CENT. VIII. or introduced by the authority of private persons. PART II Be that as it may, this single custom is sufficient

Charle

magne's zeal

the church of

Rome.

to give us an idea of the superstition and darkness that sat brooding over the christian church in this ignorant age, and renders it unnecessary to enter into a further detail of the absurd rites with which a designing priesthood continued to disfigure the religion of Jesus.

IL Charlemagne seemed disposed to stem this for the rites of torrent of superstition, which gathered force from day to day; for not to mention the zeal with which he opposed the worship of images, there are other circumstances that bear testimony to his intentions in this matter, such as his preventing the multiplication of festivals, by reducing them to a fixed and limited number, his prohibiting the ceremony of consecrating the church bells by the rite of holy aspersion, and other ecclesiastical laws of his enacting, which redound to his honour. Several circumstances however concurred to render his designs abortive, and to blast the success of his worthy purposes, and none more than his excessive attachment to the Roman pontiffs, who were the patrons and protectors of those who exerted themselves in the cause of ceremonies. This vehement passion for the lordly pontiff was inherited by the great prince of whom we are now speaking, from his father Pepin, who had already commanded the manner of singing, and the kind of church music in use at Rome, to be observed every where in all christian churches. It was in conformity with his example, and in compliance with the repeated and importunate solicitation of the pontiff Adrian, that Charlemagne laboured to bring all the Latin churches to follow, as their model, the church of Rome, not only in the article now mentioned,

• See Charlemagne's book concerning images, p. 245; as also George Calixtus, De Missis Solitariis, § 12.

PART II.

but also in the whole form of their worship, in ev- CENT. VIII. ery circumstance of their religious service. Several churches however, among which those of Milan and Corbetta distinguished themselves eminently, absolutely rejected this proposal, and could neither be brought, by persuasion nor violence, to change their usual method of worship.

CHAPTER V.

CONCERNING THE DIVISIONS AND HERESIES THAT TROUBLED THE
CHURCH DURING THIS CENTURY.

sects recover

1. THE arians, manicheans, and marcionites, The ancient though often depressed by the force of penal laws, strength. and the power of the secular arm, gathered strength in the east, amidst the tumults and divisions with which the Grecian empire was perpetually agitated, and drew great numbers into the profession of their opinions. The monothelites, to whose cause the emperor Philippicus, and many others of the first rank and dignity were most zealous well wishers, regained their credit in several places. The condition also of both the nestorians and monophysites was easy and agreeable under the dominion of the Arabians; their power and influence was considerable; nor were they destitute of means of weakening the Greeks, their irreconcilable adversaries, and of spreading their doctrines, and mul

See Charlemagne's Treatise concerning images, book i. p. 52. Eg inard, De vita Caroli Magni, cap. 26, p. 94, edit. Besselii.

& In Europe also arianism prevailed greatly among the barbarous nations that embraced the christian faith.

CENT. VIII. tiplying every where the number of their adher

PART II.

Clemens and
Adalbert.

ents.

I. In the church which Boniface had newly erected in Germany, he himself tells us, that there were many perverse and erroneous reprobates, who had no true notion of religion, and his friends and adherents confirm this assertion. But the testimony both of the one and the others is undoubtedly partial, and unworthy of credit; since it appears from the most evident proofs, that the persons here accused of errors and heresies were Irish and French divines, who refused that blind submission to the church of Rome, which Boniface was so zealous to propagate every where. Adalbert, a Gaul, and Clement, a native of Ireland, were the persons whose opposition gave the most trouble to the ambitious legate. The former got himself consecrated bishop, without the consent of Boniface, excited seditions and tumults among the eastern Franks, and appears indeed to have been both flagitious in his conduct, and erroneous in his opinions; among other irregularities, he was the forger" of a letter to the human race, which was said to have been written by Jesus Christ, and to have been carried from heaven by the archangel Michael. As to Clement, his character and sentiments were maliciously misrepresented, since it appears, by the best and most authentic accounts, that he was much better acquainted with the true principles and doctrines of Christianity than Boniface himself; and hence he is considered by many as a confessor and sufferer for the truth in this barbarous age. Be

See the Histoire Litteraire de la France, tom. iv. p. 82.

There is an edition of this letter published by the learned Stephen Baluzius, in the Capitularia Regum Francorum, tom. ii. p. 1396.

We find an enumeration of the erroneous opinions of Clement in the letters of Boniface Epistol. cxxxv. p. 189. See also Usserii Sylloge Epistolarum Hibernicarum, p. 12. Nouveau Dictionnaire Histor. Critic. tom. i. p. 133. The zealous Boniface was too ignorant to be a prop

265

PAR II.

that as it will, both Adalbert and Clement were CENT. VIIL condemned, at the instigation of Boniface, by the pontiff Zachary, in a council assembled at Rome, A. D. 748, and in consequence thereof were committed to prison, where, in all probability, they concluded their days.

pand.

IL Religious discord ran still higher in Spain, Felix and EliFrance, and Germany, toward the conclusion of this century; and the most unhappy tumults and commotions were occasioned by a question proposed to Felix, bishop of Urgella, by Elipand, archbishop of Toledo, who desired to know in what sense Christ was the Son of God. The answer which the former gave to this question was, that Christ, considered in his divine nature, was truly and essentially the Son of God; but that, considered as a man, he was only so, nominally and by adoption. This doctrine was spread abroad by the two prelates; Elipand propagated it in the different provinces of Spain, and Felix throughout Septimania, while the pontiff Adrian, and the greatest part of the Latin doctors, looked upon this opinion

er judge of heresy, as appears by his condemning Virgilius for believing that there were antipodes. The great heresy of Clement seems to have been his preferring the decisions of scripture to decrees of councils and the opinions of the fathers, which he took the liberty to reject when they were not conformable to the word of God.

This is the true date of the council assembled by Zachary for the condemnation of Adalbert and Clement, and not the year 745, as Fleury* and Mabillon† have pretended, in which error they are followed by Mr. Bower, in the third volume of his History of the Popes, p. 325. The truth is, that the letter of Boniface, in consequence of which this council was assembled, must have been wrote in the year 748; since he declares in that letter, that he had been near thirty years legate of the holy see of Rome, into which commission he entered, as all authors agree, about the year 719.

*Hist. Ecclesiast. tom. ix. p. 296.

↑ Annal. Ord. Benedict. lib. xxii. n. 8.

PART II.

sons.

CENT. VIII. as a renovation of the nestorian heresy by its representing Christ as divided into two distinct perIn consequence of this, Felix was successively condemned by the councils of Narbonne, Ratisbon, Francfort on the Maine, and Rome; and was finally obliged, by the council of Aix la Chapelle, to retract his error, and to change his opinion. The change he made was, however, rather nominal than real, the common shift of tempo. rizing divines; for he still retained his doctrine, and died in the firm belief of it at Lyons, where he had been banished by Charlemagne." Elipand, on the contrary, lived secure in Spain under the dominion of the Saracens, far removed from the thunder of synods and councils, and out of the reach of that coercive power in religious matters whose utmost efforts can go no further than to make the erroneous hypocrites or martyrs. Many are of opinion that the disciples of Felix, who were called adoptians, departed much less from the doctrine generally received among christians, than is commonly imagined; and that what chiefly distinguished their tenets was the term they used, and their manner of expression, rather than a real diversity of sentiments. But as this sect, togeth

The council of Narbonne that condemned Felix, was held in the year 788, that of Ratisbon in 792, that of Francfort in 794, that of Rome in 799.

The authors who have written concerning the sect of Felix, are mentioned by J. Alb. Fabricius, Biblioth. Lat. medii ævi, tom, ii, p. 482. Add to these Petrus de Marca, in his Marca Hispanica, lib. iii. cap. xii. p. 368. Jo. de Ferreras, Histoire Generale d'Espagne, tom. ii. p. 518, 523, 528, 535, 560. Jo. Mabillon, Præf. ad Sac. iv. Actor. SS. Ord. Benedicti, part ii. There are also very particular accounts given of Felix by Dom. Colonia, Histoire Litteraire de la Ville de Lyon, tom. ii. p. 70, and by the benedictine monks in their Histoire Litteraire de la France, tom. iv. p. 434.

Jo. George Dorscheus, Collat, ad concilium Francofurt, p. 101. Werenfels, De Logomachiis Eruditor. p. 459. Opp. Jac. Basnagiùs