XXI. violence and murder; and some catholic priests, CHAP. who had imprudently signalized their zeal, were tortured by the fanatics with the most refined and wanton barbarity. The spirit of the circumcel. lions was not always exerted against their defence, less enemies; they engaged, and sometimes de, feated, the troops of the province; and in the bloody action of Bagai, they attacked in the open field, but with unsuccessful valour, an advanced guard of the imperial cavalry. The donatists who were taken in arms, received, and they soon deserved, the same treatment which might have been shewn to the wild beasts of the desert. The captives died, without a murmur, either by the sword, the axe, or the fire; and the measures of retaliation were multiplied in a rapid proportion, which aggravated the horrors of rebellion, and excluded the hope of mutual forgiveness. In the beginning of the present century, the example of the circumcellions has been renewed in the per secution, the boldness, the crimes, and the enthusiasm of the camisards; and if the fanatics of Languedoc surpassed those of Numidia, by their military achievements, the Africans maintained their fierce independence with more resolution and perseverance.* gious Such disorders are the natural effects of religious Their relis tyranny; but the rage of the donatists was in-suicides, flamed by a frenzy of a very extraordinary kind; The Histoire des Camisards, in 3 vol. 12mo. Villefranche, 1760, may be recommended as accurate and impartial. It requires some attention to discover the religion of the author, XXI. CHAP. and which, if it really prevailed among them in so extravagant a degree, cannot surely be paralleled in any country, or in any age. Many of these fanatics were possessed with the horror of life, and the desire of martyrdom; and they deemed it of little moment by what means, or by what hands, they perished, if their conduct was sanctified by the intention of devoting themselves to the glory of the true faith, and the hope of eternal happiness. Sometimes they rudely disturbed the festivals, and profaned the temples of paganism, with the design of exciting the most zealous of the idolaters to revenge the insulted honour of their gods. They sometimes forced their way into the courts of justice, and compelled the affrighted judge to give orders for their immediate execution. They frequently stopped travellers on the public highways, and obliged them to inflict the stroke of martyrdom, by the pro mise of a reward, if they consented, and by the threat of instant death, if they refused to grant so very singular a favour. When they were disappointed of every other resource, they announced the day on which, in the presence of their friends and brethren, they should cast themselves headlong from some lofty rock; and many precipices were shewn, which had acquired fame by the number of religious suicides. In the actions of these desperate enthusiasts, who were admired by one party as the martyrs of God, and abhorred by The donatist suicides alleged in their justification the example of Razias, which is related in the 14th chapter of the second book of the Maccabees. i J XXI. the other as the victims of Satan, an impartial CHAP. philosopher may discover the influence and the last abuse of that inflexible spirit, which was originally derived from the character and principles of the Jewish nation. character sects. A. D. 312-361. The simple narrative of the intestine divisions, General which distracted the peace, and dishonoured the of the triumph, of the church, will confirm the remark of christian a pagan historián, and justify the complaint of a venerable bishop. The experience of Ammianus had convinced him, that the enmity of the christians towards each other surpassed the fury of savage beasts against man;" and Gregory Nazianzen most pathetically laments, that the kingdom of heaven was converted, by discord, into the image of chaos, of a nocturnal tempest, and of hell itself. The fierce and partial writers of the times, ascribing all virtue to themselves, and imputing all guilt to their adversaries, have painted the battle of the angels and demons. Our calmer reason will reject such pure and perfect monsters of vice or sanctity, and will impute an equal, or at least an indiscriminate, measure of good and evil to the hostile sectaries, who assumed and bestowed the appellations of orthodox and heretics. They had been educated in the same religion, and the same civil society. Their hopes and fears in the present, or in a future life, were balanced in the same proportion. On either side, the error might be in z Nullas infestas hominibus bestias, ut sunt sibi ferales plerique christianorum expertus. Ammian. xxii, 5. a Gregor. Nazianzen, Orat. i, p. 33. See Tillemont, tom. vi. p. 501, quurto edit. xxi. CHAP. nocent, the faith sincere, the practice meritorious or corrupt. Their passions were excited by similar objects; and they might alternately abuse the favour of the court, or of the people. The metaphysical opinions of the athanasians and the arians could not influence their moral character; and they were alike actuated by the intolerant spirit, which has been extracted from the pure and simple maxims of the gospel. Toleration ism A modern writer, who, with a just confidence, of pagan has prefixed to his own history the honourable epithets of political and philosophical," accuses the timid prudence of Montesquieu, for neglecting to enumerate, among the causes of the decline of the empire, a law of Constantine, by which the exercise of the pagan worship was absolutely suppressed, and a considerable part of his subjects was left destitute of priests, of temples, and of any public religion. The zeal of the philosophic historian for the rights of mankind has induced him to acquiesce in the ambiguous testimony of those ecclesiastics, who have too lightly ascribed to their favourite hero the merit of a general persecution. Instead of alleging this imaginary Histoire Politique et Philosophique des Etablissemens des Eu opéens dans les deux Indes, tom. i, p. 9. According to Eusebius (in Vit. Constantin. 1. ii, c. 45) the emperor prohibited, both in cities and in the country, ra pvrage Edwλoλarguas; the abominable acts or parts of idolatry. Socrates (1. i, c. 17) and Sozomen (1. ii, c. 4, 5) have represented the conduct of Constantine with a just regard to truth and history; which has been neglected by Theodoret (1. v, c. 21) and Orosius (vii, 28). Tum deinde (says the latter primus, Constantinus justo ordine et pio vicem vertit edicto siquidem statuit citra ullam hominum cædem, paga norum templa claudi. XXI. stantinc law, which would have blazed in the front of the CHAP. imperial codes, we may safely appeal to the original epistle, which Constantine addressed to the followers of the ancient religion, at a time when he no longer disguised his conversion, nor dreaded the rivals of his throne. He invites and exhorts, in the most pressing terms, the subjects of the Roman empire to imitate the example of their master; but he declares, that those who still re- by Confuse to open their eyes to the celestial light, may freely enjoy their temples, and their fancied gods. A report, that the ceremonies of paganism were suppressed, is formally contradicted by the emperor himself, who wisely assigns, as the principle of his moderation, the invincible force of habit, of prejudice, and of superstition." Without violating the sanctity of his promise, without alarming the fears of the pagans, the artful monarch advanced, by slow and cautious steps, to undermine the irregular and decayed fabric of polytheism. The partial acts of severity which he occasionally exercised, though they were secretly prompted by a christian zeal, were coloured by the fairest pretences of justice and the public good; and while Constantine designed to ruin the foundations, he seemed to reform the abuses, of the ancient religion. After the example In the sermon d See Eusebius in Vit. Constantin. 1. ii, c. 56, 60. to the assembly of saints, which the emperor pronounced when he was mature in years and piety, he declares to the idolaters (c. xi) that they are permitted to offer sacrifices, and to exercise every part of their religious worship. |