during this period h. We may, indeed, discover a favorable disposition in the ecclesiastical historians, Socrates, Sozomen and Theodoret; of whom the two first defended the reputation of its former advocates, and the last neglected to insert it in his general Catalogue of heresies. But on the other hand, it appears that Antipater, bishop of Bostra in Arabia, undertook to refute the Apology of Pamphilus and Eusebius for Origen; and that about the same time, a Council at Rome, in A. D. 496, either gave or followed the example i .

A. D. 450, to 500.

XI. But other and more interesting causes may be assigned for the deep silence which pervades the ecclesiastical writings of this period, with regard to Universalism.

h To this period, if not to a later, may perhaps be assigned the anonymous Apology for Origen, in five books, which Photius describes (Biblioth. Cod. 117.) without fixing its date. According to him, it was of little value. The author, it appears, mentioned Clemens Alexandrinus, Dionysius the Great, and even Demet.ius, as witnesses in favor of Origen; and he strove, particularly, to defend Pamphilus and Eusebius, which shows that it was after they had been reproached for their Apology, perbaps by Jerome, perhaps by Antipater. He also acknowledged and maintained Origen's doctrine of Pre-existence and some other heterodox notions; but he denied that Origen had been guilty of the following errors charged upon him; That the Son is not to be invoked, not absolutely good, and knows not the Father as he knows himself; That rational natures enter into brutes, and that there is a transmigration into different kinds of bodies; That the soul of Christ was that of Adam; That there is no eternal punishment for sinners, nor resurrection of the flesh; That magic is not evil, and that the influence of the stars governs our conduct; That the only begotten Son will, hereafter, possess no kingdom; That the holy angels came into the world as fallen creatures, not to assist others; That the Father cannot be seen by the Son; That the Cherubim are merely the thoughts of the Son; That Christ, the image of God, so far as he is the image, is not the true God.' i Huet, Origenian. Lib. ii. cap. 4. Sect. ii. § 24, 25.

476.

There is no wonder it should have been overlooked, or if known to exist, that it should have been suffered to pass unnoticed, when subjects far different, and of the most distracting nature, engrossed the attention of all christendom. The Roman Empire in the West, was going to wreck amidst the boisterous and conflicting waves that rolled in upon it from the fierce North; and it finally sunk under the ceaseless attacks, in the year Odoacer, king of the Heruli, enjoyed the spoils, and stretched his sceptre over all Italy. But though fallen, the country was not permitted to repose in the quiet of death. Other conquerors advanced from the exhaustless regions of barbarism, and in their turn wrested the power from the recent victors. From Rome to Britain, from the Danube to Africa, all was a scene of anxiety, alarm and distress. Amidst the general commotion, the church beheld, with equal chagrin and fear, the exiled Arians return along with the invading hosts of their barbarian converts, and under the patronage of the Huns, Goths and Vandals, assume the preeminence in Italy, Gaul and the African provinces, The Catholics now dreaded, and they sometimes felt, the scourge of retribution; but they still retained sufficient spirit to wage, at intervals, a polemical contest with the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians. The doctrines of absolute moral inability, and arbitrary election, were so novel, that a large part of the western christians retained, like the eastern, the former ground, on a medium between Augustine and his professed opponents; and

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the extreme difficulty of distinguishing the variable limits of heresy and orthodoxy, betrayed several into what was thought fatal error, and gave an earnest of the endless and undeterminable controversy which had been provided for acute and subtile disputants. The

Roman Pontiffs, however, had other subjects of interest, in the terrible and shameful contentions that raged, with unprecedented violence and duration, in the eastern churches.

The Empire of the East, though little annoyed by foreign enemies, was agitated by the desperate quarrels of the clergy, who have left on the records of this age one of the blackest stains that disgrace the pages of ecclesiastical history. The great archbishopric of Egypt, which had hitherto maintained its superiority among the eastern diocesses, watched, with an envious eye, the growing influence of the new See of Constantinople, which was rapidly ascending to a rank next that of Rome; and the two successive prelates of Alexandria, who inherited the vices and the jealousy of Theophilus, had already shaken Nestorius and after him Flavian, from the episcopal throne of the rival city, by means of some intricate questions concerning the union of the divine and human natures of Christ. All the East, from the Nile and the Bosphorus to the Euphrates, took sides for a long contest, in which honor and freedom were staked, and deposition and banishment were the penalty of failure. The artifices, the outrageous injustice and shameless effrontery which prevail in the most degenerate courts in times of violent faction, disgraced three

General Councils, in quick succession, and procured for one of them, even in that age, an appellation which truly belonged to all, The Assembly of Robbers. The indignant spectator gladly turns from these deplorable scenes; and we may only remark, that before the close of this century, the Nestorian, Eutychian and Monophysite heresies were successively condemned, as they arose, and that amidst riots, intrigue, bribery, kicks and blows, was established the present orthodox faith concerning the two natures of Christ: that his divinity and humanity are most closely and intimately united in one person, while they are nevertheless distinct.

XII. Nothing remains but to close with a passing notice of the Manicheans. Under this appellation, which had now grown somewhat indefinite, may be comprehended about all the Gnostic christians of this century; for the Priscillianists, who were numerous in Spain, and a few Marcionites, scattered in various parts, were often classed, and not very improperly, with the more genuine followers of Mani, who lurked in every quarter of christendom. All of them had been led, by their intercourse with the Roman world, to modify their general system, and to omit some of their fables; but they always adhered to their fundamental doctrine of two Ori

j At Ephesus, in A. D. 431; at the same place, in A. D. 449; and at Chalcedon, in A. D. 451. That in A. D. 449 is not reckoned, by the Catholics, among the General Councils, because the legates of the Pope were excluded. k of this contest Gibbon (Decline and Fall &c. chap. xlvii.) has given a description to the life, which though slightly marked with his infidel irony, seems well supported, and does not differ, materially, from the narrative of the Catholic Fleury, (Eccl. Hist. Book xxv. and onwards.)

ginal Principles, the distinct causes of Good and Evil. On one solitary point we may prefer their views to those entertained by a large part of the orthodox: they contemplated Deity in the unchangeable character of universal and perfect benevolence. This important sentiment, together with their fanciful notion concerning the divine emanation of all souls, would naturally incline them to expect the eventual recovery of human nature; but how far they approached towards this conclusion, does not distinctly appear. They still retained enough of their oriental peculiarities to render them intolerable to the Greek and the Roman sects'; and while the cruel laws of persecution compelled them to the most careful concealment, the sharp-sighted zeal of the bishops and governors often detected them through all their disguises.