the thrones of Constantinople and Antioch were occupied by Arian prelates, and every episcopal vacancy was the occasion of a popular tumult. The Homoousians were fortified by the reconciliation of fifty-nine Macedonian, or Semi-Arian, bishops; but their secret reluctance to embrace the divinity of the Holy Ghost clouded the splendour of the triumph; and the declaration of Valens, who, in the first years of his reign, had imitated the impartial conduct of his brother, was an important victory on the side of Arianism. The two brothers had passed their private life in the condition of catechumens; but the piety of Valens prompted him to solicit the sacrament of baptism, before he exposed his person to the dangers of a Gothic war. He naturally addressed himself to Eudoxus,68 bishop of the Imperial city; and, if the ignorant monarch was instructed by that Arian pastor in the principles of heterodox theology, his misfortune, rather than his guilt, was the inevitable consequence of his erroneous choice. Whatever had been the determination of the emperor, he must have offended a numerous party of his Christian subjects; as the leaders both of the Homoousians and of the Arians believed that, if they were not suffered to reign, they were most cruelly injured and oppressed. After he had taken this decisive step, it was extremely difficult for him to preserve either the virtue or the reputation of impartiality. He never aspired, like Constantius, to the fame of a profound theologian; but, as he had received with simplicity and respect the tenets of Eudoxus, Valens resigned his conscience to the direction of his ecclesiastical guides, and promoted, by the influence of his authority, the re-union of the Athanasian heretics to the body of the catholic church. At first, he pitied their blindness; by degrees he was provoked at their obstinacy; and he insensibly hated those sectaries to whom he was an object of hatred.69 The feeble mind of Valens was always swayed by the persons with whom he familiarly conversed; and the exile or imprisonment of a private citizen are the favours the most readily granted

68 Eudoxus was of a mild and timid disposition. When he baptized Valens (A.D. 367), he must have been extremely old; since he had studied theology fiftyfive years before, under Lucian, a learned and pious martyr. Philostorg. 1. ii. c. 14-16, 1. iv. c. 4, with Godefroy, p. 82, 206, and Tillemont, Mém. Ecclés. tom. v. p. 474-480, &c.

69 Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. xxv. [33] p. 432 [ap. Migne, vol. 36, p. 217 sqq.]) insults the persecuting spirit of the Arians, as an infallible symptom of error and heresy.

in a despotic court. Such punishments were frequently inflicted on the leaders of the Homoousian party; and the misfortune of fourscore ecclesiastics of Constantinople, who, perhaps accidentally, were burnt on shipboard, was imputed to the cruel and premeditated malice of the emperor and his Arian ministers, In every contest, the catholics (if we may anticipate that name) were obliged to pay the penalty of their own faults, and of those of their adversaries. In every election, the claims of the Arian candidate obtained the preference; and, if they were opposed by the majority of the people, he was usually supported by the authority of the civil magistrate, or even by the terrors of a military force. The enemies of Athanasius attempted to disturb the last years of his venerable age; and his temporary retreat to his father's sepulchre has been celebrated as a fifth exile. But the zeal of a great people who instantly flew to arms, intimidated the præfect; and the archbishop was permitted to end his life in peace and in glory, after a reign of forty-seven years. The death of Athanasius was the signal of the persecution of Death of Egypt; and the Pagan minister of Valens, who forcibly seated asius. the worthless Lucius on the archiepiscopal throne, purchased May 2 the favour of the reigning party by the blood and sufferings of their Christian brethren. The free toleration of the heathen and Jewish worship was bitterly lamented, as a circumstance which aggravated the misery of the catholics and the guilt of the impious tyrant of the East.70

Athan

A.D. 373,

his perse

The triumph of the orthodox party has left a deep stain of Just idea of persecution on the memory of Valens; and the character of a cution prince who derived his virtues, as well as his vices, from a feeble understanding and a pusillanimous temper scarcely deserves the labour of an apology. Yet candour may discover some reasons to suspect that the ecclesiastical ministers of Valens often exceeded the orders, or even the intentions, of their master; and that the real measure of facts has been very liberally magnified by the vehement declamation and easy credulity of his antagonists." 1. The silence of Valentinian may suggest a probable argument, that the partial severities, which were exercised

79 This sketch of the ecclesiastical government of Valens is drawn from Socrates (1. iv.), Sozomen (1. vi.), Theodoret (1. iv.), and the immense compilations of Tillemont (particularly tom. vi. viii. and ix.).

Dr. Jortin (Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. iv. p. 78) has already conceived and intimated the same suspicion.

in the name and provinces of his colleague, amounted only to some obscure and inconsiderable deviations from the established system of religious toleration; and the judicious historian, who has praised the equal temper of the elder brother, has not thought himself obliged to contrast the tranquillity of the West with the cruel persecution of the East.72 2. Whatever credit may be allowed to vague and distant reports, the character, or at least the behaviour, of Valens may be most distinctly seen in his personal transactions with the eloquent Basil, archbishop of Cæsarea, who had succeeded Athanasius in the management of the Trinitarian cause.73 The circumstantial narrative has been composed by the friends and admirers of Basil; and, as soon as we have stripped away a thick coat of rhetoric and miracle, we shall be astonished by the unexpected mildness of the Arian tyrant, who admired the firmness of his character, or was apprehensive, if he employed violence, of a general revolt in the province of Cappadocia. The archbishop, who asserted, with inflexible pride, the truth of his opinions and the dignity of his rank, was left in the free possession of his conscience and his throne. The emperor devoutly assisted at the solemn service of the cathedral; and, instead of a sentence of banishment, subscribed the donation of a valuable estate for the use of an hospital which Basil had lately founded in the neighbourhood of Cæsarea.75 3. I am not able to discover that any law (such as Theodosius afterwards enacted against the Arians) was published by Valens against the Athanasian sectaries; and the

74

72 This reflection is so obvious and forcible that Orosius (1. vii. c. 32, 33) delays the persecution till after the death of Valentinian. Socrates, on the other hand, supposes (1. iii. [leg. iv.] c. 32) that it was appeased by a philosophical oration, which Themistius pronounced in the year 374 (Orat. xii. p. 154, in Latin only [Greek in Dindorf's ed.]). Such contradictions diminish the evidence, and reduce the term, of the persecution of Valens.

73 Tillemont, whom I follow and abridge, has extracted (Mém. Ecclés. tom. viii. p. 153-167) the most authentic circumstances from the Panegyrics of the two Gregories: the brother, and the friend, of Basil. The letters of Basil himself (Dupin, Bibliothèque Ecclésiastique, tom. ii. p. 155-180) do not present the image of a very lively persecution.

74 Basilius Cæsariensis episcopus Cappadocia clarus habetur. . . qui multa continentiæ et ingenii bona uno superbiæ malo perdidit. This irreverent passage is perfectly in the style and character of St. Jerom. It does not appear in Scaliger's edition of his Chronicle; but Isaac Vossius found it in some old Mss. which had not been reformed by the monks [ad ann. 2392, cp. note in Migne's edition, 8, p. 699].

75 This noble and charitable foundation (almost a new city) surpassed in merit, if not in greatness, the pyramids, or the walls of Babylon. It was principally intended for the reception of lepers (Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. xx. [=43] p. 439 [c. 63]).

edict which excited the most violent clamours may not appear so extremely reprehensible. The emperor had observed that several of his subjects, gratifying their lazy disposition under the pretence of religion, had associated themselves with the monks of Egypt; and he directed the count of the East to drag them from their solitude; and to compel those deserters of society to accept the fair alternative of renouncing their temporal possessions or of discharging the public duties of men and citizens.76 The ministers of Valens seem to have extended the sense of this penal statute, since they claimed a right of enlisting the young and able-bodied monks in the Imperial armies. A detachment of cavalry and infantry, consisting of three thousand men, marched from Alexandria into the adjacent desert of Nitria," which was peopled by five thousand monks. The soldiers were conducted by Arian priests; and it is reported that a considerable slaughter was made in the monasteries which disobeyed the commands of their sovereign.78

ian re

avarice of A.D. 370.

The strict regulations which have been framed by the wisdom Valentinof modern legislators to restrain the wealth and avarice of the strains the clergy may be originally deduced from the example of the the clergy. emperor Valentinian. His edict 79 addressed to Damasus, bishop of Rome, was publicly read in the churches of the city. He admonished the ecclesiastics and monks not to frequent the houses of widows and virgins; and menaced their disobedience with the animadversion of the civil judge. The director was no longer permitted to receive any gift, or legacy, or inheritance, from the liberality of his spiritual daughter; every testament contrary to this edict was declared null and void; and the illegal donation was confiscated for the use of the treasury. By a

76 Cod. Theodos. 1. xii. tit. i. leg. 63. Godefroy (tom. iv. p. 409-413) performs the duty of a commentator and advocate. Tillemont (Mém. Ecclés. tom. viii. p. 808) supposes a second law to excuse his orthodox friends, who had misrepresented the adict of Valens and suppressed the liberty of choice.

"See D'Anville, Description de l'Egypte, p. 74. Hereafter I shall consider the monastic institutions.

Socrates, 1. iv. c. 24, 25. Orosius, 1. vii. c. 33. Jerom in Chron. p. 189, and tom. ii. p. 212. The monks of Egypt performed many miracles, which prove the truth of their faith. Right, says Jortin (Remarks, vol. iv. p. 79), but what proves the truth of those miracles?

7 Cod. Theodos. 1. xvi. tit. ii. leg. 20, Godefroy (tom. vi. p. 49), after the example of Baronius, impartially collects all that the fathers have said on the subject of this important law; whose spirit was long afterwards revived by the emperor Frederic II., Edward I. of England, and other Christian princes who reigned after the twelfth century.

subsequent regulation it should seem that the same provisions were extended to nuns and bishops; and that all persons of the ecclesiastical order were rendered incapable of receiving any testamentary gifts, and strictly confined to the natural and legal rights of inheritance. As the guardian of domestic happiness and virtue, Valentinian applied this severe remedy to the growing evil. In the capital of the empire, the females of noble and opulent houses possessed a very ample share of independent property; and many of those devout females had embraced the doctrines of Christianity, not only with the cold assent of the understanding, but with the warmth of affection, and perhaps with the eagerness of fashion. They sacrificed the pleasures of dress and luxury; and renounced, for the praise of chastity, the soft endearments of conjugal society. Some ecclesiastic, of real or apparent sanctity, was chosen to direct their timorous conscience and to amuse the vacant tenderness of their heart: and the unbounded confidence which they hastily bestowed was often abused by knaves and enthusiasts; who hastened from the extremities of the East to enjoy, on a splendid theatre, the privileges of the monastic profession. By their contempt of the world, they insensibly acquired its most desirable advantages; the lively attachment, perhaps, of a young and beautiful woman, the delicate plenty of an opulent household, and the respectful homage of the slaves, the freedmen, and the clients of a senatorial family. The immense fortunes of the Roman ladies were gradually consumed in lavish alms and expensive pilgrimages; and the artful monk, who had assigned himself the first or possibly the sole place in the testament of his spiritual daughter, still presumed to declare, with the smooth face of hypocrisy, that he was only the instrument of charity and the steward of the poor. The lucrative, but disgraceful, trade 90 which was exercised by the clergy to defraud the expectations of the natural heirs had provoked the indignation of a superstitious age; and two of the most respectable of the Latin fathers very honestly confess that the ignominious edict of

80 The expressions which I have used are temperate and feeble, if compared with the vehement invectives of Jerom (tom. i. p. 13, 45, 144, &c.). In his turn, he was reproached with the guilt which he imputed to his brother monks; and the Sceleratus, the Versipellis, was publicly accused as the lover of the widow Paula (tom. ii. p. 363). He undoubtedly possessed the affections both of the mother and the daughter; but he declares that he never abused his influence to any selfish or sensual purpose.