in many places of putting up prayers on certain days, for the souls that were confined in purgatory; but these prayers were made by each religious society, only for its own members, friends, and patrons. The pious zeal of Odilo could not be confined within such narrow limits; and he therefore extended the benefit of these prayers to all the souls that laboured under the pains and trials of purgatory. This proceeding of Odilo was owing to the exhortations of a certain Sicilian hermit, who pretended to have learned, by an immediate revelation from heaven, that the prayers of the monks of Clugni would be effectual for the deliverance of departed spirits from the expiatory flames of a middle state." Accordingly this festival was at first celebrated only by the congregation of Clugni ; but having received afterward the approbation of one of the Roman pontiffs, it was, by his order, kept with particular devotion in all the Latin churches.

the holy Vir

III. The worship of the Virgin Mary, which, before this century, had been carried to a very high degree The office of of idolatry. received now new accessions of sogin Mary. lemnity and superstition. Toward the conclusion of this century, a custom was introduced among the Latins of celebrating masses and abstaining from flesh, in honour of the blessed Virgin, every Sabbath day. After this, was instituted what the Latins called the lesser office, in honour of St Mary, which was, in the following century, confirmed by Urban II. in the council of Clermont. There are also to be found in this age manifest indications of the inInstitution of Stitution of the rosary and crown of the Virgin, by which her worshippers were to reckon the number of prayers that they were to offer to this new divinity; for though some place the invention of the rosary in the thirteenth century, and attribute it to St. Dominic, yet this supposition is made without any foundation.' The rosary consists in fifteen repetitions of the Lord's prayer, and an

the rosary.

i See Mabillon, Acta SS. Ord. Bened. Sæc. vi. part i. p. 584, where the reader will find the Life of Odilo, with the decree he issued forth for the institution of this festival.

k The late pontiff, Benedict XIV. was artful enough to observe a profound silence with respect to the superstitious and dishonourable origin of this anniversary festival, in his treatise De Festis J Christi Mariæ, et Sanctorum, lib. iii. cap. xxii p. 671, tom. x. oper, and by his silence he has plainly shown to the world what he thought of this ab surd festival. This is not the only mark of prudence and cunning that is to be found in the works of that famous pontiff.

1 This is demonstrated by Mabillon, Præf. ad Acta SS. Ord. Bened. Sæc. v. p. 58.

hundred and fifty salutations of the blessed Virgin; while the crown, according to the different opinions of the learned concerning the age of the blessed Virgin, consists in six or seven repetitions of the Lord's prayer, and six or seven times ten salutations, or Ave Marias.

CHAPTER V.

CONCERNINg the divISIONS AND HERESIES THAT TROUBLED THE CHURCH DURING THIS CENTURY.

Ancient heresies continue.

I. THE profound ignorance and stupidity that were productive of so many evils in this century, had at least this advantage attending them, that they contributed much to the tranquillity of the church, and prevented the rise of new sects and new commotions of a religious kind.. But though no new inventions were broached, the ancient errors still remained. The Nestorians and Monophysites lived still under the Arabian government, where however they were much more rigorously treated than in former times, and were often persecuted with the utmost injustice and violence.. But as some of them excelled in medical knowledge, which was highly esteemed among the Arabians, while others rendered themselves.acceptable to the great, by the dexterous management of their domestic affairs as overseers and stewards, all this contributed to diminish the violence of the storms that arose against them from time to time.

II. The Manichæans or Paulicians, whose errors have been already pointed out, gathered considerable The Paulistrength in Thrace under the reign of John Tzim- cians. isces. A great part of this sect had been transported into this province, by the order of Constantine Copronymus, so early as the seventh century, to put an end to the troubles and tumults they had excited in the east ; but a still greater number of them were left behind, especially in Syria and the adjacent countries. Hence it was that Theodore, bishop of Antioch, from a pious apprehension of the danger to which his flock lay exposed from the neighbourhood of such pernicious heretics, engaged the emperor by his ardent and importunate solicitations, to send a new colony of these Manichæans from Syria to Philippi.TM

m Jo. Zonaras Annal. lib. xvii. p. 209, edit. Paris, p. 164, edit, Venet.

From Thrace this restless and turbulent sect passed into Bulgaria and Sclavonia, where they resided under the jurisdiction of their own pontiff, or patriarch, until the time of the council of Basil, i. e. until the fifteenth century. From Bulgaria the Paulicians removed to Italy, and spreading themselves from thence through the other provinces of Europe, they became extremely troublesome to the Roman pontiff's upon many occasions."

Troubles ex

n. In the very last year of this century arose a certain teacher whose name was Leutard, who lived at cited by Leu- Vertus, in the diocess of Chalons, and in a short tard. time, drew after him a considerable number of disciples. This new doctor could not bear the superstitious worship of images; which he is said to have opposed with the utmost vehemence, and even to have broke in pieces an image of Christ which he found in a church where he went to perform his devotions. He moreover exclaimed with the greatest warmth against paying tithes to the priests, and in several other respects showed that he was no cordial friend to the sacerdotal order. But that which showed evidently that he was a dangerous fanatic, was his affirming that in the prophecies of the Old Testament there was a manifest mixture of truth and falsehood. Gebouin, bishop of Chalons, examined the pretensions which this man made to divine inspiration, and exposed. his extravagance to the view of the public, whom he had so artfully seduced; upon which he threw himself into a well, and ended his days as many fanatics have done after him. It is highly probable, that this upstart doctor taught many other absurd notions beside those which we have now mentioned, and that after his death, his disciples made a part of the sect that was afterward known in France under the name of the Albigenses, and which is said to have adopted the Manichæan errors.

IV. There were yet subsisting some remains of the sect The Anthro of the Arians in several parts of Italy, and particu pomorphites. larly in the territory of Padua ; but Ratherius, bishop of Verona, had a still more enormous heresy to combat in the system of the Anthropomorphites, which was revived in the year 939. In the district of Vicenza, a

n It is extremely probable, as we have already had occasion to observe, that the res mains of this sect are still to be found in Bulgaria.

o All this is related by Glaber Radulphus, Hist. lib, ü, cap. xi.

considerable number, not only of the illiterate multitude, but also of the sacerdotal order, fell into that most absurd and extravagant notion, that the Deity was clothed with a human form, and seated, like an earthly monarch, upon a throne of gold, and that his angelic ministers were men arrayed in white garments, and furnished with wings to render them more expeditious in executing their sovereign's orders. This monstrous error will appear less astonishing, when we consider that the stupid and illiterate multitude had constantly before their eyes, in all the churches, the Supreme Being and his angels represented in pictures and images with the human figure.

The superstition of another set of blinded wretches, mentioned also by Ratherius, was yet more unaccountable and absurd than that of the Anthropomorphites; for they imagined that, every Monday, mass was performed in heaven by St. Michael, in the presence of God; and hence on that day they resorted in crowds to all the churches which were dedicated to that highly honoured saint." It is more than probable, that the avarice of the priests, who officiated in the church of St. Michael, was the real source of this extravagant fancy; and that in this, as in many other cases, a rapacious clergy took advantage of the credulity of the people, and made them believe whatever they thought would contribute to augment the opulence of the church.

p Ratherii Epist. Synodica in Dacherii Spicilegio Script. Veter. tom. ii. p. 294. Sige bertus Gemblac. Chronol. ad. A. 939.