitherto suffered. These The incursion were the Turks, a tribe of the Tartars, or at least of the Tarks their descendants, who, breaking forth from the inaccessible wilds about mount Caucasus, overspread Colchis, Iberia, and Albania, rushed from thence into Armenia, and after having subdued the Saracens, turned their victorious arms against the Greeks, whom, in process of time, they reduced under their dominion.