NOTES. mancers do not mention the battle of Singara, P. 378.-† Macdonald Kinnier observes on these floating batteries, "As the elevation of the place is considerably above the level of the country in its immediate vicinity, and the Mygdonius is a very insignificant stream, it is difficult to imagine how this work could have been accomplished, even with the wonderful resources which the king must have had at his disposal." Geographical Memoir, p. 262.-M. P. 386. The Itinerary of Antoninus (p. 357, ed Wess.) places Mons Seleucus twenty-four miles from Vapincum (Gap), and twenty-six from Lucus (le Luc) on the road to Die (Dea Vocontiorum). The situation answers to Mont Saléon, a little place on the right side of the small river Buech, Roman anwhich falls into the Durance. tiquities have been found in this place. St. Martin, note to Le Beau, ii., 47.—M. P. 386.- This is scarcely correct, ut erat in complicandis negotiis artifex dirus, unde ei Catena inditum est cognomentum. Amm. Mar., loc. cit.-M. P. 388.-* Gallus and Julian were not sons of the same mother. Their father, Julius Constantius, had had Gallus by his first wife, named Galla: Julian was the son of Basilina, whom he had espoused in a second marriage. Tillemont, Hist. des Emp. Vie de Constantin., art. 3.-G. P. 390. The commission seems to have been granted to Domitian alone. Montius interfered to support his authority. Amm. Marc., loc. cit.-M. of the present Schirwan, the Albania of the P. 400.- -* In my Mem. Hist. sur l'Arme- P. 401- Klaproth considers the real Albanians the same with the ancient Alani, and quotes a passage of the Emperor Julian in support of his opinion. They are the Ossetæ, now inhabiting part of Caucasus. Tableaux Hist. de l'Asie, p. 179, 180.— M. The Verta are still unknown. It is possible that the Chionites are the same as the Huns. These people were already known; P. 391. Pettau in Styria.-M. P. 391. Rather to Flanonia, now Fia- and we find from Armenian authors that none, near Pola. St. Martin.-M. P. 396. It is doubtful whether the obelisk transported by Constantius to Rome now exists. Even from the text of Ammianus it is uncertain whether the interpretation of Hermapion refers to the older obelisk (obelisco incisus est veteri quem videmus in Circo), raised, as he himself states, in the Circus Maximus, long before, by Augustus, or to the one brought by Constantius. The obelisk in the square before the church of St. John Lateran is ascribed, not to Rameses the Great, but, to Thoutmos II. Champollion, 1, Lettre à M. de Blacas, p. 32.-M. P. 398.-* In Persian, Ten-schah-pour. P. 399. These perhaps were the bar- they were making, at this period, incursions into Asia. They were often at war with the Persians. The name was perhaps pronounced differently in the East and in the West, and this prevents us from recognising it. St. Martin, ii., 177.—M. P. 401.- The Christian bishop of Bezabde went to the camp of the King of Persia to persuade him to check the waste of human blood. Amm. Marc., xx., 7.——M. P. 402.- St. Martin doubts whether it "The word lay so much to the south. Birtha means in Syriac a castle or fortress, and might be applied to many places." Note ii., p. 344.-M. · . P. 402. The late editor (Wagner) has nothing better to suggest, and laments, with Gibbon, the silence of Ernesti.-M. P. 404.- Aliis per Arbor-quibusdam per Sedelaucum et Coram iri debere firmantibus. Amm. Marc., xvi., 2. I do not know what place can be meant by the mutilated name Arbor. Sedelanus is Saulieu, a small town of the department of the Côte d'Or, six leagues from Autun. Cora answers to the village of Cure, on the river of the same name, between Autun and Nevers. St. Martin, ii., 162.-M. P. 404. At Brocomagus, Brumat, near Strasburgh. St. Martin, ii., 164.-M. P. 405.- Barbatio seems to have allowed himself to be surprised and defeated.-M. P. 407.—* A newly-discovered fragment of Eunapius, whom Zosimus probably transcribed, illustrates this transaction. "Julian commanded the Romans to abstain from all hostile measures against the Salians, neither to waste or ravage their own country; for he called every country their own which was surrendered without resistance or toil on the part of the conquerors." Mai, Script. Vet. Nov. Collect., ii., 256, and Eunapius in Niebuhr, Byzant. Hist., p. 86. -M. P. 409.- Tricesima, Kellen. Mannert, quoted by Wagner. Heracles Erkelens, in the district of Juliers. St. Martin, ii., 311. -M. P. 413.- Eckhel, Doctrin. Num., vol. viii.-M. P. 419. Manso has observed, that Gibbon ought not to have separated the vision of Constantine from the wonderful apparition in the sky, as the two wonders are closely connected in Eusebius. Manso, Leben. Constantins, p. 82.-M. P. 420. The great difficulty in resolving it into a natural phenomenon, arises from the inscription; even the most heated or awe-struck imagination would hardly discover distinct and legible letters in a solar halo. But the inscription may have been a later embellishment, or an interpretation of the meaning, which the sign was construed to convey. Compare Heinichen, Excursus in locum Eusebii, and the authors quoted.-M. P. 421. The first Excursus of Heinichen (in Vitam Constantini, p. 507) contains a full summary of the opinions and arguments of the later writers who have discussed this interminable subject. As to his conversion, where interest and inclination, state policy, and, if not a sincere conviction of its truth, at least a respect, an esteem, an awe of Christianity, thus coincided, Constantine himself would probably have been unable to trace the actual history of the workings of his own mind, or to assign its real influence to each concurrent motive.-M. P. 423.- Compare Heinichen, Excursus, iv. et v., where these questions are examined with candour and acuteness, and with constant reference to the opinions of more modern writers.-M. P. 424. This passage of Chrysostom, though not in his forcible manner, is not quite fairly represented. He is stronger in other places, in Act. Hom., xxiii., and Hom., i. Compare likewise the sermon of Gregory of Nyssa on this subject, and Gregory Nazianzen. After all, to those who believed in the efficacy of baptism, what argument could be more conclusive than the danger of dying without it? Orat., xl.-M. P. 424.-† Heyne, in a valuable note on this passage of Zosimus, has shown decisively that this malicious way of accounting for the conversion of Constantine was not an invention of Zosimus. It appears to have been the current calumny, eagerly adopted and propagated by the exasperated pagan party. Reitemeier, a later editor of Zosimus, whose notes are retained in the recent edition, in the collection of the Byzantine historians, has a disquisition on the passage, as candid, but not more conclusive, than some which have preceded him.-M. P. 425.- According to the Georgian chronicles, Iberia (Georgia) was converted by the virgin Nino, who effected an extraordinary cure on the wife of the king, Mihran. The temple of the god Aramazt or Armaz, not far from the capital Mtskhitha, was destroyed, and the cross erected in its place. Le Beau, i., 292, with St. Martin's Notes. St. Martin has likewise clearly shown (St. Martin, Add. to Le Beau, i., 291), that Armenia was the first nation which embraced Christianity (Addition to Le Beau, i., 76, and Mémoires sur l'Armenie, i., 305). Gibbon himself suspected this truth. "Instead of maintaining that the conversion of Armenia was not attempted with any degree of success till the sceptre was in the hands of an orthodox emperor," I ought to have said, that the seeds of the faith were deeply sown during the season of the last and greatest persecution, that many Roman exiles might assist the labours of Gregory, and that the renowned Tiridates, the hero of the East, may dispute with Constantine the honour of being the first sovereign who embraced the Christian religion. Vindication, Misc. Works, iv., 577.-M. P. 426.—* Abba Salama, or Fremonatos, is mentioned in the Tareek Negushti, or Chronicle of the kings of Abyssinia. Salt's Travels, vol. ii., p. 464.-M. P. 426.-- See the dissertation of M. Le NOTES. tronne on this question. He conceives that Theophilus was born in the island of Dahlak, in the Arabian Gulf. His embassy was to Abyssinia rather than to India. Letronne, Matériaux pour l'Hist. du Christianisme en Egypte, Indie, et Abyssinie. Paris, 1832, third Dissert.-M. P. 427. This freedom was extremely limited, and soon annihilated: already, from the third century, the deacons were no longer nominated by the members of the community, but by the bishops. Although it appears by the letters of Cyprian, that even in his time no priest could be elected without the consent of the community (Ep. 68 that election was far from being altogether free. The bishop proposed to his parishioners the candidate whom he had chosen, and they were permitted to make such objections as might be suggested by his conduct and morals. (St. Cyprian, Ep. 33.) They lost this last right towards the middle of the fourth century.-G. P. 428. The statement of Planck is more consistent with history: "From the middle of the fourth century, the bishops of some of the larger churches, particularly those of the imperial residence, were almost always chosen under the influence of the court, and often directly and immediately nominated by the emperor." Planck, Geschichte der Christlich-kirchlichen Gesellschafts-verfassung, vol. i., p. 263.-M. P. 428.- Compare Planck (Geschichte der Christliche Kirche, vol. i., p. 348). This century, the third, first brought forth the monks, and the monks, or the spirit of monkery, the celibacy of the clergy. Planck likewise observes, that from the history of Eusebius alone names of married bishops and presbyters may be adduced by dozens. -M. general, enacted that no rich citizen should P. 438 This exposition of the doctrine of Plato appears to me contrary to the true sense of that philosopher's writings. The brilliant imagination which he carried into metaphysical inquiries, his style, full of allegories and figures, have misled those interpreters who did not seek, from the whole tenour of his works and beyond the images which the writer employs, the system of this philosopher. In my opinion, there is no Trinity in Plato: he has established no mysterious generation between the three pretended principles which he is made to distinguish. Finally, he conceived only as attributes of the Deity, or of matter, those ideas, of which it is supposed that he made substances, real beings. According to Plato, God and matter existed from all eternity. Before the creation of the world, matter had in itself a principle of motion, but without end or laws; it is this principle which Plato calls the irrational soul of the world (aλoyos pûxn); because, according to his doctrine, every spontaneous and original principle of motion is called soul. God wished to impress form upon matter, that is to say, 1. to mould matter, and make it into a body; 2. to regulate its motion, and subject it to some end and to certain laws. The Deity, in this operation, could not act but according to the ideas existing in his intelligence; their union filled this, and formed the ideal type of the world. It is this ideal world, P. 429.- This exemption was very this divine intelligence, existing with God much limited. The municipal offices were from all eternity, and called by Plato võvç or 2óyos, which he is supposed to personify, of two kinds; the one attached to the individual in his character of inhabitant, the to substantialize; while an attentive examother in that of proprietor. Constantine ination is sufficient to convince us that he had exempted ecclesiastics from offices of has never assigned it an existence external the first description. (Cod. Theod., xvi., to the Deity (hors de la Divinitè), and that t. ii., leg. 1, 2; Eusebius, Hist. Eccles., 1. he considered the 2óyos as the aggregate of x., c. vii.) They sought also to be exempt- the ideas of God, the divine understanding ed from those of the second (munera patri- in its relation to the world. The contrary moniorum). The rich, to obtain this priv- opinion is irreconcilable with all his phiilege, obtained subordinate situations among losophy: thus he says (Timæus, p. 348, the clergy. Constantine published in 320 edit. Bip.) that to the idea of the Deity is an edict, by which he prohibited the more essentially added that of an intelligence, of opulent citizens (decuriones and curiales) a logos. He would thus have admitted a from embracing the ecclesiastical profession, double logos; one inherent in the Deity as an attribute, the other independently existand the bishops from admitting new ecclesiastics before a place should be vacant by ing as a substance. He affirms (Timæus, the death of the occupant (Godefroy ad 316, 337, 348. Sophista, v. ii., p. 265, Val- 266), that the intelligence, the principle of Cod. Theod., 1. xii., t. i., de Decur.). entinian the First, by a rescript still more order, võvç or λóyos, cannot exist but as an attribute of a soul (xn), the principle of motion and of life, of which the nature is unknown to us. How, then, according to this, could he consider the logos as a substance endowed with an independent existence? In other places he explains it by these two words, inɩorǹun (knowledge, science), and diávoia (intelligence), which signify the attributes of the Deity. Sophist., v. ii., p. 299.) Lastly, it follows from several passages, among others from Phileb., v. iv., p. 247, 248, that Plato has never given to the words võvs, λóyos, but one of these two meanings: 1. The result of the action of the Deity; that is, order, the collective laws which govern the world: and, 2. the rational soul of the world (20yɩotíkη yʊxn), or the cause of this result, that is to say, the divine intelligence. When he separates God, the ideal archetype of the world, and matter, it is to explain how, according to his system, God has proceeded, at the creation, to unite the principle of order, which he had within himself, his proper intelligence, the λóyos, the principle of motion, to the principle of motion, the irrational soul, the ahoyos yuxn, which was in matter. When he speaks of the place occupied by the ideal world (róTOS VONTòs), it is to designate the divine intelligence, which is its cause. Finally, in no part of his writings do we find a true personification of the pretended beings of which he is said to have formed a trinity: and if this personification existed, it would equally apply to many other notions, of which might be formed many different trin ities. This error, into which many ancient as well as modern interpreters of Plato have fallen, was very natural. Besides the snares which were concealed in his figurative style; besides the necessity of comprehending as a whole the system of his ideas, and not to explain isolated passages, the nature of his doctrine itself would conduce to this error. When Plato appeared, the uncertainty of human knowledge, and the continued illusions of the senses, were acknowledged, and had given rise to a general skepticism. Socrates had aimed at raising morality above the influence of this skepticism: Plato endeavoured to save metaphysics, by seeking in the human intellect a source of certainty which the senses could not furnish. He invented the system of innate ideas, of which the aggregate formed, according to him, the ideal world, and affirmed that these ideas were real attributes, not only attached to our conceptions of objects, but to the nature of the objects themselves; a nature of which from them we might obtain a knowledge. He gave, then, to these ideas, a positive existence as attributes; his commentators could easily give them a real existence as substances; especially as the terms which he used to designate them, άυτο το κάλον, αυτο τὸ ἀγαθον, essential beauty, essential goodness, lent themselves to this substantialization (hypostasis).—G. We have retained this view of the original philosophy of Plato, in which there is probably much truth. The genius of Plato was rather metaphysical than impersonative: his poetry was in his language, rather than, like that of the Orientals, in his conceptions.-M. P. 438.—† The philosophy of Plato was not the only source of that professed in the school of Alexandria. That city, in which Greek, Jewish, and Egyptian men of letters were assembled, was the scene of a strange fusion of the system of these three people. The Greeks brought a Platonism, already much changed; the Jews, who had acquired at Babylon a great number of Oriental notions, and whose theological opinions had undergone great changes by this intercourse, endeavoured to reconcile Platonism with their new doctrine, and disfigured it entirely; lastly, the Egyptians, who were not willing to abandon notions for which the Greeks themselves entertained respect, endeavoured on their side to reconcile their own with those of their neighbours. It is in Ecclesiasticus and the Wisdom of Solomon that we trace the influence of Oriental philosophy rather than that of Platonism. We find in these books, and in those of the later prophets, as in Ezekiel, notions unknown to the Jews before the Babylonian captivity, of which we do not discover the germe in Plato, but which are manifestly derived from the Orientals. Thus God represented under the image of light, and the principle of evil under that of darkness; the history of the good and bad angels; paradise and hell, &c., are doctrines of which the origin, or, at least, the positive determination, can only be referred to the Oriental philosophy. Plato supposed matter eternal; the Orientals and the Jews considered it as a creation of God, who alone was eternal. It is impossible to explain the philosophy of the Alexandrian school solely by the blending of the Jewish theology with the Greek philosophy. The Oriental philosophy, however little it may be known, is recognised at every instant. Thus, according to the Zend Avesta, it is by the Word (honover) more ancient than the world, that Ormuzd created the universe. This word is the logos of Philo, consequently very different from that of Plato. I have shown that Plato never personified the logos as the ideal archetype of the world: Philo ven NOTES. tured this personification. The Deity, according to him, has a double logos; the first Aoyos evdiáberos is the ideal archetype of the world, the ideal world, the firstborn of the Deity; the second (2óyos popóрtKoç) is the word itself of God, personified under the image of a being acting to create the sensible world, and to make it like to the ideal world: it is the second-born of God. Following out his imaginations, Philo went so far as to personify anew the ideal world under the image of a celestial man (bupávios üvoporos), the primitive type of man, and the sensible world under the image of another man less perfect than the celestial man. Certain notions of the Oriental philosophy may have given rise to this strange abuse of allegory, which it is sufficient to relate, to show what alterations Platonism had already undergone, and what Philo, moreover, of all was their source. the Jews of Alexandria, is the one whose Platonism is the most pure. (See Buhle, Introd. to Hist. of Mod. Philosophy. Michaelis, Introd. to New Test., in German, part ii., p. 973.). It is from this mixture of Orientalism, Platonism, and Judaism, that Gnosticism arose, which has produced so many theological and philosophical extravagances, and in which Oriental notions evidently predominate.-G. P. 439. Tertullian is here arguing against the Patripassians; those who as serted that the Father was born of the Virgin, died, and was buried.-M. P. 439.- A short discussion on the sense in which St. John has used the word logos will prove that he has not borrowed it from the philosophy of Plato. The evangelist adopts this word without previous explanation, as a term with which his contemporaries were already familiar, and which they could at once comprehend. To know the sense which he gave to it, we must inquire that which it generally bore in his time. We find two: the one attached to the word logos by the Jews of Palestine, the other by the school of Alexandria, particularly by Philo. The Jews had feared at all times to pronounce the name of Jehovah; they had formed a habit of designating God by one of his attributes; they called him sometimes Wisdom, sometimes the Word. By the word of the Lord were the heavens made. (Psalm xxxiii., 6.) Accustomed to allegories, they often addressed themselves to this attribute of the Deity as a real being. Solomon makes Wisdom say, "The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was." (Prov., viii., 22, 23.) The residence in Persia only in creased this inclination to sustained allego- . I alone compassed the circuit of heaven, The school of Alexandria, on the contrary, and Philo among the rest, mingling Greek with Jewish and Oriental notions, and abandoning himself to his inclination to mysticism, personified the logos, and represented it (see note, p. 438) as a distinct beThis is the second ing, created by God, and intermediate between God and man. logos of Philo (óyos Tроóрikоç), that which acts from the beginning of the world, alone in its kind (povoyévns), creator of the sensible world (kóoμoç aloonròs), formed by God according to the ideal world (Kóσμos vónτos) which he had in himself, and which was the first logos (ó ávaráTw), the firstborn (ó peσbuтeрos vios) of the Deity. The logos, taken in this sense, then, was a created being, but, anterior to the creation of the world, near to God, and charged with his relations to mankind. Which of these two senses is that which St. John intended to assign to the word logos in the first chapter of his Gospel and in all his writings? St. John was a Jew, born and educated in Palestine; he had no knowledge, at least very little, of the philosophy of the Greeks and that of the Grecising Jews: he would naturally, then, attach to the word logos the sense attached to it by the Jews of Palestine. If, in fact, we compare the attributes which he assigns to the logos with those which are assigned to it in Proverbs, in the Wisdom of Solomon, in Ecclesiasticus, we shall see that they are the same. The Word was in the world, and the world was made by him: in him was life, and the life was the light of men (c. i., v. 10-14). It is impossible not to trace in this chapter the ideas which the Jews had formed of the allegorized logos. The evangelist afterward |