crated by the practice of Mahomet and the prudence of the caliphs; the Magians, or Ghebers, were ranked with the Jews and Christians among the people of the written law; 136 and, as late as the third century of the Hegira, the city of Herat will afford a lively contrast of private zeal and public toleration.137 Under the payment of an annual tribute, the Mahometan law secured to the Ghebers of Herat their civil and religious liberties; but the recent and humble mosch was overshadowed by the antique splendour of the adjoining temple of fire. A fanatic Imam deplored, in his sermons, the scandalous neighbourhood, and accused the weakness or indifference of the faithful. Excited by his voice, the people assembled in tumult; the two houses of prayer were consumed by the flames, but the vacant ground was immediately occupied by the foundations of a new mosch. The injured Magi appealed to the sovereign of Chorasan; he promised justice and relief; when, behold! four thousand citizens of Herat, of a grave character and mature age, unanimously swore that the idolatrous fane had never existed; the inquisition was silenced, and their conscience was satisfied (says the historian Mirchond 138) with this holy and meritorious perjury.

often confounded by the Mahometans; and the sword of Timour was sharpened by this mistake (Hist. de Timour Bec, par Cherefeddin Âli Yezdi, l. v.).

136 Hæ tres sectæ, Judæi, Christiani, et qui inter Persas Magorum institutis addicti sunt, кar' ¿§oxýv, populi libri dicuntur (Reland, Dissertat. tom. iii. p. 15). The caliph Al Mamun confirms this honourable distinction in favour of the three sects, with the vague and equivocal religion of the Sabæans, under which the ancient polytheists of Charræ were allowed to shelter their idolatrous worship (Hottinger, Hist. Orient. pp. 167, 168).

137 This singular story is related by d'Herbelot (Bibliot. Orient. pp. 448, 449) on the faith of Khondemir, and by Mirchond himself (Hist. priorum Regum Persarum, &c. pp. 9, 10, not. pp. 88, 89).

138 Mirchond (Mohammed Emir Khoondah Shah), a native of Herat, composed, in the Persian language, a general history of the East, from the Creation to the year of the Hegira 875 (A.D. 1471). In the year 904 (A.D. 1498), the historian obtained

But the greatest part of the temples of Persia were ruined by the insensible and general desertion of their votaries. It was insensible, since it is not accompanied with any memorial of time or place, of persecution or resistance. It was general, since the whole realm, from Shiraz to Samarcand, imbibed the faith of the Koran; and the preservation of the native tongue reveals the descent of the Mahometans of Persia. 139 In the mountains and deserts, an obstinate race of unbelievers adhered to the superstition of their fathers; and a faint tradition of the Magian theology is kept alive in the province of Kirman, along the banks of the Indus, among the exiles of Surat, and in the colony, which, in the last century, was planted by Shaw Abbas at the gates of Ispahan. The chief pontiff has retired to mount Elbourz, eighteen leagues from the city of Yezd; the perpetual fire (if it continues to burn) is inaccessible to the profane; but his residence is the school, the oracle, and the pilgrimage of the Ghebers, whose hard and uniform features attest the unmingled purity of their blood. Under the jurisdiction of their elders, the command of a princely library, and his applauded work, in seven or twelve parts, was abbreviated in three volumes by his son Khondemir, A.H. 927, A.D. 1520. The two writers, most accurately distinguished by Petit de la Croix (Hist. de Genghizcan, pp. 537, 538, 544, 545), are loosely confounded by d'Herbelot (pp. 358, 410, 994, 995); but his numerous extracts, under the improper name of Khondemir, belong to the father rather than the son. The historian of Genghizcan refers to a MS. of Mirchond, which he received from the hands of his friend d'Herbelot himself. A curious fragment (the Taherian and Soffarian Dynasties) has been lately published in Persic and Latin (Viennæ, 1782, in quarto, cum notis Bernard de Jenisch); and the editor allows us to hope for a continuation of Mirchond.

139 The last Magian of name and power appears to be Mardavige the Dilemite, who, in the beginning of the xth century, reigned in the northern provinces of Persia, near the Caspian Sea (d'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 335). But his soldiers and successors, the Bowides, either professed or embraced the Mahometan faith; and under their dynasty (A.D. 933-1020) I should place the fall of the religion of Zoroaster.

eighty thousand families maintain an innocent and industrious life; their subsistence is derived from some curious manufactures and mechanic trades; and they cultivate the earth with the fervour of a religious duty. Their ignorance withstood the despotism of Shaw Abbas, who demanded with threats and tortures the prophetic books of Zoroaster; and this obscure remnant of the Magians is spared by the moderation or contempt of their present sovereigns. 140

The northern coast of Africa is the only land in which the light of the gospel, after a long and perfect establishment, has been totally extinguished. The arts, which had been taught by Carthage and Rome, were involved in a cloud of ignorance; the doctrine of Cyprian and Augustine was no longer studied. Five hundred episcopal churches were overturned by the hostile fury of the Donatists, the Vandals, and the Moors. The zeal and numbers of the clergy declined; and the people, without discipline, or knowledge, or hope, submissively sunk under the yoke of the Arabian prophet. Within fifty years after the expulsion of the Greeks, a lieutenant of Africa informed the caliph that the tribute of the infidels was abolished by their conversion; and, though he sought to disguise his fraud and rebellion, his specious pretence was drawn from the rapid and extensive progress of the Mahometan faith. In the next age an extraordinary mission of five bishops was detached from Alexandria to Cairoan. They were ordained by the Jacobite patriarch to cherish and revive the dying embers of Christianity. But the interposition of a foreign prelate, a stranger to the Latins, an enemy to the Catholics, supposes the decay and dissolution of the African hierarchy. It was no longer the time when the successor of St.

140 The present state of the Ghebers in Persia is taken from Sir John Chardin, not indeed the most learned, but the most judicious and inquisitive, of our modern travellers (Voyages in Pherse, tom. ii. pp. 109, 179-187, in 4to). His brethren, Pietro della Valle, Olearius, Thévenot, Tavernier, &c. whom I have fruitlessly searched, had neither eyes nor attention for this interesting people.

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Cyprian, at the head of a numerous synod, could maintain an equal contest with the ambition of the Roman pontiff. In the eleventh century, the unfortunate priest who was seated on the ruins of Carthage, implored the arms and the protection of the Vatican; and he bitterly complains that his naked body had been scourged by the Saracens, and that his authority was disputed by the four suffragans, the tottering pillars of his throne. Two epistles of Gregory the Seventh 141 are destined to soothe the distress of the Catholics and the pride of a Moorish prince. The pope assures the sultan that they both worship the same God and may hope to meet in the bosom of Abraham; but the complaints that three bishops could no longer be found to consecrate a brother, announces the speedy and inevitable ruin of the episcopal order. The Christians of Africa and Spain had long since submitted to the practice of circumcision and the legal abstinence from wine and pork; and the name of Mozarabes 142 (adoptive Arabs) was applied to their civil or religious conformity.143 About the middle of the twelfth century, the worship

141 Among the Epistles of the Popes, see Leo IX. epist. 3; Gregor. VII. 1. i. epist. 22, 23, 1. iii. epist. 19, 20, 21; and the criticisms of Pagi (tom. iv. A.D. 1053, No. 14, A.D. 1073, No. 13), who investigates the name and family of the Moorish prince, with whom the proudest of the Roman pontiffs so politely corresponds.

142 Mozarabes, or Mostarabes, adscititii, as it is interpreted in Latin (Pocock, Specimen Hist. Arabum, pp. 39, 40. Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana, tom. ii. p. 18). The Mozarabic liturgy, the ancient ritual of the church of Toledo, has been attacked by the popes and exposed to the doubtful trials of the sword and of fire (Marian, Hist. Hispan. tom. i. l. ix. c. 18, p. 378). It was, or rather it is, in the Latin tongue; yet, in the xith century, it was found necessary (A.E.C. 1087, A.D. 1039)_ to transcribe an Arabic version of the canons of the councils of Spain (Bibliot. Arab. Hisp. tom. i. p. 547) for the use of the bishops and clergy in the Moorish kingdoms.

148 About the middle of the xth century, the clergy of Cordova was reproached with this criminal compliance, by the intrepid envoy of the emperor Otho I. (Vit. Johan. Gorz. in Secul. Benedict. V. No. 115, apud Fleury, Hist. Ecclés. tom. xii. p. 91).

of Christ and the succession of pastors were abolished along the coast of Barbary, and in the kingdoms of Cordova and Seville, of Valencia and Grenada.144 The throne of the Almohades, or Unitarians, was founded on the blindest fanaticism, and their extraordinary rigour might be provoked or justified by the recent victories and intolerant zeal of the princes of Sicily and Castile, of Arragon and Portugal. The faith of the Mozarabes was occasionally revived by the papal missionaries; and, on the landing of Charles the Fifth, some families of Latin Christians were encouraged to rear their heads at Tunis and Algiers. But the seed of the gospel was quickly eradicated, and the long province from Tripoli to the Atlantic has lost all memory of the language and religion of Rome.145

After the revolution of eleven centuries, the Jews and Christians of the Turkish empire enjoy the liberty of conscience, which was granted by the Arabian caliphs. During the first age of the conquest, they suspected the loyalty of the Catholics, whose name of Melchites betrayed their secret attachment to the Greek emperor, while the Nestorians and Jacobites, his inveterate enemies, approved themselves the sincere and voluntary friends of the Mahometan government. Yet this partial jealousy was healed by time and submission; the churches of Egypt were

144 Pagi, Critica, tom. iv. A.D. 1149, Nos. 8, 9. He justly observes that, when Seville, &c. were retaken by Ferdinand of Castille, no Christians, except captives, were found in the place; and that the Mozarabic churches of Africa and Spain, described by James à Vitriaco, A.D. 1218 (Hist. Hierosol. c. 80, p. 1095, in Gest. Dei per Francos), are copied from some older book. I shall add that the date of the Hegira, 677 (A.D. 1278), must apply to the copy, not the composition, of a treatise of jurisprudence, which states the civil rights of the Christians of Cordova (Bibliot. Arab. Hist. tom. i. p. 471); and that the Jews were the only dissenters whom Abul Waled, king of Grenada (A.D. 1313), could either discountenance or tolerate (tom. ii. p. 288).

145 Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 288. Leo Africanus would have flattered his Roman masters, could he have discovered any latent relics of the Christianity of Africa.