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memorated by the annual festival of the exalta- CHAP. tion of the cross. Before the emperor presumed to tread the consecrated ground, he was instructed to strip himself of the diadem and purple, the pomp and vanity of the world: but in the judgment of his clergy, the persecution of the Jews was more easily reconciled with the precepts of the gospel. He again ascended his throne to receive the congratulations of the ambassadors of France and India: and the fame of Moses, Alexander, and Hercules," was eclipsed, in the popular estimation, by the superior merit and glory of the great Heraclius. Yet the deliverer of the East was indigent and feeble. Of the Persian spoils, the most valuable portion had been expended in the war, distributed to the soldiers, or buried, by an unlucky tempest, in the waves of the Euxine. The conscience of the emperor was oppressed by the obligation of restoring the wealth of the clergy, which he had borrowed for their own defence: a perpetual fund was required to satisfy these inexorable creditors; the provinces, already wasted by the arms and avarice of the Persians, were compelled to a second payment of the same taxes; and the arrears of a simple citizen, the treasurer of Damascus, were commuted to a fine of one hundred thousand pieces of gold. The loss of two hundred thousand

of the case had never been broken; and this preservation of the cross is ascribed (under God) to the devotion of Queen Sira.

George of Pisidia, Acroas. iii, de Expedit. contra Persas, 415, &α, and Heracleid, Acroas, i, 65-138. I neglect the meaner parallels of Daniel, Timotheus, &c. Chosroes and the chagan were of course come pared to Belshazzar, Pharaoh, the old serpent, &c.

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CHAP. soldiers who had fallen by the sword, was of less fatal importance than the decay of arts, agriculture, and population, in this long and destructive war: and although a victorious army had been formed under the standard of Heraclius, the unnatural effort appears to have exhausted rather than exercised their strength. While the emperor triumphed at Constantinople or Jerusalem, an obscure town on the confines of Syria was pillaged by the Saracens, and they cut in pieces some troops who advanced to its relief: an ordinary and trifling occurrence, had it not been the prelude of a mighty revolution. These robbers were the apostles of Mahomet; their fanatic valour had emerged from the desert; and in the last eight years of his reign, Heraclius lost to the Arabs the same provinces which he had rescued from the Persians.

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CHAP. XLVIH.

Theological history of the doctrine of the incarnationThe human and divine nature of Christ-Enmity of the patriarchs of Alexandria and Constantinople-St. Cyril and Nestorius-Third general council of Ephesus -Heresy of Eutyches-Fourth general council of Chalcedon-Civil and ecclesiastical discord-Intolerance of Justinian-The three chapters-the Monothelite controversy-State of the oriental sects-I. The Nestorians -II. The Jacobites-III. The Maronites-IV. The Armenians-V. The Copts and Abyssinians.

AFTER the extinction of paganism, the Christ- CHAP. ians in peace and piety might have enjoyed their solitary triumph. But the principle of discord The incarwas alive in their bosom, and they were more Christ. solicitous to explore the nature, than to practise the laws, of their founder. I have already observed, that the disputes of the TRINITY were succeeded by those of the INCARNATION; alike scandalous to the church, alike pernicious to the state, still more minute in their origin, still more durable in their effects. It is my design to comprise in the present chapter, a religious war of two hundred and fifty years, to represent the ecclesias

XLVII.

CHAP. tical and political schism of the oriental sects, and to introduce their clamours or sanguinary contests, by a modest inquiry into the doctrines of the primitive church.

* By what means shall I authenticate this previous inquiry, which I have studied to circumscribe and compress? If I persist in supporting each fact or reflection by its proper and special evidence, évěry line would demand a string of festimonies, and every note would swell to a critical dissertation. But the numberless passages of antiquity which I have seen with my own eyes, are compiled, digested, and illustrated, by Petavius and Le Clerc, by Beausobre and Mosheim. I shall be content to fortify my narrative by the names and characters of these respectable guides; and in the contemplation of a minute or remote object, I am not ashamed to borrow the aid of the strongest glasses. 1. The Dogmata Theologica of Petavius, is a work of indredible labour and compass; the volumes which relate solely to the incarnation, (two folios, vth and vith, of 837 pages), are divided into xvi books the first of history, the remainder of controversy and deetrine. The Jesuit's learning is copious and correct; his Latinity is pure, his method clear, his argument profound and well connected: but he is the slave of the fathers, the scourge of heretics, and the enemy of truth and candour, as often as they are inimical to the catholic cause. 2. The Armenian Le Clerc, who has composed in a quarto volume, (Amsterdam 1716), the ecclesiastical history of the two first centuries, was free both in his temper and situation; his sense is clear, but his thoughts are narrow; he reduces the reason or folly of ages to the standard of his private judgment, and his impartiality is sometimes quickened, and sometimes tainted, by his oppos. ition to the fathers. See the heretics, (Corinthians, lxxx; Ebionites, ciii; Carpocratians, cxx; Valentinians, cxxi; Basilidians, cxxiii; Marcionites, cxli, &c.), under their proper dates. 3. The Histoire Critique du Manicheisme (Amsterdam, 1734, 1739, in two vols. in 4to, with a posthumous dissertation sur les Nazarenes, Lausanne, 1745) of M. de Beausobre, is a treasure of ancient philoso phy and theology. The learned historian spins with incomparable art the systematic thread of opinion, and transforms himself by turns into the person of a saint, a sage, or an heretic. Yet his refinement is sometimes excessive: he betrays an amiable partiality in favour of the weaker side, and, while he guards against calumny, he does not allow sufficient scope for superstition and fanaticism. A copious table of contents will direct the reader to any point that he wishes to examine. 4. Less profound than Petavius, less independent than Le Clerc,

Í. A laudable regard for the honour of the first CHAP.

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proselytes, has countenanced the belief, the hope, the wish, that the Ebionites, or at least the Naza- 1. A pure renes, were distinguished only by their obstinate perseverance in the practice of the Mosaic rites. Their churches have disappeared, their books are obliterated: their obscure freedom might allow a latitude of faith, and the softness of their infant creed would be variously moulded by the zeal or prudence of three hundred years. Yet the most charitable criticism must refuse these sectaries any knowledge of the pure and proper divinity of Christ. Educated in the school of Jewish prophecy and prejudice, they had never been taught to elevate their hopes above an human and temporal Messiah. If they had courage to hail their king when he appeared in a plebeian garb, their grosser apprehensions were incapable of discerning their God, who had studiously disguised his celestial character under the name and person of a mortal. The familiar