many of the Pagans. But the Jews, though they require signs and wonders, yet have not been moved by these miracles to embrace the Gospel.' Socrates vii. 4.

This is one of the most plausible miracles that are related of those days. There is nothing in it absurd and unrea, sonable, either in the fact, or the circumstances, or the tendency. Add to this, that Atticus, by whose ministry it is said to have been wrought, was a good prelate, an enemy to violence and persecution, and remarkable for charity and moderation, as Sozomen informs us. But when we con sider the genius of the fifth century, and of the historians and writers of those times, it is impossible not to hesitate.

It deserves also some consideration, whether the bathing, and the force of imagination joined together, might not by a natural operation remove a paralytic disorder.

Symeon Stylites began to perch upon his pillar, A. D. 423. In his days the Christians of Antioch, by an insolent act of violence, took away from the Jews their synagogues. The emperor Theodosius junior, when he first heard of it, fol lowing the dictates of equity, commanded the Christians to restore to the Jews what was their property. Upon this the zealous Symeon, after the example of Ambrose, wrote a reprimanding letter to the emperor, and obliged him to change his sentiments, and to patronize these illegal and unchristian proceedings. Tam acriter eum objurgavit, ut imperator, revocata jussione sua, cuncta in gratiam Christi anorum fecerit, et præfecto prætorii, qui hæc ipsi sugges serat, potestatem abrogaverit.' Evagrius i. 13.

This gives an ugly blow on the head to Symeon's mi racles; since it is hard to suppose that the Divine Providence should commit preternatural powers to the hands of a monk, who was not only an enthusiast, but a patron of persecutors, rioters, robbers, house-breakers, and seditious subjects.

Symeon's pillar was enclosed, afterwards, in a portico, and an annual miracle was wrought there, of which Evagrius himself was an eye-witness. Ad lævum igitur columnæ latus, ipse cum reliqua populi multitudine ibi collecta, saltantibus circa columnam rusticis, vidi in fenestra stellam immensæ magnitudinis, per totam fenestram discurrentem atque radiantem: neque id semel, aut iterum ac tertio, sed

sæpius: eandemque crebro evanescentem, atque iterum subito apparentem. Quod quidem non nisi diebus festis, quibus sancti viri memoria quotannis recolitur, fieri solet. Sunt etiam qui dicant (nec fides deroganda est miraculo, tum ob autoritatem eorum qui id affirmant, tum propter alia quæ nos vidimus) se ipsam illius personam vidisse, huc atque illuc volitantem, promissa barba, et capite tiara obvoluto, sicuti consueverat.' i. 14.

This fire was an ignis fatuus, contrived by the monks to deceive the devout assembly, and such dupes as Evagrius. What tricks would not these monks have played if they had possessed the secret of electricity ?

A Jewish boy having eaten some of the consecrated bread with his Christian school-fellows, A. D. 536, his father, who was a glass-maker, discovered it, and flung the poor child into his fiery furnace, and locked him in. After three days, the disconsolate mother found him there safe and sound. A fine lady, as the boy declared, clothed in a purple robe, had been with him in the furnace, and had cooled the flames, and given him meat and drink. This lady was the Virgin Mary, who, about the year 408, began to manifest herself, and to work continual miracles. Tidings of these wonders came to the ears of Justinian, who ordered the mother and the boy to be baptized, and admitted amongst the ecclesiastics: but the father, obstinately refusing to receive Christianity, was, by command of the emperor, crucified in the suburbs of Constantinople, as the murderer of his own child. For this story we are indebted to Evagrius, iv. 36.

The miracle of the confessors, who in those days spake plainly after their tongues were cut out by the persecuting Arians, is also attested by Evagrius, iv. 14. Other miracles of this kind are related in later history, and are equally improbable.

In the Chronicon Saxonicum, which is a collection of things some useful and some of small moment, we are told that pope Leo the Third was deposed by the Romans, who cut out his tongue, and pulled out his eyes, A. D. 797; and that he saw and talked after this as well as he did before. Compare this with Fleury, H. E. x. p. 22.

Agobard, archbishop of Lyons, A. D. 829, had drawn upon himself the hatred of the Jews, who were numerous VOL. II.

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in that city, by baptizing their slaves. The Jews, says he, buy Pagan slaves; those slaves learn our language, and often take a liking to our religion, and address themselves to us, and beg to be baptized. Can we refuse them? or did the apostles use to reject such converts? We desire not to rob the masters; we are willing to redeem their slaves, and to return them the full price which they paid for them, &c.

The emperor Louis was persuaded to take part with the Jews in this affair; upon which Agobard wrote him a letter of remonstrances, which, upon the whole, seem not to be unreasonable. In this letter he charges the Jews with the crime of stealing Christian children, and selling them for slaves. Fleury, H. E. x. 319, &c.

It is observable that the popes1 in all times have showed far more kindness and clemency to the Jews than the Christian princes. One reason was, that the court of Rome hath usually excelled all other courts in policy, craft, and worldly wisdom. It saw the folly of driving away and distressing the Jews, and it knew the use that was to be made of an industrious people, skilful in commerce and in the manage ment of revenues; who had no particular dislike to papal authority, no disposition to assist heretics, schismatics, enemies of popery, reformers, and separatists, and no credit to make proselytes to their own religion.

The council of Basil, held A. D. 1434, extending its pastoral care and its jurisdiction very widely, thought it proper not to overlook the Jews, who were numerous in that city, and in Germany. It ordered the prelates, in all places where there were Jews, to appoint learned divines to preach to them. The sovereign princes were obliged to send all the Jews in their dominions to attend at the sermon, and heavy penalties were to be inflicted on any person who should hide or detain them. At the same time it was forbidden to eat with them, or to keep them company. It was not lawful to have footmen, nurses, physicians, or farmers of that nation, or to let them houses near any church, or in the middle of any city: and that they might be the more easily

1 As Gregory, at the end of the sixth century; Alexander II. A. D. 1068. Innocent III. A. D. 1198. Gregory IX. A. D. 1236. John XXII. A. D. 1320, &c.

known, they were obliged to wear a particular habit. Lastly, the council passed a condemnation, and inflicted penalties on those who should pawn to them the sacred books, crosses, chalices, and the ornaments of churches.

• The council made regulations also relating to the Jews who should receive Christianity. These converts acquired, by baptism, a right to enjoy their own possessions and goods, those excepted which they had gained by usury; for they were obliged to restore these extortions, if the persons wronged were living; and, in case of death, as the church was the mistress of these unlawful and confiscated gains, she made a present of them to the new converts. This regulation was of a singular kind; for the church hath no right to appropriate to herself the goods of. particular persons, especially if they had acquired them before they entered into the church, and in the days of their ignorance; nor can she exercise it to the prejudice of the children and the heirs of those to whom restitution was due. This also was an obstacle to the conversion of the Jews, by stripping them of their acquisitions.

The council also, by a law of its own, declared the converted Jews capable of all civil offices in the city where they were baptized, because, forsooth, it is more noble to be born anew of the Holy Ghost than to be born of the flesh. Councils have no business to dispose of the charges and pri vileges of corporations; and the reason here assigned is droll; namely, that regeneration gives men a right to temporal dignities.

The council, after all, could not be certain of the sincerity of these proselytes, and seems to have doubted of it; for it permitted not the new converts to receive and return mutual visits, or to dwell together, knowing by experience that they only helped to spoil one another, and that their faith was rather weakened than improved by such intercourse. It also forbad them to bury their dead according to the Jewish ritual, to observe the sabbath, and other national ceremonies; a sufficient proof that, these new Christians were not sincere. It ordered the curates to seek out Christian wives for these Jews, and to get them advan tageous matches; and as it granted great privileges to the proselytes, it denounced terrible punishments against

dissemblers, ordering the priests to watch them narrowly, to deliver them to the inquisitors, and to make use of the secular arm, that they might be punished with the utmost rigour; declaring that they who should protect these pretended converts should be treated as friends to heretics: and carrying its authority still further, it annulled and annihilated all privileges formerly granted to the Jews, either by popes or by emperors. One is amazed to hear ecclesiastics talk at this rate, confounding things temporal with spiritual, political with ecclesiastical, and drawing false consequences from the one to the other. With reason the council or dered that there should be care taken to instruct the Jews, and that they should be relieved by the alms of Christians; but by mere usurpation it claimed a power over emperors and imperial laws.' Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, t. v. p. 2051.

In the year 1650, the Jews, as it is said, held an assembly in the plain of Ageda in Hungary, to examine the Scriptures concerning Christ. Many of them seemed disposed to own him for the promised Messias; but upon hearing the doctrines of Christianity, as they were represented by some priests of the church of Rome who were present at the assembly, they were shocked at such idolatrous tenets, and cried out Blas phemy, and chose rather to reject the Gospel than to admit such a sort of Christianity.

The Narrative of these remarkable proceedings was drawn up by Samuel Bret, who was present at that sy nod, and is published in the Phoenix, vol. i. The question is, whether this Narrative have any more truth in it than the Adventures of Telemachus. The authors of the Acta Eruditorum declared their just suspicions concerning itCeterum sunt in ea relatione nonnulla, quæ si plane du biam fidem ejus non reddant, rerum saltem Judaicarum ig norantiæ auctorem arguant. Doctissimo certe Basnagio in erudito de Historia Judæorum opere plane illud Concilium prætermissum observamus.' 1709. p. 104.

Many things have been reported of us that never entered into the thoughts of our nation; as I have seen a fabulous narrative of the proceedings of a great council of the Jews, assembled in the plain of Ageda, in Hungary, to determine whether the Messiah were come or no. Manasseh Ben