make him a saint and a martyr, titles to which he had small pretensions. But he had been an High-Churchman, and that was enough.

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Constans, says Athanasius, a most holy prince, was murdered by the execrable Magnentius, and received the crown of martyrdom. There are indeed many proofs that Constans was full of zeal for the church: but if we may say the plain truth, his morals were most unworthy of a Christian and a martyr. When a prince shewed an affection for the bishops, and for the peace of the church, as a kind of atonement for his vices, the ancients complimented him with the title of Most Religious, and bestowed it even upon Gallienus. Though willing to commend whatsoever was commendable in Constans, yet we cannot approve his dissolute life *.

Zonaras gives him an exceeding bad character.

In this century, the monastic life came into great yogue, and along with it pious frauds, and the spirit of persecution.

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Many monks, for a considerable time before, had dwelt each of them alone in the desart parts of Egypt: but Antony, in the year 305, first collected them into societies in Egypt. So that in a short time the east abounded with men, who forsaking the affairs and the conveniences of life, and all commerce with the public, pined away in hunger, thirst, bodily pain, and macerations of all sorts, that they might ascend to a communion with angels and with God."

This melancholy discipline passed over from the east to the west; and first it crept into Italy, and thence by degrees into other provinces of Europe.

Basnage ii. 810.

But

But they who would be well acquainted with the nature of this religious system, should observe that there was ever a wide difference between the western and the eastern monks, and that the former could never be tied up to the cruel severities which were practised by the latter. The truth is, our part of the world doth not so much abound with persons by nature rigid, morose, fanatical, and crack-brained, as those regions do which are exposed to the eastern sun; nor can our bodies endure the same abstinence and harsh discipline, which they are capable of bearing, who are natives of a dry and burning climate.

To these religious distempers, two capital errors are to be added, which in this age were almost generally adopted, and from which innumerable calamities were derived.

The first is, To lie and to deceive becomes a virtne, if religion can be profited by it. The second is, The wrong notions and mistakes of men in matters of faith, if upon admonition they are not renounced and anathematized, are to be chastised with bodily pains and punishments.

It is hardly possible to enumerate the multitude of ridiculous legends, false reports, and pious lies, which was propagated and continued through all ensuing ages, to the grievous detriment of true religion, by virtue of the first of these maxims, which indeed had found reception in the foregoing centuries, in some A curious and critical examiner of the actions and writings of the most eminent and pious doctors of this age, will, I fear, find almost all of them infected with this leprosy, not excepting Ambrose, or Hilary, or Augustin, or Gregory Nazianzen, or JeAnd perhaps by the same principle, Sulpitius

measure.

rom.

Severus, in other respects a man of good sense, was induced to ascribe so many miracles to his hero St Martin.

The latter of the above mentioned maxims, being approved by many, as soon as Constantine had given peace and power to the church, and corroborated by examples of severity in the ensuing contests with the Priscillianists and Donatists, and firmly established by the authority of Augustin, was transmitted as wholesome doctrine and discipline, to the following ages*."

Many serious Christians would not be so misled by the miracles of the fourth and following centuries, or so perplexed about them, or so fearful of rejecting them, if they had considered how soon a notion got admittance, that it was lawful to lie and to deceive in behalf of Christianity and of orthodoxy.

"In the time of Constantine and of his successors, the papyrus, or Egyptian paper, was still in vogue throughout the empire. It was in this age, or thereabouts, that was written the famous copy of the Gospel of St Mark, which is still kept in the treasury of Venice. I have seen and examined it, as far as one can examine a manuscript which is almost entirely effaced, and so rotten that the leaves sticking together,

if

you try to turn over one, all falls to pieces. These leaves of Egyptian paper seemed more delicate than any of those which I have seen in different places. By the form of the letters, it appeared to me the most ancient manuscript that is known; and I believe it may safely be affirmed that, to set it at the lowest time, it is of the fourth century. It is now 146 years since it hath been deposited in a subterraneous vault,

the

Mosheim, H. E. p. 168.

the top of which is lower than the neighbouring sca, when it flows. So that the water continually drops upon those whose curiosity brings them to view it. This extreme dampness has reduced the poor book to such a condition that there is no possibility of reading two words together. But it was legible, when it was first placed there, in 1564.

"The tax upon the importation of this paper being too heavy, towards the end of the fifth century, or the beginning of the sixth, Theodoric, king of Italy, an equitable prince, relieved the public of this imposition *"

This Gospel of St Mark is in Latin.

Julian began to reign A. D. 361, and died in 363. This emperor had tolerable abilities, and a few good qualities, debased with ridiculous and pedantic singularities, and with great faults. He was a superstitious pagan, and an inveterate enemy to Christianity. He was guilty of many mean, infamous, oppressive, unjust, and inhuman actions towards the Christians. Thus he ungratefully suffered Mark, bishop of Arethusa, a venerable old man, to be cruelly tormented by the Pagans, though Mark had saved Julian's life, by hiding him in a church, in his infancy.

The causes which brought on his apostacy might be perhaps a hatred for Constantius, whom indeed he had no great reason to esteem, a love for philosophy, the Arian and Athanasian controversy carried on with so much fury, and the behaviour of many ecclesiastics. which had not been amiable and alluring, a study of Pagan

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* Montfaucon, Mem. de L'Acad. t. ix. & Ant. Expl. Suppl. t. iii. p. 208, & Diar. Ital. Cave i. 24.

Pagan authors, and a familiar acquaintance with pagan grammarians, poets, orators, and philosophers. The platonists took early possession of him, and made him not only a pagan, but an enthusiast like themselves.

It is a question not easily to be resolved, whether the Christians might or might not have found some method to soften him, and to make him at least a cooler adversary. For on the one hand, Julian loved to be praised; and on the other, he was extremely obstinate and positive. Nusquam a proposito declinabat; Galli similis fratris, licet incruentus; says Ammianus. They might have commended what was really commendable in him, and have intreated him to imitate the wise Ulysses (for Julian was a classical man), who in Homer had the lovely character of being father of all his subjects: a character which no prince could hope to obtain, unless he left every one free to chuse his religion, and to serve the deity in his own way. But they had not amongst them one apologist, to try the experiment, and to address him a discourse handsomely drawn up in favour of religious liberty. Some Pagan philosophers undertook the honourable task, and exhorted Julian to allow all persons liberty of conscience. To say the truth, the Christians in Julian's time were not in that way of thinking.

"There was at Bercea a man illustrious on account of his rank and station, but more so for his religious zeal. His son had apostatized from the faith, and embraced Paganism; for which he expelled him from his house and disinherited him. The young man applied to Julian, who undertook to reconcile him to his father, and invited the principal persons of Beroa

αφὴρ δ ̓ ὡς ἔτιος ἦεν. Οέτες. Β. 233.