General toleration Arian persecution of dangerous.88 The pulpit, that safe and sacred organ of sedition, resounded with the names of Pharaoh and Holofernes; 89 the public discontent was inflamed by the hope or promise of a glorious deliverance; and the seditious saints were tempted to promote the accomplishment of their own predictions. Notwithstanding these provocations, the Catholics of Gaul, Spain, and Italy enjoyed, under the reign of the Arians, the free and peaceful exercise of their religion. Their haughty masters respected the zeal of a numerous people, resolved to die at the foot of their altars; and the example of their devout constancy was admired and imitated by the Barbarians themselves. The conquerors evaded, however, the disgraceful reproach, or confession, of fear, by attributing their toleration to the liberal motives of reason and humanity; and, while they affected the language, they imperceptibly imbibed the spirit, of genuine Christianity. The peace of the church was sometimes interrupted. The the Vandals Catholics were indiscreet, the Barbarians were impatient; and the partial acts of severity or injustice which had been recommended by the Arian clergy were exaggerated by the orthodox writers. The guilt of persecution may be imputed to Euric, king of the Visigoths; who suspended the exercise of ecclesiastical, or, at least, of episcopal, functions, and punished the popular bishops of Aquitain with imprisonment, exile, and confiscation.90 But the cruel and absurd enterprise of subduing the minds of a whole people was undertaken by the Vandals alone. Genseric himself, in his early youth, had renounced the orthodox communion; and the apostate could neither grant nor expect a sincere forgiveness. He was exasperated to find that the Africans who had fled before him in the field still presumed to dispute his will in synods and churches; and his ferocious mind was incapable of fear or of compassion. His Catholic subjects were oppressed by intolerant laws and arbitrary punishments. The language of Genseric was furious and formidable; the knowledge of his intentions might justify the most unfavour Genseric. 88 The epistles of Sidonius, bishop of Clermont, under the Visigoths, and of Avitus, bishop of Vienna, under the Burgundians, explain, sometimes in dark hints, the general dispositions of the Catholics. The history of Clovis and Theodoric will suggest some particular facts. 89 Genseric confessed the resemblance by the severity with which he punished such indiscreet allusions. Victor Vitensis, 1, 7, p. 10. 90 Such are the contemporary complaints of Sidonius, bishop of Clermont (1. vii. c. 6, p. 182, &c. edit. Sirmond). Gregory of Tours, who quotes this Epistle (1. ii. c. 25, in tom. ii. p. 174), extorts an unwarrantable assertion that, of the nine vacancies in Aquitain, some had been produced by episcopal martyrdoms. A.D. 477 A.D. 484 able interpretations of his actions; and the Arians were reproached with the frequent executions which stained the palace and the dominions of the tyrant.91 Arms and ambition were, › however, the ruling passions of the monarch of the sea. But Hunneric, his inglorious son, who seemed to inherit only his vices, Hunneric. tormented the Catholics with the same unrelenting fury which had been fatal to his brother, his nephews, and the friends and 1 favourites of his father, and, even to the Arian patriarch, who was inhumanly burnt alive in the midst of Carthage. The religious war was preceded and prepared by an insidious truce; persecution was made the serious and important business of the Vandal court; and the loathsome disease, which hastened the death of Hunneric, revenged the injuries, without contributing to the deliverance, of the church. The throne of Africa was successively filled by the two nephews of Hunneric; by Gun-Gundamund. damund, who reigned about twelve, and by Thrasimund, who governed the nation above twenty-seven, years. Their administration was hostile and oppressive to the orthodox party. Gundamund appeared to emulate, or even to surpass, the cruelty of his uncle; and, if at length he relented, if he recalled the bishops and restored the freedom of Athanasian worship, a premature death intercepted the benefits of his tardy clemency. His brother, Thrasimund, was the greatest and most accom-Thrasimund. plished of the Vandal kings, whom he excelled in beauty, prudence, and magnanimity of soul. But this magnanimous character was degraded by his intolerant zeal and deceitful clemency. Instead of threats and tortures, he employed the gentle but efficacious powers of seduction. Wealth, dignity, and the royal favour were the liberal rewards of apostacy; the Catholics, who had violated the laws, might purchase their pardon by the renunciation of their faith; and, whenever Thrasimund meditated any rigorous measure, he patiently waited till the indiscretion of his adversaries furnished him with a specious opportunity. Bigotry was his last sentiment in the hour of death; and he exacted from his successor a solemn oath that he would never tolerate the sectaries of Athanasius. But his successor, Hilderic, the gentle son of the savage Hunneric, Hilderic. preferred the duties of humanity and justice to the vain obligation of an impious oath; and his accession was gloriously marked by the restoration of peace and universal freedom. The throne $1 [But Gaiseric's religious policy varied with his relations to the Empire; and we can mark two peaces of the Catholic Church of Africa during his reign: A.D. 454-457, and 475-477, Vict. Vit., i. 24 and 51.] A.D. 496 A.D. 523 Gelimer. A general view of the persecution in Africa of that virtuous, though feeble, monarch was usurped by his cousin Gelimer, a zealous Arian; but the Vandal kingdom, before he could enjoy or abuse his power, was subverted by the arms of Belisarius; and the orthodox party retaliated the injuries which they had endured.92 The passionate declamations of the Catholics, the sole historians of this persecution, cannot afford any distinct series of causes and events, any impartial view of characters or counsels; but the most remarkable circumstances, that deserve either credit or notice, may be referred to the following heads: I.. In the original law, which is still extant,93 Hunneric expressly declares, and the declaration appears to be correct, that he had faithfully transcribed the regulations and penalties of the Imperial edicts, against the heretical congregations, the clergy, and the people, who dissented from the established religion. If the rights of conscience had been understood, the Catholics must have con demned their past conduct, or acquiesced in their actual sufferings. But they still persisted to refuse the indulgence which they claimed. While they trembled under the lash of persecution, they praised the laudable severity of Hunneric himself, who burnt or banished great numbers of Manichæans : 94 and they rejected, with horror, the ignominious compromise that the disciples of Arius and of Athanasius should enjoy a reciprocal and similar toleration in the territories of the Romans and in those of the Vandals.95 II. The practice of a conference, which the Catholics had so frequently used to insult and punish their obstinate antagonists, was retorted against themselves.96 At the 92 The original monuments of the Vandal persecution are preserved in the five books of the History of Victor Vitensis (de Persecutione Vandalica), a bishop who was exiled by Hunneric; in the Life of St. Fulgentius, who was distinguished in the persecution of Thrasimund (in Biblioth. Max. Patrum, tom. ix. p. 4-16); and in the first book of the Vandalic War, by the impartial Procopius (c. 7, 8, p. 196, 197, 198, 199). Dom. Ruinart, the last editor of Victor, has illustrated the whole subject with a copious and learned apparatus of notes and supplement (Paris, 1694). [Halm's ed. of Victor in Mon. Germ. Hist. has an excellent index. For Fulgentius of Ruspe, see Görres, Zeitschrift für wiss. Theologie, 1894, p. 500, sqq.] 93 Victor, iv. 2, p. 65. Hunneric refuses the name of Catholics to the Homoousians. He describes, as the veri Divinæ Majestatis cultores, his own party, who professed the faith, confirmed by more than a thousand bishops, in the synods of Rimini and Seleucia. 94 Victor, ii. 1, p. 21, 22, Laudabilior. . . videbatur. In the Mss. which omit this word, the passage is unintelligible. See Ruinart, Not. p. 164. 95 Victor, ii. 2, p. 22, 23. The clergy of Carthage called these conditions, periculosa; and they seem, indeed, to have been proposed as a snare to entrap the Catholic bishops. 96 See the narrative of this conference and the treatment of the bishops in Victor, ii. 13-18, p. 35-42, and the whole fourth book, p. 63-171. The third book, p. 42-62, is entirely filled by their apology, or confession of faith. command of Hunneric, four hundred and sixty-six orthodox bishops assembled at Carthage; but, when they were admitted into the hall of audience, they had the mortification of beholding the Arian Cyrila exalted on the patriarchal throne. The disputants were separated, after the mutual and ordinary reproaches of noise and silence, of delay and precipitation, of military force and of popular clamour. One martyr and one confessor were selected among the Catholic bishops; twenty-eight escaped by flight, and eighty-eight by conformity, forty-six were sent into Corsica to cut timber for the royal navy; and three hundred and two were banished to the different parts of Africa, exposed to the insults of their enemies, and carefully deprived of all the temporal and spiritual comforts of life.97 The hardships of ten years' exile must have reduced their numbers; and, if they had complied with the law of Thrasimund, which prohibited any episcopal consecrations, the orthodox church of Africa must have expired with the lives of its actual members. They disobeyed; and their disobedience was punished by a second exile of two hundred and twenty bishops into Sardinia; where they languished fifteen years, till the accession of the gracious Hilderic.98 The two islands were judiciously chosen by the malice of their Arian tyrants. Seneca, from his own experience, has deplored and exaggerated the miserable state of Corsica,99 and the plenty of Sardinia was over-balanced by the unwholesome quality of the air. 100 III. The zeal of Genseric and his successors for the conversion of the Catholics must have rendered them still more jealous to guard the purity of the Vandal faith. Before the churches were finally shut, it was a crime to 97 See the list of the African bishops, in Victor. p. 117-140, and Ruinart's notes, p. 215-397. The schismatic name of Donatus frequently occurs, and they appear to have adopted (like our fanatics of the last age) the pious appellations of Deodatus, Deogratias, Quidvultdeus, Habetdeum, &c. [See Notitia at end of Halm's edition of Victor.] Fulgent. Vit. c. 16-29. Thrasimund affected the praise of moderation and learning; and Fulgentius addressed three books of controversy to the Arian tyrant, whom he styles piissime Rex (Biblioth. Maxim. Patrum, tom. ix. p. 41). Only sixty bishops are mentioned as exiles in the life of Fulgentius; they are increased to one hundred and twenty by Victor Tunnunensis, and Isidore; but the number of two hundred and twenty is specified in the Historia Miscella and a short authentic chronicle of the times. See Ruinart, p. 570, 571. 99 See the base and insipid epigrams of the Stoic, who could not support exile with more fortitude than Ovid. Corsica might not produce corn, wine, or oil; but it could not be destitute of grass, water, and even fire. 100 Si ob gravitatem caeli interissent vile damnum. Tacit. Annal. ii. 85. In this application, Thrasimund would have adopted the reading of some critics, utile damnum. appear in a Barbarian dress; and those who presumed to neglect the royal mandate were rudely dragged backwards by their long hair.101 The Palatine officers who refused to profess the religion of their prince were ignominiously stripped of their honours and employments; banished to Sardinia and Sicily; or condemned to the servile labours of slaves and peasants in the field of Utica. In the districts which had been peculiarly allotted to the Vandals, the exercise of the Catholic worship was more strictly prohibited: and severe penalties were denounced against the guilt both of the missionary and the proselyte. By these arts, the faith of the Barbarians was preserved, and their zeal was inflamed; they discharged, with devout fury, the office of spies, informers, or executioners; and, whenever their cavalry took the field, it was the favourite amusement of the march to defile the churches and to insult the clergy of the adverse faction.102 IV. The citizens who had been educated in the luxury of the Roman province were delivered, with exquisite cruelty, to the Moors of the desert. A venerable train of bishops, presbyters, and deacons, with a faithful crowd of four thousand and ninety-six persons, whose guilt is not precisely ascertained, were torn from their native homes, by the command of Hunneric. During the night, they were confined, like a herd of cattle, amidst their own ordure; during the day, they pursued their march over the burning sands; and, if they fainted under the heat and fatigue, they were goaded or dragged along, till they expired in the hands of their tormentors. 103 These unhappy exiles, when they reached the Moorish huts, might excite the compassion of a people, whose native humanity was neither improved by reason nor corrupted by fanaticism; but, if they escaped the dangers, they were condemned to share the distress, of a savage life. V. It is incumbent on the authors of persecution previously to reflect, whether they are determined to support it in the last extreme. They excite the flame which they strive to extinguish; and it soon becomes necessary to chastise the contumacy, as well as the crime, of the offender. The fine, which he is unable or unwilling to discharge, exposes his person to the severity of the law; and 101 See these preludes of a general persecution, in Victor, ii. p. 3, 4, 7, and the two edicts of Hunneric, 1. ii. p. 35 [c. 13], l. iv. p. 64 [1. iii. c. 2, ed. Halm]. 102 See Procopius de Bell. Vandal. 1. i. c. 7, p. 197, 198. A Moorish prince endeavoured to propitiate the God of the Christians by his diligence to eraze the marks of the Vandal sacrilege. 103 See this story in Victor, ii. 8-12, p. 30-34. Victor describes the distress of these confessors as an eye-witness. |
