The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

E >> Edward Gibbon >> The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

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[Footnote 83: The opinions of Ulphilas and the Goths inclined to
semi- Arianism, since they would not say that the Son was a
creature, though they held communion with those who maintained
that heresy. Their apostle represented the whole controversy as
a question of trifling moment, which had been raised by the
passions of the clergy. Theodoret l. iv. c. 37.]
[Footnote 84: The Arianism of the Goths has been imputed to the
emperor Valens: "Itaque justo Dei judicio ipsi eum vivum
incenderunt, qui propter eum etiam mortui, vitio erroris arsuri
sunt." Orosius, l. vii. c. 33, p. 554. This cruel sentence is
confirmed by Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. vi. p. 604 - 610,) who
coolly observes, "un seul homme entraina dans l'enfer un nombre
infini de Septentrionaux, &c." Salvian (de Gubern. Dei, l. v p.
150, 151) pities and excuses their involuntary error.]

[Footnote 85: Orosius affirms, in the year 416, (l. vii. c. 41,
p. 580,) that the Churches of Christ (of the Catholics) were
filled with Huns, Suevi, Vandals, Burgundians.]

[Footnote 86: Radbod, king of the Frisons, was so much
scandalized by this rash declaration of a missionary, that he
drew back his foot after he had entered the baptismal font. See
Fleury, Hist. Eccles. tom. ix p. 167.]
[Footnote 87: The epistles of Sidonius, bishop of Clermont, under
the Visigotha, 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]
[Footnote 88: Genseric confessed the resemblance, by the severity
with which he punished such indiscreet allusions. Victor
Vitensis, l. 7, p. 10.]
The peace of the church was sometimes interrupted. The
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. ^89 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 unfavorable interpretation of his actions; and
the Arians were reproached with the frequent executions which
stained the palace and the dominions of the tyrant. 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, tormented the Catholics with the same unrelenting
fury which had been fatal to his brother, his nephews, and the
friends and favorites 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
Gundamund, who reigned about twelve, and by Thrasimund, who
governed the nation about 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 accomplished
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 favor, were
the liberal rewards of apostasy; 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, 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 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. ^90

[Footnote 89: Such are the contemporary complaints of Sidonius,
bishop of Clermont (l. vii. c. 6, p. 182, &c., edit. Sirmond.)
Gregory of Tours who quotes this Epistle, (l. 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]

[Footnote 90: 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.)]
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 the 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, ^91 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 condemned their past conduct or acquiesced in
their actual suffering. 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
Manichaeans; ^92 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. ^93 II. The practice of
a conference, which the Catholics had so frequently used to
insult and punish their obstinate antagonists, was retorted
against themselves. ^94 At the 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 clamor. 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. ^95 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. ^96 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, ^97 and the plenty of Sardinia was overbalanced by
the unwholesome quality of the air. ^98 III. The zeal of Generic
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 appear in a Barbarian dress; and those who presumed to
neglect the royal mandate were rudely dragged backwards by their
long hair. ^99 The palatine officers, who refused to profess the
religion of their prince, were ignominiously stripped of their
honors and employments; banished to Sardinia and Sicily; or
condemned to the servile labors of slaves and peasants in the
fields 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 favorite amusement of the march to
defile the churches, and to insult the clergy of the adverse
faction. ^100 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. ^101 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 his contempt of lighter penalties
suggests the use and propriety of capital punishment. Through the
veil of fiction and declamation we may clearly perceive, that the
Catholics more especially under the reign of Hunneric, endured
the most cruel and ignominious treatment. ^102 Respectable
citizens, noble matrons, and consecrated virgins, were stripped
naked, and raised in the air by pulleys, with a weight suspended
at their feet. In this painful attitude their naked bodies were
torn with scourges, or burnt in the most tender parts with
red-hot plates of iron. The amputation of the ears the nose, the
tongue, and the right hand, was inflicted by the Arians; and
although the precise number cannot be defined, it is evident that
many persons, among whom a bishop ^103 and a proconsul ^104 may
be named, were entitled to the crown of martyrdom. The same honor
has been ascribed to the memory of Count Sebastian, who professed
the Nicene creed with unshaken constancy; and Genseric might
detest, as a heretic, the brave and ambitious fugitive whom he
dreaded as a rival. ^105 VI. A new mode of conversion, which
might subdue the feeble, and alarm the timorous, was employed by
the Arian ministers. They imposed, by fraud or violence, the
rites of baptism; and punished the apostasy of the Catholics, if
they disclaimed this odious and profane ceremony, which
scandalously violated the freedom of the will, and the unity of
the sacrament. ^106 The hostile sects had formerly allowed the
validity of each other's baptism; and the innovation, so fiercely
maintained by the Vandals, can be imputed only to the example and
advice of the Donatists. VII. The Arian clergy surpassed in
religious cruelty the king and his Vandals; but they were
incapable of cultivating the spiritual vineyard, which they were
so desirous to possess. A patriarch ^107 might seat himself on
the throne of Carthage; some bishops, in the principal cities,
might usurp the place of their rivals; but the smallness of their
numbers, and their ignorance of the Latin language, ^108
disqualified the Barbarians for the ecclesiastical ministry of a
great church; and the Africans, after the loss of their orthodox
pastors, were deprived of the public exercise of Christianity.
VIII. The emperors were the natural protectors of the Homoousian
doctrine; and the faithful people of Africa, both as Romans and
as Catholics, preferred their lawful sovereignty to the
usurpation of the Barbarous heretics. During an interval of
peace and friendship, Hunneric restored the cathedral of
Carthage; at the intercession of Zeno, who reigned in the East,
and of Placidia, the daughter and relict of emperors, and the
sister of the queen of the Vandals. ^109 But this decent regard
was of short duration; and the haughty tyrant displayed his
contempt for the religion of the empire, by studiously arranging
the bloody images of persecution, in all the principal streets
through which the Roman ambassador must pass in his way to the
palace. ^110 An oath was required from the bishops, who were
assembled at Carthage, that they would support the succession of
his son Hilderic, and that they would renounce all foreign or
transmarine correspondence. This engagement, consistent, as it
should seem, with their moral and religious duties, was refused
by the more sagacious members ^111 of the assembly. Their
refusal, faintly colored by the pretence that it is unlawful for
a Christian to swear, must provoke the suspicions of a jealous
tyrant.

[Footnote 91: Victor, iv. 2, p. 65. Hunneric refuses the name of
Catholics to the Homoousians. He describes, as the veri Divinae
Majestatis cultores, his own party, who professed the faith,
confirmed by more than a thousand bishops, in the synods of
Rimini and Seleucia.]

[Footnote 92: Victor, ii, 1, p. 21, 22: Laudabilior ...
videbatur. In the Mss which omit this word, the passage is
unintelligible. See Ruinart Not. p. 164.]

[Footnote 93: Victor, ii. p. 22, 23. The clergy of Carthage
called these conditions periculosoe; and they seem, indeed, to
have been proposed as a snare to entrap the Catholic bishops.]
[Footnote 94: 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.]
[Footnote 95: 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.
Note: These names appear to have been introduced by the
Donatists. - M.]
[Footnote 96: 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.]

[Footnote 97: 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.]
[Footnote 98: Si ob gravitatem coeli interissent vile damnum.
Tacit. Annal. ii. 85. In this application, Thrasimund would have
adopted the reading of some critics, utile damnum.]

[Footnote 99: See these preludes of a general persecution, in
Victor, ii. 3, 4, 7 and the two edicts of Hunneric, l. ii. p. 35,
l. iv. p. 64.]
[Footnote 100: See Procopius de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 7, p. 197,
198. A Moorish prince endeavored to propitiate the God of the
Christians, by his diligence to erase the marks of the Vandal
sacrilege.]

[Footnote 101: See this story in Victor. ii. 8 - 12, p. 30 - 34.
Victor describes the distress of these confessors as an
eye-witness.]
[Footnote 102: See the fifth book of Victor. His passionate
complaints are confirmed by the sober testimony of Procopius, and
the public declaration of the emperor Justinian. Cod. l. i. tit.
xxvii.]

[Footnote 103: Victor, ii. 18, p. 41.]

[Footnote 104: Victor, v. 4, p. 74, 75. His name was
Victorianus, and he was a wealthy citizen of Adrumetum, who
enjoyed the confidence of the king; by whose favor he had
obtained the office, or at least the title, of proconsul of
Africa.]

[Footnote 105: Victor, i. 6, p. 8, 9. After relating the firm
resistance and dexterous reply of Count Sebastian, he adds, quare
alio generis argumento postea bellicosum virum eccidit.]

[Footnote 106: Victor, v. 12, 13. Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom.
vi. p. 609.]
[Footnote 107: Primate was more properly the title of the bishop
of Carthage; but the name of patriarch was given by the sects and
nations to their principal ecclesiastic. See Thomassin,
Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. i. p. 155, 158.]

[Footnote 108: The patriarch Cyrila himself publicly declared,
that he did not understand Latin (Victor, ii. 18, p. 42:) Nescio
Latine; and he might converse with tolerable ease, without being
capable of disputing or preaching in that language. His Vandal
clergy were still more ignorant; and small confidence could be
placed in the Africans who had conformed.]

[Footnote 109: Victor, ii. 1, 2, p. 22.]

[Footnote 110: Victor, v. 7, p. 77. He appeals to the ambassador
himself, whose name was Uranius.]

[Footnote 111: Astutiores, Victor, iv. 4, p. 70. He plainly
intimates that their quotation of the gospel "Non jurabitis in
toto," was only meant to elude the obligation of an inconvenient
oath. The forty-six bishops who refused were banished to
Corsica; the three hundred and two who swore were distributed
through the provinces of Africa.]

Chapter XXXVII: Conversion Of The Barbarians To Christianity.
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.]