narratives, under the title of Viridarum Sanctorum. It is to be wished that some gentleman would employ his leisure in a translation of it. We should then be furnished, from the works of the Agiographists of the eastern church, with a collection of pious and instructing narratives, similar to those in the well known Histoires choisies. One of the most curious articles inserted in the Acta Sanctorum of the Bollandists, is the Muscovite or Russian Calendar, with the engravings of the saints. It was first published by Father Possevin. He praises the Russians for the great attention to decency which they observe in their pictures. and engravings of holy subjects. He mentions, that the Russians who accompanied him in his return to Rome, observed, with surprise, in the Italian paintings of saints, a want of the like attention. Father Papebrooch, when he cites this passage, adopts the remark, and loudly calls on Innocent XII. to attend to the gene-ral decency of all public paintings and statues. A Greek Calendar of the Saints in Hexameter verse accompanies the Russian Calendar, in the Acta Sanctorum; both are illustrated with notes by Father Papebrooch.

IX. 6. We proceed to the Lives of the Saints written by individuals. For these our attention must be first directed to the Agiographists of the Greek church. The 8th century may be considered as the period when Grecian literature had reached its lowest state of depression; in the ninth, Bardas Cæsar, the brother of the Empress Theodora, protected letters; from that time they were constantly cultivated by the Greeks; so that Constantinople, till it was taken by Mahomet, was never without its historians, poets, or philosophers. Compared with the writings of the ancients, their compositions seem lifeless and unnatural; we look among them in vain either for original genius or successful imitation. Still they are entitled to our gratitude; many of the precious remains of antiquity have come down to us only in their extracts and abridgements; and their voluminous compilations have transmitted to us much useful information which has no other existence Sacred biography, in particular, has great obligations to them. The earliest work on that subject we owe to the care which the Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus bestowed on the literary education of his son; an example which,

at the distance of about 600 years, was successfully rivalled by the elegant edition of the Delphin Classics, published under the But the Greek emperor had this advan

auspices of Lewis XIV tage over the French monarch, that he himself was the author of some of the works published for the use of his son. In the first (published by Lerch and Reisch at Leipsic in 1751,) he describes the ceremonial of the Byzantine court; the second published by Banduri, in his Imperium Orientale,) is a geographical survey of the provinces, or, as he calls them, the Themata of the empire; the third, which some ascribe to the Emperor Leo his father, describes the prevailing system of military tactics; the fourth delineates the political relations and intercourse of the court of Byzantium with the other states. His Geoponics, published by Nicholas Niclas at Leipsic, in 1731, in two volumes 8vo) were written with a view of instructing his subjects in agriculture. By his direction, a collection of historical examples of vice and virtue was compiled in 53 books, and Simeon Metaphrastes, the great logothete or chancellor of the empire, composed his Lives of the Saints. Several of them were published, with a Latin translation, by the care of Lipoman, the bishop of Verona. Cardinal Bellarmin accuses Metaphrastes of giving too much loose to his imagination; "He inserts," says the Cardinal, "such accounts of conversations of the martyrs with their persecu"tors, and such accounts of conversions of by-standers, as exceed "belief. He mentions many and most wonderful miracles on the "destruction of the temples and idols, and on the death of the persecutors, of which nothing is said by the ancient historians.” We next come to Jacobus de Voragine, a Dominican friar and archbishop of Genoa, in 1292. His Golden Legend was the delight of our ancestors, during the ages which preceded the revival of letters. The library of no monastery was without it. Like the essays of Montaigne, it was to be found on the shelf of every private person; and, for a long time after the invention of printing, no work more often issued from the press. After enjoying the highest degree of reputation, it lost much of its celebrity, in consequence of the Lives of Saints published by Mombritius in two immense volumes in folio, about the year 1480, from manuscripts in the library of the church of Saint John of Lateran; and in con

In

sequence of the Lives of Saints published by Surius a Carthusian monk. The first edition of Surius's work was published in 1570-1575, in six volumes; the second appeared in 1578, the third and most complete was published, in twelve volumes, in 1615. That he frequently shews too much credulity, and betrays a want of taste, must be admitted; but his works are allowed to breathe a spirit of piety; his candour, and desire to be accurate, are discernible in every part of his writings; and his learning, for the age in which he lived, was considerable Ribadeneira the line of ancient Agiographists respectably finishes, While candour and good taste must allow, that, even in the best of the compilations we have mentioned, there is a great want of critical discernment, and that they are wholly deficient in elegance, and the artificial beauties of composition, justice requires that their defects should not be exaggerated. Still less should an intention to deceive, even on the pretence of edification, be imputed to them. Whatever may have been either the error or the criminality of some of her members, the church herself, in this, as in every other instance, has always inculcated the duty of sincerity and truth, and reprobated a deviation from them, even on the specious pretence of producing good. On this subject our Au thor thus forcibly expresses himself, in one of his letters on Mr Bower's History of the Lives of the Popes: "It is "It is very unjust "to charge the Popes or the Catholic Church, with countenan" cing knowingly false legends; seeing all the divines of that com"munion unanimously condemn all such forgeries, as lies in

things of great moment, and grievous sins and all the coun"cils, popes, and other bishops, have always expressed the great"est horror of such villanies; which no cause or circumstances "whatever can authorise, and which, in all things relating to re

ligion, are always of the most heinous nature. Hence the au"thors, when detected, have been always punished with the ut"most severity. Dr Burnet himself, says, that those who feign"ed a revelation at Basil, of which lie gives a long detail, with "false circumstances, in his letters on his travels, were all burnt "at stakes for it, which we read more exactly related by Surius ❝in his Commentary on his own Times. The truth is, that

many false legends of true martyrs were forged by heretics, as

"ture.

<< were those of St George, condemned by Pope Gelasius, as many false gospels were soon after the birth of Christianity, of "which we have the names of near 50 extant. Other wicked or "mistaken persons have sometimes been guilty of a like imposA priest at Ephesus forged acts of St Paul's voyages, "out of veneration for that apostle, and was deposed for it by St John the evangelist, as we learn from Tertullian. To instance "examples of this nature would form a complete history. For "the Church has always most severely condemned all manner of "forgeries. Sometimes the more virtuous and 'remote from "fraud a person is, the more unwilling he is to suspect an im"posture in others. Some great and good men have been imposed upon by lies, and have given credit to false histories, but "without being privy to the forgery; and nothing erroneous, dangerous, or prejudicial, was contained in what they unwarily "admitted. However, if credulity in private histories was too

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easy in any former age, certainly scepticism and infidelity are "the characters of this in which we live. No histories, except "those of holy Scripture, are proposed as parts of divine revela❝tion or articles of faith; all others rest upon their bare histori❝cal authority. They who do not think this good and sufficient "in any narrations, do well to suggest modestly their reasons: yet may look upon them at least as parables, and leave others "the liberty of judging for themselves without offence. But "Mr Bower says, p. 177," The Roman Breviary is the most "authentic book the church of Rome has, after the Scripture; "it would be less dangerous, at least in Italy, to deny any truth "revealed in the Scripture, than to question any fable related in "the Breviary." Catholic divines teach, that every tittle in the holy Scriptures is sacred, divinely inspired, and the word of "God dictated by the Holy Ghost. Even the definitions of ge"neral councils do not enjoy an equal privilege; they are indeed the oracles of an unerring guide in the doctrine of faith; which

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guide received, together with the scriptures, the true sense and meaning of the articles of faith contained in them; and, by the special protection of the Holy Ghost, invariably preserves the same by tradition from father to son, according to the promises "of Christ. But the church receives no new revelation of faith

'

and adds nothing to that which, was taught by the apostles. "2dly, Its decisions are not supernaturally infallible in matters

of fact, as scripture histories are, but only in matters of faith. "Nor do Catholics say, that its expressions, even in decisions of “faith, are strictly dictated by the Holy Ghost, or suggested "from him, by any immediate revelation or inspiration; but "only that the church is directed by his particular guidance ac"cording to his divine truths revealed and delivered to his church "by his apostles. As to the Roman Breviary, the prayers con"sist, for the greatest part, of the psalms, and other parts of the "holy scriptures, to which the same respect is due which we pay to the divine books. The short lessons from the homilies, or "other works of approved fathers, especially those fathers who are mentioned by Gelasius I. in his decree, carry with them "the authority of their venerable authors. As it was the cus"tom in the primitive ages to read, in the churches or assemblies, the acts of the most illustrious martyrs, of which frequent "mention is made in those of St Polycarp, &c. some short his"tories of the martyrs and other saints, have been always insert"ed in the Breviary, to which only an historical assent is due, "whence they have been sometimes altered and amended. These

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are chiefly such as are judged authentic and probable by the Cardinals Baronius and Bellarmine, who revised those lessons, "in the last correction under Clement VIII. Gavant, who was "himself one of the revisers of the Breviary, and secretary to the congregation, writes thus: [in Breviar. sect. 5. c. 12. n. 15. p. 18] The second lessons from the histories of the saints "were revised by Bellarmine and Baronius, who rejected what "could be justly called in question: in which difficult task they "thought it best to restore the truth of history with the least "change possible, and to retain those things which had a certain "degree of probability, and had the authority of some grave "voucher, though the contrary sentiment had perhaps more pa"trons." In computing the years of the popes, the chronology "of Baronius was judged the most exact, and retained. Histori"cal facts, no ways revealed or contained in Scripture, cannot be "made an object of divine faith. If edifying histories are inserted

in the church-office, they stand upon their own credit. Such