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genius the usurper was a sort of * nominal Christian, who took every step to endear himself to the Pagans, and from whose favour they expected great things. We may therefore look upon this war as upon a struggle between Paganism and Christianity, in which the latter, by God's blessing, was superior, without ascribing the success to the orthodoxy of the emperor, and to the intervention of saints. See Tillemont, Hist. des Emp. v. 356. &c.

Theodosius, when he was to engage with Eugenius, shut himself in a church one night, to pray, and falling asleep, he saw in a vision two men in white apparel, on white horses, who promised him that they would assist him; the one was St Philip the apostle, and the other St John the evangelist. Theodoret,

v. 24.

In Tillemont's Hist. des Emp. T. v. this important vision is represented en taille-douce, in a print, in the frontispiece, as the most signal occurrence in the fourth century.

The story seems to have been borrowed from the old Pagan story of Castor and Pollux, who fought for the Romans, and appeared equis candidus insidentes, as the Roman historians inform us. The only thing wanting to compleat the parallel was, that the apostles should have stroked the emperor's beard, and turned it red.

Whilst the battle was fought, a dæmoniac at Constantinople was raised up in the air, and began to curse John the Baptist, and to reproach him that he had been beheaded, and to scream out, It is you who conquer me and destroy my army. Sozom. vii. 24.

* Philostorgius says that he was a Pagan, p. 538.

Either

Either the devil and Sozomen, or else Theodoret seem to have made a mistake, for the two first ascribe the victory to John the Baptist, and the third to John the Evangelist.

The

The last Pagan prince who was a formidable enemy to Christianity was Rudagaisus, a king of the Goths. He threatened no less than the ruin of the Roman empire, and invaded it with an army, as it is said, of four hundred thousand men, about A. D. 405. Romans were saved from the hand of this barbarian, and slew him, and obtained a most signal victory, which they ascribed to a particular providence. Tillemont has collected with his usual accuracy what is recorded concerning this great deliverance. Hist. des Emp. v. 538. S. Basnage also hath given a large account of it, Annal. iii. 212.

Radagaisus had vowed to sacrifice all the Romans to his gods. The Pagans in Rome and in Italy, who still were numerous, imputed these calamities to the introduction of Christianity, and to the suppression of Paganism, and were disposed to rebel and to reestablish their old religious rites.

But the Romans, commanded by Stilicho, obtained a complete victory, without any loss of men, and Radagaisus, together with his sons, was taken prisoner, and put to death.

Baronius assures us that the victory was owing to the assistance of Ambrose, though Augustin, and Orosius, who give the glory of it to God, might have taught him better.

If bigotry and political godliness did not eat up all shame, Christians would not presume to ascribe a wonderful deliverance to Ambrose, rather than to Je

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sus Christ, upon the authority of an obscure mortal, one Paulinus, who wrote a life of Ambrose full of lying miracles, and who yet has not affirmed it.

But, it seems, the divine providence can do nothing without the intercession of saints. Radagaisus besieged Florence. This city was reduced to the utmost straits, when saint Ambrose, who had once retired thi ther, (and who had now been dead nine years) appeared to a person of the house where he had lodged, and promised him that the city should be delivered from the enemy on the next day. The man told it to the inhabitants, who took courage, and resumed the hopes which they had quite lost and on the next day came Stilicho with his army. Paulinus, who relates this, learned it from a lady who lived at Florence. And this proves what Saint Paulinus says, that God granted the preservation of the Romans to the prayers of Saint Peter, Saint Paul, and the other martyrs and confessors who were honoured by the church throughout the empire. Tillemont, Hist. des

Emp. v. p. 540.

One might have asked Saint Paulinus, the bishop of Nola, Where wast thou, when the apostles and martyrs made supplication for the Romans? Didst thou stand by and hear them? Say no more about it, but go thy ways and cut chips out of the cross, which, as thou hast told us, grows again as fast as it is diminished.

Hunneric, the Vandal, was an Arian, a cruel prince, and a most inhuman persecutor of the Consubstantilists, A. D. 484. This barbarian spared not even those of his own sect, or his own friends and kindred. His end, as historians relate, was suitable to his iniquities, and such as he would have equally deserved,

if he had been a Consubstantialist, and had destroyed the Arians. His sufferings, supposing them to be divine judgments, prove nothing at all as to the controversy but only this, that God hates tyranny and cruelty, the wickedness of which is a clear and uncontested point.

Dum diris cruciatibus Ecclesiam Africanam lacerat Hunnericus, sensit non mortalibus, sed Christo injuriam se fecisse, elementis ipsis primum ad pœnas impio irrogandas festinantibus. Pluviá negatá, remansit lurida terræ facies: nullis arbores frondibus, nullis segetibus tellus cooperiebatur. Lues gravem animalibus et hominibus cladem immittebat. Juvenum, senum, adolescentium, adolescentularum, puerorum agmina simul et funera passim diffundebantur. Catervatim Carthaginem confluebant animata cadavera. Miseros ea urbe pelli Rex e vestigio jubet, ne contagio deficientium commune pararet etiam exercitui ejus sepulchrum. Neque multo post regio corpori horrenda pœna irrogatur, quam Victoris verbis referemus: Tenuit sceleratissimus Hunnericus dominationem regni, annis septem, mensibus decem, meritorum suorum mortem consummans. Nam putrefactum et ebulliens vermibus non corpus, sed partes corporis ejus videntur esse sepultæ. Multa de suo, vel ex falso rumore petita, tragica Hunnerici morti addidit Gregorius Turonensis: Hunnericus post tantum facinus arreptus a Dæmone, qui diu de Sanctorum sanguine pastus erat, propriis se morsibus laniabat. In quo etiam cruciatu vitam indignam justa morte finivit.

Dirum magni regis supplicium ubique locorum clamat, Discite justitiam moniti, nec temnite Christum. S. Basnage Ann. iii. p. 570.

There

There is nothing improbable in Victor's account; but yet he is a writer who deals so much in the marvellous, that there is no trusting him. More credit ought to be given to the excellent Thuanus, who thus represents the barbarities and the death of some modern persecutors.

In the reign of Francis the first, the remainders of the Vaudois were massacred by the French Catholics with the utmost brutality. "The baron D'Oppede, "who conducted the affair, was called to account for

it, and was screened and protected by some great men ; “but not long after, this inhuman wretch was seized "with racking pains in his bowels, and died in most mi"serable anguish, and God who suffered him to escape "the punishment which his judges ought to have in"flicted upon him, punished him himself in a severer "manner.'

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A Roman monk, called John, signalized himself at that time in persecuting these poor innocent people. "He invented a new kind of torment; he put their legs into boots full of boiling tallow, and then laughing at them, he asked them, if they were not "well equipped for their journey.-Having heard "that the parliament of Aix, by orders from the king, had condemned him, he fled to Avignon, where

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being screened from men, and from human courts "of justice, he could not escape divine vengeance. "He was stripped of all his effects by his domestics, "and reduced to a state of beggary: his body was "covered all over with loathsome ulcers, and he lived

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long in this horrible condition, often wishing for death, which came not till he had endured dread"ful torments." See Le Clerc, Bibl. Ch. xxvii. 1.

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