CHAP. X. ON THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY FROM THE SUBVERSION OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE TO THE END OF THE THIR- CLOVIS, the king of the Franks who had fixed their refidence in Gaul, had embraced the Christian faith, A. D. 496. Hence a more willing ear was lent in the beginning of the next century by his fubjects to the preaching of Remigius: and numerous converts profeffed the Gofpel. Converts multiplied also among the Heruli, the Alani, and other barbarous nations of the Weft: and in the Eaft among the Abafgi, who bordered on Mount Caucafus. It is however to be feared that many of the new Christians were imperfectly acquainted with the doctrines, and ftill more imperfectly with the fpirit, of the religion which they adopted. And the converfion of vaft numbers of Jews in France, Spain, and Libya, appears to have been effected rather by menaces and violence than by the influence of fair argument on the underftanding. Columbus, an Irish monk, paff ing ing as a miffionary into the northern parts of Scotland, laboured among the natives with fuccefs. In England also the foundations of the true faith were laid afresh. Ethelbert, monarch of Kent, the most powerful of the contemporary Saxon princes, was gradually difpofed towards Christianity by his queen Bertha, the daughter of Cherebert, king of Paris. At this period, A. D. 596, the Roman pontiff Gregory, furnamed the Great, fent Auguftine, at the head of forty Benedictine monks, an order inftituted about seventy years before, to preach the Gospel. The king and the greater part of his fubjects were baptifed and Auguftine became the firft archbishop of Canterbury. In other parts of the island the idolatrous Saxons continued to exercise unrelenting cruelties against the antient inhabitants, who retained the Christian faith. In Italy the kingdom of the Oftrogoths was deftroyed, A. D. 566, by Narfes, the general of the Eaftern emperor Juftinian: and Rome, transformed into a dukedom, and degraded from the rank of a capital, was fubjected to the lieutenant of that monarch, who refided with the title of exarch at Ravenna. Two years afterwards a new revolution, terrible to the Chriftians, fupervened. A Pagan army of Lombards rufhing from Pannonia, Pannonia, overwhelmed Italy: and, with the exception of Rome and Ravenna, having mastered the whole country, and established their kingdom at Ticinum, grievously afflicted the followers of the Gofpel. In a fhort time, however, they embraced the religion which they had oppreffed. Autharius, their third monarch, adopted A. D. 587, the tenets of Arianifm: and his fucceffor acknowledged the Nicene faith. During the course of these transactions Perfia upheld its established character for cruelty to the Christian name. Chofroes, its monarch, denouncing vengeance not only against the perfon but against the God of Juftinian, flaughtered the Christians with every aggravation of torture, which inhumanity and impiety could furnish. Not many new controverfies of moment broke forth in this century. Of the old fects, Arianism, after a fhort triumph, received a blow from which it never was able to recover, by the expulfion of the Italian Goths and the African Vandals before the arms of Juftinian; and by the defection of Reccared, a Spanish fovereign, and of other princes. The Donatifts alfo, having loft the protection of the Vandals, finally dwindled, after a concluding effort, into oblivion. But the advantage which the church gained in these refpects was was balanced by the ftill encreasing preválence of ignorance and fuperftition. In the Weft, the little learning which remained was confined within the walls of the monafteries. It was by the protection of thofe walls that the manufcripts of the claffical: authors, though neglected, were preferved; and have defcended with the facred records of antiquity to a happier age. The tranquillity and the tafte of the Eastern empire were rather more favourable to fcience and literature; yet were unequal to the prevention of their decline. Additional rites, no lefs trivial than cumbrous, and ufages fitted only to lead men from looking for falvation through a life of Chriftian holinefs, disfigured and tended to explode true religion both in Europe and in Afia. The honour due unto God was transferred more and more to faints. An opinion. was industriously circulated by a corrupted and avaricious priesthood, that the forgivenefs of fins was to be purchafed by liberality to monafteries and convents, which multiplied daily and that the irrefiftible interceffion of departed faints would be exerted for the man, who had enriched the temples dedicated to their memory. After stating this fact, it is almoft needlefs to add that vice rapidly encreafed among the clergy as well as among among the laity. The bishops of Rome and of Conftantinople were ftill antagonists. The tidings that John, prelate of the latter city, had affumed the title of oecumenical, or univerfal, bishop, ftruck Pelagius the Roman pontiff with horror. Roufing himself at length to repel the fatal blow, he declaimed by his representative Gregory (who afterwards became pope, and a moft vehement affertor of Papal fupremacy,) against the blafphemy of the title; and thundered against his daring rival the portentous appellation of Antichrist. Perhaps he forgot that his own predeceffors, whose rights he was thus eager to maintain, had long claimed the jurisdiction implied in the name of universal bishop; and had affumed the kindred denomination of head of the universal church. At this period, however, the Gothic kings of Italy, no less than the Eaftern emperors, denied the unlimited authority of the pontiff; and exacted from him various tokens of submiffion. The feventh century witnessed the extenfion of the Chriftian faith in the Eaft to China and the remotest parts of Asia, chiefly by the labours of the Neftorians. In the West the faith of the Gofpel became universal throughout our own ifland; whence it was carried CC |