might use in framing their decrees, he sent them, a the same time, the long Edict which he had published thirteen or fourteen years before, with its catalogue heresies and of anathemas.

1

On the receipt of these papers, the fathers of the Council hastened to pay obedience to the request; and the following decree served at once to commend them to their master, and to betray, to the eye of the historian, their servility to the imperial dictation. "Whoever

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says or thinks that the souls of mankind pre-existed as "intellectual, holy natures, but that growing weary of "divine contemplation they degenerated to their present "character, and were sent into these bodies for the purpose of punishment, let him be anathema. Whoever says or thinks that the human soul of Christ pre"existed, and became united to the Word before its in— "carnation and nativity of the blessed Virgin, let him be "anatherna. Whoever says or thinks that the body of "Christ was first formed in the womb of the holy Virgin, "and that the Word and his pre-existent human soul

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were afterwards united with it, let him be anathema. “Whoever says or thinks that the Divine Word is to "become like the angelic and celestial powers, and thus "be reduced to an equality with them, let him be anath66 ema. Whoever says or thinks that in the resurrection "human bodies are to be of a round, globular form, or "whoever will not acknowledge that mankind are to "rise in an erect posture, let him be anathema. Who66 ever says that the sun, the moon, the stars, and the "waters above the heavens, are certain animated or intelligent powers, let him be anathema. Whoever says

or thinks that Christ is to be crucified in the future world for the demons, as he was, in this, for men, let nim be anathema. Whoever says or thinks that the power of God is limited, and that it has created all that it was able to embrace, let him be anathema. Whoever says or thinks that the torments of the demons and of impious men are temporal, so that they will, at length, come to an end, or whoever holds a restoration either of the demons or of the impious, let him 'be anathema. Anathema to Origen Adamantius, who 'taught these things among his detestable and accursed dogmas; and to every one who believes these things, or asserts them, or who shall ever dare to defend them "in any part, let there be anathema: In Christ Jesus "our Lord, to whom be glory forever. Amen "."

In addition to these fulminating sentences, an act of condemnation was passed upon those writings of Didymus of Alexandria and of Evagrius Ponticus, which advocated Pre-existence and Universal Restoration *.

A. D. 553 and 554.

X. The decree of a General Council was unalterable, and fixed the faith, at least the creed, of the Catholic Church, forever. It only remains that we mention the effects of this decision, on the Origenists of Palestine. When the condemnatory acts were sent to that province, they were subscribed by all the prelates, except Alexander of Abyla, who was accordingly expelled from his bishopric. The monks of Nova Laura also refused obedience, and withdrew from the general com

Summa Conciliorum, Auctore M. L. Bail. Tom. 1. P. 285, 286. Edit. Paris. 1672. t Vit. Sabæ cap. 90.

munion. The new Patriarch of Jerusalem, who had been appointed to that See during the late council, endeavored to reclaim the dissenters; but at the end of eight months, finding all persuasion vain, he availed himself of the emperor's authority, and by force drove the Origenists out of the country ".

u Ditto.

APPENDIX

TO THE ANCIENT HISTORY OF UNIVERSALISM.

[From A. D. 554, to A. D. 1500.]

I. Having brought the history of Universalism down to its complete and authoritative condemnation, we may, with all propriety, close the regular and connected narrative; especially as we have followed it into the dim twilight preceding the long age of darkness. But as curiosity naturally looks onwards, with an enquiring eye, through the gloomy succession of centuries from the Fifth General Council to the Era of the Reformation, I shall here annex such notices of the doctrine, during that period, as have occurred to me.

In the first Lateran Council, convened A. D. 649. at Rome, by Pope Martin I, in the year 649, against those who asserted but one will in Jesus Christ, the fathers repeated the anathema against Origen, and his followers, Didymus and Evagrius.

The Sixth General Council, held at A. D. 680. Constantinople in A. D. 680, recognized, for some reason, the condemnation of Origen, Didymus and Evagrius: either from a supicion that the heresy was still cherished; or else from a casualty in the form of expression. The principal business of this Council, convened like the Lateran against the

Monothelites, a sect so called from some distinguishing notions concerning the two natures of Christ, had not the least connexion with the subject of Origenism. Yet one of the declarations reads thus: "We agree with "the holy and universal, or general, Councils in all "things; especially with the last of them, the Fifth, "which was assembled in this city against Theodorus "of Mopsuestia, Origen, Didymus and Evagrius.

The Seventh General Council also, A. D. 787. which met, A. D. 787, at Nice in Bithynia, for the purpose of defending and establishing the use of images, relics, &c. in churches, has left on its records a sentence that may induce a suspicion that Universalism was not quite extinct: "we "anathematize the fables of Origen, Didymus and Eva"grius."

And the Eighth General Council, at A. D. 869. Constantinople in A. D. 869, likewise digressed from its proper objects, in order to pronounce an "anathema against Origen, who advanced many errors; and against Evagrius and Didymus, "who are caught in the same abyss of perdition "." This Council was called together on the memorable quarrel which resulted in the separation of the Greek from the Latin church; and therefore it had no natural concern with the fathers here condemned.

The introduction of this foreign topic, in these successive Synods, is at least a circumstantial evidence that it was not altogether, accidental; and that the obnoxious sentiments were thought to have some abettors, probably in the eastern church.

This indication is confirmed by a circumstance that

a For the sentences extracted from the Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Councils, see Hist. de l'Origenisme, par Louis Doucin, pp. 321, 322. For the notice of the Lateran Council, see Huetii Origenian. Lib. ii. cap. 4. Sect. iii. 17,