History of the World/History of the World (Bureau Development, Inc.)(1992).BIN/dp/0165/01652.txt

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$Title{History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire
Part V.}
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$Author{Gibbon, Edward}
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$Date{1782 (Written), 1845 (Revised)}
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Title:       History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire
Book:        Chapter XXXVII: Conversion Of The Barbarians To Christianity.
Author:      Gibbon, Edward
Date:        1782 (Written), 1845 (Revised)

Part V.

     The Catholics, oppressed by royal and military force, were far superior
to their adversaries in numbers and learning.  With the same weapons which the
Greek ^112 and Latin fathers had already provided for the Arian controversy,
they repeatedly silenced, or vanquished, the fierce and illiterate successors
of Ulphilas.  The consciousness of their own superiority might have raised
them above the arts and passions of religious warfare.  Yet, instead of
assuming such honorable pride, the orthodox theologians were tempted, by the
assurance of impunity, to compose fictions, which must be stigmatized with the
epithets of fraud and forgery. They ascribed their own polemical works to the
most venerable names of Christian antiquity; the characters of Athanasius and
Augustin were awkwardly personated by Vigilius and his disciples; ^113 and the
famous creed, which so clearly expounds the mysteries of the Trinity and the
Incarnation, is deduced, with strong probability, from this African school.
^114 Even the Scriptures themselves were profaned by their rash and
sacrilegious hands.  The memorable text, which asserts the unity of the three
who bear witness in heaven, ^115 is condemned by the universal silence of the
orthodox fathers, ancient versions, and authentic manuscripts. ^116 It was
first alleged by the Catholic bishops whom Hunneric summoned to the conference
of Carthage. ^117 An allegorical interpretation, in the form, perhaps, of a
marginal note, invaded the text of the Latin Bibles, which were renewed and
corrected in a dark period of ten centuries. ^118 After the invention of
printing, ^119 the editors of the Greek Testament yielded to their own
prejudices, or those of the times; ^120 and the pious fraud, which was
embraced with equal zeal at Rome and at Geneva, has been infinitely multiplied
in every country and every language of modern Europe.

[Footnote 112: Fulgentius, bishop of Ruspae, in the Byzacene province, was of
a senatorial family, and had received a liberal education.  He could repeat
all Homer and Menander before he was allowed to study Latin his native tongue,
(Vit. Fulgent. c. l.) Many African bishops might understand Greek, and many
Greek theologians were translated into Latin.]

[Footnote 113: Compare the two prefaces to the Dialogue of Vigilius of
Thapsus, (p. 118, 119, edit. Chiflet.) He might amuse his learned reader with
an innocent fiction; but the subject was too grave, and the Africans were too
ignorant.]

[Footnote 114: The P. Quesnel started this opinion, which has been favorably
received.  But the three following truths, however surprising they may seem,
are now universally acknowledged, (Gerard Vossius, tom. vi. p. 516 - 522.
Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 667 - 671.) 1. St. Athanasius is not the
author of the creed which is so frequently read in our churches.  2. It does
not appear to have existed within a century after his death.  3. It was
originally composed in the Latin tongue, and, consequently in the Western
provinces.  Gennadius patriarch of Constantinople, was so much amazed by this
extraordinary composition, that he frankly pronounced it to be the work of a
drunken man.  Petav. Dogmat. Theologica, tom. ii. l. vii. c. 8, p. 687.]

[Footnote 115: 1 John, v. 7.  See Simon, Hist. Critique du Nouveau Testament,
part i. c. xviii. p. 203 - 218; and part ii. c. ix. p. 99 - 121; and the
elaborate Prolegomena and Annotations of Dr. Mill and Wetstein to their
editions of the Greek Testament.  In 1689, the papist Simon strove to be free;
in 1707, the Protestant Mill wished to be a slave; in 1751, the Armenian
Wetstein used the liberty of his times, and of his sect.

     Note: This controversy has continued to be agitated, but with declining
interest even in the more religious part of the community; and may now be
considered to have terminated in an almost general acquiescence of the learned
to the conclusions of Porson in his Letters to Travis.  See the pamphlets of
the late Bishop of Salisbury and of Crito Cantabrigiensis, Dr. Turton of
Cambridge. - M.]

[Footnote 116: Of all the Mss. now extant, above fourscore in number, some of
which are more than 1200 years old, (Wetstein ad loc.) The orthodox copies of
the Vatican, of the Complutensian editors, of Robert Stephens, are become
invisible; and the two Mss. of Dublin and Berlin are unworthy to form an
exception.  See Emlyn's Works, vol. ii. p 227 - 255, 269 - 299; and M. de
Missy's four ingenious letters, in tom. viii. and ix. of the Journal
Britannique.]

[Footnote 117: Or, more properly, by the four bishops who composed and
published the profession of faith in the name of their brethren.  They styled
this text, luce clarius, (Victor Vitensis de Persecut. Vandal. l. iii. c. 11,
p. 54.) It is quoted soon afterwards by the African polemics, Vigilius and
Fulgentius.]

[Footnote 118: In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the Bibles were
corrected by Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury, and by Nicholas, cardinal and
librarian of the Roman church, secundum orthodoxam fidem, (Wetstein, Prolegom.
p. 84, 85.) Notwithstanding these corrections, the passage is still wanting in
twenty-five Latin Mss., (Wetstein ad loc.,) the oldest and the fairest; two
qualities seldom united, except in manuscripts.]

[Footnote 119: The art which the Germans had invented was applied in Italy to
the profane writers of Rome and Greece.  The original Greek of the New
Testament was published about the same time (A.D. 1514, 1516, 1520,) by the
industry of Erasmus, and the munificence of Cardinal Ximenes.  The
Complutensian Polyglot cost the cardinal 50,000 ducats.  See Mattaire, Annal.
Typograph. tom. ii. p. 2 - 8, 125 - 133; and Wetstein, Prolegomena, p. 116 -
127.]

[Footnote 120: The three witnesses have been established in our Greek
Testaments by the prudence of Erasmus; the honest bigotry of the Complutensian
editors; the typographical fraud, or error, of Robert Stephens, in the placing
a crotchet; and the deliberate falsehood, or strange misapprehension, of
Theodore Beza.]

     The example of fraud must excite suspicion: and the specious miracles by
which the African Catholics have defended the truth and justice of their
cause, may be ascribed, with more reason, to their own industry, than to the
visible protection of Heaven.  Yet the historian, who views this religious
conflict with an impartial eye, may condescend to mention one preternatural
event, which will edify the devout, and surprise the incredulous.  Tipasa,
^121 a maritime colony of Mauritania, sixteen miles to the east of Caesarea,
had been distinguished, in every age, by the orthodox zeal of its inhabitants.
They had braved the fury of the Donatists; ^122 they resisted, or eluded, the
tyranny of the Arians.  The town was deserted on the approach of an heretical
bishop: most of the inhabitants who could procure ships passed over to the
coast of Spain; and the unhappy remnant, refusing all communion with the
usurper, still presumed to hold their pious, but illegal, assemblies.  Their
disobedience exasperated the cruelty of Hunneric.  A military count was
despatched from Carthage to Tipasa: he collected the Catholics in the Forum,
and, in the presence of the whole province, deprived the guilty of their right
hands and their tongues.  But the holy confessors continued to speak without
tongues; and this miracle is attested by Victor, an African bishop, who
published a history of the persecution within two years after the event. ^123
"If any one," says Victor, "should doubt of the truth, let him repair to
Constantinople, and listen to the clear and perfect language of Restitutus,
the sub-deacon, one of these glorious sufferers, who is now lodged in the
palace of the emperor Zeno, and is respected by the devout empress." At
Constantinople we are astonished to find a cool, a learned, and
unexceptionable witness, without interest, and without passion.  Aeneas of
Gaza, a Platonic philosopher, has accurately described his own observations on
these African sufferers.  "I saw them myself: I heard them speak: I diligently
inquired by what means such an articulate voice could be formed without any
organ of speech: I used my eyes to examine the report of my ears; I opened
their mouth, and saw that the whole tongue had been completely torn away by
the roots; an operation which the physicians generally suppose to be mortal."
^124 The testimony of Aeneas of Gaza might be confirmed by the superfluous
evidence of the emperor Justinian, in a perpetual edict; of Count Marcellinus,
in his Chronicle of the times; and of Pope Gregory the First, who had resided
at Constantinople, as the minister of the Roman pontiff. ^125 They all lived
within the compass of a century; and they all appeal to their personal
knowledge, or the public notoriety, for the truth of a miracle, which was
repeated in several instances, displayed on the greatest theatre of the world,
and submitted, during a series of years, to the calm examination of the
senses.  This supernatural gift of the African confessors, who spoke without
tongues, will command the assent of those, and of those only, who already
believe, that their language was pure and orthodox.  But the stubborn mind of
an infidel, is guarded by secret, incurable suspicion; and the Arian, or
Socinian, who has seriously rejected the doctrine of a Trinity, will not be
shaken by the most plausible evidence of an Athanasian miracle.

[Footnote 121: Plin. Hist. Natural. v. 1.  Itinerar.  Wesseling, p. 15.
Cellanius, Geograph. Antiq. tom. ii. part ii. p. 127.  This Tipasa (which must
not be confounded with another in Numidia) was a town of some note since
Vespasian endowed it with the right of Latium.]

[Footnote 122: Optatus Milevitanus de Schism. Donatist. l. ii. p. 38.]

[Footnote 123: Victor Vitensis, v. 6, p. 76.  Ruinart, p. 483 - 487.]

[Footnote 124: Aeneas Gazaeus in Theophrasto, in Biblioth. Patrum, tom. viii.
p. 664, 665.  He was a Christian, and composed this Dialogue (the
Theophrastus) on the immortality of the soul, and the resurrection of the
body; besides twenty-five Epistles, still extant.  See Cave, (Hist.
Litteraria, p. 297,) and Fabricius, (Biblioth. Graec. tom. i. p. 422.)]

[Footnote 125: Justinian. Codex. l. i. tit. xxvii.  Marcellin. in Chron. p.
45, in Thesaur. Temporum Scaliger.  Procopius, de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 7. p.
196.  Gregor. Magnus, Dialog. iii. 32.  None of these witnesses have specified
the number of the confessors, which is fixed at sixty in an old menology,
(apud Ruinart. p. 486.) Two of them lost their speech by fornication; but the
miracle is enhanced by the singular instance of a boy who had never spoken
before his tongue was cut out. ]

     The Vandals and the Ostrogoths persevered in the profession of Arianism
till the final ruin of the kingdoms which they had founded in Africa and
Italy.  The Barbarians of Gaul submitted to the orthodox dominion of the
Franks; and Spain was restored to the Catholic church by the voluntary
conversion of the Visigoths.

     This salutary revolution ^126 was hastened by the example of a royal
martyr, whom our calmer reason may style an ungrateful rebel.  Leovigild, the
Gothic monarch of Spain, deserved the respect of his enemies, and the love of
his subjects; the Catholics enjoyed a free toleration, and his Arian synods
attempted, without much success, to reconcile their scruples by abolishing the
unpopular rite of a second baptism.  His eldest son Hermenegild, who was
invested by his father with the royal diadem, and the fair principality of
Boetica, contracted an honorable and orthodox alliance with a Merovingian
princess, the daughter of Sigebert, king of Austrasia, and of the famous
Brunechild.  The beauteous Ingundis, who was no more than thirteen years of
age, was received, beloved, and persecuted, in the Arian court of Toledo; and
her religious constancy was alternately assaulted with blandishments and
violence by Goisvintha, the Gothic queen, who abused the double claim of
maternal authority. ^127 Incensed by her resistance, Goisvintha seized the
Catholic princess by her long hair, inhumanly dashed her against the ground,
kicked her till she was covered with blood, and at last gave orders that she
should be stripped, and thrown into a basin, or fish-pond. ^128 Love and honor
might excite Hermenegild to resent this injurious treatment of his bride; and
he was gradually persuaded that Ingundis suffered for the cause of divine
truth.  Her tender complaints, and the weighty arguments of Le ander,
archbishop of Seville, accomplished his conversion and the heir of the Gothic
monarchy was initiated in the Nicene faith by the solemn rites of
confirmation. ^129 The rash youth, inflamed by zeal, and perhaps by ambition,
was tempted to violate the duties of a son and a subject; and the Catholics of
Spain, although they could not complain of persecution, applauded his pious
rebellion against an heretical father.  The civil war was protracted by the
long and obstinate sieges of Merida, Cordova, and Seville, which had
strenuously espoused the party of Hermenegild He invited the orthodox
Barbarians, the Seuvi, and the Franks, to the destruction of his native land;
he solicited the dangerous aid of the Romans, who possessed Africa, and a part
of the Spanish coast; and his holy ambassador, the archbishop Leander,
effectually negotiated in person with the Byzantine court.  But the hopes of
the Catholics were crushed by the active diligence of the monarch who
commanded the troops and treasures of Spain; and the guilty Hermenegild, after
his vain attempts to resist or to escape, was compelled to surrender himself
into the hands of an incensed father.  Leovigild was still mindful of that
sacred character; and the rebel, despoiled of the regal ornaments, was still
permitted, in a decent exile, to profess the Catholic religion.  His repeated
and unsuccessful treasons at length provoked the indignation of the Gothic
king; and the sentence of death, which he pronounced with apparent reluctance,
was privately executed in the tower of Seville.  The inflexible constancy with
which he refused to accept the Arian communion, as the price of his safety,
may excuse the honors that have been paid to the memory of St. Hermenegild.
His wife and infant son were detained by the Romans in ignominious captivity;
and this domestic misfortune tarnished the glories of Leovigild, and
imbittered the last moments of his life.

[Footnote 126: See the two general historians of Spain, Mariana (Hist. de
Rebus Hispaniae, tom. i. l. v. c. 12 - 15, p. 182 - 194) and Ferreras, (French
translation, tom. ii. p. 206 - 247.) Mariana almost forgets that he is a
Jesuit, to assume the style and spirit of a Roman classic.  Ferreras, an
industrious compiler, reviews his facts, and rectifies his chronology.]

[Footnote 127: Goisvintha successively married two kings of the Visigoths:
Athanigild, to whom she bore Brunechild, the mother of Ingundis; and
Leovigild, whose two sons, Hermenegild and Recared, were the issue of a former
marriage.]

[Footnote 128: Iracundiae furore succensa, adprehensam per comam capitis
puellam in terram conlidit, et diu calcibus verberatam, ac sanguins
cruentatam, jussit exspoliari, et piscinae immergi.  Greg. Turon. l. v. c. 39.
in tom. ii. p. 255.  Gregory is one of our best originals for this portion of
history.]

[Footnote 129: The Catholics who admitted the baptism of heretics repeated the
rite, or, as it was afterwards styled, the sacrament, of confirmation, to
which they ascribed many mystic and marvellous prerogatives both visible and
invisible.  See Chardon. Hist. des Sacremens, tom. 1. p. 405 - 552.]

     His son and successor, Recared, the first Catholic king of Spain, had
imbibed the faith of his unfortunate brother, which he supported with more
prudence and success.  Instead of revolting against his father, Recared
patiently expected the hour of his death.  Instead of condemning his memory,
he piously supposed, that the dying monarch had abjured the errors of
Arianism, and recommended to his son the conversion of the Gothic nation.  To
accomplish that salutary end, Recared convened an assembly of the Arian clergy
and nobles, declared himself a Catholic, and exhorted them to imitate the
example of their prince.  The laborious interpretation of doubtful texts, or
the curious pursuit of metaphysical arguments, would have excited an endless
controversy; and the monarch discreetly proposed to his illiterate audience
two substantial and visible arguments, - the testimony of Earth, and of
Heaven.  The Earth had submitted to the Nicene synod: the Romans, the
Barbarians, and the inhabitants of Spain, unanimously professed the same
orthodox creed; and the Visigoths resisted, almost alone, the consent of the
Christian world.  A superstitious age was prepared to reverence, as the
testimony of Heaven, the preternatural cures, which were performed by the
skill or virtue of the Catholic clergy; the baptismal fonts of Osset in
Boetica, ^130 which were spontaneously replenished every year, on the vigil of
Easter; ^131 and the miraculous shrine of St. Martin of Tours, which had
already converted the Suevic prince and people of Gallicia. ^132 The Catholic
king encountered some difficulties on this important change of the national
religion.  A conspiracy, secretly fomented by the queen-dowager, was formed
against his life; and two counts excited a dangerous revolt in the Narbonnese
Gaul. But Recared disarmed the conspirators, defeated the rebels, and executed
severe justice; which the Arians, in their turn, might brand with the reproach
of persecution.  Eight bishops, whose names betray their Barbaric origin,
abjured their errors; and all the books of Arian theology were reduced to
ashes, with the house in which they had been purposely collected.  The whole
body of the Visigoths and Suevi were allured or driven into the pale of the
Catholic communion; the faith, at least of the rising generation, was fervent
and sincere: and the devout liberality of the Barbarians enriched the churches
and monasteries of Spain.  Seventy bishops, assembled in the council of
Toledo, received the submission of their conquerors; and the zeal of the
Spaniards improved the Nicene creed, by declaring the procession of the Holy
Ghost from the Son, as well as from the Father; a weighty point of doctrine,
which produced, long afterwards, the schism of the Greek and Latin churches.
^133 The royal proselyte immediately saluted and consulted Pope Gregory,
surnamed the Great, a learned and holy prelate, whose reign was distinguished
by the conversion of heretics and infidels.  The ambassadors of Recared
respectfully offered on the threshold of the Vatican his rich presents of gold
and gems; they accepted, as a lucrative exchange, the hairs of St. John the
Baptist; a cross, which enclosed a small piece of the true wood; and a key,
that contained some particles of iron which had been scraped from the chains
of St. Peter. ^134

[Footnote 130: Osset, or Julia Constantia, was opposite to Seville, on the
northern side of the Boetis, (Plin. Hist. Natur. iii. 3:) and the authentic
reference of Gregory of Tours (Hist. Francor. l. vi. c. 43, p. 288) deserves
more credit than the name of Lusitania, (de Gloria Martyr. c. 24,) which has
been eagerly embraced by the vain and superstitious Portuguese, (Ferreras,
Hist. d'Espagne, tom. ii. p. 166.)]

[Footnote 131: This miracle was skilfully performed.  An Arian king sealed the
doors, and dug a deep trench round the church, without being able to intercept
the Easter supply of baptismal water.]

[Footnote 132: Ferreras (tom. ii. p. 168 - 175, A.D. 550) has illustrated the
difficulties which regard the time and circumstances of the conversion of the
Suevi.  They had been recently united by Leovigild to the Gothic monarchy of
Spain.]

[Footnote 133: This addition to the Nicene, or rather the Constantinopolitan
creed, was first made in the eighth council of Toledo, A.D. 653; but it was
expressive of the popular doctrine, (Gerard Vossius, tom. vi. p. 527, de
tribus Symbolis.)]

[Footnote 134: See Gregor. Magn. l. vii. epist. 126, apud Baronium, Annal.
Eccles. A.D. 559, No. 25, 26.]

     The same Gregory, the spiritual conqueror of Britain, encouraged the
pious Theodelinda, queen of the Lombards, to propagate the Nicene faith among
the victorious savages, whose recent Christianity was polluted by the Arian
heresy.  Her devout labors still left room for the industry and success of
future missionaries; and many cities of Italy were still disputed by hostile
bishops.  But the cause of Arianism was gradually suppressed by the weight of
truth, of interest, and of example; and the controversy, which Egypt had
derived from the Platonic school, was terminated, after a war of three hundred
years, by the final conversion of the Lombards of Italy. ^135

[Footnote 135: Paul Warnefrid (de Gestis Langobard. l. iv. c. 44, p. 153, edit
Grot.) allows that Arianism still prevailed under the reign of Rotharis, (A.D.
636 - 652.) The pious deacon does not attempt to mark the precise era of the
national conversion, which was accomplished, however, before the end of the
seventh century.]

     The first missionaries who preached the gospel to the Barbarians,
appealed to the evidence of reason, and claimed the benefit of toleration.
^136 But no sooner had they established their spiritual dominion, than they
exhorted the Christian kings to extirpate, without mercy, the remains of Roman
or Barbaric superstition.  The successors of Clovis inflicted one hundred
lashes on the peasants who refused to destroy their idols; the crime of
sacrificing to the demons was punished by the Anglo-Saxon laws with the
heavier penalties of imprisonment and confiscation; and even the wise Alfred
adopted, as an indispensable duty, the extreme rigor of the Mosaic
institutions. ^137 But the punishment and the crime were gradually abolished
among a Christian people; the theological disputes of the schools were
suspended by propitious ignorance; and the intolerant spirit which could find
neither idolaters nor heretics, was reduced to the persecution of the Jews.
That exiled nation had founded some synagogues in the cities of Gaul; but
Spain, since the time of Hadrian, was filled with their numerous colonies.
^138 The wealth which they accumulated by trade, and the management of the
finances, invited the pious avarice of their masters; and they might be
oppressed without danger, as they had lost the use, and even the remembrance,
of arms.  Sisebut, a Gothic king, who reigned in the beginning of the seventh
century, proceeded at once to the last extremes of persecution. ^139 Ninety
thousand Jews were compelled to receive the sacrament of baptism; the fortunes
of the obstinate infidels were confiscated, their bodies were tortured; and it
seems doubtful whether they were permitted to abandon their native country.
The excessive zeal of the Catholic king was moderated, even by the clergy of
Spain, who solemnly pronounced an inconsistent sentence: that the sacraments
should not be forcibly imposed; but that the Jews who had been baptized should
be constrained, for the honor of the church, to persevere in the external
practice of a religion which they disbelieved and detested.  Their frequent
relapses provoked one of the successors of Sisebut to banish the whole nation
from his dominions; and a council of Toledo published a decree, that every
Gothic king should swear to maintain this salutary edict.  But the tyrants
were unwilling to dismiss the victims, whom they delighted to torture, or to
deprive themselves of the industrious slaves, over whom they might exercise a
lucrative oppression.  The Jews still continued in Spain, under the weight of
the civil and ecclesiastical laws, which in the same country have been
faithfully transcribed in the Code of the Inquisition. The Gothic kings and
bishops at length discovered, that injuries will produce hatred, and that
hatred will find the opportunity of revenge.  A nation, the secret or
professed enemies of Christianity, still multiplied in servitude and distress;
and the intrigues of the Jews promoted the rapid success of the Arabian
conquerors. ^140

[Footnote 136: Quorum fidei et conversioni ita congratulatus esse rex
perhibetur, ut nullum tamen cogeret ad Christianismum. ... Didiceret enim a
doctoribus auctoribusque suae salutis, servitium Christi voluntarium non
coactitium esse debere.  Bedae Hist. Ecclesiastic. l. i. c. 26, p. 62, edit.
Smith.]

[Footnote 137: See the Historians of France, tom. iv. p. 114; and Wilkins,
Leges Anglo-Saxonicae, p. 11, 31.  Siquis sacrificium immolaverit praeter Deo
soli morte moriatur.]

[Footnote 138: The Jews pretend that they were introduced into Spain by the
fleets of Solomon, and the arms of Nebuchadnezzar; that Hadrian transported
forty thousand families of the tribe of Judah, and ten thousand of the tribe
of Benjamin, &c. Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, tom. vii. c. 9, p. 240 - 256.]

[Footnote 139: Isidore, at that time archbishop of Seville, mentions,
disapproves and congratulates, the zeal of Sisebut (Chron. Goth. p. 728.)
Barosins (A.D. 614, No. 41) assigns the number of the evidence of Almoin, (l.
iv. c. 22;) but the evidence is weak, and I have not been able to verify the
quotation, (Historians of France, tom. iii. p. 127.)]

[Footnote 140: Basnage (tom. viii. c. 13, p. 388 - 400) faithfully represents
the state of the Jews; but he might have added from the canons of the Spanish
councils, and the laws of the Visigoths, many curious circumstances, essential
to his subject, though they are foreign to mine.

     Note: Compare Milman, Hist. of Jews iii. 256 - M]

     As soon as the Barbarians withdrew their powerful support, the unpopular
heresy of Arius sunk into contempt and oblivion.  But the Greeks still
retained their subtle and loquacious disposition: the establishment of an
obscure doctrine suggested new questions, and new disputes; and it was always
in the power of an ambitious prelate, or a fanatic monk, to violate the peace
of the church, and, perhaps, of the empire.  The historian of the empire may
overlook those disputes which were confined to the obscurity of schools and
synods.  The Manichaeans, who labored to reconcile the religions of Christ and
of Zoroaster, had secretly introduced themselves into the provinces: but these
foreign sectaries were involved in the common disgrace of the Gnostics, and
the Imperial laws were executed by the public hatred.  The rational opinions
of the Pelagians were propagated from Britain to Rome, Africa, and Palestine,
and silently expired in a superstitious age.  But the East was distracted by
the Nestorian and Eutychian controversies; which attempted to explain the
mystery of the incarnation, and hastened the ruin of Christianity in her
native land. These controversies were first agitated under the reign of the
younger Theodosius: but their important consequences extend far beyond the
limits of the present volume.  The metaphysical chain of argument, the
contests of ecclesiastical ambition, and their political influence on the
decline of the Byzantine empire, may afford an interesting and instructive
series of history, from the general councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, to the
conquest of the East by the successors of Mahomet.